All religions should promote cat welfare and, in fact, animal welfare. If religion does not do that and achieve progress in that goal it is not a worthy religion. It is a religion that is not worth being part of.
This is supported by the well known Abraham Lincoln saying:
‘I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not better for it’
Why is this obvious? It could not have been obvious when Lincoln said if otherwise he would not have said it.
Religions should treat all living creatures the same and with respect. This is because it is good to do that and the true purpose of religion is to (a) make life better and (b) to achieve this by behaving better. That is my opinion.
The trouble is that people disagree on the purpose of religion or don’t think about that aspect of it. The philosophers think about the purpose. Marx said it was the opium of the masses. It kept people quiet because it supposedly explained away all the suffering and injustice or made it easier for people to accept injustice and the suffering of humanity. This has been said to be the oppression of social groups.
A lot of people today have their own religion. They have their own beliefs. If it does not support animal welfare it is not worth a hill of beans. We cannot disconnect ourselves from the rest of the living creatures in the planet. We are one.
The single biggest problem with religions is that they are old, very old. They were created during a time when people were less advanced. Religions tend to provide guidance that is dramatically out of date. It is the advice of a person living thousands or many hundreds of years ago. This is not good enough. I suppose wise people can reinterpret it so that it fits in with the modern world but it does not always work. There are always unscrupulous people who use religion to further their own agenda.
A god did not create animals for our benefit. That is a 2,000 year old idea. It is regressive and it still has a hold on millions of people especially in the less well developed countries.
It isn’t just in respect of animals that religions are regressive. Islam is very out of date in its recognition of the status of women. Women and animals are regarded as having a lesser status to the man. It is absurd that in modern life women should have a lesser status. The same goes for animals as far as I am concerned.
Religion supports animal experimentation – the benefiting people philosophy but with a disregard for the welfare of more vulnerable creatures.
Religion is “reactionary”. It reacts negatively to progress because that would weaken the status of the men who manage and run religions. It is about male domination and big business as usual.
We need a new, modern, up-to-date religion that promotes cat welfare, animal welfare. Someone needs to invent it. There would be hundred of millions of followers.
I’m vegan and don’t find it restricts my life but I’ve been for a good while now and it’s not for older people really it’s a bit drastic later in life. My children chose to be vegan too it’s not that easy for them among school friends but they are very healthy and happy and I’m very proud of them.
Being vegetarian saves animals lives but we can all only do what we feel we can do in our different ways.
I am very impressed that your children are vegans. It is very enlightened to choose that route when one is younger. I can remember a girl of about 10 doing that and I thought she had a very clear, committed mind of her own.
In my day vegetarianism was much less discussed. I think it has more meaning these days. There is more urgency to be vegan if one can.
Another example of how many animals were starved to death or outright killed to feed vegans:
Every acre of farmland was once some native animal’s habitat and food source. Until vegans destroyed it and all animals on it to feed themselves.
You need to visit a rural area. During land-preparation time in the spring. When millions of gallons of liquid ammonia are pumped into billions and billions of acres of soil.
GASSING UNTOLD BILLIONS OF ANIMALS TO DEATH TO GROW YOUR VEGAN CROPS. And this doesn’t even begin to count how many animals are on the brink of extinction because you’ve turned their homes into your vegan croplands.
A planted field is as good as a desert to all the native wildlife. How many native animals do you know that forage for soybeans? Or any of the other myriad man-made non-native plant-life that you so gleefully buy in the store while desperately wanting to think you’ve not murdered any animals to obtain it. How about all the birds that you’ve STARVED TO DEATH by making sure your vegan crops are insect-free so they no longer have those food sources. Their bellies would be full and they’d still be alive if you didn’t till their homes into vegan’s wastelands.
Time for you to go slit your wrists. Because by vegans believing they feed more people on less land, they are over-breeding even faster. Never once taking into account all the other resources that their offspring are going to need throughout their lives; transportation, energy, building resources, minerals from strip-mines, etc. etc.; nor all the native habitat that it’s going to require — “murdering” what’s left of all our native animal wildlife.
Then you do it with your cats too. Sorry, you can’t sidestep reality. Try as you might, reality is still there.
Do I sniff a bit of Woody extremism in your comment? 😉 And your language “non-native”. Go easy. Never insult visitors especially regulars who I love.
Your comment is a bit of a rant, isn’t it? It is too extreme and too generalised to be taken seriously.
I agree that planted fields and horrible pesticides are killers for wildlife but it need not be that way. We could grow genuinely organic crops and some animals live on cultivated land.
When you write something like that you lose all credibility. Never write that sort of stuff. It makes you look stupid.
Don’t respond to this comment, please.
“How about all the birds that you’ve STARVED TO DEATH”
Wow Woody so now it’s vegans to blame for the decline of birds is it?I thought you have always said that cats were to blame for that and for everything else wrong in this world.
Are you giving cat lovers a rest and targeting vegans now?
You pathetic troll you can think of nothing else to say but time to slit your wrists what a pity you don’t slit your own and put yourself out of your deluded miserable life.
