IF YOU LOVE ANIMALS YOU WON’T LOVE GOD
Jesus stated that God has amazing concern for the animal world in Matthew 10:29. That was white lighting faith if there ever was!
The predominant religious and faith view regarding animals is that an animal has the right only not to be tortured but does not have a right to life. This implies basic care is okay. It implies that pampering your pet is going too far. It implies that if you are sure an animal does not have much awareness then you may torture it. Or if you think you are sure.
Now the same people say that
human life is sacred and must never be taken except when forced to
in self-defence. They also say that the argument that quality of
life and happiness cannot come first for they cannot matter much if
your life does not matter in the first place. This totally
contradicts what they say about animal rights. If an animal has the
right to get basic care then its life must matter. It shows that
religion's opposition to evil is not opposition to evil. Selective
opposition to evil is not opposition to evil at all. We may have
found exactly why moralistic ideologies such as Christianity and
Communism and whatever else you can think of are not solutions to
the problem of human violence and the wider problem of being
permissive to violence. The violence appears and we should not
wonder at it.
Nature is not love and sunshine but blood and
violence and indifference. There is no need for animals to prey on one another
so cruelly.
Christians contend though that it is good for animals to exist at all and they have more happiness than misery.
Genesis 9:3 seems to say that God only gave
animals as food after the flood. But there is much Bible evidence that he gave
animals as food from the start (Genesis 1:28). Genesis 9:3 is only the first
clear command that animals were to be used as food. It was not the first
command. Animal suffering corrupts human beings. Most of us coldly go our way
while animals suffer in factory farms for our consumption. We support this
industry by saying nothing. We support it by purchasing in supermarkets. Even if
we do not buy meat in them,
Animal suffering shows that those who say that God
allows suffering to improve us are just hypocrites.
The Christian response to animal suffering is that
animals are good in themselves and that if we really were against animals
suffering we would rejoice when animals, especially the more brutal ones, become
extinct. That is nonsense. Even brutal animals can be contained.
There is no need for animals to exist at all.
But they do. At least if they were never made they would never suffer.
Christians say that it is good for animals to exist anyway and they have more happiness than misery. Genesis 9:3 seems to say that God only gave animals as food after the flood. But there is much Bible evidence that he gave animals as food from the start (Genesis 1:28). Genesis 9:3 is only the first clear command that animals were to be used as food. It was not the first command. Animal suffering corrupts human beings. Most of us coldly go our way while animals suffer in factory farms for our consumption. Yet psychology says that if you are cruel to animals or feel nothing when others abuse them you are watering what is inside you that might lead you to hurt a human being and ultimately a child.
We support this industry by saying nothing. We support it by purchasing in supermarkets. Even if we do not buy meat in them, supermarkets depend on the custom of those who do. We are still as bad as those who carry the meat to the counter and take it home.
Religion says that evil is the absence of good or good that is in the wrong place and time. Suffering then is the absence of feeling good. That waters down how bad suffering is and you have no right to pretend to care for a suffering person if you really think such a thing. If you endured the suffering yourself you would not see it as a mere negation but as a power and a force. You must try to if there is a God who does not create evil otherwise you end up experiencing God as evil!! That will make your suffering worse. An atheist is better off.
An animal will never see suffering as good in the wrong place. If suffering is meant to be a blessing as religion says for God loves all then it cannot be a blessing unless you see it as the absence of good. Believers are insulting animal suffering.
That Jesus wants us to be amazed at how good God is to animals and not to look at the bad side and how ruthless the animal world is evil and deliberately blind. Your praise for the good is insincere when you won't consider the bad. If you have to be willing to praise you must do so because you have the option of condemning and don't need it. Natural evil is not just something that happens - it has something to do with the kind of people we are. It provokes and causes something of a personal nature in us. Natural evil is no better than moral evil if it leads us to evilly dismiss the natural suffering or trivialise it.
Jesus could have commanded eating some animals when strictly necessary. Instead he proclaimed all foods admissible and thus threw away a chance to protect animals as smart and advanced as us such as whales and chimps. The Jewish law banned some foods as being in some way dirty. The gospel is careful to say that he did not abolish this law. He simply cleaned the foods so the rule did not apply any more. Jesus doing this was a clear sign of insanity for the reason for cleanness laws was that some foods were linked with causing sickness. And the fact remains that all foods are not really clean! Jesus would have learned that had he had a taste for raw chicken!
We conclude that animal suffering and animal degradation shows our true colours up and our lies. Religion to fit in society supports the same cruelties. We are malign enough without Jesus and God and faith being used as crutches to make us feel okay about how terrible we are.
