Volpone
Zombie Hunter
Of course my personal theology isn't very comforting. Catholicism teaches that only baptised humans go to heaven. (Don't talk to me about all the problems with that, I know. I'm just laying it out there.) Why not dogs? Here's my thinking:
1) Religion is a way us primitive humans try to understand something that is beyond our comprehension. Kind of like little kids, when they're playing Grown-Up and kind of get it, but get so many things totally wrong. Your body is a machine to haul your brain around, provide input/output, and give it experiences. It isn't you. Your brain is there to hold all those experiences. But your brain also isn't you. You are the sum total of all those experiences. That is what Christians are thinking about when they think about the soul.
So when "God" who exists, but almost certainly isn't a giant old white guy with a flowing white beard and robes, looking down from a cloud, thinks us monkeys have evolved enough that this total of experiences is complex enough to survive without a brain to hold it, he comes down and starts tacking a whack at explaining to us how to do it with the various religions--each tailored to the culture he's trying to reach--classic marketing.
So you've got people who don't have the right mix of brain sophistication and experiences to be able to...Ascend, to steal a Stargate: SG-1 term. Then you've got the ones who are able to but either haven't lived the right combination of experiences or can't let go of Earth. Those are your ghosts. But the reason dogs don't go to heaven is that their brain isn't complex enough to create an experience matrix that can exist without a physical vessel to hold it. They are good enough and noble enough, but they aren't developed enough to evolve into Star Trek glow-y energy beings.
When I realized this, I resolved to use my brain to bring my dog along with me. But that's hard because I don't even know what I'm doing about creating an eternal soul for myself so the best I might be able to hope for is some cartoon version of my dog. Because I don't have a fraction of her experiences. The best I have is my perception of her experiences, looked at through the filter of a human.
1) Religion is a way us primitive humans try to understand something that is beyond our comprehension. Kind of like little kids, when they're playing Grown-Up and kind of get it, but get so many things totally wrong. Your body is a machine to haul your brain around, provide input/output, and give it experiences. It isn't you. Your brain is there to hold all those experiences. But your brain also isn't you. You are the sum total of all those experiences. That is what Christians are thinking about when they think about the soul.
So when "God" who exists, but almost certainly isn't a giant old white guy with a flowing white beard and robes, looking down from a cloud, thinks us monkeys have evolved enough that this total of experiences is complex enough to survive without a brain to hold it, he comes down and starts tacking a whack at explaining to us how to do it with the various religions--each tailored to the culture he's trying to reach--classic marketing.
So you've got people who don't have the right mix of brain sophistication and experiences to be able to...Ascend, to steal a Stargate: SG-1 term. Then you've got the ones who are able to but either haven't lived the right combination of experiences or can't let go of Earth. Those are your ghosts. But the reason dogs don't go to heaven is that their brain isn't complex enough to create an experience matrix that can exist without a physical vessel to hold it. They are good enough and noble enough, but they aren't developed enough to evolve into Star Trek glow-y energy beings.
When I realized this, I resolved to use my brain to bring my dog along with me. But that's hard because I don't even know what I'm doing about creating an eternal soul for myself so the best I might be able to hope for is some cartoon version of my dog. Because I don't have a fraction of her experiences. The best I have is my perception of her experiences, looked at through the filter of a human.