Good Fortune: The Cat Who Went to Heaven

I was poking about at new items for the coming WoW expansion, and I came across one called Good Fortune. That stopped me in my tracks, sending my mind back to this book. The Cat Who Went to Heaven. Thinking further about it, I think this was the start of my Major Issues with religion.

If you haven't read it (and you really should), it's a children's book about a poor painter in Japan. While he has no money for food for himself, a cat (named Good Fortune) becomes part of his household. The painter comes to love her.

The local Buddhist temple hires the painter to do a picture of the dying Buddha with the animals of the world come to pay their respects. He has to leave cats out of it, because "cats are cursed, because of their pride and sense of superiority, which caused them to refuse to bow before the Buddha in his lifetime".

But the painter loves his cat and she's heartbroken because there's no cat in the painting. In the end, he adds a small cat in the corner of the painting, even knowing that doing so may make the temple reject his panting and thus make him die of hunger. Upon seeing the cat has been added, Good Fortune dies "of happiness".

And the temple does reject the painting. The painter is in disgrace. Starving. But then, miracle! The painting has magically changed! The dying Buddha is now extending his hand to the cat, blessing it!

Writing all this up, dabbing tears from my eyes, I see this is likely the start of my issues with kitties dying, too. :P

On one hand, someone commissioning art can request anything they want. "Draw me a picture with every animal in the world BUT NO CATS" is a valid request. But "...BUT NO CATS BECAUSE THEY'RE CURSED AND EVIL AND WON'T BOW DOWN TO OUR GOD" is a different story.

But more than that, it bothers me that cats would be thought of that way. (And it's not just in Buddhism, how many black cats are killed around Halloween because they're "witches" and "evil"?)

The whole book just made me so sad for so many reasons. Why do religions need to hate? Exclude? Groups of people, kinds of animals?

...And why did the cat have to die in the story? *sniffles*