I would like to comment on two disturbing cat stories. They happen to come from the United States because that is where most internet news/information in the English language comes from. One is in the news and therefore public information but no one has commented on it. While the other is less public in that few people have seen it but it is on the internet.
Perfect People Kill Cats
I say perfect people. That is a bit if an exaggeration but it makes the point that people who have no criminal record, who are decent law abiding citizens of the United States can decide to go and shoot at cats with a .22 rifle for the fun of it. Not one cat, although that would be bad enough, but up to 100 cats. They admit it. Up to 50 were killed or injured. We don’t know the number.
The fact that three teenagers decided to go around in an SUV and take pot shots at cats is not that surprising. What is surprising is that in their latest court appearance where they were looking to reduce their sentence (having been convicted of animal creulty) it was revealed that the reason why these three teenagers were not tried as adults is because:
- they were model students
- they were hard working and had
- never been in trouble before.
This was used in mitigation at the original sentencing hearing.
The detail does not matter. It is the clash of information that shocks a bit. On the one hand we have three American male teenagers two of whom were the main protagonists aged 16 and 17, who had lead decent lives we are told. On the other hand we have casual animal cruelty of the worse kind. And as usual it is the domestic cat that is the victim. Two dogs were also shot at but cats were by far the major victims.
Does this tell us that shooting at cats is considered acceptable in mainstream, middle class society in the United States? Is shooting at cats as normal as having breakfast or going for a drive to the shops? It almost seems that way.
The story is dull and normal. The same as the cat killings. For me this case steps out of the ordinary because it seems to say something about the relationship between the cat and the person in America. Is the main reason why cats are kept inside all the time to stop some crazy, normal teenager shooting at him or her?
Satanic Possession and Cat Sacrifice
This is a story written by the perpetrator of cat cruelty himself. He says he has become a pastor, a man of God. At one time he says he was possessed by the devil. Between these two extremes he killed animals for the pleasure of it and sacrificed a cat by strangling it and cutting it up.
His wife walked out on him about 11 years ago. I am not surprised because he sounds as if he suffers from mental illness but nonetheless lived a mainstream, somewhat normal life. He had two children, went to work and had a home to go to.
One day he came home from night shift. He entered his home. His wife came to him and told him he was leaving. She left with the children and was immediately picked up by her brother.
His previous dark experiences of killing animals as a young person surfaced and he started reading books on the occult. His demons demanded a sacrifice. He cut himself and drank his blood mixed with his urine and wine.
He picked up a boy and the pair went out to find a cat to sacrifice. They found a friendly cat that they could approach. They took it to a Pentecostal church where he strangled the cat and cut it. He used the blood to write satanic slogans on the walls of the church.
He was caught and incarcerated in a mental institution. He eventually recovered and met his new wife in a Methodist church. He found God. But on the way he had sacrificed an innocent cat.
For me the important bit of this story is that the first animal to cross his mind to sacrifice was a cat.
This is probably a throwback to the ancient Egyptians who as you know sacrificed cats (kittens actually) by the thousands to the god Bastet.
I think we are still burdened by the legacy of those early days of domestication. I hate the almost automatic connection between the cat and human violence. It has to stop.
- Broken link so removed Oct 2012
- Satanic Cults and Cats
I think that previous comment made it sound like a lot of people in my church are carrying weapons. It’s just a few people, but the decision was made that those few who take the time to become trained and licensed to conceal carry keep us all safer. The church is in a poor area, which I think makes us safer. Ever notice that many, many of these shootings take place in wealthy areas and the shooters are well off? I taught in the inner city and I never was afraid at school that we’d have a student bring a gun to school. They were good kids, but they were very poor, many having come from third works countries, some fleeing for their lives to come here. My biggest problems were talking during class and not turning in homework. Based on this experience I reject the notion that poverty causes people to commit crimes. The truly evil among us often are the ones that have had every advantage, but turn to evil (such as Satanism) by their own free choice.
By the way, I’m glad members of my church took the classes and got licensed for conceal carry. We discussed posting a sign banning weapons in church and decided on the opposite. Had the Sihk temple shooter targeted our church, our members would not have had to try to fight him off with a butter knife, as a very brave man who lost his life attempted to do in Oak Creek. He was the father of a friend of my sister. I know you don’t like guns. Neither do I. But the reality is, if some nut job attacks my church, I guarantee the death toll will be lower than in any other attack on a church with a gun. Oak Creek was the latest, but there have been other attacks on churches. The gun man targets the place where he suspects to encounter the least resistance.
Lt. Murphy, the officer wounded in the Sihk temple shooting, is out of the hospital and spoke at a benefit honoring him on Sunday. My husband and I dove by, but we had groceries in the car, so we coukdn’t stay. I didn’t know about it ahead if time or we would have gone. It turns out Murphy was shot 15 times, but three were stopped by his vest. He has had a lot of support from the community as have the members of the Sihk temple. Some good is coming out of the evil, because people of different races and faiths are coming together in love.
