Z
Zooey
Guest
Agreed!
I also agree that we need to have more attention drawn to the relationship between cruelty to animals, and cruelty to other human beings…
- Status
I also agree that we need to have more attention drawn to the relationship between cruelty to animals, and cruelty to other human beings…
S
StandUp4Truth
Guest
This is a great question that brings up many other questions!
How do you define animal cruelty?
At what point is euthenization cruelty?
What about animal testing? Are all forms of animal testing equally necessary(e.g. cancer treatments vs. cosmetics)?
I don’t think it’s our place to say whether Michael Vick committed a sin, that’s between him, his confessor(if he has one), and God. While dogfighting is illegal and I feel it is very immoral, it is also an accepted form of entertainment in many parts of the world. After really bad fights, many dogs are so seriously wounded and in so much pain that killing them is an act of mercy. Even with proper vetrinary care, if these animals survive, they would go on to live miserable lives due to the extent of their injuries(most vets would put them to sleep).
I think euthenizing animals is sad, but sometimes necessary for their own good. The manner in which they are killed is also a factor in cruelty(lethal injection vs. beating to death). Also, the person killing the animal should take no satisfaction in it. I grew up hunting and fishing, but I was taught to respect the animals for giving their lives for humans to eat. While it’s okay to be proud of a good shot or landing a large fish, if hunters don’t feel even the slightest empathy for the animal they’ve killed, I think there is something wrong with them. Fortunately, all of the sportsmen I’ve met have a profound respect for animals and the environment.
Psychologists have found that the torture, maiming, and violent murder of animals is a common practice among developing serial killers.
Our local university was raided by an animal rights terrorist group last year. They freed all the animals in captivity and threatened to kill the researchers if they continued their work. They left written death threats at both the researchers’ offices and also at their homes!
People within the community were actually supporting these terrorists! Yet I guarantee you that all of these activists use the medicines that were developed with animal testing, and they’re safer for it!
How do you define animal cruelty?
At what point is euthenization cruelty?
What about animal testing? Are all forms of animal testing equally necessary(e.g. cancer treatments vs. cosmetics)?
I don’t think it’s our place to say whether Michael Vick committed a sin, that’s between him, his confessor(if he has one), and God. While dogfighting is illegal and I feel it is very immoral, it is also an accepted form of entertainment in many parts of the world. After really bad fights, many dogs are so seriously wounded and in so much pain that killing them is an act of mercy. Even with proper vetrinary care, if these animals survive, they would go on to live miserable lives due to the extent of their injuries(most vets would put them to sleep).
I think euthenizing animals is sad, but sometimes necessary for their own good. The manner in which they are killed is also a factor in cruelty(lethal injection vs. beating to death). Also, the person killing the animal should take no satisfaction in it. I grew up hunting and fishing, but I was taught to respect the animals for giving their lives for humans to eat. While it’s okay to be proud of a good shot or landing a large fish, if hunters don’t feel even the slightest empathy for the animal they’ve killed, I think there is something wrong with them. Fortunately, all of the sportsmen I’ve met have a profound respect for animals and the environment.
Psychologists have found that the torture, maiming, and violent murder of animals is a common practice among developing serial killers.
Our local university was raided by an animal rights terrorist group last year. They freed all the animals in captivity and threatened to kill the researchers if they continued their work. They left written death threats at both the researchers’ offices and also at their homes!
People within the community were actually supporting these terrorists! Yet I guarantee you that all of these activists use the medicines that were developed with animal testing, and they’re safer for it!
B
blessedstar
Guest
Here’s a few examples of cruelty:
If you own a dog and say you kick it to death for fun or out of frustration that is cruel.
If you own a cat and you starve it or starve it to death or indeed over feed it unitl it is obese that is cruel.
If you own a horse and you whip it mercilessly and then leave it out to pasture long after it is clement, that is cruel.
If you have a sick animal and don’t take it for medical treatment that is cruel.
If you eat meat and that meat is humanely killed then that is not cruel, but what is cruel is to drag a sheep off of a field and slit it’s throat in the street with no stun gun, with no sedative. If you kill it brutally and cruelling torturing it and prolonging its death that is cruel.
I used to work for an animal protection agency in the uk. I have seen what no person should have to see, I have seen the debasement of humnanity manifest in animal cruelty. Some of it out of ignorance and some of it out of plain cruelty and lack of regard for all life. There are laws that define animal cruelty and there is strict law enforcement of those laws.
There is something within humanity (or there should be) that knows when it is being cruel to an animal and to another person and if that law within their heart and soul is not present then that human being has not only lost sight of the goodness of God’s creation they have also lost sight of the goodness of humanity and will in all probablility be equally as cruel to their fellow man.
