:-P
Posted on 12/11/2014 7:59:05 AM PST by Slings and Arrows
In his weekly address at the Vatican late last month, Pope Francis issued a remarkable statement that’s sure to come as welcome news to anyone who’s ever lost a beloved pet. According to Francis, the promise of an afterlife applies not only to believers, but to all animals as well.
"The Holy Scriptures teach us that the realization of this wonderful plan covers all that is around us, and that came out of the thought and the heart of God," Pope Francis said, as quoted by Italian news site Resapubblica.
The Pope then went on to say that “heaven is open to all creatures, and there [they] will be vested with the joy and love of God, without limits.”
Pope Francis’s stance on animals stands in contrast to that of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who despite reportedly being a cat lover, said that animals’ existence was limited to their time on Earth. But Francis isn’t the first pontiff to take an animal-friendly approach to ideology. As newspaper Divisione la Repubblica notes, Pope John Paul II held a similar position, saying animals had a “divine breath.”
This isn’t the first time that Francis, who adopted his papal name in honor of the patron saint of animals, St. Francis of Assisi, has spoken out on behalf of nonhumans. In his first homily as pope, Francis articulated mankind’s role in serving not only the divine, but in all creatures born from it:
“The vocation of being a ‘protector,’ however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as St. Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live."
Odds are your dog was sick.
Did you ever have a vet *fully* test him for such things as hypothyroidism or tick borne diseases?
Those are just two of the many physical maladies which cause aggressive behavior in dogs.
And forests are full of ticks.
Enjoy your day.
They are not animals.
What you seem to be saying is that references to animals in Isiah are metaphorical not literal.
Don’t forget - Sheep go to heaven, Goats go to hell...
>>”episode of Twilight Zone.”
Called ‘The Hunt’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkG2bWGZR2M
“A man will walk right into hell with both eyes wide open; but even the devil can’t fool a dog.”
Animals did not and cannot sin, therefore have no need of salvation.
They are part of the fallen creation, now, because of human sin.
They are not under the same curse/judgement that we are so why would God condemn them to eternal nothingness when they have done nothing wrong?
Romans 8:22
http://biblehub.com/commentaries/romans/8-22.htm
ALL of creation groans.
Not even that complex.
Lots of common illnesses cause aberrant behavior.
Good pet owners look for the answer....which is ~not~ letting feral dogs rip it apart.
The stuff I frequently read here sickens me
The animals were created before the fall of man, before Death entered into Creation. God never intended for any animal to die.
Will God bring back every animal that ever perished to populate the New Earth? I don't know. (And remember, we will spend eternity on a renewed *physical* Earth, with renewed *physical* bodies, not as blobs of ectoplasm forever strumming harps in some spiritual realm.) It would be a boring Earth indeed without all the Nature that God had originally designed at Creation.
And frankly, though I admit this is pure opinion, if the animals who God never intended to die, were not resurrected to repopulate the New Earth, that would seem to be a victory for Satan. While the Bible is almost completely silent about the destiny of animals, it is emphatically clear that Satan will in no way be victorious.
“The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.”
Either snakes will be there along with the other animals or God lied.
It’s one of my favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone. Love the old man and his dog. Almost fell for the other place too, at the end. No way I’d go to a place if it didn’t have cats and dogs.
Twilight Zone was a wonderful show,
“Does that include mosquitoes and ticks?”
Yes and amoebas and parameciums too! /s
A snake spoke to Eve and she was not even mildly surprised by that.
IMO, there was a time when animals spoke but no longer do.
Perhaps God, in His infinite mercy, struck them dumb because it would break our hearts if we could hear them, now.
After the flood;
The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.
Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you.
Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.
And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting.
I will demand an accounting from every animal.
And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
Why would God demand an “accounting” from animals if they had no souls and were therefore, not spiritually accountable?
“Revelation 5:13 makes a suggestion, though it does not define which creatures are in heaven.
“And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.”
It’s interesting but that implies that the shrimp in a shrimp cocktail you just ate have souls!
Why save animals in the ark?
He could just as easily have recreated them all, after the rain stopped.
No. Don’t be silly.
But they won’t be same ticks and mosquitoes that we know now, just like we won’t be the same people we are, now.
Everything will be perfect, again.
Adorable!
:-P
Not to mention that he doesn’t seem to be familiar with Holy Scripture. See post #23. It’s there for anyone willing to look it up.
I thought the same thing. Why wouldn’t an owner take his dog to the vet? How cruel.
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