The Slaughtering of Animals in Factories. Moral dilemmas in the modern world

[vern_humphrey]

springbreeze:

There is one teaching of St Paul that I set great store by, that those who preach and teach much are not only held by what they teach but also held to a higher degree for their intervention in others souls. If you cannot be 100% sure of the facts and you cannot on a THEORY, then I would simply say that you don’t think IN YOUR OPINION based on a THEORY that animals go to heaven, but you do not KNOW for sure and therefore prudence would dictate that we are kind and loving to animals. Just as I have said that I do not know, but I am not closed minded in the possibility that animals may be re-created to make a share in salvation purely because God created them and loves them to a degree proclaiming their good.

In a debate like this, you must take your target audience into account. For those who are already conscious of their responsibilities, no debate is needed.

But for those who are not, persuasion is required. If the basis of your argument is unorthodox and not generally accepted, you will fail to persuade.

That’s why I say those who argue animals go to heaven do themselves a disservice.

 

[springbreeze]

vern humphrey:

In a debate like this, you must take your target audience into account. For those who are already conscious of their responsibilities, no debate is needed.

But for those who are not, persuasion is required. If the basis of your argument is unorthodox and not generally accepted, you will fail to persuade.

That’s why I say those who argue animals go to heaven do themselves a disservice.

Dear friend

It is up to you what you believe, there is no solemn doctrine on this, we are not told that there is no possibility that God will not, if HE so wills, re-create creatures of every kind in Heaven. Just like it is up to you whether you accept evolution or not, the Church has not in this case either, given firm answer. However it leans towards the fact under many scientific discoveries that Evolution is the most intellectually acceptable explanation for how God brought about creation and ultimately climaxing in the creation of one man and one woman, by evolution. To think we evolved form those awful created creatures called animals, that must be very upsetting for some people!

Why don’t you ask an apologist?

What I see here is not persuasion, it is intellectual bullying based on a theory. What people are doing here is saying they KNOW when they do not and cannot know.

So you don’t want animals in heaven, for some reason it upsets you, but you cannot decide for God, nor can I and this is what I see people doing here deciding for themselves based on theories and then spouting it as fact, when it is NOT fact, it is theory and further to this not satisfied with doing that, they then have to attack the very character of those who do not agree with them, they even stoop to attacking the of faith others, now there is no charity, love or kindness in that at all and for people who do that, well they do themselves a huge dis-service!

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[springbreeze]

Dear friends

And after all this intellectual running around the houses, it still does not excuse the fact of our stewardship, that remains and ALL people will be held accountable for their treatment of God’s creation.

Moral issues in the modern world as regards animals? From what I see there are huge moral issues, huge ramifications and a people who treat it as nothing and expendable!

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[vern_humphrey]

springbreeze:

It is up to you what you believe, there is no solemn doctrine on this,

The problem is when you base your argument on this, those who don’t accept the basis don’t accept the argument.

 

[vern_humphrey]

springbreeze:

Dear friends

And after all this intellectual running around the houses, it still does not excuse the fact of our stewardship, that remains and ALL people will be held accountable for their treatment of God’s creation.

Bingo!

NOW you have a sound basis for your position. I don’t have to believe animals have immortal souls to accept that I have a duty as steward of God’s creation.

 

[springbreeze]

vern humphrey:

The problem is when you base your argument on this, those who don’t accept the basis don’t accept the argument.

Dear friend

There is no solemn doctrine, it is not error to believe there is a possibility of animals being re-created in heaven, it is not error to believe they do not go to heaven. Therefore it can and truly can, be said that you can choose to believe that animals do go to heaven or they do not go to heaven and the choice is down to each soul as they are so convicted by the Holy Spirit.

What cannot be said is what has been said in this thread, that there is no possibility and theory preached carte blanche as fact, when not one soul knows. This is what has driven me to return and keep replying in this thread, theory is never fact and the Church has not said it is FACT.

There is a fact that remains however, we are stewards and as stewards we cannot be hard of heart towards animals, simply treating them as a meaningless commodity without provision for their comfort and well-being even if a given animal will be killed for food purposes. There are no excuses.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[Contarini]

Fergal:

I have promised animal rights activists and I promise them again that when the world finally decides to stop slaughtering the young child in the womb, I will then give all my energy to their efforts.

