God and Animal Cruelty

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tries to read and avoid the comments section at the same time
 
There isn’t any such thing as animal cruelty. Human cruelty? Yep. But animals lack the intellect to accompany their free will. A bird of prey killing a mouse isn’t cruel - it’s instinct.

Thanks for sharing! 👍
 
spencelo said:
Wow, I’m speechless. I know most Catholics reject this view.
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You’re taking that out of context. LaMusicaSenior means that there’s no animal cruelty from animal to animal. Like, when a cat plays with a mouse we feel sorry for the poor mouse but the cat won’t feel sorry and it’s not the cats’ fault either that he/she won’t feel sorry for the mouse as it’s her/his nature to play with the mouse.
 
We’ve had trouble with this, too. We had a fish tank and since one fish didn’t seem to get along with another one of our fishes, we bought a second fish tank and split them into two groups.
 
I didn’t read the links because I’m still recovering from the last animal cruelty story I read last night. I certainly hope that those who are cruel to animals (China) will have to explain themselves in the next life. It’s totally heartbreaking to me. 😦 :mad:
 
spencelo said:
Bruce Friedrich, a Catholic, explains his stance on God and animal cruelty:

huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/an-advent-reflection-on-g_b_788795.html

And: amazon.com/Christianity-Rights-Animals-Andrew-Linzey/dp/0824508750
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I’ll make a deal with you. If you can convince all your liberal friends to stop supporting abortion, birth control, euthanesia, embryonic stem cell research, homsexual unions I will stop eating meat. But of course your liberal friends will never do that.

And by the way, most of your liberal friends eat lots and lots of meat. Why do we come in for special attention?? 🤷🤷🤷
 
Animals were put on earth to serve us. This means that we are to treat them with a certain level of dignity, as they are part of our source of life and livelihood. That dignity does not extend to not using them a food or for other product, since that’s what they’re here for.

It does, however, extend to the method by which we end their lives, which should be as humane and fast as possible.
 
[SIGN]Of course, we’re going to be as a movement blowing stuff up and smashing windows. For the record, I don’t do this stuff, but I do advocate it. I think it is a great way to bring about animal liberation. And considering the level of the atrocity and the level
of the suffering, I think it would be a great thing if all of these fast food outlets and slaughter houses and laboratories–and the banks that fund them–exploded tomorrow.
~ Bruce Friedrich[/SIGN]
 
504Katrin said:
You’re taking that out of context. LaMusicaSenior means that there’s no animal cruelty from animal to animal. Like, when a cat plays with a mouse we feel sorry for the poor mouse but the cat won’t feel sorry and it’s not the cats’ fault either that he/she won’t feel sorry for the mouse as it’s her/his nature to play with the mouse.
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Yes. There is human cruelty towards to or to animals, but not just animal cruelty. When you say animal cruelty, I think the animal is both the perpetrator and the victim. In human curelty to animals, the human is the prepatrator (ie, having 100 dogs in one home and neglecting them all) and the animal is the victim.

God did give humans command over the animals, but just like any other stewardship that we have been granted, we must take the responsiblity as what it is is: responsiblity.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
Animals were put on earth to serve us. This means that we are to treat them with a certain level of dignity, as they are part of our source of life and livelihood. That dignity does not extend to not using them a food or for other product, since that’s what they’re here for.

It does, however, extend to the method by which we end their lives, which should be as humane and fast as possible.
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agreed and Friedrich ( who is a vp of peta)is trying in the linked article to enlist the Holy Father in his fight and whereas his Holiness is concerned about animal cruelty ,he has never stated or even hinted that eating meat is sinfull. here is the entire quote not the hack job in the article
Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, once addressed the subject of foie gras explicitly during an interview with a journalist: “We cannot just do whatever we want with them. … Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible.”

“Animals too,” he stressed, “are God’s creatures and even if they do not have the same direct relationship to God that man has, they are still creatures of His will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation.”
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As a scientist who has done animal research I wanted to weigh in on this issue. I’m very sensitive to animal cruelty and not only devote time and money to assisting my local animal shelter but I’m also a vegeterian. However as part of my job and research in the past I have used lab mice and lab rats.

I didn’t do nice research either, my research was on various birth defects and prevention. We regulary studied fetal development of mice, whether certain safe products on the market truly were safe, whether certain other things could prevent know defects from occuring, etc. I also assisted with toxicology research, where we tested various drugs effects on preventing known medical problems. This type of research was done on rats.

Not a single member of my lab team took what we were doing lightly. The mice were kept as comfortable as possible and it was generally a somber day when they would be sacrificed so we could analyze our data. With the rats which are much more social we would standardly visit them to make sure they were receiving an appropriate level of interaction. On days we drew blood from them to get samples, one of us would hold the rat afterwards and coo at it and pet it to help it destress, they were also given a small number of rat treats. The grad student assigned to the rat project broke the cardinal rule of animal research “don’t get attached” and cried the whole day they were sacrificed. Everyone else held it together but was in a somber mood. We understood that through our research perhaps somewhere, someone would have a happier healthier life because of our work but that doesn’t stop you from feeling a bit guilty for what you are doing.

I really dislike animal cruelty and grow unhappy when I hear of reported cases in the news. I have a house full of animals and I strive to give them the best possible care and standard of living. I often think about the many animals I’ve used in my research, and wonder if perhaps when I die I’ll see them all again looking at me with accusing eyes. Then I think perhaps somewhere out there is one person who is able to live long enough to hold their first grandchild and that grandchild was able to be treated before birth to prevent the development of a life altering disability thanks to my work.

I know some people who work with animals in these settings will treat them exceptionally cruel, but I wonder how much of that is just a mask to protect themselves from their job? Most people I know in these fields understand the importance of their work and do their absolute best for the animals involved.
 
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