Abortion is a result of a cruel and selfish society.
In the Living Prayer of my life
If you own a dog and say you kick it to death for fun or out of frustration that is cruel.
If you own a cat and you starve it or starve it to death or indeed over feed it unitl it is obese that is cruel.
If you own a horse and you whip it mercilessly and then leave it out to pasture long after it is clement, that is cruel.
If you have a sick animal and don’t take it for medical treatment that is cruel.
If you eat meat and that meat is humanely killed then that is not cruel, but what is cruel is to drag a sheep off of a field and slit it’s throat in the street with no stun gun, with no sedative. If you kill it brutally and cruelling torturing it and prolonging its death that is cruel.
I used to work for an animal protection agency in the uk. I have seen what no person should have to see, I have seen the debasement of humnanity manifest in animal cruelty. Some of it out of ignorance and some of it out of plain cruelty and lack of regard for all life. There are laws that define animal cruelty and there is strict law enforcement of those laws.
There is something within humanity (or there should be) that knows when it is being cruel to an animal and to another person and if that law within their heart and soul is not present then that human being has not only lost sight of the goodness of God’s creation they have also lost sight of the goodness of humanity and will in all probablility be equally as cruel to their fellow man.
Abortion is a result of a cruel and selfish society.
In the Living Prayer of my life
G
gamesport
Guest
I hope you are not suggesting that dogs have souls?
T
thistle
Guest
I think she means they do not have immortal souls.
They have souls but they die when the animals die.
G
gamesport
Guest
We have to be careful, when claiming that one group of animals have souls, while other don’t as her post seems to imply.
A pet to you might be food to another. Some culture/people have pigs as pets, but most of us eat bacon. A lot of people in the west have dogs for pets, but dogs are eaten in other cultures.
K
KathleenElsie
Guest
Those that know me know that I do not claim that animals have souls as we humans do. I believe that they have a finate soul for as long as they breath.
B
blessedstar
Guest
I believe that animals do not have spiritual souls as humans do, but I do believe that their souls can become infinite if God so chooses them to be.
God created all of creation and said ‘It is good’
Only man has sinned, animals nor a blade of grass can sin, but yet as St Paul writes ‘all of creation labours’; everything suffers and partakes in man’s fall and the struggle in Christ Jesus against ‘powers and principlalities’ for victory in the Victory of the Cross of Jesus and His Ressurrection because man is steward of the world.
God will create the new heavens and the new earth. Man is unique created as such in the image and likeness of God with a soul that is infinite. I believe whatever man has shown love and compassion to will be re-created by God because nothing can be loved and not have enternal qualities albeit not an infinite soul as God is Love and Love is eternal.
The difficulty is that animals cannot be seen as equals to a man, they are clearly not, as man is not equal to God, nonetheless God has conferred upon man something of Himself as God has also conferred upon animals and nature something of Himself to a lesser degree.
God is mindful of the sparrow that falls and dies. If you pick up that sparrow and love it, find a place to bury it and thank God for His gift of the life of that sparrow, do you not give glory to God for all of His creation. And if whilst it was alive you pondered its flight and the grace of its little body and how it neither had to reap or sow, but God took care of it because it had not sinned and praised and thanked Him purely in the duty of it being a sparrow, whilst we humans cannot even praise and thank God by being truly human as God intended. And if we cannot see how much greater God’s love is for humans and that He will set us over all of eternity with Him to rule and have authority with Him forever which no office can be conferred upon an animal, then we cannot see what the destination for eternity will be for animals, because’ As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end’.
I believe animals will be in eternity but they will exist in eternity as it was in the beginning and man will have good stewardship over them for all eternity and will rule in service of man and of animal and all things God has created for all eternity in God.
The fact that man has a spiritual soul has relevance to his capacity to be Christlike by God’s grace, because grace is not gifted to animals, but is only gifted to man.
Be careful how you treat all creatures around you. Primarily how you treat humans, but also how you treat your little brothers and sisters (the animals, the birds, the mammals etc) and the environment around you because equally you can sin here as you can sin against another human being as well as you can sin in the internal spiritual life, i.e. spiritual pride, spiritual jealousy, spiritual gluttony etc.
In the Living Prayer of my life
God created all of creation and said ‘It is good’
Only man has sinned, animals nor a blade of grass can sin, but yet as St Paul writes ‘all of creation labours’; everything suffers and partakes in man’s fall and the struggle in Christ Jesus against ‘powers and principlalities’ for victory in the Victory of the Cross of Jesus and His Ressurrection because man is steward of the world.
God will create the new heavens and the new earth. Man is unique created as such in the image and likeness of God with a soul that is infinite. I believe whatever man has shown love and compassion to will be re-created by God because nothing can be loved and not have enternal qualities albeit not an infinite soul as God is Love and Love is eternal.
