Celivia
Thanks for your kind words. I believe most of the church leaders regard Jesus Christ as their leader.

You said: " Even though I am not religious, I can see why Christians love Jesus. " Can you explain further?

Well, I have given those links to illustrate the Love of Christ towards Animals and Humans (Social Animals). Please see Jesus along with those cute lambs and we (both you and me) are the lost sheep. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who feeds us spiritually.

You have asked: Do you think (hypothetically) that with all your belief and faith in Jesus Christ which you obviously have, if you were to be the leader of a church, that you would give attention to animal welfare/cruelty issues or would you be like the church leaders we know and ignore it?

If I were to be a leader of church, I have to do my job as described by my authorities (in that church).

In this sentence, (In the case in where I would have to choose between say, a ruthless, barbaric animal torturer or child molester/murderer and my cat, then I’d save my cat.) if you mean the child-molesting priests, then I would like to say something : The following are the words of Jesus wrt Adultery. I believe child-molesting, rapes, sexual harrasment fall under the same category.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart (and viceversa)." Matthew 5:27, 28

If the Judgement of Jesus Christ is like this, how can you think that priests who are child-molesters acceptable in His Sight? { Am I right in saying that you point to child-molesting priests & Bush/Howard

Michael4love

lovely humbling

" And he lay down his life to protect his flock"

Nobody is suggesting we put animals 'before people." just alongside
There is a clear connection between animal cruelty and abuse to people.
I dont think I would follow the Church Leader.
I would follow the lords wishes. Please compare these pictures and tell me what you think Jesus would say?http://www.halakindmeats.com/elders.html
The pictures are stunning and I hope one day they might be used for the first real bible studies in churches.
Thank You for Your Support. You ARE a Christian
Celivia this is your progect and I am just supporting you and no different to any other poster. Your doing a great job.

Yabby

2-Minute Management Course
Lesson One:
An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw
the eagl e and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing?" The
eagle answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below
the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the
rabbit and ate it .

Management Lesson - To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting
very, very high up.

Lesson Two:
A turkey was chattin g with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the
top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy."
"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull.
"They're packed with nutrients." The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and
found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of
the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second
branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at
the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out
of the tree.

Management Lesson - Bull SH might get you to the top, but it won't keep
you there.

Celivia, I understand your point. The thing is however, that some
people are acting much like religious zealots when it comes to
the live trade. All passion and little reason, add alot of distorted
information and it becomes a story that feeds on itself, without
much reality behind it.

So its time to point out the realities occasionaly. Zealots will
stay zealots, but there are also people on here who can reason,
who are intelligent and who can think about the arguments with
a more balanced perspective.

In fact the whole debate is far more complex. For instance in alot
of WA station country, they used to run merinos. When weather
conditions were right, tens of thousands of those sheep would die
cruel, miserable deaths, over many days, from blowfly strike.
You have to see that to believe it, if you want to see suffering.
But of course thats not on tv, so is never mentioned.

That same country is now being converted to damaras, which don't
suffer like that. They are sold to the live trade, the local trade
does not want them. But the net outcome is far less suffering
for animals. The thing is, to achieve less suffering it takes
accurate information, rational thinking and looking at the big
picture. Emotional zealotry and ad hominem attacks will solve
nothing but make people feel better, they won't reduce suffering
of animals.

Wendy Lewthwaite, Thanks for your comments.

* And he lay down his life to protect his flock * . This verse is awesome. Jesus laid down his life to protect you, me and all humans. What a Love!

* There is a clear connection between animal cruelty and abuse to people. *

Absolutely True! As I said, those who are kind at heart will automatically be kind/graceful in words/deeds.

For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Luke 6:45.
Faith apart from works is dead. James 2:26

* Please compare these pictures and tell me what you think Jesus would say?http://www.halakindmeats.com/elders.html
The pictures are stunning and I hope one day they might be used for the first real bible studies in churches. *

Well, I think Jesus, being the Creator will definitely be saddened looking at those scenes: those animals, being His Creation. I do hope the same.

Finally, thanks for your compliments on my faith. All the Best.

Wendy, thanks so much for those pictures on here!

Not enough time to reply to all, might come back later, for now, just to
Michael. Thank you Michael!
A few replies- sorry I'll have to be concise:

Yes, I do understand why you gave those links of Jesus and the lambs. This is the way that Jesus would like lambs to be treated. In contrast, there are more realistic pictures (for example the ones Wendy gave us to look at). There is a big contrast. Jesus carries and treats the lambs with love and care- the lambs in today’s reality are being shipped all over the world and tortured. A good suggestion for the church to use both images and compare and ask: WWJD?

If you are saying that most of the church leaders regard Jesus as their leader, then why don’t they look at these lovely pictures of Jesus and the lambs, compare them with pictures of sheep exports and animal torture in general and say: What Would Jesus Do? I so don’t understand that when leaders say that Jesus is their leader, they ignore what Jesus did and don't do a thing.

”If I were to be a leader of church, I have to do my job as described by my authorities (in that church). “Who would be your highest authority- would that not be Jesus (or God)?

“Am I right in saying that you point to child-molesting priests & Bush/Howard “
No, I didn’t even have pedophile priests in mind when I wrote about the people-animal priority thing. Honestly, I don’t care what someone’s job is- whether s/he is a priest, teacher, plumber, doctor, president, PM, doesn’t matter. A priest who rapes a kid is not any better than any other worker who rapes a kid. I was not pointing to anything but spoke in general. A rapist or animal torturer is just that regardless of his occupation.

Celivia, why are you picking on Christians? Most of us don't go around proclaiming our Christianity, so I think you'd be surprised what the beliefs are of many people who worry about animal cruelty. I would have also thought that on the balance of probabilities, given the size of the world's population and the percentage of it that is genuinely Christian, there'd be absolutely and relatively more people who are cruel to animals, or who don't care about it, than there are Christians who fit the same category.

In fact, I'd say that on the basis of my training and upbringing that someone who was wantonly cruel to animals could not genuinely subscribe to Christianity. So many of the parables are based around caring animal husbandry, there is the image of the good shepherd, and the pascal lamb, Christ's birth is pictured in a stable, the first witnesses of it are shepherds in the fields, we have a genesis understanding of having stewardship over the earth. When you say grace over a meal you have a sense of the importance of all life and the miracle which brings it to your table to feed you.

And a quick Google search would have shown you that various churches have spoken out on animal welfare. He's a link to one statement of the Anglican position http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/socialpublic/smte.html#animalwelfare. Here's one that says it states the Roman Catholic position http://www.secondspring.co.uk/course/termtwo.htm (Go to "Structures of Sin"). There's no monolithic Christian view on anything, but I'd be surprised to find any significant domination saying it's OK to be cruel to animals.