Carnivores and the Bible

PopeKyrillos

Hey everyone,

I just watched food inc in school and its simply disgusting. This isn't the first time I have been exposed to this problem- we watched the Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

People see the meatpacking industry as an issue today simply because we are feeding animals things they wouldn't normally eat. For example, Cows normally eat grass, but now, they eat corn- which is not a natural part of their diet. The Ecoli bacteria could be cut down by 80% if the farmer or producer fed their cow grass for five days before slaughter.

These are the main reasons why we are watching this: outbreaks of Ecoli and Salmonella everyday, genetic alterations, unhealthy meat etc.

However, my class doesn't care about all that stuff. We simply were quite disturbed watching pigs on the kill floor, chickens get their neck slit, and cows simply being dissected inhumanely. I just don't understand why God introduced meat into our diets. He was the first one to kill an animal in the Old Testament when he made clothes for Adam and Eve. If you could look at a kill floor and not feel any emotion to the animals being killed, I think thats beyond inhumane. These animals are screaming and scared out of their minds, and we just don't care. I don't understand... How could the life-giver KILL? I love eating meat but seeing how emotional animals are makes me feel like something is wrong with this. It makes me doubt my faith completely. I dont understand why Jesus says that it is lawful for us to eat anything? These animals don't have spirits, so they will not have eternal life, but don't they have the same emotions that we possess on earth? 

If you have no idea what im talking about, check this out. Look at the pigs... Listen to their screams. They have emotions, no?



PK

TITL

The largest slaughter house is in North Carolina? I thought it would be in China.

These animals don't have spirits. God created them for us. Not us for them.
Everything on Earth is for our use. We use it to live and Glorify God.

servant33

I heard that some people say before man sinned, all animals were herbivores - none ate meat. But I dunno where that idea comes from.

As for God killing in the OT, in a Bible Study we talked about how death / sacrifice is always the payment for sin. Like the "wages of sin is death" and Jesus's death as the ultimate sacrifice. God killing the animals to make clothes for Adam and Eve is just another example of how sin is always accompanied by / paid for by death.

PopeKyrillos

[quote author=TITL link=topic=10189.msg124517#msg124517 date=1292365730]
The largest slaughter house is in North Carolina? I thought it would be in China.

These animals don't have spirits. God created them for us. Not us for them.
Everything on Earth is for our use. We use it to live and Glorify God.






This seems horrible, im sorry. It just doesn't justify the pain that animals endure being slaughtered, just so we can fulfill our selfish desires to eat meat. And yes, man was a herbivore before the fall of Adam, but still. It doesn't make sense that God himself would kill. That's just a disturbing thought.

PK 

jydeacon

[quote author=PopeKyrillos link=topic=10189.msg124520#msg124520 date=1292367546]
[quote author=TITL link=topic=10189.msg124517#msg124517 date=1292365730]
The largest slaughter house is in North Carolina? I thought it would be in China.

These animals don't have spirits. God created them for us. Not us for them.
Everything on Earth is for our use. We use it to live and Glorify God.






This seems horrible, im sorry. It just doesn't justify the pain that animals endure being slaughtered, just so we can fulfill our selfish desires to eat meat. And yes, man was a herbivore before the fall of Adam, but still. It doesn't make sense that God himself would kill. That's just a disturbing thought.

PK 


The wage of sin is death. As stated before, if we didn't die something else had to. Thats why sacrifices were instated by God. This killing of the first animal to cover adam and eve's nakedness(sin) was a prototype of Christ. As said by TITL, they do not have spirits and the animals were created for us not us for them.

PopeKyrillos

So this refers to their sacrifice in the old testament. how about todays carnivorous habits? We still eat meat because of our sin?

peterfarrington

Some folk I know used to have a smallholding (in the US) and had a herd of rare sheep.

When they came to slaughter any of the lambs my friend was very serious and prayerful because he appreciated that he was taking the life of an animal. I believe that he conducted the process as carefully and quietly as possible so as to cause each animal the very least amount of stress possible. And he would be away by himself for the rest of the day because of the seriousness of what he had done.

The problem seems to me to be our mass produced, industrialised processing of meat. It is something we need to consider. It is no longer the case that generally the meat we eat has been raised on a local farm, slaughtered on a local farm, and then butchered on a local farm. I know that some members of my own congregation have become vegetarians. And I don't like red meat very much at all.

