Is it a sin to look upon certaint animals as family members or is it a thread leading back to our ancestral connection to Adam and Eve? I live in rural Arkansas and interact with livestock ,dogs and cats . Our connection to certain animals is almost that of a parent - child level.
I think it denies God's order of things to have affection for an animal that is on par with what you might have for a human being. No cat or dog is made in the image of God; Jesus didn't sacrifice himself on the cross for cows, or lizards, or parakeets; the Holy Spirit doesn't indwell hamsters, or guppies, or bunny rabbits. I know some folk who seem to think otherwise, however, believing their pets are equal in value to those for whom Christ died. One gal I know kiboshed her wedding when it came to light that her fiancee didn't want her dogs along on the honeymoon! I've heard childless couples capable of having children say that they much prefer their pets to actual children and intend never to be parents but merely pet-owners. This sort of stuff is a grotesque distortion of God's order of priorities.
Human beings are "a little lower than the angels" (
Hebrews 2:6-7) and have been given dominion over the earth and all of its inhabitants (
Genesis 1:26-27). No animal occupies this same place with human beings. What's more, in Scripture, we never see animals treated in the manner they are today in North America, where many millions of dollars are spent every year on pet care. No animal in the Bible is set on par with people, having its own bed, and toys, and clothing. Instead, animals were for eating, and for working, and for pulling chariots and for riding, and for sacrifices to God.
No Christian ought to be cruel to animals, of course, nor are Christians forbidden in Scripture from having pets, but the institution of animals into the position of
children, functioning as surrogates for them and given the same attention and affection as a human child, or the elevation in value of any animal above any human, is a corruption of what God intends to be the case between human beings and animals, I think.
Having said this, I realize that when folks say their pets are "like children," they don't necessarily mean that they occupy the same place as a child would in a family but only that there are similarities between what's required to care for a pet and the care required of a human child.