image Technorati’s List of Popular Books introduces me to There is Eternal Life for Animals, which argues that

All animals go to heaven. How do we know? We look in the book that God left us, the Bible. This book takes you through the Bible and proves through the scriptures that there is life after death for all the animals. It covers:—God’s relationship with the animals;—The current life of the animal kingdom;—The future life of the animals and its restoration;—What animals are currently in heaven;—Whether animals have souls and spirits;—Praying for animals. There Is Eternal Life For Animals includes numerous Bible scriptures, opinions and commentaries from Bible Theologians, visions, stories, near-death experiences of children, and personal experiences. It also reviews many of the original Greek and Hebrew words and their translations.

I am tempted to buy the book and have it sent to P.Z. Myers as a gift. It’s true that if the book’s argument is right the downside for P.Z. is, of course, that there is a benevolent God filling up Heaven with our beloved cats and dogs. On the other hand, maybe the beloved giant squid are up there, too, in the deep-sea regions of heaven.

I’m interested to read the “What animals are currently in heaven” section. Does the author mean what kinds of animals, or particular individual animals? If the former, do Deer Ticks make it? Or Liver Fluke? If the latter, Phar Lap is surely there (despite also being scattered around Australia), but what about Garfield?

There is something sociologically interesting to be said about the fact that books on Pet Loss and the Animal Afterlife constitute a well-established market, but I’m too tired to say it. I can see why people might need a book like The Loss of a Pet or Pet Loss And Human Emotion: Guiding Clients Through Grief, or even Dog Heaven, for the kids. But then there’s Will I See Fido in Heaven?: Scripturally Revealing God’s Eternal Plan for His Lesser Creatures and Do Dogs Go To Heaven? Eternal Answers for Animal Lovers. There’s a poem by Billy Collins called The Revenant. A bit of it:

I am the dog you put to sleep,

as you like to call the needle of oblivion,

come back to tell you this simple thing:

I never liked you—not one bit. …

Now I am free of the collar,

the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,

the absurdity of your lawn,

and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed

and are glad it did not happen sooner— that everyone here can read and write,

the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.