Thursday, September 24, 2015

Humans Don't Deserve Dogs

I knew just what S meant when she said it, but on reflection it is tangling my mind into knots.

We were on the T, going to a Sox game and a lady got on the Orange-Line car with a dog on leash. She sat next to S and the animal immediately made eye-contact with the girl. S petted the dog and the dog rested its head on my daughter's knee. It was all quite endearing.

I replied that Humans deserve dogs since we created them. The wild creatures from which we bred them were not finely tuned to Human behavior, they got that way in the process of becoming our companion animal.

All of this flies in the face with the standard "creator archetype" Dr Frankenstein made a creature that was superior to Humans in some ways, but only was able to bring misery to itself and all who came near to it. Similar even to the creation story in the Judeo-Christian tradition: God makes everything perfect and yet Man messes it all up.

Man, for all his flaws has made a perfect little creature, the domestic dog: They are content in their lives, or seem to be. They certainly give us pleasure being around them. It is to my mind one key flaw to Islam. Dogs and Humans formed civilization together, they are a valuable part of humanity. I cannot see how it would be a wise God's will to cut-off this part of ourselves.