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4elise
Guest
But we can eliminate the middle ‘animal’ and just eat the veggies ourselves!
The original thread seemed to be asking about if it is possible to care about animals and people - why not?
And yes it is possible to keep things in perspective, **love people, work to end abortion - and go vegan! **
Peace
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Marfran
Guest
:clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping:But we can eliminate the middle ‘animal’ and just eat the veggies ourselves!
The original thread seemed to be asking about if it is possible to care about animals and people - why not?
And yes it is possible to keep things in perspective, love people, work to end abortion - and go vegan!
Peace
**Right on!!! **We can care about animals **AND **people!!!
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budgie2
Guest
Personally I would probably give to a charity to help human beings first before I would give to an animal charity as human beings are more valuable. However, I think there is a need for people with the skills to look after animals from the point of view of human health. I’m glad that there’s not lots of stray cats/dogs running riot in our streets and would pose a health hazard so some people need that particular vocation. Also farmers need the skills to work with animals for human beings food. I’m not an animal lover in particular but there are people who love animals more than people.
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4elise
Guest
I don’t think anyone here has advocated that — but in fact they are not mutually exclusive!
And of course part of God’s wonderful creation. Peace.
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Marfran
Guest
I have heard this argument a little too frequently, and it is disingenuous. Please name one. Specifically name one. No stereotypes please. Name some specific persons.
Say, yes, my neighbor Joe Blow loves animals more than people. He divorced his wife, threw her out of the house, and moved a goat into the bed that he shared with her. He tossed out all of his kids to live on the street, and is now spending the money that he would have spent on them, on a collection of animals that now live in their bedrooms.
And Joe Blow stole his mother’s prescription medicine from her home to sell on the street for some big bucks. He took that money to buy feed for his lot of animals, because he loves them more than his mother. He also robbed the neighborhood church for the same reason. And he falsified documents to be able to collect welfare and to obtain items from food pantries because he doesn’t care about people (they can fend for themselves) and loves animals more.
Joe Blow has no human friends, because he loves animals more, and when it comes down to it, he will always choose an animal over a human being.
Does this guy exist??? Is this caricature ridiculous? Of course it is. So is the claim that some people love animals more than people. People who love animals love people too. People who love animals have human families and human relationships. People who love animals also have a high love and respect for humans. Or they would be living alone with a bunch of animals, and forsake society.
And the elderly lady living alone with a houseful of 100 cats, doesn’t necessarily love animals more, she just doesn’t know how to say “no,” or is obsessive compulsive, or has some other psychiatric disorder.
And Paris Hilton doesn’t love the little doggies that she totes around in her purse more. She is always discarding them for newer cuter ones. She loves herself more!
Sorry to go off like this–but this argument that ***some people love animals more than people ***is really off the wall. I know many, many people who love and work with animals. And each and every one of them would give ***a human being ***the shirt off their back, or their last morsel of food without hesitation.
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Marfran
Guest
ADDENDUM to previous post:
What I think is **more accurate **to say, is that some people have a total disregard for animals, and do not understand how other people can care about these non-human living beings. Because they can not understand, and can feel no connection or empathy for God’s other creatures, they disingenuously accuse people who can care about animals **and **people, of not caring about people enough.
What I think is **more accurate **to say, is that some people have a total disregard for animals, and do not understand how other people can care about these non-human living beings. Because they can not understand, and can feel no connection or empathy for God’s other creatures, they disingenuously accuse people who can care about animals **and **people, of not caring about people enough.
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Sean_Boyle
Guest
Not sure were I got this quote but it seem to at least, place humans and animals on the same plane. Read what they say, don’t “read into” the response or its intention any…
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Marfran
Guest
The quote is in reference to the fact that caring about animals does not negate caring about people, or vice versa. We can care about both. Our hearts are big enough. An animal is not on the same plane as a human–but that doesn’t mean we can abuse it or be tyranical to it, or impose it to live or die for our vanities and unneccesary whims and desires.
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CountrySinger
Guest
I know this is going to sound silly, but my cats brought me back to the Catholic church. The two cats are Katharine and Grey Baby, and they were my mom’s until she died last July. They were my comfort while I was greiving, and they kept me busy. I could cry into their fur as much as I wanted (humans have their limits). When I was really down, they would play, and they would make me smile, They have unconditional love, which very few people are capable of. If I get to Heaven, I want them to be with me.
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4elise
Guest
So sorry for your loss, I’m sure your mom would be happy to know that her pets were able to be a comfort to you. Peace.
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Marfran
Guest
This does not sound silly in the least. I have had the same experience of being comforted by animals in the face of tremendous loss. I did not seek out the animals to help me in my grief. They came to me. Different ones every day, wild ones. And the pets who live with us have great sensitivity to how we are feeling and respond accordingly, giving us extra love when we need it.
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Marfran
Guest
Here is a quote from Dominion by Matthew Scully that I would like to share:
Many of us, when we pause to think on animals, fear that as our concern for them extends, our concern for each other shrinks. We hear this fear in the familiar complaint about all those Greenpeace types up there trying to protect baby seals, or out on the high seas throwing themselves between whaler and whale, and so on, but who don’t seem to care about people. Where is their compassion for the poor, or homeless, or the handicapped? Anything we give the creatures must be extra, the unwanted scrap tossed from our moral table. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre put this suspicion best: “When one loves animals and children too much, one loves them against human beings.”
Surely the interesting thing in that maxim is the inclusion of children, who though a world apart from the animals, are also vulnerable to human caprice and who seem to share with animals some natural bond, an instinctive kinship beautifully captured in William Blake’s poem “The Lamb.” The other interesting thing is its complete misunderstanding of love. Since when does love ever diminish as we spread it around? Among humans it usually works the other way. So too in our dealings with the animals we know best.
When you bring a dog into the house, is he absorbing love and attention that would otherwise go to household members? Typically, if we treat the creature right, he or she has something to give back, and indeed many parents get pets in the first place so that the kids might learn to think beyond themselves and to care for other beings. Neither you nor the dog are ever confused about who’s running the show or who had dominion, except maybe when you’re away. You do not ask more of him than he can give, nor do you think less of Scruffy because he can’t rake the leaves or handle the family finances. You don’t even think of him as having “rights” and yet, useless as he is to the practical affairs of the household, over time he comes to fill a crucial place. He’s just sort of there, this furry funny, needful, affectionate, and mysterious being creeping around the house. Everybody in the end gains something, and when he or she is gone a little bit of love has been subtracted.
It is the same with animals generally. I once saw a television show called Wild Rescues in which two men of twenty or so were out deer hunting when they came across a doe drowning in a muddy river. Their videotape of the rescue showed them struggling for over an hour to save her. Finally they dragged her out and she darted off into the woods. On their own terms it was a completely irrational act–she could wind up in their gun sights the next day. And yet they seemed enormously pleased at the deed–“just knowing” as one of the men put it, “that we gave her one more day of life.”
On the same program you can see people rushing to the aid of beached whales and dolphins, orphaned seals, oil-covered gulls, penguins, and other sea creatures. The striking thing is how satisfied they all feel afterward. None of them ever describes embarrassed feelings of wasted time or of having cared too much about the stricken animal. A variety of programs have been devised in recent years involving the care of animals by troubled children, violent criminals, the handicapped, and the lonely aged. Far from stealing away charity and compassion from the human heart, we are just now discovering the gift many animals have for bringing those qualities back to life.
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Marfran
Guest
Check out the Humane Society’s web site for info on dog fighting and Michael Vick.
hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2009/07/michael-vick.html
hsus.typepad.com/wayne/2009/07/michael-vick.html
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