If a PETA activist hitched a ride in a time machine sometime in the future and was placed back into Biblical times they wouldn't know where to start protesting with all the carnage. Any scientist or even animal enthusiast that loves surrounding themselves with other species of animals to study them or find companionship with them would find it difficult to worship a God who hates all animals. One would think. We are of course animals ourselves as well. We are apes and we evolved like ever other species of living organism on planet Earth.
Of course a case can be made using the Bible that God hates certain tribes of the human species. He clearly favors one over others; just google "slavery in the Bible" and read the verses for yourself. The Old Testament is a whole lot of the Jewish God wiping out many humans in one fail swoop (see flood story in Genesis) or selective baby killing (see passover). However, this blog entry will focus solely on Yahweh's treatment of other species of animals other than humans here on this planet in which He created.
It's best to start at the beginning. In Genesis 1 we see God creates the entire planet for human beings. Our species is special. The entire ecosystem of planet Earth was created for us and we are commanded to "subdue it" (Genesis 1:28; 9:1-3; Psalm 8). This of course flies in the face of sustainable living (realizing that our actions and activities are putting other crucial species into extinction is extremely problematic for our own species survival.) So we see how God considers the ranks: 1. God - then 2. humans (which of course we can make a strong Biblical case within this category a sub-hierarchy of 1. Man - 2. then woman.) - then lastly 3. other species of animals. *Often tho the Old Testament will lump in women (property) with livestock (property) so the line between 2 and 3 is blurry. Of course at the time these texts were being written there was no such thing as science and thus no such thing as biology which classifies homo sapiens as a part of the animal kingdom as well.
I once had a Christian friend tell me I was mistaken to think that Christianity is consistently committing an anthropic fallacy because first and foremost God is what matters not humans, and that may well be true but it would be hard to argue against the ranking I define above - simply, humans are ranked above all other species of animals. The entire universe, this planet, This entire thing - was made FOR us. We outrank the rest of it (all except God of course). It's basically the opposite of environmental conservation. Think of it that way.
Before the first chapter of Genesis ends we see God's philosophy towards how humans are to treat his created planet (and please recall and keep in focus the current known size of the cosmos and amount of other stars besides our sun with orbiting planets happen to be in the billions of galaxies swirling about a mass of empty space) In other words "we are special" is a either the greatest understatement OF ALL TIME or simply an anthropic fallacy. Option B seems more plausible to me. Anyways, we are to conquer nature and make it our bitch basically. As apparent in other religions (other than Christianity and a few other big ones) some eastern religions or Native American, we must fit into the cycle of life with all the other plants and animals. As an ex-hippy/tree hugger, trust me I know how taking a philosophy to the extreme can be laughable and counterproductive to say the least. Watch the show Portlandia to further illustrate this point. There is actual scientific evidence that connects biodiversity to ecological health. We don't have to look much further than seeing what modern human activity (for example the burning of fossil fuels) has done to the planet. Climate change is happening now.
I must address first that there actually are a handful of verses in the Old Testament that on the surface seem to suggest Yahweh wants us to be kind to other species of animals (If you haven't figured it out by now the Bible gives a sort of bipolar view on so many topics - it contradicts itself consistently and offers of conflicting advice in many pages). There are verses in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Jonah, Psalms, and Proverbs that when on a quick read seem kind to animals. (Exodus 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:14; Deuteronomy 22:4; Psalm 147:9 for example). However, it's important to understand the context in what you are reading as we've all been told a million times by Christian apologists. As we pull back and look at the view of animals at the time (not unlike the view towards women) we see the Bible is consistent with the "subdue" the Earth commandment in the first chapter of Genesis. Animals are important to God because animals are useful for humans. This seems to brush away most of these positive verses on animal treatment pretty quickly.
