Posted on 04/20/2009 11:55:12 AM PDT by Chet 99
There is a difference between a single clean blow with a sledgehammer and beating the animal to death.
There was nothing in my statement that made it equivalent. I merely put the two in the same sentence.
I do not have a problem with animal experimentation for human benefit, in the hopes that it is done as humanely as possible.
The unborn is top priority for me.
This is a complete red herring. I believe homosexuality is evil, a sin. I also believe in treating homosexuals with love, respect, dignity and kindness. Both beliefs are what God requires of me, just as he requires me to be a good steward of his creation and treat the living things he created with respect. The Bible is not silent on the treatment of animals or their value in God's eyes. I refer you to Proverbs 12:10, Exodus 23:5 and 23:12, Deuteronomy 25:4, Jonah 4:11 and Luke 12:6. The animals sacrificed under the Old Testament Jewish law were killed humanely.
Your arguments are, frankly, pitiful.
That said, none of these references says that it is sinful to beat your animal (ox or otherwise) or kill it, but one does say a righteous man cares for his own animal while another says God notes all animals.
However, God didn't care about the animals not owned by His people:
Joshua 6:21 - They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
No animal has a soul; however, all animals are creations of God or are allowed to exist by God, just as rats and such, which we apparently have no issue with killing, even though they are not something we eat or offer to God.
If someone chose to kill a person “humanely,” would that be any better than being killed in a different way, when both ways leave you without life you would otherwise have?
We are not responsible for the behavior of others, but we are to help them change their ways to accept Christ to then seek to glorify God.
For those interested in the references Dan offered:
Proverbs 12:10 - A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.
Exodus 23:5 - If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.
Exodus 23:12 - Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest and the slave born in your household, and the alien as well, may be refreshed.
Det. 25:4 - Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.
Jonah 4:11 - But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?
Luke 12:6 - Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies[a]? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.
Your assertion that God doesn't care about the animals not owned by his people is disproved by the passage in Jonah which I already cited. This doesn't mean that God doesn't sometimes prioritize other things higher than his care for his animal creations, as he did in the instance in Joshua which you quoted.
It's true that I have no issue with killing rats when necessary for the greater good of protecting human beings. I do want them killed as humanely as possible, however.
Your question about the killing of human beings is another non sequitur, much like your tangent about homosexuality. Murder is always wrong, regardless of the method. Killing animals is not always wrong, and nobody has argued otherwise. The issue is whether the Bible has something to say about the manner in which they are killed and the way they are treated while they are alive.
I have no idea what the point of your remark about responsibility for the behavior of others was supposed to be.
If God desired the wholesale slaughter of animals, which themselves cannot be sinful, then someone not in God can kill his own animals in his own way, too.
Killing some animals for “the greater good” is still killing His animals at our whim. I would suggest this reasoning should also hold with humans as a rule. Animals have no rights, but people do. Animals have no souls, but people do. God held out hope for Nineveh because of the souls (human) He wanted to save there, not because of the animals, but He saw the animals as giving life to whomever would be saved, as he saved only one helpful, righteous person in my Joshua reference while killing all the animals.
The logical end of your reasoning is that someone not in God can do anything they want and no one has any authority to stop them. Obviously, this would make any sort of government or order impossible.
"Killing some animals for 'the greater good' is still killing His animals at our whim"
No, it's killing them based on our best judgment, informed by his word and our knowledge of what he values, in keeping with the mandates he gave us.
"God held out hope for Nineveh because of the souls (human) He wanted to save there, not because of the animals, but He saw the animals as giving life to whomever would be saved"
The verse isn't about God holding out hope for Nineveh. The verse has God expressing his desire to preserve Nineveh because of the lives of the people and animals in it. This exchange between Jonah and God takes place after the people of the city repent. It is no longer a matter of God merely holding out hope for saving Nineveh; Nineveh has been saved, and now God is explaining why he wanted it saved: namely, because of the lives of the people and animals in it. There is nothing in the text to support your assertion that God valued the animals only in so far as they were useful to human beings.
You seem to be not very adept at arguing about scripture. You have appealed to two irrelevant passages as evidence for your position, and when multiple passages which contradict your view were produced in response to your challenge to produce them, you selectively responded to only one of the passages cited with totally unsupported eisigesis. Not very impressive.
Ridiculous! God's Laws are not the laws of government. I think you would find that atheists follow the government's laws. I'm saying that those not in God don't have to follow God's laws, but obviously you, me, and atheists would agree government's laws should be followed. You need to examine how you extrapolate because you don't seem very adept at it.
Where does it say we are to use “our best judgment” to kill animals in your verses or any others? What if people are not in Christ, do they use their “best judgment” without God, or do you impose your belief of what God wants on their ownership of personal property?
Please tell us, then, oh great biblical scholar, why God ordered all of the animals killed in Jericho but he didn't want that in Nineveh? Just as I am surmising why one godless city was destroyed (well, there was Sodom and Gomorrah, too) with all the animals within (notice how there were either no or only one righteous persons in each of those cities) while another with many who repented was saved (along with all of their animals)?
My Biblical references are just a pertinent as are yours offered to date, however, my arguments seem more based in logic.
So let me get this straight. You challenge people to show you were God states he is against animal cruelty, then when someone does so, you say it doesn't matter that God is against it because people not in God don't have to follow his laws? What was the point of your challenge?
