All dogs go where?

I would like to thank Steven for the excellent comments he left in response to my 'Unquestionably Questioning' post. Comments both let me know that people are actually reading all this crazy stuff I write, and give me inspiration to write the next thing.

I'd like to focus on an excellent question that Steven asked - so I'll repost that part of his comments (the comments themselves are on the facebook account rather than blogger, for people who can't find them from the blog site).

Steven writes:
I looked at the many different explanations to a God. The thing that I kept going back to is "How?". I could not, and can still not, see how there is what there is without a Creator. I'm not just speaking of the pretty trees and frogs and streams. I'm talking about our very souls. Have you ever just thought about our souls? It's impossible, I think, to describe what a soul is. That is the main reason that I "came back" to my beliefs because although science thinks it can explain how we were created, it cannot even begin to explain why we were created and it can't explain soul, emotion and action.

I mean, where does our compassion come from? Our love? Our heart? Our desire to "do right"?


I think it would be unproductive of me to point out that I do not think that souls exist, and engaged in a direct discussion over something neither of us can directly demonstrate or disprove. It is far better and more enjoyable, I think, to find a common ground and point out something interesting about it that will hopefully be thought-provoking.



A few weeks ago, my life changed. My fiance and I went to a local animal rescue operation and adopted a small beagle/terrier that we have named Roman.

Having Roman in our lives has been a wonderful experience, and I couldn't have asked for a better dog. He's small, and pretty low-key most of the time, with bouts of excitement and playfulness that result whenever we return home to him. He has been extremely friendly with nearly everyone he meets (with one or two exceptions, which resulted in some of the rare times when he has barked). I have owned both dogs and cats, and these few weeks of owning Roman have converted me to being a dog person.

As I understand Christian theology (that is, taken from the Bible and not from popular, if charming, children's films), man is the only ensouled creature - pigs, ants, giraffes, and dogs are without a soul. And yet in Roman and his seemingly endless capacity to give and recieve affection I see nothing except a vibrant willingness to give love to the people he is closest to. So too he has a great sense of forgiveness - we had a microchip implanted in case he ever gets lost, and the implant is done with a rather large needle. After a single yelp of pain, he was seconds later happily licking the vet who had just jabbed him.

He has his quirks that make him unique from other dogs. He didn't play with toys at all when we first brought him home, but he's come around to them. He completely doesn't understand the concept of 'fetching', and never actually brings the toys to us to throw. So when playing we will gently take the toys from him and toss them somewhere for him to run after. While we are reaching for it, he will defend the toy by interposing his paws in front of our hands or grabbing the toy near where we have grabbed it, but he has never once attempted to bite us or anyone else (despite gleefully biting the toys). On some level, does he understand that he should not bite us? Does he cognitively process that biting people or going to the bathroom inside the house are 'wrong' things to do?

Roman - and many other domesticated animals - give and recieve love, affection, and in many cases we believe that they understand some form of 'right' and 'wrong', because many of us trust our pets with our families. Note that many dogs are entirely capable of killing or harming a child if they decided to do so, and it is a great act of trust to let these animals freely roam our houses and hold faith that even without the assurances of human language, they will not hurt us. Many of us would put far greater faith in our soulless pet than the ensouled stranger on our doorstep.

So I put forth the notion that even if souls in humans do exist, that love, 'heart', and even a form of morality can be readily found in many creatures that do not have souls. We are not left with simple explanations or answers that everything good or likeable in ourselves must only be due to our souls. There is more to it than that.

And that is something to think about.