So obviously animal sacrifice happens and that's gross and completely irrational ... and clearly animal cruelty. If one is to follow down the rabbit hole of Biblical logic here (*theology) we land at the foregone conclusion which is the Creator of the universe needs animal blood. A case could be made that God is a vampire. Well if vampires can be defined as a dead human that craves living human blood then I guess he could since he said his son (a God/himself) to satisfy his blood lust for the ultimate sacrifice in the New Testament. But for now let's go back to animal sacrifice - what makes it most creepy, I think, is that God just likes to watch it. That's it! What a waste! He doesn't do anything with this poor dead sacrificed animal once it's been all burnt up. It isn't like he is lapping up the blood with his "tongue" - assuming he does have a sort of extra- dimensional, supernatural tongue here - since you know, we humans were created "in His image" and all. Christian theology is very complicated.
Then we get to the flood story (Genesis 6). In this Biblical narrative God punishes all humans with a worldwide flood, which kills every living thing except Noah and his family along with a handful of each species. Some could argue this is showing God's compassion towards other species of animals as to not kill them all, well I guess the Omniscient Creator of the cosmos is sort of like nation states going to war right?- there is unfortunately collateral damage. He'll sort it out later. Clearly we see this in the flood story with all the other animals (that are sinful by default?) Yahweh even has this problem with homo sapiens as He commands the killing of innocent women and children in the Old Testament via his favorite tribe. He even directly kills (via the "Angel of Death") the first born Egyptian babies (unless of course you are a member of his favorite tribe and also put that ever popular animal blood over your door.) Blood lust everywhere up in this bitch!
I also have always wondered why God doesn't give free will to other species animals. I would say some Christian apologists would disagree here, but he certainly suspended their free will when they like robots marched onto Noah's boat. That's kind of creepy. Was it their choice to split into two (how was that choice made?) and to come onto the ark or did God merely take over the driving seat in the animal brain to fire the neurons that fire the muscle fibers that bring that dinosaur or this cockroach onto that boat? These are really important philosophical questions.
What about the plagues? (Exodus 7:14-11:10) We see once again the animal free will conundrum crop up here too. Where the locus' brain taken over by Yahweh (or some lower ranked angel) and there was no free will or did they have a choice in the matter? Frogs from the sky? How did they get there? Miracles don't need explaining obviously because the airtight axiom "God did it that settles it" applies here. We live in a natural world that sometimes get's wacky weird when frogs fall from the sky and rivers fill with blood. (#BiblicalBloodLust!) We read in this passage that all the fish in the rivers die (obviously!) That seems cruel and unusual. Where did the blood come from? Which animal's blood made these rivers of blood? What's the back story? Did an angel on instructions from God slit the throat of thousands of animals before hand then place the blood into these rivers? No that's silly - the H2O turned into plasma "magically". I forgot about the "God did it that settles it" axiom there. Damn, I always forget to apply that equation. I'll learn. This needs more study.
Not only did God kill all the innocent Egyptian first born babies but he also killed the first born of all of their live stock (Exodus 12:29) as well not to mention all the Egyptian livestock with storms of fire and hail. One gets the drift at some points that the writers of the Old Testament books are just really going out of their way to ham up the blood and guts. They must always include all the property damage (livestock, women, etc) that follows God's wrathful punishment. It's like bookkeeping of how horrific and evil God is, I guess. I don't know. So it seems obvious already that God hates not only Egyptian babies (unless they are part of a collateral damage problem that shows the infallibility of Yahweh's nature of course) but other species of animals.
In Leviticus 14 we see more animal abuse, but I suppose it's acceptable since it's used for medicine. Ever want to know how to cure that annoying leprosy? Try this:
It's a whole process that lasts 8 days unfortunately, first you get your local priest (obviously) and two clean and living birds. Also grab some cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop. The priest will then command that one of the birds be killed over an earthen vessel over running water.
As for the living bird, well the priest will take it, the cedar wood, the scarlet, and the hyssop, and dip them all in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. This is when science/religion required seeing lots of blood involved.
*Remember too - this is God the Creator Mind behind the Big Bang and all the known universe getting it wrong on how to cure a disease. Funny how many believers will not accept the overwhelming consensus of biologists, paleontologists, and geneticists who understand the theory of evolution is a fact or 98% of all climate scientists but will accept an all-knowing, all-powerful God who gets it dead wrong on a specific disease. Strange how that works isn't it. Confirmation bias much?
