Losing Paradise
.:Animals:.
Despite ancient tenets of the world's great religions and modern ethical principles, we treat both domesticated and wild animals with almost unimaginable cruelty to “increase profits,” and for “sport” and “fashion.” Can we take our own ethics and religions seriously enough to stop a cycle which begins with cruelty to animals and ends with vilence against people?
Every day, the pressures of development, agriculture, and population growth lead to the destruction of natural habitat. Habitat destruction, in turn reduces populations of plants and animals, leading to extinctions in the worst cases, and to lowered efficiency among ecosystems. If, as many scientists believe, these systems are tightly interelated and interdependent, are we poisoning our own well?
The same practices supporting the cruel treatment of animals and the destruction of the environment are known to be the direct cause of diseases, formerly rare or unknown, which now kill thousands and cause suffering among millions. Can we survive without far-reaching changes in our “conventional practices?
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The Threat to Animals
Religion, Sport, Fashion: Cruelty and Humane Treatment Dr. Paul Irwin, an ordained Methodist minister, provides a background, not only of the Christian and biblical perspective on the ethical and humane treatment of animals, but additionally surveys other major religious traditions to make the case that the humane treatment of animals is not only a recognition of the relationship of living, sentient creatures to one another, but is a moral and spiritual imperative.
A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. (Proverbs 12:10)
Three areas of great concern, Dr. Irwin points out, are factory farming, also known as confined animal feeding operations, sport hunting, and trapping.
Factory Farming, the intense concentration of animals raised for meat in factory conditions, has the practical result that every day 7,000 calves, 900,000 turkeys, 70,000 ducks and 24 million chickens are slaughtered after having spent their entire lives confined in cages so small that most cannot turn around. Add to the cruel effects of factory farming the known and unknown threats that arise from bio-engineering, the loss of topsoil, and fertilizer/pesticide/manure contaminated agricultural runnoff and the picture is indeed grim. Can these practices be changed to less environmentally destructive practices. Dr. Irwin points to positive ways forward, but concludes they cannot happen without much greater citizen pressure for change.