7/13/2004: Baited bull

[pdaoust]

lumberjim, apologies for the angry post. Your second post put things more into context for me. I agree with you that it's abhorrent that people feel like they're free to do as they please to animals (and I'd include trees, waterways, soil, etc) because it 'says so in the Bible'... that's an example of people using their religious texts to sanction their own selfishness. Maybe it's because I was raised by hippie Catholic parents (a rare breed), but I think 'stewardship' is a much better, and probably more accurate, interpretation. I just can't accept that we would be allowed to screw up the earth.

Here's my opinion about the matter. Think about this for a sec: you give your son a car for his graduation gift. He says, "thanks, Dad," and proceeds to treat it like crap, bashing the hell out of it, putting diesel fuel in it, forgetting to top up the oil, running 80 km/h in second gear, etc. Aren't you going to pretty cheesed? If I were that dad, I'd start thinking I shoulda kept the car for myself. He obviously doesn't know how to take care of the stuff I gave him. (noblesse oblige, as TS said.)

So it's my opinion that environmentalism and friendliness-to-animals is an integral part of Christianity that Christians just can't afford to ignore. It makes me very angry when Christians say that environmentalism is somehow incompatible with Christianity.

wow, am I ever off-topic!