The difficulty is that animals cannot be seen as equals to a man, they are clearly not, as man is not equal to God, nonetheless God has conferred upon man something of Himself as God has also conferred upon animals and nature something of Himself to a lesser degree.
God is mindful of the sparrow that falls and dies. If you pick up that sparrow and love it, find a place to bury it and thank God for His gift of the life of that sparrow, do you not give glory to God for all of His creation. And if whilst it was alive you pondered its flight and the grace of its little body and how it neither had to reap or sow, but God took care of it because it had not sinned and praised and thanked Him purely in the duty of it being a sparrow, whilst we humans cannot even praise and thank God by being truly human as God intended. And if we cannot see how much greater God’s love is for humans and that He will set us over all of eternity with Him to rule and have authority with Him forever which no office can be conferred upon an animal, then we cannot see what the destination for eternity will be for animals, because’ As it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end’.
I believe animals will be in eternity but they will exist in eternity as it was in the beginning and man will have good stewardship over them for all eternity and will rule in service of man and of animal and all things God has created for all eternity in God.
The fact that man has a spiritual soul has relevance to his capacity to be Christlike by God’s grace, because grace is not gifted to animals, but is only gifted to man.
Be careful how you treat all creatures around you. Primarily how you treat humans, but also how you treat your little brothers and sisters (the animals, the birds, the mammals etc) and the environment around you because equally you can sin here as you can sin against another human being as well as you can sin in the internal spiritual life, i.e. spiritual pride, spiritual jealousy, spiritual gluttony etc.
In the Living Prayer of my life
Z
Zooey
Guest
Just throwing this into the mix: I picked up on a point in yesterday evening’s news, that reminded me of this thread:
Apparently, Vick was not only torturing & killing his own dogs; he was also stealing other people’s pets, and duct taping their mouths shut so they could not defend themselves , & possibly damage his dogs. And then he turned his previously tortured (& thus psychotic) animals loose on them, to tear them to shreads.
If that’s not a mortal sin…What, pray tell, is???
If you do believe Vick would balk at it, may I recommend to you a bit of research on how the Nazis trained soldiers to slaughter Jews (and others). They had the young people do exactly what Michael Vick did, to exactly the same victims–animals-- first.
After that, you see, they didn’t care any more who they killed.They had been turned into sociopaths.
If you can train a man to slaughter his own dogs, went the thinking, he will kill anything…and** anyone**. And:crying: they did. :crying:
That goes for Michael Vick, just like it went for the Einsatzgruppen.
He may or may not be beyond the point of being “psychically repaired”, so that it is safe to have him running around loose. I, for one, am not holding my breath; I think the only thing that may penetrate, is taking his bonus money back…
And that’s not “fixing”; that’s just a little rough justice.
ETA: Before someone objects that I am being judgmental, or that I hate the man:
I do** not** hate Michael Vick.
Michael Vick scares the hell out of me.
Apparently, Vick was not only torturing & killing his own dogs; he was also stealing other people’s pets, and duct taping their mouths shut so they could not defend themselves , & possibly damage his dogs. And then he turned his previously tortured (& thus psychotic) animals loose on them, to tear them to shreads.
If that’s not a mortal sin…What, pray tell, is???
- Buys animals & tortures them to the point of insanity.
- Makes money off setting them off to torture each other.
- Discovers that the “throwaway” dogs are costing him money.
- Steals innocent pets who have never harmed anyone.
- Immobilizes said innocents.
- Incites his dogs to slaughter them.
If you do believe Vick would balk at it, may I recommend to you a bit of research on how the Nazis trained soldiers to slaughter Jews (and others). They had the young people do exactly what Michael Vick did, to exactly the same victims–animals-- first.
After that, you see, they didn’t care any more who they killed.They had been turned into sociopaths.
If you can train a man to slaughter his own dogs, went the thinking, he will kill anything…and** anyone**. And:crying: they did. :crying:
That goes for Michael Vick, just like it went for the Einsatzgruppen.
He may or may not be beyond the point of being “psychically repaired”, so that it is safe to have him running around loose. I, for one, am not holding my breath; I think the only thing that may penetrate, is taking his bonus money back…
And that’s not “fixing”; that’s just a little
rough justice.ETA: Before someone objects that I am being judgmental, or that I hate the man:
I do** not** hate Michael Vick.
Michael Vick scares the hell out of me.
R
RobHom
Guest
I believe that what he did was a mortal sin. He knew what he was doing, and he had to know it was wrong. He is not a fool. If he was he never would have gotten as far in life as he has. Raising a breed of dogs to be vicious and fight other dogs for sport and money…and then killing them because they don’t perform as desired…not only is it sinful, but sick as well.
