Normal for you, not for me. Animals are sentient and helpless creatures of God and they have souls. I think they deserve to live their lives just as abortion victims do. I won’t eat them or support wholesale slaughter of animals or children. It is unnecessary.
I'm not going to argue or dispute anything you've said. You are welcome to your opinion.
I am going to ask you a serious question. It's hypothetical, but serious.
Suppose you are armed. Say you have a pistol in your pocket and are carrying it legally concealed.
You come upon an animal in the process of attacking another animal, presumably for food. Say for instance a wolf or fox attacking a chicken.
What do you do?
Good on you for sticking to your beliefs even if I don’t wholeheartedly agree with them I do admire people who behave consistently with what they believe. Biblically speaking we were given animals to sustain us. That said there is no excuse for torturing or treating animals in anyway that does not give respect to their maker.
As I get older I am finding that eating too much of my favorite fat laden meat products means that I gain weight so I am cutting down to try and suit my intake needs as my output does not match that of a younger man.
First it is entirely your choice on what you eat. No argument from me.
I think you are denying what you are though. You are a predator from a long line of predators.
Your reasoning makes as much sense as wanting to put a lion on a vegan diet. A lion is what a lion is and when it kills and eats its prey it doing what God designed it to do. And when you do the same it is the same. The only difference is we try to minimize the suffering of our prey where the lion has no concern at all.
Animals have souls? I don't think so.
Animal welfare, yes. Animal rights, no.
BTW, how many animals would be alive if the human race was vegetarian? There's actually a theory out there that domestic animals are part of a co-evolutionary "bargain", in which the domestics "chose" domestication in order to put their genes farther into the future. (Not my theory, so don't dump on me.)
“Animals are sentient and helpless creatures of God and they have souls.”
I hate to burst your bubble, but they have done research and found that plants cry when cut. Now what are you going to do?
Would you please post the scripture to prove that?
No. No. yes. Maybe.
They are not sentient and they are NOT helpless.
I put you in with a Cape Buffalo and you would quickly learn the gentle grass eater is a vicious killer.
They are creatures of God yes and most of them eat meat in some form.
Whether they have souls... It is not so written so I will not say that they do or don't.
It is a matter of pure belief and therefore not subject to any sort of logical argument.
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Souls? I don't know. But they eat each other. Even rabbits will eat meat if they can get it. God permits it; therefore there is no moral issue about eating meat. But go ahead, More bacon for me.