animal gospel – christianity and animals… religion have a great influence on how we look at the...
TRANSCRIPT
ANIMAL GOSPEL –Christianity and animals…
Religion have a great influence on how we look at the world. It has even greater influence on the way our morality is constituted. Unfortunately in Christian theology our obligations towards animals
were never really, as most of us think, an important moral issue. Well, most of us are wrong then.
Here are some quotes from the most influential Christians,saints and theologians, about animal rights and vegetarianism.
About how we should treat our little brethren.
"The steam of Meat meals darkens the Spirit. One can hardly have virtue if one
enjoys Meat meals and feasts. In the Earthly Paradise, no one Sacrificed Animals, and no
one ate the Flesh of Animal Meat."
Saint Basil the Great (329-379)[Bishop of Caesarea, one of the "three Cappadocians”,
Doctor of the Church]
"Pain is pain, whether it is inflicted on man or on beast; and the creature that suffers it,
whether man or beast, being sensible of the misery of it whilst it lasts, suffers Evil…"Rev. Humphrey Primatt (1736-1779)
"Yet saddest of all fates, surely, is to have lost that sense of the holiness of life altogether; that we commit the blasphemy of bringing thousands of lives to a cruel and
terrifying death or of making those lives a living death -- and feel nothing."
Rev. Dr. John Austin Baker [Bishop of Salisbury]
“Animals should have the moral right to live as animals, and from this it is obvious that de-beaking them, confining them in close quarters, castrating them, cutting off their tails
and all the other forms of mutilation are immoral.”
Rev. Andrew Linzey
„The great discovery of the nineteenth century, that we are of one blood with the lower animals, has
created new ethical obligations which have not yet penetrated the public conscience. The clerical
profession has been lamentably remiss in preaching this obvious duty.”
Rev. William Ralph Inge (1860 - 1954)
"It is far better to be happy than to have your bodies act as graveyards for animals...The unnatural eating of flesh meats is as polluting as the heathen worship of devils, with its sacrifices and its impure feasts, through participation in it a man becomes a fellow eater with devils...Those who use the most frugal fare are the strongest,
the healthiest and the noblest...”
Saint Clement of Alexandria (150-215)
“It is in the battery shed that we find the parallel with Auschwitz....To shut your mind, heart and imagination from the sufferings of others is to begin slowly, but inexorably, to die. Those Christians who close their minds and hearts to the cause of animal welfare, and the evils it
seeks to combat, are ignoring the Fundamental spiritual teachings of Christ himself.”
Rev. Dr. John Austin Baker [Bishop of Salisbury]
“Animals as part of God’s creation, have rights which must be respected. It behoves us always to be sensitive to their needs and to the reality of pain.”
Donald Coggan [1909-2000]
[Archbishop of Canterbury]
„And God said, >>Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit.
You shall have them for food.<<”Genesis 1:29
“These medical and economic consideration mean, I believe, that the moral case for killing animals in order to eat them is radically reduced to situations on necessity. Once it is perceived
that satisfactory alternatives to animal protein exist, and the sufficiency plenteous to cope with the increased world demand for food, then vegetarianism becomes a moral necessity.”
Rev. Andrew Linzey
„The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and
the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
Isaiah 11:6-9
"The consumption of animal flesh was unknown up to the big flood, but since then we have had the fibers and stinking juices of animal flesh stuffed into our mouths, just as they threw in front of the grumbling sensual people in the desert. Jesus Christ, who
appeared when the time had been fulfilled, has again joined the end with the beginning, so that it is no longer allowed for us to eat animal flesh."
Saint Jerome (345-420)[translator of the Bible, Doctor of the Church]
„Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
Matthew 5:7
“The automated, institutionalized, routine destruction of billions of creatures every year, for food, for profit, for science and for sport, raises the question whether Christians have
lost their grasp for the reality of evil.”
Rev. Andrew Linzey
„Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees.” Revelation 7:3
„Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough.
We have a higher mission - to be of service to them wherever they require it.” Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
„Cruelty to animals is the degrading attitude of paganism.”
