Over at the Wee Flea, Pastor David Robertson is at it again.
He has a book out called ASK, supposedly written for young people – what age exactly is a young person? – in an effort to answer all those really difficult questions these young people ask about Yahweh, and his ‘Grand Plan’
Robertson has been loosely serializing chapters on his blog and this week – oh joy – he covers the aspect of animals. Specifically:
Animals in Heaven – Do Dogs Go To Heaven? A.S.K 20.
I was particularly taken by this assertion of Robertson.
We are moral beings. Animals are not. (They die but they do not face judgement. We do.)
Not according to this study ( the first link I clicked) from 2012.
Animals Are Moral Creatures, Scientist Argues.
Until recently, scientists would have said your cat was snuggling up to you only as a means to get tasty treats. But many animals have a moral compass, and feel emotions such as love, grief, outrage and empathy, a new book argues.
The book, “Can Animals Be Moral?” (Oxford University Press, October 2012), suggests social mammals such as rats, dogs and chimpanzees can choose to be good or bad. And because they have morality, we have moral obligations to them, said author Mark Rowlands, a University of Miami philosopher.
And there are plenty more.
One of the reasons why I do not eat animals.
Sadly, however,when it comes to educating the kiddies, it seems fairly obvious that, up-to-date research is not a prerequisite part of Robertson’s presuppositional Christian Bullshit.
Gotta love them Christians, right?
Ark.
I don’t know ark. My female Maltese can be a real B*ch at times. I think she does it on porpoise. 😉
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Making bad or mischievous choices is still making choices. A human who behaves immorally is still acting as a moral agent. An animal could do the same.
(I realize your comment was meant humorously, but it’s still an important point.)
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I truly loathe these fucks when they try to address animals. Craig, as you know, was so pleased when he decided animals don’t suffer… Oh what a relief, he said.
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Ah … William Lane Craig. Theology’s answer to dog turd but not half as useful.
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I read your comments ( and his response) on his blog. Is he holding back any comments?
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He was, but seems to be allowing them now. I have one in moderation as I type.
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I don’t quite think he fully understands what the term morality means, do you?
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Nope, and he’s now censoring. That last comment simply disappeared. Seems he lied about researching the subject… what a shock!
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Yeah … I’ll bet you’re gutted!
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This one:
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The animals I’ve owned are far more moral than most Christians I’ve known–and a lot nicer to others.
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Hello Ark. I guess what he is saying is that animals do not go to heaven. ( we are animals are we not ) Now think how hard that is going to hit kids that their beloved pets die and do not go to heaven. Yes Timmy you will join all your loved ones in heaven… nope not the pet you are hugging right now. It is damn cruel, and I think these religious types enjoy that cruelty. It also gives them a reason to claim humans are superior. We get to go to the special place we can not prove or show you, but those ones can not. I can not get over how some of these religious people , especially the self proclaimed leaders, love to be hurtful to kids. Beat them until they have no will left, deny them any dignity , tell them they are born horrible shits and caused someone a horrible death on a cross to save them, tell them only giving all their love to our god will keep you from ever and ever horrible pain. Sick bastards. Hugs
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His words …..
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Even roaches and maggots? My kinda heaven!
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Can’t they/we just send some modern Noah’s zookeepers to the “other side” like those in Williamstown, Kentucky, with Ark Encounter LLC and Ken Ham… and hope they get trapped in the Afterlife with their dinosaurs!? But all they can send us back thru the vortex is paper-plane messages… of them screaming for their lives running from all the hungry animals!!!
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https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neg9yq/this-dollar100-million-noahs-ark-theme-park-is-a-boring-homophobic-mess
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ARK!!! This dark pee-color is HORRIBLE!!! Very difficult to read! (Maybe you’ve changed it by now? I hope!)
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Hope you are not too pee-ed off with the new colour this time?
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The pastor appears to have missed the scripture which prophecies that one day the wolf and the lamb will live together, the leopard will lie down with the baby goat, the calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all.
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What about all the innocent plant-eating dinosaurs Ron, like the Brontosaurus? They never hurt anybody!
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The good book is silent on that matter. But seeing as loving Lord Genocide saw fit to wipe them out during the great deluge, I;d venture their odds of experiencing eternal bliss are very slim.
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Wow! So WHY, WHY, WHY would an all-knowing, all-powerful God create a world and millions-to-billions of LIVING species… only to have a heavenly Ball and Pleasure Dome for humans—rather Homo sapiens back to MAYBE(?) Homo heidelbergensis and Homo erectus? Why waste time and energy with everything before 180,000 – 200,000 years ago?
It REALLY appears this Abrahamic God has absolutely no foresight or forethought whatsoever! LOL ;0
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I’ll take “Works in Mysterious Ways” for $200, Alex.
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😄
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Yesterday… (pauses for a sec, a light-bulb goes off 💡 above my brilliant head!)
…all my troubles seemed so far away 🎶
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay (because of Ark!)
Oh, I believe… in yesterday!
Oh! Sorry. Back.
Yesterday I was in the library and saw this exact book you are blogging about Ark! I was shocked, as if it had leaped off the shelf into my hands! It was a RIGHTEOUSLY-ish MIRACLE Ark! 😮 But I wasn’t there for Robertson’s book. I thought I had gone to the library’s Fantasy & Fiction section! I looked around, turned the corner of the aisle, looked up and saw the sign: Religious – Fantasy & Fiction!
