I worried, in one of my dreams last night whether Robert's dog Jaxon was going to heaven or not. To go to heaven, under Robert's church's rules, Jaxon would have to be a catholic since, according to the silly rules of the catholic church, only catholics who have confessed their sins can go to heaven. Everyone else including even the most 'god-fearing' non-catholics have to go to hell apparently.
I checked up on the catholic church's rules just to make sure (Robert has been known to get things wrong) and discovered this on a site named Catholic Answers:
Question:
What happens to pets when they die? Are they allowed into heaven?
Answer:
In order to answer the question we must first define heaven. According to the Catechism, heaven is a “state of supreme, definitive happiness” that involves a perfect “communion of life and love with the Trinity, with the Virgin Mary, the angels and all the blessed” (CCC 1024).
This definitive state of human happiness and communion of life and love presupposes the powers of rational knowledge and love, which animals do not have. Therefore, no non-human animal would be able to experience “heaven” as defined.
Sorry Jaxon.
Catholic Answers went on to say that even if animals had the powers of rational knowledge and love, they still wouldn't be allowed into heaven because they don't have souls.
Oh yeah, the catholic church are at it again with their slippery and weasley logic. If they seem to contradict themselves they just throw in a few more contradictions and nonsense to confuse the 'believers'.
I decided to look up 'soul' and got this dictionary meaning:
SOULnoun1.the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.2.emotional or intellectual energy or intensity, especially as revealed in a work of art or an artistic performance.
What is a soul though?
Here's what the catholic church and, indeed, christianity has to say on the subject ..........
.............. Just kidding. I won't subject any of you to the mealy mouthed idiocy that exists trying to justify this stupid christian belief. Believe me, there are millions of pages of this stuff which mostly goes along the lines of this:
The soul is basically our mind, our emotions, and our will. It is who we are as human beings. But it is also used to express God. As written in Luke 1:46-47, Mary’s Song, “And Mary said: My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
In this verse, we can see that Mary uses her soul to glorify God and then uses the spirit to rejoice in what God has done to save her. Glorifying God is a human behavior and human responsibility. We express our humanity to God through our soul, and we magnify His power and presence through our soul.
Although we express God’s magnanimity in our soul, we can never express God’s power through our soul because it is our humanity. We can do good works and be godly and still fall short. We can never express God’s love for us through our soul alone. We then need the spirit to express God’s love.
I gave up after that.
.jpeg)
As a devoted follower of CA I have heard many discussions about the soul especially referring to non humans. What I have heard is that all living things have a soul. Even bacterium. Viruses are in contention. The difference as I understand it is that only Humans have an eternal soul. St Francis of Assisi thought that animals could have an eternal soul also. The Catholic Church is not as closed minded on the issue of souls as you suggest.
ReplyDelete"Oh yeah, the catholic church are at it again with their slippery and weasley logic. If they seem to contradict themselves they just throw in a few more contradictions and nonsense to confuse the 'believers'." I said.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that you too do this by using weasel talk and adding in 'eternal' to try to justify your position.
You never addressed the difference between soul and spirit!
ReplyDeleteI told you - I gave up after reading that nonsense about the virgin Mary.
ReplyDelete