I couldn't help but notice that one of our fellow forummers has recently lost a much loved pet.
This has happened to us in the past.
I therefore realise the pain involved.
When we had to have our pooch put down, we couldn't drive away afterwards because we were crying so much,the two of us, grown adults in a car outside a vetinary practice.
We must have given all those who passed us with their pets, some real high expectations on there diagnoses!
But Do Pets Go To Heaven!

It's a good post, as usual BD, but come on, tell us what YOU think! Do pets go to heaven?
You tell me and I'll tell you:D

I have being in the past, and am at the present, a dog owner:thumbsup:

I would say no... Most people like to bury their pets in the back garden... or somewhere at home (outside) so they can be close by... so i would say that they dont neccessarily go to a heaven as such... sorry not really an expert but this is my opinion for what its worth...

I know in the past i have buried my family pets at home...

Most pet owners find it comforting to believe their pets move on to the rainbow bridge awaiting them.

http://www.piftails.com/rainbowbridge.html#One

There's no heaven for people, so why should animals get one? :)

Of course they go to heaven!
Why wouldn't they?

Originally posted by PIF_Tails
Most pet owners find it comforting to believe their pets move on to the rainbow bridge awaiting them.

http://www.piftails.com/rainbowbridge.html#One

So when your pet dies, it gets a Jimi Hendrix LP, is that what you're saying? It's hardly compensation, is it? :)

A couple of our departed 'fur family', Curious and Amber, are buried in their favourite spot in the garden.

We had Tom cremated and we've kept his ashes; we realised that one day we'll move house and didn't want to leave him behind.

I've always viewed the afterlife as somewhere where you are re-united with those gone before, a place where the interactions and activities of your life and the effects you've had on the world around you become crystal clear; there's no reason at all why animals shouldn't be there. It's the love that matters; I don't believe that any love expended is ever lost - it just might take a while to come back to you.

I'm rambling - need coffee.

Joe

Originally posted by draggletail
It's a good post, as usual BD, but come on, tell us what YOU think! Do pets go to heaven?
You tell me and I'll tell you:D

I have being in the past, and am at the present, a dog owner:thumbsup:

I hope so DT I'd really like to throw him some choc chip cookies again, watch him eat the biscuit bit and then spit the chocolate bits out into his bowl. The only dog I've ever known that couldn't stand chocolate.
And it was bloody hilarious watching it happen!

Originally posted by mojoworking
... it gets a Jimi Hendrix LP ...

... and listens to the likes of 'pali gap' all day ... mmm YES PLEASE !!

My dog died almost 5 years ago now ... we we're very close and I loved him to bits ... funny how over time ... all the pain of losing him has gone ... and only the love remains.

That's exactly what I mean, Jamie!

Best summed up for me by Thonton Wilder in 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey' - "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

Joe

Originally posted by bulldog D
I hope so DT I'd really like to throw him some choc chip cookies again, watch him eat the biscuit bit and then spit the chocolate bits out into his bowl. The only dog I've ever known that couldn't stand chocolate.
And it was bloody hilarious watching it happen!

BD, that story brought a tear to my eye and a smile to my face, both at the same time.
What sort of dog was he? We have a cocker spaniel, and love him to bits:)

Originally posted by draggletail
BD, that story brought a tear to my eye and a smile to my face, both at the same time.
What sort of dog was he? We have a cocker spaniel, and love him to bits:)
Pedigree Heinz 57
medium size ,tricolour, collie type coat and spanielly type head with collie type snout. Always looked cute and never quite lost the puppy/juvenile loutish behaviour trait.Loved kids and ice cream vans, specialised in licking ice cream and keeping it on the cornet.

I was discussing this with a "friend" some years ago, and she was spouting forth, that, "of course animals don't have souls, so would not get to heaven..."

I said
"If there's going to be no pets in heaven, then I certainly don't want to go there!"

take that for a game of soldiers!

