#145 All Dogs Go to Heaven
“Pets as children” violates the Christian Worldview.  Humans should spend more of their scarce time with other humans, rather than pets.
 
Something I wanted to say to Dennis Prager during the fireside chat, when his dog Otto was sleeping between us, "All dogs may go to heaven, but taxes don’t."  You see, the Christian purpose of taxes is to protect us from evil in a fallen world.  In heaven, there won't be a fallen nature, so we won't need taxes.
 
Economics
70% of American households own a pet.  Americans spend about $123.6 billion in 2021, up 19% in just the last year!  Wow, a 19% increase in one year!  Giving to church and parachurch organizations is stuck around $115 billion, up a paltry 1% in the last eight years, according to Christianity Today.  While pet spending has more than doubled in the same time period.  Somethings going on here.  Why are people spending so much on pets?  I like pets.  I’m merely seeking a clear Biblical answer about the Christian Economics of pet ownership. 
In recent years, Americans have spent more money buying Halloween costumes for their pets than the amount given to reach the unreached, reports Andrew Scott, president of Operation Mobilization U.S.
45% of American pet owners spend the same amount or more on their pets’ healthcare as they do their own healthcare.  
 
The Christian Worldview
When God created animals, he declared their creation to be “good” in Genesis 1:25.  At the conclusion of the creation account in Genesis 1, God looked at “all he had made” and declared it “very good.”  Humans are the crowning achievement of God’s creative activity, and as His image bearers, we possess something of the divine.  For more on that topic, I will refer you to podcast #32 Made in God’s Image.  
Humans are made above animals.  When I was a child, one of my aunts traveled cross-country with her small dog.  I remember watching her buy a McDonald's hamburger, and giving the meat to her dog.  I was horrified.  I still have that picture in my mind.  She wasted human food on a dog.  But that’s common practice today.   
Elena Kadvany reports for the San Francisco Chronicle about a dog restaurant in her town where owners can buy a $75 tasting menu for their dogs.  She writes, “Dogue, which opened last week with a $75 tasting menu and French-inspired pastries just for dogs, feels emblematic of  everything wrong with San Francisco right now — a place where dogs are treated better than humans.”  “This signals the collapse,” one Instagram commenter wrote.
Albert Wolters explains it well in his book Creation Regained,