Cardinal Arthur Hinsley (1865-1943)
[Archbishop of Westminster]
“In my view, what we owe animals is more then equal consideration, equal treatment, or equal concern. The weak, the powerless, the disadvantaged, the oppressed should not
have equal moral priority but grater moral priority.”Rev. Andrew Linzey
„The saints are exceedingly loving and gentle to mankind, and even to brute beasts…
Surely we ought to show them [animals] great kindness and gentleness for many reasons, but, above all, because they are of the same
origin as ourselves.”
Saint John Chrysostom (345-407)[Greek patriarch, archbishop of Constantinople]
„The moral evils of a flesh diet are not less marked than are the physical ills. Flesh food is injurious to health, and whatever affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and the soul. Think of the cruelty to
animals meat-eating involves, and its effect on those who inflict and those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard those creatures of God!”
Ellen White [1827-1915]
[founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church]
„The righteous one regards the life of his animal but the heart of the wicked is without mercy.”
Proverbs 12:10
“[…] what rational grounds have we for supposing that animal suffering is not as important for the animals as human suffering is for humans?”
Rev. Andrew Linzey
„The brute animals have all the same sensations of pain as human beings, and consequently endure as much pain when their body is hurt; but in their case
the cruelty of torment is greater, because they have no mind to bear them up against their sufferings, and no hope to look forward to when enduring the last extreme pain.”
Rev. Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847)
[Scottish Presbyterian, Professor of Moral Philosophy St. Andrew’s Univ., Professor of Theology Edinburgh Univ., social reformer]
„If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men.”
Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)
„Cruelty to animals is as if man did not love God. Now what is it moves our very heart and sickens us so much as cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this: first, that they have
done us no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially
touching. There is something so dreadful, so Satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us, and who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly in our power.”
Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801 - 1890)
[Anglican priest who converted to Roman Catholicism, leader of the Anglican Oxford Movement, “Father of Vatican II”]
„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.”Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Oh, God, enlarge within us the sense of
fellowship with all living things; with our brothers the animals to whom Thou gavest the earth as
their home in common with us.We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth,
which should have gone up to Thee in song, has been a groan of travail.
May we realize that they live not for us alone, but for themselves, and for Thee, and that they
love the sweetness of life even as we, and serve Thee in their place better than we in ours."
Saint Basil the Great (329-379)[Bishop of Caesarea, one of the "three Cappadocians”,
Doctor of the Church]
„Creation was given and entrusted to humankind as a duty, representing not a source of suffering but the foundation of a creative existence in the world.”
Pope John Paul II
"The Bible's emphasis is on the good treatment of animals, and not just the forbidding of cruel treatment."
Rev. Billy Graham[spiritual adviser to multiple U.S. presidents and one of the most
admired people of the 20th century]
„At any rate, we can see that they [animals] are given into our care, that we cannot just do whatever we want with them. Animals, too, are God's creatures, and even if they do not
have the same direct relation to God that man has, they are creatures of his will, creatures we must respect as companions in creation and as important elements in the creation.”
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
„Man must never hurt animals, must never ill-treat them nor torture them physically because they are sensitive creatures. If anyone told me that to achieve my purpose
it would be sufficient to kill an ant, I would not do it.”
Pope John XXIII
“Animals are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God's sight. ...Christians whose eyes are fixed on the awfulness of crucifixion are in a special position to understand the awfulness of innocent
suffering. The Cross of Christ is God's absolute identification with the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable, but most of all with unprotected, undefended, innocent suffering.”
Rev. Andrew Linzey
„Whatever you do unto the least of my brothers, you do it unto me.”Matthew 25:40
That’s how it should be.That’s how it really is!
Can you call it mercy?
Can you call it kindness?
Can you call it compassion?
Can you call it affirmation?
Can you call it love?
Can you call it stewardship?
Can you call it Christ-like attitude?
Can you call it peaceful coexistence?
Yet all this happens hundreds of thousands of times everyday just
because of the simple fact that most of us eat meat.
You can reject this horrible reality, that totally negates respect
for God’s creation. Creation wanted and loved by Him.
PLEASE
GO VEG!!!
To find out more?Check:
• The Christian Vegetarian Association: http://www.all-creatures.org/cva/ • GoVeg: www.goveg.com• Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism • Vegan Outreach: http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/ • Animal Rights FAQ: http://www.animal-rights.com/arpage.htm• VeggieBoards: http://www.veggieboards.com/boards/index.php
