"A-hunting we shall go": why the hunting ban is wrong and the "animal rights" revolution is another false ideology

Ever eaten a roast?

Yes?

Well, then, you're an accomplice to murder according to the loony "animal rights liberationist" revolutionaries.

This is the new stage of the Revolution, with a capital "R".

The exploitation of workers led to the error of Communism - and we know how disastrously that failed.

The exploitation of women led to the error of Feminism - and we are currently living that disastrous failure.

Animals are also part of God's creation and they and the environment should not be abused but such exploitation has led now to the error of Animal Liberationism which claims that animals have rights, just as humans do, and should be legally accorded them.

Under the extreme versions of this false ideology, a wanted animal, such as a cat or a dog, has more right to live than an unborn child, guns should be banned as they are used to kill animals and abortion should be allowed where a child is not wanted. Thus the ideology often gives more rights to animals than to humans.

It follows that the unwanted sick and elderly are also at risk under this ideology.

This is the duplicitous logic of the "animal rights" revolutionaries. There are even Catholic clerics who have fallen for this bizarre logic and who even retail the same nonsense in their sermons.

This is the philosophy that led to the ban on hunting.

What are guns for? They are used to hunt food and to eliminate verminous animals. They can, occasionally, be used in self-defence, where necessary. Self-defence is not - like abortion - murder or manslaughter.

If the pursuit of animals is also objected to then one must ask "on what ground?". If the answer is because they are God's creatures, then the next question is this "are all God's creatures, e.g. flies or poisonous spiders to be exempt thereby from being killed? Are cows and pigs also to be exempt from being used for food?".

If the answer is - ridiculously - "yes", then the next question is "why?".

The only answer can be because they have a "right to life" akin to that of humans, in which case there is an equality being made between humans and animals which is plainly wrong since humans have a rational soul and are made in the image and likeness of God, with free will, and animals have only an animal soul, and do not have free will or rational souls.

Since the Fall of Adam and Eve, man has had to hunt for his food. It is a natural activity. Moreover, a hunted animal has virtually no cholesterol in it so that it is actually healthier for you than farmed produce.

NORMAL

The technical banning of all forms of hunting has been effected in this country largely on the basis of so-called “animal rights”.

The more extreme animal rights movements are revolutionary in nature and seek to overthrow the legal and moral distinction between men and animals, claiming that all species should be accorded equal status in law and morality.

Professor Peter Singer of Princeton University in the USA is an advocate of extreme animal rights and believes that new-born children may have less right to life than wanted animals do, like a favourite cat or dog.

TOTAL AND UTTER WEIRDO
Professor Peter Singer thinks that a wanted animal has more right to live than an unwanted human child

The issue is thus not only one of the enjoyment, or otherwise, of hunting. There is a deeper philosophical and theological issue at stake here.

Is man different from the animals?

That is the question.

In truth, the answer is obvious.

What species, other than man, built the great Cathedrals, or painted the Sistine chapel, or wrote Dante’s Commedia Divina, or devised Justinian’s law code, or wrote the works of Plato and Aristotle or of St Thomas of Aquinas or came even close to producing anything like the great works of literature, art and architecture? Who but man devised modern science, medicine and mathematics?

“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him? Thou hast made him but a little less than the angels, Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour; and Thou hast set him over the works of Thy hands: Thou hast put all things under his feet.”

So sings the Psalmist (Ps.8:4-6).

Man is not merely an animal. He is made in the likeness and image of God with free will and the power to subdue nature and to create great things and to do great things.

Animals simply do not have anything like that power.

They do not have rational souls but only animal souls. They have been provided by God for man’s benefit. Of course, it is not good for man to be cruel toward them or to abuse the natural world but that does not confer upon the non-rational world the human and rational idea of rights, let alone human rights.

It does mean that we should oppose the extreme kinds of bizarre factory-farming practised by some big food multi-nationals which is plainly an abuse of God's creation and, moreover, is bad food for us and our children. But this does not confer legal rights upon animals. It is, rather, an enforceable obligation imposed upon men not to abuse creation - a very different thing.

COMMON, OR GARDEN, WEIRDO

Virtue and vegetarianism are not synonyms. Indeed, the great mass-murderer, Hitler, was himself a vegetarian, a teetotaller and a non-smoker, let us not forget.

Vegetarianism, teetotalling and non-smoking are all morally neutral. But let us not forget that evil men can adopt them, too. They do not, of themselves, confer virtue, though they may do so if undertaken as a sacrifice and a discipline, especially if done for good and devout religious motives.

But that is a very different thing from doing so out of a false belief in the equality of men and animals, or out of an excessive devotion to extending one’s life span, ignoring the next world, our true and eternal destination.

Wonderful creations of God though animals are, they are not to be equated with man, God’s special creation, made in His image and likeness.

Icon of St Irenaeus of Lyons

"The glory of God is living man” wrote St Irenaeus of Lyons.

Indeed he is, for he is the reflection and image of God, free to choose good and evil and destined, if he chooses good, to spend a glorious and bountiful eternity with the God who created nature for our benefit.

"The glory of God is living man" - St Irenaeus of Lyons
and here depicted by Leonardo da Vinci.

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