TheNoNamedOne
11-12-2007, 10:50 PM
In the Christian paradigm, God created everything, and it is only through God's mercy and compassion that man can be saved. But mercy and compassion is not monopolized by God, or a characteristic of Him only. And, man has the ability through judgement and free will to spread that compassion and mercy to other men and creatures as liberally or as miserly as he choses. But, why should man expect and hope for mercy and compassion from the "One" above, when/if he is unwilling to give it to the "ones" below?
Pigs and lambs and cows and chickens are not pieces of machinery, no matter how cost-efficient it may be to treat them as such. Machinery doesn't cry or feel frightened or lonely. And when a man treats them this way, he might as well be a machine himself. Something dies in him, too. Something is lost in a society that rewards and enriches him, driving him on at this pace and in this spirit.
Without animal rights groups, moreover, it would all go almost completely unremarked, except by economists who welcome industrial farming as a stage of progress, stock analysts who recommend it as a smart investment, trade representatives who want to export it, and environmental and consumer groups who worry only about our sulllied waters. Who would be left to speak for the creatures themselves? Feared for the truths they might tell, animal rights champions do not deserve our scorn. They deserve our admiration and our gratitude, here above all. Sometimes the most couragious thing is to state the obvious, and that is what they are doing when they tell us that to treat animals in such a way is cruel, abhorant, and inexcusable. "We do not need a zoological proletariat,"writes one commentator in dismissing the rights of farm animals, to which the obvious reply is that we do not need zoological gulags, either. -- Dominion, pg 288, Matthew Sculley
Do Christians have a moral obligation to show compassion and mercy to God's creatures, whom he also blesses, and to not treat them as machines or production units meant to satisfy the palate for gluttoney? Would Jesus confine one of his creations to a life of tormented misery, or would he reject the supporting of such an atrocious system? Would he reject tortured flesh for the pleasure of His palate?
Pigs and lambs and cows and chickens are not pieces of machinery, no matter how cost-efficient it may be to treat them as such. Machinery doesn't cry or feel frightened or lonely. And when a man treats them this way, he might as well be a machine himself. Something dies in him, too. Something is lost in a society that rewards and enriches him, driving him on at this pace and in this spirit.
Without animal rights groups, moreover, it would all go almost completely unremarked, except by economists who welcome industrial farming as a stage of progress, stock analysts who recommend it as a smart investment, trade representatives who want to export it, and environmental and consumer groups who worry only about our sulllied waters. Who would be left to speak for the creatures themselves? Feared for the truths they might tell, animal rights champions do not deserve our scorn. They deserve our admiration and our gratitude, here above all. Sometimes the most couragious thing is to state the obvious, and that is what they are doing when they tell us that to treat animals in such a way is cruel, abhorant, and inexcusable. "We do not need a zoological proletariat,"writes one commentator in dismissing the rights of farm animals, to which the obvious reply is that we do not need zoological gulags, either. -- Dominion, pg 288, Matthew Sculley
Do Christians have a moral obligation to show compassion and mercy to God's creatures, whom he also blesses, and to not treat them as machines or production units meant to satisfy the palate for gluttoney? Would Jesus confine one of his creations to a life of tormented misery, or would he reject the supporting of such an atrocious system? Would he reject tortured flesh for the pleasure of His palate?