Pets and Theology

The photo above shows our felines, Natasha and Shay-Shay. You may notice that Mr. Shay seems a bit ill-at-ease. That's probably because, although he has the upper hand--or at least the upper position--in this picture, his sister bullies him. (Those who know cats will understand the silly anthropomorphism of saying that they are "our" felines; it would be more accurate to say that we are their humans.)

As I write this, Shay-Shay is in the Angell Memorial Hospital in Boston, battling a kidney infection. (He's supposed to come home today.) He has chronic kidney disease and has just been diagnosed with heart disease as well. His sister, who is about a year older, has diabetes and a thyroid condition. All of which has sparked a good deal of thinking about the mortality of our cats and their place in our lives. That, in turn, has reminded me of something I first realized some years ago.

We live in an age of revived religious enthusiasm that might be compared to the Great Awakening in colonial America during the mid-18th Century or, less favorably, to the religious struggles that consumed Europe 200 years earlier. Religion is on the march, for good or ill. But it seems to me that one great obstacle to conventional theology--at least in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheistic tradition--lies in pets. Yes, pets.

Ask a clergyperson and he or she is almost certain to tell you that animals--not being made in the image of the almighty--have no souls. Take that a step further and one must conclude that, if there is a heaven, pets can't enter, because they have no soul to be--in the Christian sense--saved. (Jews don't have a highly articulated or formalized view of an afterlife, although traditional Judaism envisions a time when the Messiah will come and the dead will rise from their graves, presumably freed from their burial shrouds and the effects of decay, but you can see the parallels.)

Would it be heaven without pets? For many people, no. For myself, I think I probably don't deserve to go to Heaven, but Shay-Shay and Natasha do. And if religion can't accommodate them, there has to be something wrong with religion. I suspect that many people, if they thought about it, would feel the same way.

Are you listening, secular humanists?