Do Your Pets Fast with You?

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My cat is an unapologetic pagan–a devotee of Bast, to be exact–and will not fast.
 
Note to self…reduce cat population via forced feline fasting (also known as FFF). Very interesting… 😃 😛

Just kidding.

On a serious note, animals fasting is absurd. No offense to anyone who might read this who does force their pets to fast, but it’s just insane. The spiritual understanding discussed above within the Byzantine churches is the Western understanding as well. Read any mature discussion of fasting - the point is to give up for God’s sake, not the sake of our bodies. I believe I’m recalling Thomas Merton’s writings in paraphrasing the issue thus: the hunger in our stomachs reminds us we’re really hungry for God.

After all, He’s the reason for EVERY season. 👍
Stephen

P.S. Yes, I’m a dog person (a person who likes dogs, as opposed to a dog-human hybrid). No, I don’t dislike cats - I’m just too immature and therefore match up quite nicely with the canine personality. 😃
 
Here is the funny part, though. In the Book of Jonah, the King of the Ninevites declared a fast for both man and beast. He also declared that both man and beast should put on sack cloth and ashes.

I’m not saying that my little overweight dachshunds should be putting sack cloth and ashes; however, the fasting may not be a bad idea since they are chubby. 😉
 
benedictgal said:
Here is the funny part, though. In the Book of Jonah, the King of the Ninevites declared a fast for both man and beast. He also declared that both man and beast should put on sack cloth and ashes.
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Ha ha! I remember that! I always felt sorry for the poor animals - and apparently God did too, if you remember the last verse of that book. 👍
 
theistgal said:
Ha ha! I remember that! I always felt sorry for the poor animals - and apparently God did too, if you remember the last verse of that book. 👍
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Yes! 👍 I wonder what the cattle would have looked like donned in sackcloth and ashes.
 
That reference, Benedictgal, along with several others, makes me wonder if Beast refers not to animals, but other hominids.
 
Aramis said:
That reference, Benedictgal, along with several others, makes me wonder if Beast refers not to animals, but other hominids.
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Well, we did give the tuba player in the high school band the nickname “beast”, but, that was because he was an Ozzy Osborune fan. 😃

Here is what the passage says:
6 And the word came to the king of Ninive; and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive from the mouth of the king and of his princes, saying: ***Let neither men nor beasts, oxen nor sheep, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water. 8 And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. 9 ***Who can tell if God will turn, and forgive: and will turn away from his fierce anger, and we shall not perish? 10 And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way: and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he would do to them, and he did it not.
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Of course, what wrong would the sheep and oxen have done, if they don’t have a conscience?
 
Don’t know about the original hebrew, but that english is a list. In bullet form:
  • men
  • beast
  • oxen
  • sheep
It then specifies in line 8 that men and beasts must wear sackcloth…

The prohibitions on laying with beasts “as with men” also fuel this supposition…

it is probably just a translation issue. 🤷
 
No, but then the dog isn’t Christian and doesn’t worship God.

She worships me. 😉
 
Maryjk…are you encouraging idolatry in your house? Don’t make us send the Spanish Inquisition after you… (nobody suspects the Spanish Inquisition!) 😃
 
3Sanctus said:
Maryjk…are you encouraging idolatry in your house? Don’t make us send the Spanish Inquisition after you… (nobody suspects the Spanish Inquisition!) 😃
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Yes, we don’t want them torturing you with the comfy chair or the fluffly pillow :eek: :nope:
 
Absolutely not! That would be cruel.

Then the dog would raid the cats’ boxes even more and the cats would scavenge from the counters and swipe food where they could.
 
LOL in our case we rescue exotic birds. With these guys they can actually die if food and water is not always available. Their metabolism would not allow them to fast. They instead feast daily.😉
 
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