Today I found myself watching Animal Cops, one of my favorite shows on Animal Planet about the ASPCA all over the USA that rescue abused and neglected animals and find them new homes. While watching this I began to understand why the advocates of animal rights feel so enraged towards animal cruelty. Watching the show and seeing the abuse that some animals live in without complaint, simply accepting their reality is humiliating to the human race and humbles me.
Click on picture above to watch an Animal Cops episode
Because the Bible mentions animals, it has often been brought up in the argument of animal rights for those that are religious . "In the beginning God created…" (Gen. 1:1) . This is the line that I have been taught my entire life. I can quote the first chapter of the Bible from memory. Those are the words that shaped my early viewpoint of how the world came into being. I was taught that man was the master of animals. That our ability to reason set us apart. As I got older I realized that this superiority came with a responsibility. Although man does have domain over animals, that does not necessarily give us the right to exploit them. The animal activists will quote Genesis saying, "God said, 'See, I give you all the seed-bearing plants that are upon the whole earth, and the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this shall be your food." They claim that humans were never made to eat meat. That we were designed to eat fruits from the beginning. The other side of the argument comes in when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden of Eden. The Bible states that, "Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." (Genesis 3:21) This shows that God made clothing for Adam and Eve from an animal's skin. Obviously, they continued this practice because their son Able was a shepherd. And by the middle of Genesis, the Bible speaks of the wife cooking venison for her husband. This is a debate that I have heard many times around the mess hall table at church summer camp between vegetarians and meat-eaters.
Personally, I feel that your religious viewpoint is your own opinion and that debating it or using it to prove a point to someone else does not work well. Usually your religious viewpoint will be different from theirs and will cancel out your point instead of supporting it. You can use your religious beliefs to explain why you choose to your lifestyle, but not to convince others to do the same. Regardless of your religious beliefs, I think we all agree that cruelty towards animals is inexcusable. As Coetzee points out in Disgrace, "Lurie gains a redeeming sense of compassion absent from his life up to this point." (X:75) Although Lurie had lived a life of no importance and sexual scandal, he finally made an impact in the world and learned compassion for those that have less than him by caring for neglected and diseased dogs. At some point, we all learn to either have compassion for others or we spend our lives hurting others.
