Christianity and Vegetarianism

Introduction

Many Christians seem to turn a blind eye to the suffering of animals that is inflicted by humans. Sure, they are generally kind and caring people, who may love their dog or cat, but they do not seem to be at all concerned about the plight of the pigs, chickens, sheep and cows that they themselves eat.

It is difficult to understand why Christians, who generally consider themselves to be compassionate and caring, are not concerned about the suffering of these animals. On one hand they teach about a loving, compassionate, merciful God, but they contribute to so much unnecessary misery and suffering in their own lives. Here we try to explore the issues of Christianity and Vegetarianism on this page.

Animals have Souls?

One widespread rationalization in Christian circles, often used to justify humanity’s mistreatment of animals, is the erroneous belief that humans alone possess immortal souls, and only humans, therefore, are worthy of moral consideration. The 19th century German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, condemned such a philosophy in his On the Basis of Morality.

“Because Christian morality leaves animals out of account,” wrote Schopenhauer, “they are at once outlawed in philosophical morals; they are mere ‘things,’ mere means to any ends whatsoever. They can therefore be used for vivisection, hunting, coursing, bullfights, and horse racing, and can be whipped to death as they struggle along with heavy carts of stone. Shame on such a morality that is worthy of pariahs, and that fails to recognize the eternal essence that exists in every living thing, and shines forth with inscrutable significance from all eyes that see the sun!”

What does Bible say in this regards? Lets analyse.

St Francis and Animals

Most intriguing of all great apostles is St. Francis because many of the stories that surround the life of St. Francis deal with his love for animals. He not just saw that animals are living entities with Soul, he went a step ahead and did preach to them as well. Here are three accounts of such interaction.

Thou Shall not Kill

One of the Ten Commandments by Moses. But remains the most misunderstood one as well. For some its Thou shall not Murder. Another convenient misinterpretation by deceptive ideologues. According to Reuben Alcalay, one of the twentieth century’s great linguistic scholars and author of The Complete Hebrew-English Dictionary, the commandment refers to “any kind of killing whatsoever.” The original Hebrew, he says, is Lo tirtzakh, which asks us to refrain from killing in toto. If what he says is true, we can analyze the commandment as follows: “Thou shalt not” needs no interpretation. The controversial word is “kill,” commonly defined as (1) to deprive of life; (2) to put an end to; (3) to destroy the vital or essential quality of. If anything that has life can be killed, an animal can be killed as well; according to this commandment, then, the killing of animals is forbidden. More

Scholars view

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. Andew Linzey, Professor of Theology, Oxford University

To me, vegetarianism is fundamental to compassion, and I personally believe that a loving and compassionate God would prefer humans to be vegetarian, especially these days, and especially when it is better for our health, is less wasteful of resources, and is more sustainable for the beautiful planet that He has created.
- Rev David Ogilvie

Vedic Observer

In Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says

sarva-yoniṣu kaunteya mūrtayaḥ sambhavanti yāḥ
tāsāḿ brahma mahad yonir ahaḿ bīja-pradaḥ pitā

It should be understood that all species of life, O son of Kuntī, are made possible by birth in this material nature, and that I am the seed-giving father. - BG14.4

All living entities have soul and the soul transmigrates from one body to another. So no one can kill an animal and escape the sin associated with it. So to conclude Jesus Christ did practice and preach love towards all the creatures and did not advocate their large scale mechanized murder and consumption of meat.

Compiled by LNDAS

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Introduction

Animals are intelligent beings with varying levels of cognizance and intelligent choice making capability endowed by the creator for their sustenance. There have been umpteen number of experiments done on monkeys and rats and this is a well established fact. Here is another one which proves each species of animals have unique traits that nature has provided for their survival. Although this maynot make them as smart as humans they does prove a point that they are conscious living entity.

Cows can find North

Somehow, cattle seem to know how to find north and south, say researchers who studied satellite photos of thousands of cows around the world.