It is not surprising that we such increases in cancers and other such diseases when the food we eat, and the conditions in which we live, are so industrialised and additive filled. This is one benefit of the Orthodox tradition of fasting. We are, to some extent, able to step aside from the diet of death that we are being force fed in the West.

Father Peter

geomike

Well, the poster before me obviously can't code in Java for his life. I am getting tired of your kind of people advertising, i have been holding back myself from unleashing my email spammer which will overload the space available in your inbox in a matter of 2 - 3 hours(30,000 - 40,000 emails). Please don't come here again. As you may have realized there are severe consequences to your actions. I promise you, if you do this again, i will not hold myself back from hammering your email.



Father Peter here is yet another spammer. You have a very busy job on this site lol.

TITL

Please do it geomike.

geomike

He didn't post again, so his email will remain "unhammered" as i promised.

epchois_nai_nan

That's such an interesting question! The way I see it, there are two ways to approach it:

1) Animals aren't actually conscious (TITL's view). In this view, animals are only machines, and even though their screams are very emotionally affecting to us (since we usually associate screams like that with HUMAN suffering), they are actually nothing more than a sort of 'alarm system', a survival mechanism which would warn the rest of the herd if one animal came into danger. By this definition, you can't say that animals feel emotion, because there is no consciousness present to actually 'be afraid' or 'be suffering'. In this case, God's request that we kill animals under special circumstances (humanely of course) is not immoral at all, because there is no 'real' suffering actually taking place - it would be much the same as hacking up a tractor with an axe.

2) Animals have some sort of spirit or soul (Fr. Peter's friend's view). If animals do have some sort of spiritual/eternal aspect, then upon their deaths, they would simply return to their Creator, where they would be 'repaid' for all their suffering, exactly like all the humans who have wrongly suffered in life. In mathematics, any number divided by infinity is equal to 0, and similarly, all their suffering when compared to an eternity with God becomes completely insignificant.

Personally, I'm not entirely sure which view I side with (although I'm leaning strongly towards the second one). What I think is fairly clear is that God has put animals on the Earth to play out several spiritual metaphors which help us understand our spiritual circumstances better - e.g. redemption from sin by sacrificing lambs in the OT, corruption of the universe through the consumption of meat etc. For these metaphors to work, suffering is essential. The practice of sacrificing a lamb for the forgiveness of sin would completely lose its meaning if the animal did not have to die, because the whole point of Old Testament animal sacrifice is to communicate the negative, deadly consequences of sin.

So my point is that God only asks us to kill animals in these specific circumstances (food or sacrifice) because they were placed on Earth for precisely this purpose. Whether the animal can feel pain or not is irrelevant, because if they are spiritual in nature, then God will 're-imburse' them with an eternity of communion with Him, or if they are not spiritual, then they are simply machines and cannot be said to have 'suffered' in the first place. Either way, I think you can conclude that God comes out clean - there is no need to be disillusioned with God over this issue.

Anyway, that's my 2c worth - sorry for the length, I found this topic a lot more interesting than I thought I would :) Hope that helps

PFM

mabsoota

i think they don't have souls, but they have feelings (pain, fear, contentment etc).
they don't have complex feelings, like being worried about getting spots before a big party (sorry couldn't think of a more serious example!).
if we eat meat, we should ensure the animal is killed quickly and with minimal suffering.
eg. i don't eat veal or goose liver pate or battery farm chicken/eggs.
as it is nearly Christmas (i may have said this before but really getting excited now it is about 7 days left!) we should take care not to stuff ourselves with loads of meat at Christmas, but use it sparingly (so like not every day). God has permitted us to eat meat, but He does not want us to be gluttons.
i like father peter's idea of eating meat that comes from a farm we can trust. people in richer countries eat way too much meat.
btw it is not the meat i am craving, it's the lovely white stuff (i can't say the name when fasting as i just have to blank it out in order to keep the fast)!

peterfarrington

I don't think animals have souls either, but I do think that they have simple thoughts, feelings, pain, comfort, hunger etc.

My own dog can become afraid, but he can also be happy and comfortable.

Industrial meat production is not healthy for us. But it is hard to escape. Eating much less meat but of better quality is perhaps the only way.

Father Peter