Until then; sorry I simply can’t reconcile giving it any time at all.

But what if it’s not an either/or? What if a failure to respect all life (in the degree it demands) hurts the prolife cause generally? I don’t think this is hypothetical. I think it’s obviously true. Just as you use the abortion issue to justify ignoring the suffering of animals, so liberals use your callous attitude toward animals to “prove” that prolife people are hypocrites. That is of course silly and itself hypocritical, but you’re really asking for that kind of smokescreen when you set the two issues up against each other like that.

Edwin

 

[stanley123]

mosher:

… St. Thomas is very rarely if ever wrong.

Would you say that St., Thomas Aquinas did not err in his views on women, and that the views he held and expressed on women were correct?

 

[stanley123]

springbreeze:

So you don’t want animals in heaven, for some reason it upsets you, but you cannot decide for God, …

In the apology forum Michelle Arnold has written:
“As animals are part of the “visible universe,” it seems possible that they too might share “their glorification in the risen Jesus Christ.” It might be possible that God might also re-create those animals who have been a pleasure and comfort to man in his earthly journey. We don’t know in this life, but it is something for which we can hope.”
Apparently she says we can hope for animals in heaven???
Personally, I would hope not. I have been trying to sleep at night, and the next door dog is barking all the time, keeping me awake. Also, it is hard for me to concentrate on what I am reading with all this barking going on. Further, if I am coming back home, as I am walking to the door, the dog barks viciously and looks like he is about to attack. Further, I have been severely bitten in the leg by a dog as I was riding my bicycle. I wonder if it would be better to stay in a Limbo without vicious animals, rather than to be put in a heaven with this type of vicious animals, ready to attack you at any time.
I notice that Michelle says that we can hope for these animals to be heaven? I wonder if this signals that the RCC is now changing its mind on whether or not animals will be in heaven. They have changed so many other teachings, such as on slavery, or on capital punishment, or on what is required for annulments.

 

[vern_humphrey]

springbreeze:

There is no solemn doctrine, it is not error to believe there is a possibility of animals being re-created in heaven, it is not error to believe they do not go to heaven.

The error is in using that theory to bolster your point about being humane to animals.

If you want to convince people who don’t agree on your MAIN point, base it on something everyone can agree on – like our duty to be stewards of God’s creation.

 

[aurora77]

vern humphrey:

That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you – your actions finance things like “factory farms.”

Actually, they don’t. If you’d read my last posts, you’d know that. I don’t eat meat; I only buy milk from a local, small farm. I buy animal free soaps, shampoos, etc.

I guess I still have my original question. If we’re not allowed to to pass moral judgements without experience, then I actually have to kill a person before I know that’s wrong. I have to be in a homosexual relationship before I can judge that?

 

[seeker63]

Am I projecting, Vern? No, not at all. I think I’ve been very consistent. But I’ve taken great interest in the way certain people have tried to dismiss my opinion by hook or crook.

 

[seeker63]

troll,* n*.,-- An individual who chronically trolls…;regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to
annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by
the fact that the have no real interest in learning about the topic
at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly
creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming
characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, “Oh, ignore him, he’s just a troll.”

dictionary.reference.com/search?q=troll

 

[springbreeze]

Adonis33:

Animals lack reason - and free will.

Tree’s and insects also did not cause the fall. So they have souls too?

Dear friend

Everything that lives and moves and has a being has so in God and therefore has a soul. No soul on earth is like that of the human soul, the human is created in the Image of God, set apart as the height of creation. This height of creation, man, is truly made in the Image of God, we were given much so as to exercise the Image of God within us, to love each other, to love God and to love creation and be stewards of it as God is Supreme Steward and Creator of all of Creation, so we partook in His likeness, partaking in creating and stewardship, so as the uncreated, the pure Spirit, God, is shepherd of the spiritual created and materially created, the spiritual created is shepherd of the spiritually created and the materially created and as such the life of the spiritual created soul is intimately united to God in the created and in the spiritual. The height of creation that betrayed God and the rest of creation at the fall and all of creation now suffers the fall in this broken world because of Man’s sin such was the partaking in man’s stewardship of God’s creation, that sin of pride that man himslef would like to be as God knowing good and evil. Well we can truly say, we now know good and evil in every aspect of our lives, but truly we are not our own god.