My church does a lot of good– feeding and sheltering the homeless (in conjunction with other churches of multi-faiths), supporting the Bayview Community Center food pantry, providing instruction in English to people from Burma ( and in music– that was me!) and supporting Place of Refuge (ministry for pregnant women). I actually am not Democrat and I’m against the government doing these things, because individuals should be doing more to help other individuals. The government taking tax money by force and giving it to others is wrong. There is no love if you are forced to give to others, and such use of tax dollars in a way that does not benefit the person taxed is tantamount to stealing. Most government programs are so rife with fraud that there is little benefit to those who need it and an encouragement to be lazy to those who receive the money. Some believe we need a government provided safety net, but it’s become a hammock and that brings out the worst in people. I’m tired of people refusing to be part of the church’s initiatives because “the government already does that.” Our welfare state has degraded us all when you have Christians who won’t take a job because their unemployment check pays more than the job (which is stupid, because unemployment insurance simply makes up the difference in that case) and when church members will not obey Christ’s command to feed and clothe the poor because of the attitude “that’s what food stamps are for.” Both scenarios aren’t just bad, that’s evil– we are created to work and created to give to others. Our government is taking both away from us– as we let it happen. The good news is that the government does darn little to help animals, so maybe I can motivate church members to help. Our Sunday school (the kids) collected for the Humane Society last year and donated a big box of pet food, toys and treats. At the food pantry I mentioned I had considered donating kitty food and the parishioner collecting food donations agreed and said she had thought of it too. I plan to call the community center and see if they would like to start a program to help people keep their pet when they lose their job through pet food, supplies and perhaps even monetary donations to cover vet costs. I think it would take off. I also will suggest we sponsor The Cat Network one month as a Sunday School collection (or Second Hand Purrs) because these places are truly no-kill. Changing attitudes toward animals comes slowly, but I think I should stay and try to do it rather than go back to playing at my old church where the pastor was much more caring toward animals. At least both men are against declawing, and that gives me hope.
Excellent comment. Full of good stuff. The church can do much more. The church seems silent on animal welfare. Senior churchmen could make speeches about animal welfare. This is relevant to us because the way we treat animals is reflective of our attitudes and mentality. I hate to say it but the church has become too much of an institution – a sort of business in its own right. It defends itself and is secretive like businesses are. The church is there for people. It should belong to the people. And it should have the highest standards or morality on all aspects of life. The church should be socialist and big time Democrat. I bet a lot of pastors are Republicans and have a gun in the glove compartment. Where is the sense of mission and going good? I guess many churches do good but a lot don’t and the same applies to Britain and anywhere else.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of disturbing stories about cats. I was reading earlier today about the conditions in many so called “shelters” and these included some shelters run by organizations which collect a lot of money. Cats are abused, neglected and brutally killed in the place that is supposed to be protecting them. In the meantime, these places are collecting millions of dollars from unsuspecting people who want to help. Something has to be done. There has to be more oversight of shelters. I’m not a big fan of government intervention, but we already have laws against animal cruelty. It should not be assumed that because an animal is in a shelter, he is safe from becoming a victim of cruelty. As much as I’d hate to see new regulations which would probably penalize good shelters too, maybe there has to be some codes in place as to how many animals you can have, provisions for quarantine, etc… The article I read seemed to suggest such codes are non-existent. That may be the case, since I called the police on a very bad cat shelter near me and it seems nothing was done. But Elisa nearly lost all her cats and ended up in jail over practically nothing. So it seems very arbitrary what laws are enforced, and those really trying to help are persecuted while the bigger animal shelters harbor sadistic monsters, yet the law won’t touch them. There’s way too much money being collected to help homeless animals for the amount of killing that’s going on. Someone’s getting rich while the animals suffer. Just like with declawing cats– the vets get rich at the cats’ expense. I hate the institutionalized, legalized (to a point) abuse of animals much more than I hate the random animal abuser. Both are terrible, but there is a lot of abuse happening at the hands of those paid to care for animals. That perversion of a person’s calling, of their life’s work into just the opposite of what they should be doing is doubly terrible. I also believe churches should be doing more to help improve conditions for animals. If we got the message out there that every little stray cat belongs to the One who created him, that humans who abuse animals will face the anger of the Creator who loves that animal, we could be making a real difference. But too many Christians, as Michael has pointed out, commit the sin of pride continually, going on and on like fools about how all the animals were put here for us to use and how we’re superior to the animals. Only humans sin. Animals are all innocent. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. Guess what? It wasn’t made for us. We are accountable for how we use (or abuse) anything which was created, because it’s not ours, it’s only on loan to us. My own Pastor laughed at me for expressing these views, yet I can’t find anything heretical in anything I’ve said, whereas, his claims of “dominion” all come from before the fall into sin, and take no account of human pride or sinfulness. It is time for Christians to spread the word that we are accountable to our Creator, instead of spewing a bunch of prideful statements. Better than the animals? How did Jesus react when the disciples were trying to determine who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? He didn’t tolerate that line of thinking at all. At one time pride was considered a deadly sin. Today it is celebrated and I’m getting absolutely disgusted, because this has real world implications in how we treat the environment, animals– and let’s face it– even other humans. As soon as you go down the path of who is superior, humans or animals, racism against other humans is the next logical step. People say I care too much about animals and not enough about people, but to me it is all connected and becomes one big slippery slope.