Are there cats in heaven ?

[modeller]

My granddaughter's cat was sick , nothing serious , but she asked me if it dies will it go to heaven. Now I don't believe in heaven , hell and all that nonsense but if I'm wrong what should my answer have been ?

If all life is of equal value then the answer must be yes but if it is yes where does one draw the line ? Does it include bacteria ?

If the answer is no then who and what goes there ?

Maybe the Buddhists have got it right that there is a finite number of life forms
but we keep getting resurrected so last time you might have been a bug and next time you could be a bacterium and then a bird and so on. I wonder if you could become a cabbage ? It is a life form .

My answer was yes to make her feel better .

[Old_Geezer]

One need not believe in specific locations of heaven and hell in order to believe in a continued existence. But since we find it difficult to comprehend existence without a location to exist in then it's not unreasonable to give them a name. Call it heaven if that works for you.

If we consider the possibility of continued existence then , of course, the question arises as to whether only one species experiences this, or all. Or maybe as implied by some beliefs in reincarnation maybe the species doesn't matter as it's much the same sort of spirit powering each.

Since this tends to be all conjecture anyway maybe a possible position to hold is one where if the creature is aware of it's own existence maybe it has the ability to retain it's individuality after death, whereas those that do not just dissipate into the spirit realm no longer being an individual ?

But of course the best answer is either, "ask your father", or, "ask your mother", perhaps adding, "they're the ones with the brains in the family".

[naomi24]

I fail to understand why the concept of continued existence is automatically related to God and religion. If it does happen, why not simply consider it a natural process?