Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

Hey Guys!

With Hannah's thread about religion and god, I suddenly remembered a question that I've had for quite some time now: Do dogs go to Heaven? Because Hannah's discussion focuses more on the purpose of religion rather than on Heaven and Hell, I decided to make my question its own topic here.

To go back to how I first came up with this question, I would have to explain briefly the time that I spent as a student in a Christian Academy in Paraguay. Even though I was born into a Catholic family and I've attended Sunday mass ever since I can remember, I have had my doubts about Catholicism and God. Thus, when we were studying about believing in Jesus Christ, who is the only way to Heaven, at school, I thought about infant mortality and how some babies die at a very young age.

So, I asked my teacher, "If babies die before they can get to know Jesus, then do they go to Heaven?"

My teached said, "Yes, they do get to go to Heaven because even though they do not know God, it is not their fault. They simply did not have the opportunity to get to know God. Because God is the one who decides who dies when, it must be their time to die now according to God, so God must really want them in Heaven."

I thought about this for a couple of days, and then one day, I asked my teacher, "What about animals? Do animals get to go to Heaven?" Most kids think that they will see their dogs in Heaven, and if they are told that that is not the case, they will problably start crying because to them, their pets are part of their family.

But my teacher said, "Dogs don't go to Heaven because they don't know God, which is because they don't have souls."

So, simply out, my teacher's reason for why animals don't go to Heaven is that they do not believe in God because thet don't have souls. Well, isn't that a bit ironic? Animals can't go to Heaven because they don't believe in God, but human babies who also don't believe in God can? How is that fair? It's not like the animals chose to believe in God, it is simply that they don't understand the Bible because it is not translated into meows or barks. And how do we know that they don't believe in God, maybe they do--in their own way. And also, how do we know that they don't have souls? I'm pretty sure that they do--that everything has Essence, even the chair I'm sitting on right now.

Therefore, my question is this: Do dogs or any other creature that is not human have the chance to go to Heaven? Or to make it more related to Transcendentalism, do animals have infinite potential? Do rocks have infinite potential? If yes, how do they display such infinite potential? If no, then why were they created?

Have fun discussing and exploring!

oo interesting!!!

hm...well this is a bit of a tangent, but your teacher said babies would go to heaven because they didnt get the opportunity to get to know God. to what extent does this reason justify other people? like those tribes in faraway jungles and stuff. what if they never come in contact with someone who believes in God but do believe in some sort of religion?

would it be superficial to say that having our beloved pet with us is one part of our happiness? because if heaven is a place of happiness and having my dog with me makes me happy, wouldnt it seem "logical" that my dog should be in heaven waiting for me? unless heaven will be filled with so many other happy things that i wont need my dog there to make me happy (hence i kinda forget him )
but living creatures are like us in many ways - they have emotionals and stuff too. i would think they have souls which go to heaven (though then, is there something/one that decides which ones go and which ones dont?)
but i'm not too sure about rocks and inanimate objects