Do animals have rights, too?
For many decades the theory of evolution has been taught as fact in most secular (and religious) schools. The result has been predictable. If man is merely an animal, and there is no eternal reality, life is robbed of its meaning and sanctity. Survival of the fittest. We are no better than a mouse or a monkey! This has resulted in a dramatic increase in crime, immorality, depression, hopelessness, and suicide. Morality is meaningless to an animal.
It is this strange thinking that results in animals being treated with the dignity that should be reserved for human beings. For example, in 1983, in Redwood City, California, a wealthy widow willed most of her $10.9 million fortune to her pets, while her son and daughter received only $400,000. In Hanover Park, Illinois, you can be buried with your dog. There is a cemetery where pet owners can have their ashes placed alongside their favorite pet. One woman chose to be buried with her three dead turtles. Recently we heard of a drive through restaurant for pets! There are Petco’s everywhere now. There are Pet psychiatrists. You can have a pet pedicure done for under $25. You can buy airconditioned doghouses for your dear fluffy. You can have your pet travel with you overseas on an airplane. Many will take their pets with them wherever they go in the car. They will even pick up their warm excrement with see-through plastic gloves and place it in a bag and carry it to the nearest trash recepticle. Many will have their favorit pet sleep with them. Pets are being treated with more affection and care than most humans!
This confusion regarding the nature of animals has resulted in a move for “animal rights”–that animals have rights equal with humans and should not be killed or eaten, that animals should not be used in laboratory experiments that benefit mankind, that animal habitats should be protected even if it means economic and social harm to man, that animals are at least as important as man.
The animal rights movement is closely connected with environmentalism and is growing phenomenally. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is attempting to convert Christians to its philosophy that eating meat is wrong. This radical animal rights group believes it is cruel to kill animals for meat. Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA, said, “The smallest form of life, even an ant or a clam, is equal to a human being” and “there really is no rational reason for saying a human being has special rights.”
“Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.” –Univ. of Calif. professor Kenneth Watt (Cited by Gary Benoit, “The Greatest Sham on Earth,” The New American, Mar. 26, 1990).
“Man is just one of the creatures that the Lord put on earth and is not more important than all the rest” (Former Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day 1970; The New American, Mar. 26, 1990).
“Extinction is the ultimate sin of humankind” (Sam LaBudde, Goldman Environmental Prize Winner for 1991, USA Today, Apr. 22, 1991).
“I would wish to return as a killer virus to lower human population levels” (Prince Philip of England, World Wildlife Fund leader, speaking before the United Nations on March 30, 1990, Ibid.). “Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along” (David Graber, research biologist with the National Park Service, The Christian News, June 15, 1992).
When we speak of animal rights, therefore, we are not speaking merely of a humane approach to animal care. The radical animal rights proponents desire to stop medical research. They want to see the end of hunting and fishing practices. They want to set aside millions of acres of land for the protection of species such as the northern spotted owl. They do not want this land to be used by man, not even for selective harvesting of timber. They want to stop the use of skins and furs for clothing, shoes, or accessories. Many animal rights proponents are vegetarians who do not believe man has the right
to kill and eat animals.
$100
Oval Heated Pet Bed with Memory Foam $159
PETA compares the killing of chickens with the Nazi Holocaust. ‘Six million people died in concentration camps,’ she told the Washington Post, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses.’ “Newkirk has been quoted as saying that meat-eating is ‘primitive, barbaric,’ and that humans havegrown like a cancer. We’re the biggest blight on the face of the earth,’
A group called INRA, composed of Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Jews, and Muslims, promotes a World Week of Prayer for Animals in October (Australian Beacon, July 1987).
The World Council of Churches, always on the cutting edge of weirdness, sponsored a conference in Annecy, France, on the treatment of animals. The WCC radicals criticized the practice of slaughtering animals for food consumption, which results in “massive animal deprivation and death.” They spoke against the use of animals in circuses and aquatic shows. They criticized the use of animals for a source of clothing, cosmetics, and household products (The Banner, Singapore Bible Presbyterian Church, Oct.-Dec. 1988).
In 1991 The Christian Century ran an article contending that animals deserve greater moral priority in relations with humans since they are the weaker species. “Whatever else animal rights means, it cannot mean that we can go on consuming their flesh, destroying their habitats, wearing their dead skins and inflicting suffering.” Whether or not we find it practicable and desirable, the diet assigned to men and beasts by God the Creator is vegetarian.” Linzey is director of studies at the Center for the Study of Theology at the University of Essex in England.
BIBLE LESSONS ABOUT ANIMALS
The first thing to note from Scripture is that animals and mankind are two different creations. Man is not a higher animal. Evolution is a lie. Man was created distinctly in the image of God. Animals were not…
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Man is the ruler of the animals. Thus, man is not part of the animal kingdom; he is the ruler over it! Animals do not have a living soul. Animals are not eternal beings; man is.
Gen 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Ecc 3:21 states that animals go back to the earth when they die and humans go ‘upward’.
Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
Luke 12:5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? 7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.
God instructs His disciples that they are much more important in God’s eyes than animals (sparrows). Of course, God cares for those little sparrows also!
Pr 12:10 explains that we are to treat animals kindly.
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.
However, this does not necessarily promote humans having ‘pets’. A ‘beast’ was a beast of burden (ox, cow, goat, etc.).
Nu 22:27,28 reminds us that God doesn’t like it if we mistreat our animal.
And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff. And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?
Throughout the Bible we see examples of men using animals for servitude, riding them for transportation and warfare (Neh. 2:12; Ps. 32:9; Pr. 21:31; Mt. 21:1-7), plowing with them (De. 25:4), etc. The prophet Elijah and John the Baptist both used girdles of leather (2 Ki. 1:8; Matt. 3:4), meaning they used material from dead animals. The bottles that Israel used were made of leather. Nowhere in Scripture is this condemned. In fact, the Lord Jesus Christ and His armies will be riding white horses when He returns from Heaven (Re 19:11-14).
The Lord Jesus Christ ate meat. The Passover meal was lamb (Ex. 12:5-10), and Christ ate the Passover (Mt. 26:17-19). He also ate fish – Luke 24:42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. 43 And he took it, and did eat before them.
What about Christians? Should they eat meat? The apostle Peter was certainly a Christian, and in a vision from God he was commanded to eat meat –
Acts 10:10 And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance, 11 And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: 12 Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. 13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.
The vision in Acts 10 also shows that God has removed the Old Testament dietary restrictions.
In 1 Tim. 4:1-5 we read of those who “command to abstain from meats,” and we are told that this is a doctrine of devils!
1 Tim 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. 4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: 5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
Peter describes beasts that are “made to be taken and destroyed” (2 Pet. 2:12). This refers to animals such as pigs and chickens that are made for man’s dining pleasure.
2 Peter 2:12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
God is not anti-killing of animals; for He commanded Moses to kill a multitude of animals for sacrifices (Lev 1-5)! In fact, right after the Fall of man, God thought it proper to kill 2 animals (Gen 3:21).
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
Where did God get those coats of skins? From innocent animals that died that man might have a covering for his sinful condition. And note that it was God who provided the covering. God must provide salvation. Man cannot earn it himself. From Eden to Calvary, the blood of animals was shed to illustrate salvation. “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29).
(Much of the information in this article was adapted or copied from David Cloud’s article “Do Animals Have Rights?”)