What St Thomas has concluded by intellecual deduction is that souls created in the Image of God can in, by and through Christ Jesus go to heaven,. because their soul is spiritual and animals because they possess a material soul do not go to heaven.

I disagree and I am free to disagree because even though St Thomas concluded this, it is not taught carte blanche infallible as Church Doctrine.

I disagree for many reasons, one of them being that all creatures lived in union with God in, by and through Man’s union with God and union with God is heaven. When man as steward fell from union with God through sin, so did all of creation, since Christ Jesus reconciles all things in, by and through Himself all things are reconciled to God and this must be completed by man’s return to God and repentance, by man partaking in his own salvation and therefore as steward reconciling within himself all that is entrusted to him by God.

Animals have no free-will, they worship God by their very being, but their nature is broken even though they are capable of no sin, it is ourselves that are responible for the salvation of all that is entrusted to us, our own souls, each other and all of the created material world of which none is possible without God’s grace.

Christ Jesus is not simply Saviour of humanity, He is Saviour of the World, of all creation, He is the Light of the World. Our betrayal of this was most profound, not simply because we brought about our own demise, but also the demise of all creation and ultimately offended God. We in this original sin, rejected all that was gifted to us, we fractured our relationship with God, with each other and with creation, of which prior to the fall all was most intimately woven in Love with the Creator, our Truine God.

Our stewardship may not be seen merely as a hired hand, we are the shepherds of what we have been set over and we must not abandon it. Our responsibility is not merely to save our own souls, but those of other people by prayer and sacrifice as well as the whole of creation. If this is the case, and I believe it to be so, then even though those souls of animals and all other creatures are of material value, their value exists in our stewardship and the responsibility that lies therein and by God’s grace our merit will win for us, not only our own personal salvation, but the salvation of others by God’s grace and the salvation of the whole of creation.

That is the weight of sin, that is what our Lord bore, the Salvation of the World, the world upon Himself in one glorious, blessed and brutal Cross.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[vern_humphrey]

aurora77:

Actually, they don’t. If you’d read my last posts, you’d know that. I don’t eat meat; I only buy milk from a local, small farm. I buy animal free soaps, shampoos, etc.

And the farms on which the cotton for your clothes was grown, the ingredients for your “animal free” soaps, shampoos, etc., the vegetables you eat?

What happened to the wild animals that used to live in the forest that used to cover those farms?

aurora77:

I guess I still have my original question. If we’re not allowed to to pass moral judgements without experience, then I actually have to kill a person before I know that’s wrong. I have to be in a homosexual relationship before I can judge that?

The example I just gave above makes my point. If I kill and eat a deer, there will be another deer living in that same patch of woods next year.

But if I bulldoze those woods to grow cotton for your clothes was grown, the ingredients for your “animal free” soaps, shampoos, etc., the vegetables you eat, there will never be a deer living on that ground again.

With experience, you would know that. Without it, you have to be told. And being untold, you subsidize the bulldozing of deer habitat.

 

[stanley123]

springbreeze:

What St Thomas has concluded by intellecual deduction is that souls created in the Image of God can in, by and through Christ Jesus go to heaven,. because their soul is spiritual and animals because they possess a material soul do not go to heaven.

I disagree and I am free to disagree because even though St Thomas concluded this, it is not taught carte blanche infallible as Church Doctrine.

I disagree for many reasons, one of them being that all creatures lived in union with God in, by and through Man’s union with God and union with God is heaven.

Will all animals go to heaven, in your view, or only some?
If not all, then which ones will it be?
I was hoping for a bit of rest when I pass. But if there are going to be these vicious attack dogs in the afterlife, how will that give anyone any rest or peace? Also, what about the pitbull dogs that we are reading about, the ones that have attacked children?

 

[vern_humphrey]

seeker63:

Am I projecting, Vern? No, not at all. I think I’ve been very consistent. But I’ve taken great interest in the way certain people have tried to dismiss my opinion by hook or crook.