When I get to heaven, I am looking forward to being able to go with my dogs for a long "peak-district"-type 10-mile ramble, like we used to do in the good old days, brfore wheelchair...

It'll be fantastic; my devoted, faithful old friends, and me, enjoying a country walk once again.

PT

Pet heaven should be pretty full by now concidering all animals must go there........There being no evil or sinful animals.

Well I freely admit - and I don't feel ashamed to say so - that I cried like a baby to see Miss Elizabeth Tiddles (my last hamster before Agent Pipsqueak) suffer those last couple of hours before she died.

It took me a while to get over it. It sounds stupid, but she was so loving.

As for the Pet Heaven thing: instead of St Peter at the pearly gates, in the dog section, wouldn't it be more appropriate to have 'St Bernard' check them in?

The concept of a "pet heaven" is even more ludicrous than a heaven for humans.

We have created the illusion that there is a heaven solely because we are frightened of death and can't bear the thought that when we pop our clogs, that's the end of us.

Therefore, we fondly imagine that there is a place where we go after death where everything is perfect for all eternity. It makes us feel so much better about shuffling off this mortal coil.

Conveniently, we've also dreamed up the idea that our dead pets will be patiently waiting for us when we reach this place.

Why should this be so? It's we who have anthropomorphised our pets in this way. We want them to act and think like humans, when in fact they don't give a toss. Your dog or cat may give a good impression of being your best mate, but this is based totally on a food/companionship instinct.

Animals don't have delusions of grandeur like we humans and are incapable of understanding our pathetic post-death concerns.

That's not to say we can't feel sadness at the death of a much-loved pet, but it's not logical to burden them with our own fears and weaknesses.

Ahhh...mojoworking.....to have such certainty in an uncertain world...;)

Having spent a lot of my life working with rationalists and scientists who hold firm to their belief of the structure of the world until a discovery from their colleagues comes along that totally turns it upside down, I've taken to keeping an open mind.

I'm not convinced of the existence of Heaven or Hell, but I do feel that part of us goes on after death that experiences the bigger picture of what our life meant.

If belief in a structured afterlife helps people cope, that's cool. As for the relationship between cat / dog / human....I'm not sure it's all food and companionship. And even if it were, then there are many human beings whose relationships with other humans are based on very lttle more than that.

Joe

Originally posted by JoePritchard
I'm not convinced of the existence of Heaven or Hell, but I do feel that part of us goes on after death that experiences the bigger picture of what our life meant.

... do you believe that part of us goes on after death simply because you want that to be true !?

Maybe people who don't believe that 'life goes on' and who feel that this is all we get ... are the ones who make the most out of life ....

Originally posted by Jamie
... do you believe that part of us goes on after death simply because you want that to be true !?

Maybe people who don't believe that 'life goes on' and who feel that this is all we get ... are the ones who make the most out of life ....

Not really....I was very much a materialist in terms of spiritual matters for about the first 20 years of my life, then I had experiences that changed my attitudes. My belief in an afterlife is partially faith and partially based on the fact that I have had experiences which are difficult to explain using 'conventional wisdom'.

I believe in the force of gravity, not because I want to, but because it's there. Similarly I have had experiences that have made me question 'conventional wisdom'.

I do believe, however, that we should make every effort to live our lives with the utmost vigour and zest - it isn't a practice session. My view of the afterlife is that it's a whole different set of experiences, not a repeat or enhanced view of this one.

I've found that people who truly get a lot out of their lives have a deep and heart felt spiritual and ethical quality to their lives - not necessarily a beief in God or any 'organised' belief system, but a feeling that there is more to life than what we are expected to enjoy on a day to day basis.

My personal and spiritual development is very important to me; whereas once I questioned whether anything existed beyond the remit of current science and technology, my attitude now is to be open minded until proven otherwise!

Joe

Actually ... you sound very much like me Joe.

The points I'm trying to raise are:

1) Don't just believe something because you want it to be true.

