If you’re a fundamentalist Christian, you believe that people and animals are two completely separate categories. People have souls and animals don’t. Of course, in order to believe that, you have to ignore a boatload of empirical evidence about biology and evolution, which is why most of us aren’t fundamentalist Christians.
If you’re a materialist, on the other hand, you think both humans and animals suffer the same fate–permanent extinction–at death. It is a theory that appears to fit the facts as we know them. However, as I noted in a previous post, it requires you to believe that ideas are created by matter in motion; in other words, concepts like justice have no existence independent of the world in which we live. In addition, it flies in the face of the personal experiences described in previous posts. As a result, in spite of its intellectual attractions, I do not accept it.
That leaves me with the animal problem: do they pass on to the other side? Does every living creature, however humble in its attributes, go to the other side? Does it mean all living things are reincarnated? Or is there some line between the animals that go to the other side and those that don’t?
My insight into this question is more limited than I would like to admit. All I can say for sure is that one of my dogs appeared to me from the other side, so if there is a line, he was on the human side of it. I suspect there is a line between most animals and, say, insects and snakes. I just don’t know exactly where it is.
With that, I have reached the end of my Metaphysical Monday posts. They are intended to be read together and in order, starting with the one on authority from late July. If any of them are helpful to someone out there, they will be a success.