Most cattle that were grazing or resting tended to align their bodies in a north-south direction, a team of German and Czech researchers reports in Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And the finding held true regardless of what continent the cattle were on, according to the study led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

“The magnetic field of the Earth has to be considered as a factor,” the scientists said.

This challenges scientists to find out why and how these animals align to the magnetic field, Begall said in an interview via e-mail.

“Of course, the question arises whether humans show also such a spontaneous behaviour,” she added.

The study sent Tina Hinchley, who with her husband Duane operates a dairy farm in the state of Wisconsin, to take a new look at an aerial photo taken of their farm a few years ago.

“The cows that were in the pasture were all over the place,” she reported. “Only about two-thirds were north-south,” she reported.

Two-thirds is close to what the researchers found in their look at 8,510 cattle in 308 pastures. In the study, 60 percent to 70 percent of cattle were oriented north-south, which Begall termed a “highly significant deviation from random distribution.”

Hinchley stressed that one factor that needs to be considered is cow comfort.

“They don’t like to get hot. Their body temperature is 102, (34 Celsius) and they are wearing black leather jackets, literally! If turning north-south would keep them cooler, they would stand that way.”

The research team noted that in very windy conditions cattle tend to face the wind, and have been known to seek out the sun on cold days. But they said they were able to discount weather affects in the study by analyzing clues such as the position of the sun based on shadows.

“This is a surprising discovery,” said Kenneth J. Lohmann of the biology department at the University of North Carolina. “Nothing like this has been observed before in cattle or in any large animal.”

However Lohmann, who was not part of the research team, cautioned that “the study is based entirely on correlations.

To demonstrate conclusively that cattle have a magnetic sense, some kind of experimental manipulation will eventually be needed.”

Joseph L. Kirschvink of the California Institute of Technology said he wondered if fences around the pastures could affect cattle orientation.
Passive alignment

Passive alignment of animals to magnetic fields has been reported in honeybees and termites, he noted. It requires some type of special sensory organ to detect the magnetic field.

“If they have evidence suggesting that mammals are using magnetic fields to orient their movements, this is very cool,” said Mark A. Willis, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Willis, who was not part of the research team, added, “We have only in the last few years begun to understand the mechanisms underlying magnetic field orientation in birds and other smaller animals.” — AP
Source

Plants can feel too

The Debate over whether plants have feelings is about to be reopened with the publication of research by scientists in Italy and Germany. Their findings suggest that plants under threat can marshal a positively devilish measure of cunning. They communicate the danger to plants nearby; and also call in help from other creatures.

Biologists at the University of Turin and the Max Planck Institute in Jena were yesterday reported to have found evidence that plants sensed — and reacted to — the presence of hungry, leaf-chomping grubs. Their response was to emit an odour similar to lavender. This alerted other plants to the presence of a predator.But it also served to call in what modern military planners would term air support. Wasps, the natural enemies of grubs, were drawn by the odour to the plant where they either devoured the grub or injected it with eggs that later killed it.

The bulk of the 3-year project was devoted to studying Lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus), native of central and south America. But according to a report by the Italian daily La Republica researchers elicited similar reactions from maize, from the plant that yields cranberry or borlotti beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and from other species.

The findings of their joint project are to be published in Plant Physiology, a review of the American Society of Plant Biologists. Not the least intriguing question raised by the study is whether, at the start of the process they describe, there is something that can be termed fear. The debate began in 1966 when a lie detector expert, Cleve Backster, connected a plant to a polygraph. He said the machine registered changes as soon as he began to contemplate burning the plant’s leaves.

Vedic Observer

According to Vedas all living entities have a subtle body other than the physical body consisting of Mind, Intelligence and the sense of Identification. They may be differ in capability from one species to another and even amongst the same species at lesser degrees. And when we talk of living we mean that they have a spirit soul that is non material and hence do not obey the physical laws known to us.
The Bhagavad Gita deals extensively in the subject of soul, mind and intelligence. For example BG 3.42 says The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence.

So the Christians concept of animals and plants being devoid of soul is insane. On research this concept seems to have been introduced by historical compulsions by deceptive Church people in connivance with the ruling elite.

References

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