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Do dogs go to heaven?
This fake series of signs on churches supposedly across the street from each other which is being passed around in emails is cute, however not true.


It goes on:
Martyrs -- Free Dog Souls With Conversion
Beulah -- Dogs Are Animals. There Aren't Any Rocks In Heaven Either
Martyrs -- All Rocks Go To Heaven

These are a hoax done at Church Sign Maker

However, this brings up the phylosophical - religious issue of what is the soul and is it the same as your spirit. Don't get me wrong; I don't think "do animals have a soul?" is a big theological question, but it's fun to look at.

I couldn't find anything about soul in humans vs animals in modern Bible translations. However the King James version of Genesis 2:7 translates the Hebrew words, kaw-ee, meaning alive (as "living" in "living creature" for animals and "living soul" for humans), and neh-fesh, meaning a breathing creature (alternately translated as "creature" and "soul" in "living creature" for animals and "living soul" for humans).
Do Animals Have a Soul? at the Daily Bible Study has more on this.

"And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind." (Genesis 1:24-25 NIV)

"And The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7 KJV)
Newer translations, the New Revised Standard Version and NIV, translate it in Genesis 2 as "living being".

(Ecclesiastes 3:18-20) says,
"I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath[a]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. "

snopes.com: All Dogs Go to Heaven gives the following references dogs in heaven.
Will Rogers said, "If there not dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."
James Thurber observed, "If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons."

In Rob Bell's 2011 book "Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived" he asks the rhetorical question, "Are there dogs there?"

Links:
Do Animals Have a Soul? at Daily Bible Study
Ancient Theories of Soul (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The difference between the spirit and the soul (ritual, soul) - Religious Education Forum


Last updated 6 July 2011