Love Thy Neighbor

This is not meant as an attack on anyone's faith. I don't like atheists who do that nor do I consider myself one. Just asking for clarification.

Love thy neighbor. Does that include animals? What sorts? If not then why bother to love pets?

 

And if not why not?

 

Only animals that have a residence next to yours. It can get really tricky to live by this commandment if you have a vegetable garden and your neighbours are a bunch of rabbits. You can try settle it verbally in a peaceful way but they're just so damn unreasonable!

 

Love thy neighbor... Unless they're descendants of Amalek.

 

no action can completely eliminate anything of course, yet every example influences everything to some degree.
the more considerate we are of each other, the more considerate of a world we will have to live in.

 

Kindness towards animals is a good thing in general, but I suppose there's a contradiction if you eat meat, especially if the animals are raised under 'factory' conditions.
Some people seem to divide animals into groups - those like cats, horses and dogs to which they get attached, and often treat very well, others like the pig, the sheep, the cow, the chicken where nothing wrong is seen in slaughtering huge numbers on a daily basis. Things like rabbits are in the middle, some love them, some eat them.

Historically Christianity has not been that kind to animals, with some exceptions like Francis of Assisi. I don't think the majority of Christians extend love of their neighbour to animals. And unless there was some injunction to be vegetarian, I doubt that will change. Also Christians in general think animals don't have a soul like they do.

BTW - I myself eat meat now and then, and also fish, although I only have meat a couple of times a month these days, and only if someone else cooks it, usually my ageing mother, and I ensure she buys outdoor raised organic.

 

Doesn't that seem curiously anthropocentric? Also, why are animals even alive (besides ones that can be eaten, leaving billions upon billions of them)? And why do they need to eat? What's the point of us even eating?

 

"Also Christians in general think animals don't have a soul like they do."

Quote from you, Bill, and that is my problem with people who do not think they do, but I don;t think that is just mainly a Christian attitude....Even some non religious people feel that way, and other religions, as well.... and i say to that attitude, then you never really knew an animal....

 

Why is there a planet earth anyway?

 

Hinduism for example teaches that animals most definitely do have a soul.
The only advantage we have over animals in such teachings is that as humans we have the capacity to realize it.

 

^
They also teach that we could have been animals in a past life and perhaps will be in the next. Depends on how you life your current life...

Yes, very interesting and worthwile to include hinduism in this particular thread!

 

I can only give my personal view on that. Life gradually evolved on Earth through ever more complex forms until we get to the most complex so far which is us.
Why the need to eat? I suppose because that's the way life works. Living organisms have to get energy from somewhere.Plants get it form the sun directly, but animals including humans can't do that. Nature I assume came up with this arrangement where animals have to eat either plant material or other animals to sustain their bodies.
So the point of us eating is basically to survive.

 

Yeps, wether we like it or not it is plain simple for fuel. No life without consuming other life (wether its of an animal, plant, mushroom etc.). Which is exactly why I think slightly different about this:

I would say ONLY if the animals are raised under bad conditions or mistreated or have unnecessary bad lifes for whatever reason. Not especially.
If we respect the animals and treat them well, and kill them as quick and painless as possible at the end of their lifes we are doing awesome.


About the OP which I didn't took very serious at first (forgive me): animals are probably not included in the commandment 'love thy neighbour' because they are not literally seen as neighbours or your fellow human being... BUT this doesn't mean anything in regards to animals. Just because they are not included in that commandment doesn't mean christians can mistreat them whatever they like.

 

Some kinds of Hindus, like the Krishna Consciousness people, do believe it's possible for a human being to live so degraded a life that they will return to an animal form in their next incarnation, but more modern Hindu thought pretty much rejects this idea. Generally the idea is that the soul evolves through successive incarnations, and in each higher form gets a greater facility to become conscious. Even within the spectrum of humanity there are people who are dominated by animal drives and so on, all the way up to the philosopher , the yogi, the saint etc.
Some Buddhist stories tell of Gautama Buddha's past lives as various animals, but I'm not sure how that works as they say there's no soul.

I only mentioned Hinduism because of moonglow's post, but it does seem to offer a different perspective on animals than the old fashioned Christian perspective. Then again. St. Francis is said to have preached the gospel to the birds, so one can't generalize too much.

 

Well, as I said I do eat meat now and then if it's been raised under good conditions and the animals have had a happy life.

I'm not sure though what effect the job of killing hundreds of animals a day might have on the worker in the slaughter house.

 

It's intriguing to compare the idea that reincarnation can only go higher with the concept of evolution.

But, as I understood from other people: if one believes in both reincarnation AND karma there is little need to exclude the possibility of reincarnating in something 'lower' like an animal. On the other hand, some animals are not seen as lower at all. And apparently reincarnating in such an animal (like a holy cow) is an honor and good thing.

Would depend on the details. Currently, if this reincarnation thing would be real, it's not very promising for a lot of butchers. But there are plenty who do a great job avoiding stress and pain too. Well not plenty as in enough, but some

 

Again, this is only my understanding based on modern Hindu teachers such as Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, both of whom accepted evolution and probably rejected the 'holy cow' kind of idea.But there is enough scope within the human form to facilitate just about any karma a being could accrue.

The idea in these more developed rather than popular teachings isn't that the soul gets punished for sins by getting reincarnated as an animal. The goal of the process is the soul's awakening. Once mind is established as one of the instruments of the soul in life, it's highly unlikely that soul would return to animal form. But I guess the possibility can't be excluded entirely.

Anyway - this thread may be getting off topic here as Christians generally don't believe in reincarnation.

 

To be sure: i ment they seem to complement each other, not oppose.

 

I probably misread what you intended. But here's an example of Hare Krishna propaganda based on the idea that you could come back as an animal. If they are right, there's going to be a lot of cows on the planet in future.

 

Yes, everything needs to eat, which is my main argument with"God."
You could have made things differently.
Why is there such violence in your design?
A gentler God would have made it so we get everything we need through breathing and osmosis.
This is why I reject any notion of a god with a blue print.
What other animal do you know that slaughters in mass numbers in a single day without the purpose to eat or to mate?....
Most animals do not kill their own kind.
Lions do to mate. There are exceptions, of course.
It is argued that dolphins are on a higher level than man, but they do not have hands to make things or feet to walk.
I am sad as I feel mankind should be more evolved by now and take care of the other animals of this earth and the earth better than he does as a whole.
But then there is Darwin....survival of the fittest, but man takes that to a very destructive level, because he has figured out how to blow this entire planet up and take everything with him.
There is no survival of the fittest safety valve in that.