2) If you believe (hope) that death isn't the end, it is easy to sit back and waste your life away (which would be a tragedy).

I have also had 'experiences' that have turned my world completely upside down and inside out ... and at some level I intuitively *know* there is more to life than meets the eye.

Yet so many things are a mystery to me and I just don't know what will happen.

Maybe I will simply be blown away without a trace like dust in the wind.

Or maybe I will go on (in to heaven and be surrounded by beautiful female angels ... *dreams*).

Originally posted by JoePritchard
I believe in the force of gravity, not because I want to, but because it's there. Similarly I have had experiences that have made me question 'conventional wisdom'.
Joe

A poor analogy, if I may say so. The irrefutable physical evidence that gravity exists is all around us.

The same cannot be said for heaven, unfortunately.

Perhaps it was a poor analogy.

But my underlying thesis is that if things happen that can't be explained by existing knowledge then you have to expand your conception of what happens in the world.

I've had the odd thing happen over the years that I can't, with several years scientific training, easily explain. I'm not willing to figuratively stick my fingers in my ears and go 'la la la' until it goes away. I'm more interested in finding out what DID happen.

Look at the theory of the atom - various iterations starting with Democritus in ancient greece, working through the billiard ball / planetary system model, then on to quarks and such, and now we have a quantumn model that basically posits that what we see as solid matter is actually empty space and energy fields. I 'believe' in that because I have faith in the bods who put the theories together, but to my own senses this table looks pretty damn solid.

The recent interest in things like Dark Matter and the Higgs Boson; both started out as theoretical constructs to explain, effectively, book-keeping errors in modern physics theories. The HB MAY have been detected as a particle accelerator event, and DM MAY have been detected - but I believe that at the moment the evidence for the existence of both is circumstantial - compelling, but still circumstantial.

It was 'conventional wisdom' for many years that heavier than air flight was impossible, that atomic power wasn't feasible, that a man would die if he travelled at more than, I think, 30 mph, and so on. the world changed, knowledge was acquired and the theories altered.

Joe

I'm still not sure where you're going with this Joe.

The advancements you mention are for the most part proven discoveries, made by highly trained scientists, using the latest equipment etc etc.

The people who dreamed up the concept of heaven also believed the earth was flat and was being carried around on the back of a giant turtle. They also believed in creation, among other things.

If they could get so much else wrong, then I don't hold out much hope of there being an afterlife

The belief in the 'planetary system', for example, of atomic structure was for a long time apparently supported by the scientists of the day who were working with the best equipment available to them.

As equipment and theory advanced, experiments were carried out that showed up evidence that wasn't supported by the old model of the structure of the atom and theories changed. As we get more advanced technology and more accurate measuring instruments, then it's more than likely that our current world view will change.

I'm aware of the working of the scientific method and have had a good scientific education. I actually re-wrote a tiny bit of text book whilst at university myself (all to do with enzymes in frozen liver extracts). Where I'm going with this is to simply say that each generation of scientists knows that they're probing further and deeper - the old 'standing on the shoulders of giants'. Every now and again in history we've had a paradign shift - Kepler and co. in astronomy, Watson and Crick in biology, Newton in physics, quantumn theory, etc. These occasions have revealed huge new vistas for experiment and investigation. I simply want to say that perhaps some of the things we consider to be associated with an afer life and 'the paranormal' are simply aspects of the universe that we haven't yet explored and don't yet understand.

I believe that scientists, and all of us, need to be open minded. Until July 1945 the atom bomb was science fiction - after the Trinity test it was a known science fact for those involved, and after August 1945 it was a life changing event for many Japanese. Even then, many scientists were convinced that the bomb had been a powerful non-atomic weapon, so convinced were they of their worldview being 'right'.