DAYUM. That’s where they categorized WeeFleeing Robertson’s latest book! No riddle me that please? 😉
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More of a twit than any canary. Such writings should contain a warning notice for kids.
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But they do!
Believe or get sent to hell!
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The sheer ridiculousness of that takes my breath away. Belief is an ingrained thing; if you haven’t got it you can’t force it.
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But belief can be inculcated/indoctrinated.
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Perhaps there is a special switch in the brain that can be tripped. Sometimes someone turns it back off again, and then enormous feelings of guilt arise in finding and re-switching it.
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Since we are also animals, the better question to consider is whether we are any more moral than the other animals. Not to start from a point of being way above them and then dismiss their behavior as vastly different from our own. Such is the conceit of the theist.
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Love this suggestion Swarn! As you are aware, 😉 I am a huge fan of Dr. E.O. Wilson and his life-career in etymology, biology, and his passion Myrmecology. He holds all ants in very high regard because of their millions-of-years of evolution in Eusociality and incomparable Superorganism behaviors for their kind. They put us Homo sapiens to shame. 😁
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We are special animals ready to go to heaven alone and damn everyone we don’t agree with. And this, my friend, makes us very moral
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It’s so fortunate that God also looks like a human…that must mean we are special. It couldn’t possibly be that we invented God and anthropomorphized him. lol
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In fact, in most cases, god hates the same people we hate
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Such as these ….
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Yes, such a these
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I’d say without fear of contradiction that the lunatic never had a pet. Any takers?
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TAKEN!!!
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Admitting animals go to heaven would pull the rug from under many a Christian believer.
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Indeed Maka. Consider these 5 Top Deadliest Carnivores in all of known history:
5. Smilodon (Saber-toothed tiger)
4. Anomalocaris
3. Tyrannosaurus Rex — duh, no surprise they’re heavenly!
2. Liopleurodon (100-times worse than Orcas today!)
Now, drum-roll please… history’s most Deadliest Predator on Earth in all known history of 4.543 billion years… IS…
1. Homo Sapiens! (definitely includes all Abrahamic religious followers like the European Crusaders)
And now since the Industrial Revolution most all living species on this planet are in serious danger of possible extinction by Homo sapiens—unless another massive comet like the one that hit just north of the Yucatan Peninsula 66-million years ago. 🙂
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And to imagine it is men going to heaven! What a farce
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A total farce Maka. It reflects HORRIBLY on our Creator doesn’t it?
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I think the people who believe in such a creator are guilty of blasphemy
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He envisages a brand new heaven
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I am on the side of those who said he would only consider heaven if everyone went there. He can’t imagine a fellow human suffering infinitely for mistakes not of their making, starting from being born
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Robertson appears to be on the side of those who believe there should be punishment for non belief – Hell.
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Good for him. He will be disappointed
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up-to-date research is not a prerequisite part of Robertson’s presuppositional Christian Bullshit
If they allowed evidence and scientific research to shape their beliefs, they’d realize that the concept of Heaven itself is, shall we say, unsupported.
This problem occurred to me several years ago. Since there’s no fundamental qualitative difference between humans and other animals, if an afterlife exists, the place is overrun with T-rexes and sabre-tooth tigers and mosquitoes and tapeworms and giant prehistoric bugs and every other horrible thing that has ever lived through all the geological ages since life appeared, and maybe even worse things from other planets. Most of which will far outnumber humans (there weren’t a huge number of T-rexes on Earth at any given time, but a million or so generations adds up to a lot of individuals). And you couldn’t even swat the mosquitoes, since presumably you can’t kill something that’s already dead. Somebody should make a horror movie based on this concept.
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Ark, from his most recent post
“From a Christian point of view – passing on falsehoods (even when we don’t know they are false) is sin.”
Would that he applied this to sharing the gospel and telling people about a heaven and hell that he doesn’t even know actually exist.
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I raised a similar point. I was stunned to note that he did not release the comment. (eyebrow raise)
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Surprise. My two comments on his post disappeared.
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Mine too. Just another disingenuous halfwit.
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I tried to tell him Romans 8 speaks about all of creation being redeemed by Jesus.
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
Romans 8:19-23 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/rom.8.19-23.KJV
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@mike
Love it. Romans! A treatise unequaled in the annals of history. No other letter comes close.
Geography. Philosophy. Anthropology. Cosmology. Law. Conscience. Prophecy. Judgement. Justice. History. Sociology. Botany. Criminality. Servancy. Debt. Grace.
Nothing like it- even Harvard law has admitted as much, back in the day when men were actually able to discern such things.
Go ahead- search your own library or even Alexandria, in vain will you look for anything even remotely close in brutal accuracy and powerful.
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Fear not I know how to cure your exasperation. Watch Righteous Gemstones on HBO! I’m serious!
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I shall look into it.
Is it it a movie or a series?
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Series on HBO.
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FYI – Righteous Gemstones is an out of control fictional stick of dynamite pointed at front steps of mega-churches & televangelists. It’s so good! You’ll laugh yourself speechless!
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