Does God Care About Animals? gA Dec 2011

by Gladring 19 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  nancy drew

  However beautiful it may appear to some this planet is carnivorous, everthing is trying to feed off something else and in violent ways. It's a death planet so the question is who's idea was it?

  Sometimes on nature shows you see mama big cat and her little cubs and they look soo cute till they get hungry and mama heads off to steal baby wildebeest from it's mama and you don't want to see that but should the cute cubs die from hunger it's an unpleasant situation that plays out everyday.

  Do you want it to continue if you stop death what happens to the planet and we're part of the show who's responsible?
• 

  PSacramento

  Humans are to be the caretakes of the animal world, that is one of our jobs as stewards of God's creation.

  That said, there is a nature to animals that is, quite simply, their nature.

  It isn't evil, it just is.

  Certain species have come to evolve in some rather "horrific" ways but of course, that view is a HUMAN view and one must understand that for a creature of pure instinct, doing what it does is exactly what it does and God can no more be blamed for that than evolution can.
• 

  TD

  "Ichneumons thus serve as another example of the diversity and balance of living things that man has yet to comprehend fully."

  --Another perfect example of the inability of JW's to follow a logical path for more than a few steps.

  For the standpoint of the JW, God either created Ichneumonoidea to include parasitic wasps or He did not.

  If He created parasitic wasps, then the idea of an all vegetarian antediluvian ecology goes out the window. This insect is clearly not a vegetarian.

  If He did not create parasitic wasps, then the "design equals a Designer" argument goes out the window. To stipulate that this insect changed from another form (i.e. A vegetarian) and developed the complex behavior, instincts, lifecycle and specialized anatomy without a sentient designer is to embrace evolution with open arms.
• 

  glenster

  Dec., 2011 "Awake "
  "God never sanctioned cruel treatment of them."

  Is there an Internet version? I doubt that it means there's no cruelty for
  people or animals in life, or for people to be pacifistic vegans to animals, but
  probably means followers aren't advised to be cruel to animals beyond whatever
  prerogative granted.

  According to a web site I found, that issue also had this:
  Young People Ask
  How can I explain the Bible’s view of homosexuality?
  What about bisexuality?

  It's probably the conservative stance with misrepresentation of the liberal
  stance and of whatever secular evidence.

  JWS and animals 2010
  http://en.allexperts.com/q/Jehovah-s-Witness-1617/2010/10/Man-animals.htm

  JWs leaders and designer idea: at the next link, use Edit > Find >
  intelligent design
  http://glenster1.webs.com/gtjbrooklyn1acont.htm
• 

  Cadellin

  Whether Ichneumon wasps control crop pests is beside the point. The claim made by the Dec 2011 WT isn't that insects serve a useful purpose, but rather that God has a benevolent attitude toward animal life, that he "cares" for them. I used the Ichneumon wasp as an example of putative "design" in nature that by any standard is hard to reconcile with such a claim. Are we really to believe that God, in his infinite wisdom and power, had no other way of controlling pests other than by subjecting caterpillars to a prolonged and (by human standards) horrifying death? Doesn't he care about the caterpillars?

  Really, this situation is worse than the Jews slaughtering goats by bleeding them to death because they could make a choice as to whether and how to do the deed and, it could be argued, such a law was only intended to be in existence for a limited time. Whereas, the Ichneumon is "programmed" by "design" to inject her eggs into the hapless caterpillar right from the beginning and will continue to do so through all eternity or as long as there are Ichneumon wasps on the planet. It's all part of the wonders of creation!

  For some reason, this thread brings to mind James Dickey's "The Heaven of Animals," which at least treats predatorial relationships honestly instead of as some weird offshoot of human imperfection (which never made sense to me):

  Here they are. The soft eyes open.
  If they have lived in a wood
  It is a wood.
  If they have lived on plains
  It is grass rolling
  Under their feet forever.

  Having no souls, they have come,
  Anyway, beyond their knowing.
  Their instincts wholly bloom
  And they rise.
  The soft eyes open.

  To match them, the landscape flowers,
  Outdoing, desperately
  Outdoing what is required:
  The richest wood,
  The deepest field.

  For some of these,
  It could not be the place
  It is, without blood.
  These hunt, as they have done,
  But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

  More deadly than they can believe.
  They stalk more silently,
  And crouch on the limbs of trees,
  And their descent
  Upon the bright backs of their prey

  May take years
  In a sovereign floating of joy.
  And those that are hunted
  Know this as their life,
  Their reward: to walk

  Under such trees in full knowledge
  Of what is in glory above them,
  And to feel no fear,
  But acceptance, compliance.
  Fulfilling themselves without pain

  At the cycle’s center,
  They tremble, they walk
  Under the tree,
  They fall, they are torn,
  They rise, they walk again.
• 

  glenster

  I found it. It can be downloaded as an mp3 at the next link:

  http://www.jw.org/index.xjp?option=QrYQZRQVNZNT
• 

  minimus

  God never sanctioned anything but he sure does seem to allow it!
• 

  Gladring

  I'm not so concerned with the cruelty of nature.

  I guess what interests me in this is that it seems that the article states something that by their own translation of the bible seems to be a flat out lie.

  Check out Joshua 11:6 and 11:9 from the NWT

  6 At this Jehovah said to Joshua: “Do not be afraid because of them, for tomorrow about this time I am abandoning all of them slain to Israel. Their horses you will hamstring, and their chariots you will burn in the fire.”

  9 After that Joshua did to them just as Jehovah had said to him: their horses he hamstrung, and their chariots he burned in the fire.

  In verse 6 God orders Joshua to hamstring the horses. That's cruel - checkmate.

  The awake states that God "never sanctioned cruel treatment" of animals.

  It may seem to be only a small issue in the overall scheme of things, but it's a flat out lie.
• 

  St George of England

  If He created parasitic wasps, then the idea of an all vegetarian antediluvian ecology goes out the window. This insect is clearly not a vegetarian

  Yesterday I asked my uber-JW wife if there were cobwebs in Noah's Ark. She said how else would the spiders catch flies? I had to remind her that pre-flood they all ate straw!

  George
• 

  Gladring

  Also, I notice at the end of the article they pump the Isaiah 11 bit about a child playing with a cobra and the wolf lying down with the lamb.

  I thought they gave this up as a symbolic passage years ago?