All I'm saying is be open minded, and if people have experiences that they feel may relate to an afterlife or some other 'paranormal' phenomena, let's investigate. Modern scientists are just as good at persecuting heresy as the Inquisition - all I'm saying is that whilst these things may be highly improbable with current knowledge, they're not necessarily impossible.

What was Clarke's Law? Any sufficiently advanced technology will appear to be magic to those who don't understand it.

I'm open minded enough to accomodate the possibility of an afterlife, but don't believe in Heaven as a big place full of clouds and harps. Given we have yet to understand the underpinnings of so much of the modern universe - and some VERY strange **** occurs in quantumn physics and with such phenomena as zero point energy and such - perhaps we need to just leave the jury out for a while.

Stay open minded; never stop learning and thinking.

Joe

Fair enough, but all the discoveries you cite above have led us AWAY from ancient beliefs and superstitions.

Are you saying that the more technically advanced we become, the more likely it is that we will come full circle and eventually there is a possibility that the teachings of the old testament will be proved correct?

My cat Sooty is buried just outside my front door. I talk to him all the time.

He went to the same heaven as my dad and all the other pets.
I am sure he is happy annoying everyone.

He was like a best friend and I still miss him but know I will get to see him again one day.

Originally posted by mojoworking
Fair enough, but all the discoveries you cite above have led us AWAY from ancient beliefs and superstitions.

Are you saying that the more technically advanced we become, the more likely it is that we will come full circle and eventually there is a possibility that the teachings of the old testament will be proved correct?

I don't recall mentioning the Old Testament; whilst respecting people who do have those beliefs they're certainly not mine.

Any discoveries we make will take us towards enlightenment and remove ignorance. All I'm saying is that developments happen every day, and those developments overturn the thinking of previous generations, as is quite right and proper.

For example, Einstein had a fit about quantumn entanglement - he called it 'spooky action at a distance'. Recently QE has been demonstrated, I believe, as a vital part of the development of quantumn computers. Something that a century ago we didn't dream of will probably in 30 years be sitting in offices providing computer power undreamed of today.

I don't expect scientific and technological developments to underpin myths and legends or religions. I would expect to see such developments open up understanding of unusual phenomena that are experienced today.

Joe

Originally posted by rosie
My cat Sooty is buried just outside my front door. I talk to him all the time.

He went to the same heaven as my dad and all the other pets.
I am sure he is happy annoying everyone.

He was like a best friend and I still miss him but know I will get to see him again one day.

Bless! He's probably having a punch up with Sweep and Harry even as we speak :)

Originally posted by mojoworking
Bless! He's probably having a punch up with Sweep and Harry even as we speak :)

What a nasty, insensitive, wretched post. Typical of you of late, I fear. I don't think it is funny or clever at all to take the p*** out of someone's sad losses. Shame.

Originally posted by Sam Miguel
What a nasty, insensitive, wretched post. Typical of you of late, I fear. I don't think it is funny or clever at all to take the p*** out of someone's sad losses. Shame.

Chill out Sam. Why don't you go and give your hamster a cuddle or something ;)

It'd be a bit messy, she's been buried in the garden since May.

putting aside for a moment my own belief that when you die you're just dead, end of story.

What a silly question.
Given that any belief in a personal heavev/hell quasi religous afterlife structure is just that, personal, why should anyone elses opinion on pets have a bearing on what you believe?

Everyone loves there pets, and we're all very sad when they die. If you personally believe that you will go to heaven then make you're own mind up as to whether you're pets will be there too.

Bringing back my own belief. Can anyone offer any evidence whatsoever that there is a heaven?
If not, then i'll apply occams razor and believe that there isn't, as it's the less complicated of the two possible answers. In the absence of supporting evidence, assume a hypothesis is incorrect.

I wouldn't want to be in a heaven full of animals anyways. It'd be full of annoying yapper dogs owned by grannies, stinky felines, and pointless rodents. Besides, animals cannot go to heaven because they don't have souls. And heaven is a non-existent place designed to prevent a gnawing sense of existential ennui.