"Where does it say we are to use 'our best judgment' to kill animals in your verses or any others?"
When the Bible discusses animals and the killing of animals in particular and man's relationship to God's creation in nature in general, it makes it very clear that all of God's creation, including animals, has value in his eyes and our role is one of stewardship - which is a role which requires judgment, and certainly does not entail doing things "on a whim." The Bible gave man the authority to kill animals to provide for his needs, not out of caprice.
"Please tell us, then, oh great biblical scholar, why God ordered all of the animals killed in Jericho but he didn't want that in Nineveh?"
The animals in Jericho were killed because God was not allowing the Israelites to take spoils from the peoples they conquered during this period, as he wanted Israel to understand that they were being used to punish the wickedness of the pagan nations and prevent the conquest from being driven by greed. As I said, sometimes God has other priorities greater than his care for animals. That doesn't mean that he doesn't care about them at all. In this case, slaughtering all of the animals along with the city's human population was the more humane thing to do, since some of them undoubtedly would have suffered more fending for themselves without human husbandry.
Later in the conquest of Canaan, God allowed the Israelites to take the livestock of the pagans they defeated as spoils of war.
This should be fairly clear to anyone reading the book of Joshua in even a cursory fashion, and the difference between Jericho and Nineveh is pretty obvious after that.
So far you have completely failed to make any case from scripture that God is indifferent to animal cruelty or approves of the wanton, capricious killing of animals by humans.
“Are you implying we shouldn't want justice for this horse killer? Or that we should only worry about what exactly you tell us to worry about?”
I'm saying this man should not be held for what he did to his own animal, which sounds perfectly “humane,” anyway, but even if it wasn't, he should be allowed to do with his animals as he pleases. Laws shouldn't prevent killing your own animals. If someone wants to raise animals to kill them for meat for other animals, let them. If it is for testing or other things, let them. You can choose to not associate or support what they do, but they should have the liberty to do so. However, if you have animals and are bound to an interpretation of what God wants, you are bound. Those that aren't, aren't.
However, when one says that this behavior should result in “life without parole” (post #8) and that God has found all “horses born” to be “more valuable to God” than this person, this is totally in err.
Our stewardship is just that, OUR stewardship. What others do to their property must be up to them. Even if it were “sinful” to do what he did (I don't think there is any evidence that is true), he only violated what you are stating were God's laws against “cruelty.”
Somehow, it is okay to kill animals for all sorts of other reasons, even if you are a Christian, as long as the Christian deems it okay. But you will not let a person not in Christ deem what he thinks is okay? You should, as God will judge what he did with his personal property on Judgment Day.
God accepts that people will not follow Him. He even allows that to happen. If so, we should work strictly within our own confines to convert others to our way of thinking.
Our laws should allow the same liberty that God allows, whenever possible. Especially with personal property.
You kill with what you have available.
Should you be held for murder if you kill an intruder with a flashlight rather than a gun? I mean, come on, you kill with a gun, not a flashlight, right?
If you read the article, the animal sustained “several” blows to the head. To me, that sounds like an unskilled person was doing his best to stun the animal with the hammer.
I dunno. If you want to assume this guy is an inhumane monster, I can do nothing to convince you otherwise. But his actions and the evidence in the story is consistent with somebody who is trying to do his best in a difficult situation.
Ask yourself this question... If he was intent on savagely and criminally torturing this animal, would he have called the cops before he got started?
Okay dude. Good luck with all of that.
Are you really saying that because the horse was his it was OK for him to beat it with a slege hammer? “
That’s how they slaughtered large animals for years.Then they came up with an air gun that fired a steel bolt into the brain. Probably because some of the workers couldn’t manage a sledge hammer blow with enough force to kill the animal instantly.
At one time, this guy was probably proficient, but he looks old.
If you want to torture a large animal, striking it in the head with a sledge hammer would not be a good choice.
I’m betting the horse was injured and he was trying to, humanely, put it down.
As I have not examined the animal, I have very little in the way of facts, and I don’t know if the law/SPCA/? is trying to make an example of him, I will hold my condemnation and DEATH sentance of the man until I do.
Some of you people are disgusting.
“Some of you people are disgusting.”
I see. You’re withholding judgment on the horse killer but you’re happy to say that I’m disgusting. :)
I enjoy the debate here on this site. After all, we’re here because of our convictions and strong POVs. Still, I believe that when challenged in matters of principle, 99% of us would (or will) end up on the same side.
I hope you’re right that this guy isn’t the horror he appears to be. It certainly doesn’t sounds like he was trying to do the humane thing, but perhaps you’re right. I will try to think so.
You’re withholding judgment on the horse killer but you’re happy to say that I’m disgusting. :)
You did say “Anything that gets done to him is OK with me.” :)
Seems like some want him killed or worse.
You did say “Anything that gets done to him is OK with me.” :)
Do I find him beyond disturbing? Absolutely! “
Do you know all the facts of the case?Is he really guilty of animal cruelty and abuse?
Do Wcruelty and abuse?
When anyone acquires an animal they’re assuming responsibility for its care. There’s a stewardship responsibility that goes along with that. Animals aren’t like furniture or appliances - they’re living, breathing creatures. I don’t think I’m jumping to conclusions to think this guy was inhumane. BUT before I indicted him, yes, I would hear him out.
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