I don’t sit and eat dead lumps of flesh like some sort of cannibal and drink milk meant for baby animals.Far better men than you are vegan and proud of it and know much more about ecology then you who sits there ranting your rubbish every chance you get.
You poor thing your life must be full of frustration that nobody gives a damn what you think.
You are aware, aren’t you, that out of ALL types of pet-owners on the face of this earth, that cat-owners are directly responsible for the suffering deaths of more animals and more species of animals than any other pet-owners on the planet. You are aware of this, aren’t you? If not having animals killed for their own consumption, then they are having animals killed and crammed into bags and cans and having a “CAT FOOD” label slapped on them for their cat’s consumption, and if they let their cats outside then they are senselessly torturing billions of native animals and countless numbers of native species to death yearly just for their cats’ play-toys. As well as the countless BILLIONS of offspring of all those animals that are either starved to death or never get born. Cat-owners are a triple-threat to all animal life on earth. How many animals are you going to have senselessly killed or tortured today for your entertainment and your “cats-make-me-feel-good” values?
THanks for visiting and commenting but you have made two mistakes:
If we want to protect and conserve wildlife don’t you think we should start at the top, with us, the big killers of habitat and all natural resources? If you respond please keep it polite otherwise it won’t be published.
Something interesting goes on here with the Catholic church. They hold events a couple of times a year that they call “The Blessing of the Animals”. It seems that people bring their pets, and they are blessed by the priest. It’s a big deal and in the newspaper each time.
I’m not religious, but I am impressed with that event.
The Church of England do that too here Dee but not locally any more. I remember going to one of these services with Babz and our late mother, at Auckland Castle Chapel (an ancient religious building where the Bishop lives) years ago, with the two dogs we had at that time. Our late dad wouldn’t go, he hated religion.
It was a wonderful experience but I wouldn’t ever go now anyway with our cats as it would be too traumatic for them amongst the noise of lots of people and dogs and children.
You’d love the film ‘Brother Sun Sister Moon’ the story of St Francis, the songs are beautiful and they have a blessing of the animals in that.
An Episcopal Church here also does blessing of pets as well as one local Methodist church. Monty’s already blessed– he was sent to me instead of living out the short, hard life of a feral cat or being killed at a shelter.
The thought of bringing Monty to be blessed by the priest cracks me up. He tends to growl at strangers. Scary, deep growls and he gets all puffy. It’s wrong, I know, but I just picture the priest with my little growling, snarling, hissing cat in front of him, like some kind of little devil cat. Exorcism time. It would be such a hoot. Needless to say, I won’t be bringing Monty to be blessed.
Our Felix had a Priest at his burial, she just happened to come when we were digging his grave in our garden at our old home where we thought we’d be living forever. She said a lovely prayer for him.
Bryan hated her, when she visited us he would always show his displeasure by dragging his bum along the carpet near where she was sitting lol
It was the only times he ever did that!
Laughing out loud over that story, Ruth! That sounds like something Monty would do, the little stinker.
lol Monty is as naughty then! Bryan was the cat who got rid of some awful unwelcome visitors who kept coming but we didn’t like to be rude and say you can’t come …so they kept coming ….until… he stood up at the coffee table one day and licked the cake and we never saw them again.
Bryan sounds like a great cat. You must miss him. He reminds me of Monty growling at my friend Melanie the minute she set down her empty chili bowl and sat back to relax on our couch. It was like Monty said, “You’re done eating, now leave!” So she did.
Vegetarianism is linked to some Indian religions: Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. I think it is an important part of these religions. So, I think it is fair to state that veganism is a form religion as you say.
Hindus respect animals because they believe they could have been your auntie or another relative in a former life. Rudolph may be able to add some detail to that.
In a way there IS a religion which considers animals as equal, it’s called VEGANISM and vegans respect all living creatures and eat or use nothing derived from any part of animals.
The lesser religion to that is VEGETARIANISM, we eat no animal, bird of fish flesh, in fact we eat nothing that ever had a face in life.
If I was young nowadays I’d certainly turn to the VEGAN religion but I feel too old to deprive myself of life’s little luxuries of butter and cheese and chocolate.
I wish I was a saint and could give them up but alas I’m only human 🙁 and feel being vegetarian is as far as I can comfortably go.
Same here, R. I’m vegetarian but not vegan. I feel that, at this age, I need the benefits of animal products like milk.
Without that calcium, I would be slithering instead of walking.
Just no animal flesh.
Exactly Dee. There would be no point in us denying ourselves of what we need to keep going, we’d be of no use to any animals at all if we became ill. We use semi skimmed milk as a sort of compromise.
Ruth I always totally agree with you – it’s uncanny. I am almost a vegetarian but not quite but I am heading to it. I was when I was younger for about 6 years and although I was extremely thin I was totally fine and it was quite by chance I went back to eating meat occasionally.
Michael I agree with you on the purpose of religion and I agree that the existing ones are too old to work well in post modern times.