Just like the people who race Greyhounds…and kill them because they don’t run fast enough…its sickening.
I am a dog lover, have two Toy Fox Terriers, and have had other dogs and cats before. Pets are a pleasure and meant to be a joy and companions to us. They were not created by God to be abused or killed to satisfy some sick deviant urge that some people have.
I have hunted, but have always only hunted what I intended to eat. If one hunts purely for the pleasure of killing…to me thats wrong.
If a dog bites for no reason and harms someone…that dog moves out of the “pet” category, and becomes a danger to others. On the other hand…if someone approaches a dog they do not know, and tries to get too familiar too quick, they must accept some responsibility for their actions. But it definitely depends on the circumstances as to what happened.
Just like the people who race Greyhounds…and kill them because they don’t run fast enough…its sickening.
I am a dog lover, have two Toy Fox Terriers, and have had other dogs and cats before. Pets are a pleasure and meant to be a joy and companions to us. They were not created by God to be abused or killed to satisfy some sick deviant urge that some people have.
I have hunted, but have always only hunted what I intended to eat. If one hunts purely for the pleasure of killing…to me thats wrong.
If a dog bites for no reason and harms someone…that dog moves out of the “pet” category, and becomes a danger to others. On the other hand…if someone approaches a dog they do not know, and tries to get too familiar too quick, they must accept some responsibility for their actions. But it definitely depends on the circumstances as to what happened.
A
aurora77
Guest
I think that animal cruelty like the Vick case and abortion are different sides of the same coin. As a society we devalue ALL life, whether human or animal and that leads many people to act out in such cruel ways. The same mindset that allows for Vick’s actions also allows for abortion and euthanasia
Me too. Something that’s been lost in the whole debate is that what he’s plead guilty to is sick and depraved. It really scares me to think how he and others like him treat their fellow man.
N
Newbie2
Guest
BTW, it’s “veterinary”. Common mistake.
Yes, there’s a distinct difference in the reasons for euthanizing a pet for medical reasons and beating a “loser” in a dogfight to death. I’ve sent hundred of pets to their maker in the course of my veterinary career.
But, remember that these dogs are tough, bred and trained to ignore pain, but also to fight. Most of them, if their injuries were survivable, would not go on to lead miserable lives, because of their injuries; they can get over those. Rather, they would probably be euthanized due to their liability from their aggressive nature.
While in the specific instance of Mr. Vick, sure, we cannot say for certain whether or not he’s guilty of a sin; that isn’t our call, but it’s legit to discuss animal cruelty as a sin or not.
W
whatevergirl
Guest
I think that is a bit of a stretch…my son plays football…my husband played football…neither are violent people…football and abuse don’t go together. Please don’t make that leap. There are many good Christian athletes who would never think of abusing anyone or any creature.
P
phil8888
Guest
You know, I was thinking the same thing the other day. I was speakign with a friend and he was telling me that a lot of vegetarians are also pro-abortion, which makes no sense at all. I knew a lady one time, who said if she hears of an animal being sick or hurt, she gets sad and can’t watch, but when a person gets injured, she will probably laugh. I think people are infinitely more valuable than animals.
C
childofmary1143
Guest
I agree. Heck I would suggest people watch the movie “The Scarlet and the black”. It was about an English Priest during WW2 who hid the Allied Soldiers in Rome. In the movie he was teaching others boxing.
W
whatevergirl
Guest
I will say that football players can be violent…but the sport doesn’t breed violence.
D
drafdog
Guest
The Torah forbids cruelty to animals and there a number of commandments regarding the treatment of animals. We are not to muzzle the ox that treads out the corn; the animal must be slaughtered carefully using an appropriately sharp blade; the draft animals participate in the Sabbath rest along with the owner; etc.
Torah does not have gradations of severity of sin. If you sin, you sin. It is all a violation of the covenant between God and His people.
Matthew
Torah does not have gradations of severity of sin. If you sin, you sin. It is all a violation of the covenant between God and His people.
Matthew
M
Manresa
Guest
I live in the Atlanta area and being a good Catholic 
I had to cross my self and say a guick Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for laughing at a slightly risque joke. The other day while listening to one of the Sports talk shows on the radio the host said, “Considering Michael Vick’s dismal performance over the last three seasons he’s lucky he wasn’t held up to the same standards he held those dogs to.”
I had to cross my self and say a guick Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for laughing at a slightly risque joke. The other day while listening to one of the Sports talk shows on the radio the host said, “Considering Michael Vick’s dismal performance over the last three seasons he’s lucky he wasn’t held up to the same standards he held those dogs to.”
- Status