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Animals do not have souls. However, mammals are self-aware to some degree -- and dogs and cats trust us. This is why I'm against eating dogs and cats -- not because they're widdle people with fur coats, but because it's a betrayal of trust. They're on our team.

C.S. Lewis was known to believe that beloved pets gain a little bit of humanity from us over the years, just as we share in the love of Christ. That's not to say that there's a cat or dog "heaven", but it at least opens the possibility; perhaps our love makes our pets more human, just as Christ's love makes us more like Him.

God cares when animals die, even little sparrows. That doesn't mean we can't eat them, use them as slaves, or kill them when necessary; it just means that all life is precious to God. To kill an animal for human use or out of self-defense is just killing, and when done with the minimum possible pain is a perfectly moral act; to torture an animal to death simply for the pleasure of watching it suffer is to disrespect Life itself -- and the Maker of Life.

Plus I despise bullies. No rational reason -- I just hate them, always have. When I see a big thing cruelly torturing a little thing just for the hell of it, I lose it. Fortunately, I'm not a libertarian, so I have no problem imposing my own narrow moral standards on others (by force if necessary) when the situation warrants it. If I ever caught any of my neighbors doing something like this, they'd wish they'd never been born.

The Natural Law written into the heart of every man is enough to tell anybody that wanton cruelty is wrong. I pity the kind of creature that could roast a little living thing alive without the slightest twinge of conscience.

Some days it's a sad old world.

Plus I despise bullies. No rational reason -- I just hate them, always have. When I see a big thing cruelly torturing a little thing just for the hell of it, I lose it.

That's because they're thugs, sadists and basically cowards. They're only brave when they run in packs. Notice this was a group? Notice they didn't even protest when a lone woman rescued this tortured cat?

There's been a lot posted about the kind of pay back we would all like. I kind of favor lashing all of them naked to a long 2 x 4 and using a white-hot branding iron to give them a taste of their own. . . Nobody dies. But then nobody forgets it either.

And I don't labor under the illusion that any such treatment would be in the least bit corrective. Once a thug, always a thug. But it would sure make me feel better.

Re: your post 64: I think you reflect more of what I believe and how I feel in that post than some here would believe.

I just strongly oppose getting the government involved in this sort of thing. People should be shamed out of it, but that's about it.

Plus, I don't react as strongly to this kind of thing as other things because I consider the victim a "dumb animal." It just doesn't rise to that level - for me.

We eat them! I cannot be accused of being a hypocrite when it comes to how I value animals.

C.S. Lewis was known to believe that beloved pets gain a little bit of humanity from us over the years, just as we share in the love of Christ. That's not to say that there's a cat or dog "heaven", but it at least opens the possibility; perhaps our love makes our pets more human, just as Christ's love makes us more like Him.

I once remember an old Irish priest named Father Tom telling a grief stricken shoolmate that Jesus said all things that are on Earth are in Heaven. Therefore her dead dog was in Heaven.

I think all animals DO have spirits, maybe lesser spirits than the human soul, but spirits nonetheless. I've seen acts of compassion amongst dogs and cats such that I can not be convinced that it is otherwise.