I look at how you treat other people’s opinions.
First you say:

If I thought for one second that the Catholic Church was so hard-hearted and legalistic as to officially declare that there was no way innocent animals were allowed in heaven, then I would immediately renounce my Catholic faith for one more in line with mercy, kindness, and love.

But I know that it’ll never happen. I’m more confident of some things held by faith than I am in man’s arrogant “answers.”

I will say that had I encountered the posturing, preening, snotty side of the Church before I converted, I might not have ever done so.

And then:

The vehemence some people on this thread have used ininsisting that there is absolutely no way God could include animals in his plans of heaven, and their disingenuous claims that they are being so insistent only for the good of others, is what keeps upsetting me and keeps me in the argument.

And then you say:

Has anyone else noticed how, subtly or otherwise, anyone who disgrees with a few of the bullies on this thread they are painted as hippies, New Agers, tree-huggers, liberals, and radical environmentalists, and that once so labelled, their arguments are dismissed as those of ignorant children?

 

[springbreeze]

stanley123:

Will all animals go to heaven, in your view, or only some?
If not all, then which ones will it be?
I was hoping for a bit of rest when I pass. But if there are going to be these vicious attack dogs in the afterlife, how will that give anyone any rest or peace? Also, what about the pitbull dogs that we are reading about, the ones that have attacked children?

Dear friend

Why should you desire to rest when you pass? I don’t understand that, I hope to pray for all eternity and work for God, well anyway, that’s besides the point.

You’re scared of animals, they attack because they are scared of you, they are scared of you because trust is broken and your trust is broken in them, the relationship between all things is broken, fractured by man’s sin, period, but reconciled in Christ Jesus.

There is nothing harmful in Heaven to anyone. Heaven is perfect union with God by His grace alone. Consider the fact that a serial murderer may enter heaven and this is likely the case by the grace, mercy and forgiveness of God, you have no need to be afraid in heaven of an ex-serial murderer as you will have no need to be afraid of a vicious dog say, because God’s purification will restore all things.

‘All former things will be forgotten’…and ‘every tear will be wiped away’

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[stanley123]

springbreeze:

Dear friend

Why should you desire to rest when you pass? …

I desire peace and quiet, because I don;t get it now, with the dogs barking all night long. I was hoping that heaven might be a little better than it is here, with the neighbor’s dogs growling and barking and threatening to attack me at any time when I walk in the neighborhood. And the dogs biting at my legs, when I go for a bike ride?

Apparently, you and Michelle Arnold are hoping for animals in heaven. I don;t see how this could be. First of all, would it be all of the animals, or just some of them? And which ones would be chosen if it were not all of them? I don’t know why anyone would want pitbull dogs in heaven. Haven’t they attacked innocent children? I know that some cities ban the pitbull dogs. Now you and Michelle Arnold are hoping to find pit bull dogs in heaven? This doesn’t make much sense to me, really.

 

[Sean_Boyle]

You have got to be kinding me…!!!

Your pet cat is going to heaven and has been saved by Jesus the Christ through you and your faith???

The Church only makes infalliable declarations when there is confusion among the lucid faithful. You are kinding yourself if you think everthing must be spelled out in the law of the Church that we believe. Would you like me to start a list of things the Church hasn’t infalliable defined: things that you probably believe?

Disproving someone personal opinions is not the Church’s job.

Guiding the community to lead a life that is PLEASING to God and FOR God in the TRUTH is the Church’s job!!!

The Church can not and will not make an infallable declarations on ever little dispute that come down through the centuries. The Church assumes that from time to time, its member are bright enough to know heresay when it is taught or even proposed.

No one here has said that they believe in killing animals for fun or without good reason. Food and clothing are good reasons according to the bible. Why are you still debating something that no sane person would agree to do. No one wants to be cruel to animals.

Who among the people that think animal are going to heaven, has used rat poison, used bug spray of any kind, mouse traps (live traps or not, both steal the mouses rights to live) who drives down the road and has bug hit the windsheld, or accidently step on ant or any other bug while walking in the woods. Who amoung us has a house or dwelling which displaces animals in there natural habitat.

All of us!!! Can anyone say that they have never caused and animal a horrible inconvience. Or even death. NO. Most all of you have been a party the the horrible death of animal at one time or another.