We're not done here. Haha! don't get up just yet, your leprosy isn't quite cured. Then what you are going to want to do is have the priest sprinkle the blood seven times (don't try to skimp only sprinkling 6 times now!) on the patient with leprosy. He will be pronounced clean after this, but wait we don't see animal cruelty here. God commands that the living bird with his dead bird friend's blood all over it is to be set free into an open field. What a beautiful image! See God is fair and balanced! You have to wash your clothes and groom still, after all of this; Oh, and you have to stay outside of your home for seven days. But on the seventh day you can shave all the hair off your head and your beard (sorry ladies, you are out of luck - you get to KEEP your leprosy) and your eyebrows (obviously. Nothing weird here). And I realize this is redundant but you must once again wash everything (your body, your clothes) and THEN you are clean!
Just kidding!
On the eighth day you take two male (obviously) lambs without blemish, one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, three-tenths of an ephah (bushel) of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering, and one log of oil. Then the priest who preformed the first operation will present the man with leprosy, with all those other random things to Yahweh, at the door of the tabernacle. And the priest will then take one male lamb and offer it as a trespass offering, and the log of oil, and wave them around a bit. Then he shall kill the lamb. The priest will then take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it on the tip of the right ear of the man with leprosy, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.
It's not over. Then the very same priest will take the log of oil, and pour it into the palm of his own left hand. He will dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and sprinkle some of the oil with his finger seven times (not 5 or 4!) before the God. You are probably asking what about the remainder of the oil on the priest's hand?! Good question. Well, the priest will put some of the tip of the right ear of the man with leprosy, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot, on the blood of the trespass offering. The rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand is to be put on the head of the man to be cured. Afterward all of this the priest will finally kill the burnt offering. Finally after all this the man will be clean.
In Isaiah 11:6-9 it says,
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD. - Isaiah 65:25
In these two passages from the Old Testament we see a prophetic view of the future, returning to a sort of Garden of Eden-style utopia again. Can it not be argued that instead of the sins (which are actually vaguely defined if not laughably disagreeable in the Bible with most in grey areas in ethics and morality - which support a bottom-up naturalistic morality that evolved over time by the way) of one species of animal (humans) affecting the entire living ecosystem on planet earth (leopards and lions prey and viciously tear apart other species of animals due to HUMAN SIN rather than the theory of natural selection??) No.
In Isaiah 1:11-17 we see God satisfying his blood lust finally for other animals, or on closer inspection we see that God isn't asking for the blood sacrifices to necessarily stop just that they need to come from a place of genuine sincerity. His favorite tribe had to REALLY REALLY REALLY mean it when they pointlessly lit an animal on fire on an alter for the Personal All-knowing Creator Mind behind the Big Bang. Try re-reading that paragraph again with a straight face.
And then there's the New Testament...
For starters lets take the nice verse we remember from when we were children about God caring so much for the sparrows; so how much more does he care about us humans? How beautiful right? This passage in Luke 12:6-7 pulls at the ole heart strings on first read but remember to take a step back and look at this from another angle too. This of course confirms the same mantra from the Old Testament from way back in the first chapter of Genesis. Remember the ranking? 1. God. 2. Humans (still not quite clear where this begins since genetics and everything we know about evolution tells us there is no such thing as the first two of any species, but we'll go ahead and look past those facts for the moment and pretend we should even be talking about any of this in the first place) 3. All other species of animals.
We see too in Matthew 12:11-12 that Jesus explains how much more important human beings are than sheep, but it gets really exciting when Jesus casts demons out of a demon-possessed man and throws them into pigs. (Mark 5; Matthew 8:24-34; Luke 8:26-39) Clearly this should have even the most bashful of the animal rights activists up in arms. These poor pigs right? One minute you are minding your own business, the next minute you have fucking demons all up inside you. This of course causes the pigs to drown themselves (free will questions here? No??) What's really confusing in the Luke version of the story is that the demons inside the poor human bastard beg Jesus to cast them into the herd of pigs. Then directly after this they drown themselves. Complex theology here apparently. Lesson being?: Demons think they want to be inside of pigs rather than being cast into hell but realize once inside it's not really all it's cut out to be. I don't know. Of course sort of off topic but this does bring up an interesting question of do other animals have souls?
