I have been noting this more recently and it seems to be a trend, at least with people I converse with on the regular. The really religious types aren’t animal people or downright dont like them. The more chill or agnostic types seem to be more apt to love animals.
I could go on my theory of this but I’m interested to see if anyone thinks this is a trend.
Yes. Omish people treat animals like fucking garbage.
Amish?
I read in the old testament that when moving the ark of the covenant to a new location that, for every few steps taken, they would sacrifice another ox or some other animal as an offering to God, and it was a long journey.
It depends on what religion you look at you have religions with literal sacred animals, religions where all life is sacred, religions where the prophet didn’t like dogs so dogs are explicitly shunned, religions where just cloven hooves animals are forbidden etc. it’s kind of all over the place, my church is dog friendly and I’ve brought him with me before.
I do think there is a subset of Christianity that believes that 1) animals exist to serve man 2) animals don’t have souls so that would mean animal welfare isn’t really a priority. It’s also important to maintain that animals don’t have souls explicitly to justify caring less about them, if they had eternal souls it would be a lot harder to feel ok exploiting them.
So yes, I do think some religions do have an undercurrent of denying animal welfare for the benefit of animal exploitation because they believe that is the god given purpose of animals, to be exploited by man.
But “Sacred animals” AFAIK doesn’t mean all animals, but very specific one. Like you shouldn’t eat cows, but eating pigs is fine. So it isn’t against religious people general morales to avoid killing animals.
But maybe you know of a religion where all animals are sacred.
Many are told that they are above animals and that they are there to be used by us.
They might just be more human friendly 🤷♂️. The atheist Western person often loves animals because they’re afraid of people (which turns into hatred after some years of propaganda and loneliness), can’t form or maintain proper relationships for a number of reasons (trauma, ideology that thinks men are wolves to their fellow man) and, sometimes, it’s because they can’t control people the way they can control animals.
This reminds me of that one line “I can tolerate racism but I won’t stand for animal abuse” or something like that by the blonde girl in Community, lol.
Ps: I have a big chubby cat called Jezebel that’s as pampered as a young princess, and I still understand that’s just an animal. If I had to decide on saving the lives of either a random person or my cat, I would save the random person with no hesitation. Who wouldn’t do the same besides thoroughly confused people?
Muslim hate dogs cause their pedophile prophet didn’t like them
A lack of empathy extends to all things.
Of course. The Bible taught people that this planet is ours, and that animals are under us.
According to one religious person I’ve talked to, animals don’t have “souls” so they’re not worth anything. I argued there’s no difference, many animals have emotions and awareness, just like us. His reply was they we are smarter than animals.
I asked what about dumb people then, because there’s considerable overlap between the dumbest people and the smartest animals. Like at what “IQ” do you obtain a soul? That’s about when he tried changing the subject.
Oh I’d say this is definitely just anecdotal to you personally. Lots of animal shelters are owned, operated and funded by religious organizations.
Yeah, but how do they treat them? Is it just a new way for them to make money?
Are you under the impression animal shelters are churning out big bucks?
Anything connected with churches can make good money from donations and shady financials.
While true, lets not be those jerks who associate literally every bad thing to ever happen with churches. Believe it or not there are churches with good people feeding the homeless etc. It’s probably .000000001%, but they’re out there (and it sure as hell ain’t megachurches or any church that preaches maga)
I had food and home heating oil for 3 winters when I was a kid. From a church we didn’t even go to. Parents were social workers, a unbelievably poorly compensated profession. Its why I became an engineer instead of following their path. Its much bigger than that percentage but I agree its never the mega churches. They are organizations run by people. Some good, some bad.
I agree, I have even helped my friends church with IT stuff and when I moved to a new town as a kid a church gave us food as we were the poorest family according to my school. That same church said I was going to hell a couple years later when everyone thought I was gay when a gay kid said I was cute and I thanked him.
Had me in the first half…
Damn. Thats shitty. Sorry they were assholes to you.
That is true of any charity organization, regardless of affiliation.
Yeah but it’s easier to do when you think you are righteous and have the will of your God behind you.
If you’re actively scamming the system intentionally, you don’t think that. You know you’re being shitty and you’ve consciencely chosen that over being a righteous godly person.
I didn’t take organizations into account,
They are run by people. I think if you have a generally negative perception of a certain type of person, you’ll start attributing negative behaviors to all of them, even if its only been your limited experience.
I know a fair number of religious people, They don’t seem to be any more or less cruel than non-religious people.
There are entire religions on the well being of animals. Jainist hardliners i think it is where the monks even cover their mouth and noses to not breath in the smalles of bacteria since those are animals too
I think this is because many religions convince their followers that they are the center of the uni, and that the sun, mountains, animals, and birds were all created to serve them. In contrast, non-religious people are much more likely to see the bigger picture, that they are simply part of nature.
Also, some religions like Islam for example, treat dogs as something to be avoided. For example, there’s a Hadith that says: “Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog or a picture”! So that is the case with Islam, since I come from a Muslim background.
not even a picture??? wowy
I can’t speak to other religions, but I’m pretty sure there’s a passage in the bible that says that (paraphrasing) mankind has dominion over animals. Some clearly interpret this to mean “God says I can be as shitty as I want to animals”.
I’m not sure, I’m not religious aside from Buddhist thoughts. It seems like a lot of people love domesticated animals, but food is where I can see a difference. I don’t think that there’s not too much of a religious division by many means when it comes to animals we consume.
Take for example, a lot of people look at deer as oh adorable Bambi. I see great, I have to scrape you off my steel bumper, shoot you in the head to put you out of your misery, and then venison is on the menu for the month since it would be a shame to disrespect the animals death.
The vegan thread I wrote in really didn’t like that I wrote that if hunting, shooting deer in where there spine and skull connects is the most humane way as opposed to a heart/lung shot and having the animal run in fear in it’s last moments. Same goes for cattle, kosher and halal aren’t very humane compared to using an air gun to sever the brain and skull and seize all function. There is a difference in the taste of the meat.
Same goes with fish and shellfish. Fish for sushi is basically killed with a spike destroying the brain and that’s why it tastes different than the fish for grilling. Same goes for lobster, you can put it to sleep or do the same.