In my on-going email discussions with my Christian friend ( http://www.theolatte.com/ ) he has made it clear that he has a principled outlook on human beings- that humans have some immaterial part to them (that very part described is the "soul" or "spirit" or "essence" or "the supernatural You" that goes to heaven or hell when you die.) He believes there is in direct evidence for this. There isn't. I would be willing to bet that most average believers believe in demon possession (like Exorcist-style). I would also assume my friend does (though he would admit it/word his response very carefully as any good Christian apologist should) since he accepts this account of Jesus casting demons out of the man. It is safe to say he at least believes that our human bodies (the natural part) is a shell to house the immaterial part - the REAL YOU!. This is nothing new. Many people believe this "ghost in the machine" theory. It's actually what most people believe in 2014. It's in all the religions and in most New Age concepts of astral projection, alien abduction, etc. Sadly. Again, no evidence for a a "ghost in the machine". We naturalist think we are our bodies. Simple as that.
However, I would suggest too that most Christians accept that other species of animals do not have souls. (God clearly treats other species of his creation as if they don't as we've seen thus far). No dogs go to heaven, unfortunately. It's Christian dog-ma. OK that was bad. I apologize. When they die its like they return to the what it was like before they were born (which is what we atheists think happens with our species as well). There is no heaven for other species of animals, no hell to be punished since they never sin (even though they rip apart other animals, have sex before marriage, and even have butt sex with the same gender - disgusting!) Our best evidence points to these creatures not needing a savior like our species does because they have no souls and they have not sinned (they just get punished for human sins - because that's fair * See flood story and everything else I've said above). I think most Christians would agree with this.
Is this consistent with this soulless animal religious theology if we see demons possessing these pigs? Is there a contradiction here? I am rusty on my scientific laws of "demon possession" (i.e. a supernatural agent placing itself inside of a natural agent.) --- (This happened with Jesus too by the way. He was born into human flesh. Jesus the man you read about in Reza Aslan's book Zealot is a shell, with the REAL Jesus inside!) To be a species that can be possessed you must be a physical shell first and foremost but, to have a physical shell you must have a soul to place inside the shell, right? Other animals should have souls if demons can take over the driver's seat (soul) and control "the machine". There must be a Christian apologist out there that can give us an answer to this problem.
Finally Christianity lets go of the blood addiction of animal sacrifice around 70AD. This is where we see Jesus/Son of God/God/Holy Ghost being the final sacrifice needed to appease the Father God/Himself/and the Holy Ghost. Which makes sense if you think about it.
Actually, wait....
The main thing we can take away from the Bible's attitude towards other species of animals is that the Bible is anthropocentric. My friend may argue this point with me saying the ultimate purpose of the Bible is to glorify God, either way all we need to do is simply look at the texts, realize the hierarchy that is 1. God - 2. Man (then woman) - then 3. Other species of animals. This is the ranking system made clear in the pages of Scriptures. I would think most Christians wouldn't see a problem with this at all. However, when right from the beginning pages of the Old Testament we read the Creator of the universe commanding that we make this entire planet (including all of it's living organisms) our "bitch" (not a direct quote) then we have a problem.
Stage set for: Climate changed - caused by human activity.
The very believers who accept this book as the Word of God are the same believers who vote, who help shape policy by their political action. Now, this becomes our problem. We, as rational atheists much stand up to this nonsense and inform the general public (of which most are Christian) that climate change is not only real but we need to take care of this planet and undo as much as we've already done to this delicate global ecosystem. Because if we do not we will not survive as a species no matter how many prayers we send up to heaven. There are some promising strides being made in some Christian denominations that are progressive and in tune with the importance of being conservationists instead of treating this planet like our own personal playground. God said it, I believe it, that settles it .. isn't going to fly when we're all dead from global warming in the future. We must educate the ones we love and the ones we can't stand and wait for a better day when this type of dogmatic ignorant religious fundamentalism is buried in the ash heap of human history.
Here's a really good blog article and source I used for this blog entry:
https://sites.google.com/site/thechristiandelusion/Home/the-bible-and-animals
