The glory of God is living man - not veganism

The leaf-eaters are back!

The latest says this:

"Aren't humans amazing? They kill wildlife - birds, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice and foxes by the million in order to protect their domestic animals and their feed.

Then they kill domestic animals by the billion and eat them. This in turn kills people by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and cancer.

So then humans spend billions of dollars torturing and killing millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases.

Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals.

Meanwhile, few people recognize the absurdity of humans, who kill so easily and violently, and then call for Peace on Earth".

He's quoting (apparently) from the "Revised Preface to Old MacDonald's Factory Farm" by C. David Coates, so he says.

And - you guessed it - of course he, she or it is a vegan.

Mr Shark will insist on eating meat but no vegan or animal libbers ever campaigned against his cruelty. Why not - if animals are equal to humans?

Let's analyse, shall we?

They kill wildlife - birds, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice and foxes by the million in order to protect their domestic animals and their feed.

Nope.

They kill birds, deer and other animals to eat.

They kill coyotes and wild cats to protect other humans, particularly children.

They kill rats, foxes, mice and other vermin to prevent the spread of disease.

Wrong, Mr Vegan!

Then they kill domestic animals by the billion and eat them.

Nope.

You can count on the toes of one hand the number of people who freely choose to kill and eat their own domestic cats and dogs.

Wrong, Mr Vegan!

Who eats domestic dogs? No-one, of course, unless they are literally starving and probably not even then. Wake up, Mr Vegan!

This in turn kills people by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and cancer.

Nope.

Eating animals that you hunt and kill is healthy and avoids those diseases.

It is eating the factory-farmed poisonous garbage that fast food and factory producers spew out onto the market that kills humans.

But Mr Vegan is too busy denying nature to worry about that.

Wrong, again, Mr Vegan!

So then humans spend billions of dollars torturing and killing millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases.

Nope.

The science industry pretends to do that but actually it wastes most of its time pursuing ridiculous schemes simply in order to preserve jobs.

But Mr Vegan is too busy denying nature to worry about that.

Wrong, again, Mr Vegan!

Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals.

Nope.

There is more food available now than ever before and enough to keep feeding the whole world over and over. It does not reach the starving or poor because of selfish and corrupt political regimes, not because of meat-eaters.

But Mr Vegan is too busy denying nature to worry about that.

Wrong, again, Mr Vegan!

Meanwhile, few people recognize the absurdity of humans, who kill so easily and violently, and then call for Peace on Earth.

Nope.

The real absurdity is represented by those human beings who refuse to address the real issues and instead go down the blind alley of pretending that meat-eating is unnatural when most of the animal kingdom does precisely that.

Do vegans campaign against animals who eat meat?

No.

Yet, they think animals are the equal of humans.

Well, then?

Go tell those meat-eating animals to stop at once!

Then there are those animal lib terrorists who set fire to laboratories or put poison in products in order to kill human beings.

It is they who “kill so violently and easily and then call for peace on earth”.

Animal libbers claim to be for peace and against violence but will hypocritically put poison in products and set fire to laboratories.

Fortunately not too many people take these hypocrites at all seriously.

God gave us nature to use and enjoy for our own benefit. We should use it wisely and sustainably but that does not mean we should not use it.

Every animal uses nature for sustenance and enjoyment.

Human beings, however, have the greater right because humans are not merely animals. They are rational beings created in the image of God.

Animals do not have rational souls. Where are the animal writings, works of art, poetry and literature, science and scholarship? Where are the animal works of architecture? Where are the animal space programmes? Where are the animal works of mercy and charity? Where are the animal governments, laws and constitutions?





What animal can compose music, let alone music of the sublime quality of Allegri's
Miserere?

None?

Too all but an animal libber, it is perfectly clear that humans are vastly superior to animals in every way.

Animals have their place but man is far higher and created in the image of the Divine Creator.

Man also has free will so man can do evil. Then he falls far below any animal and becomes more like a devil. But that is the consequence of having free will.

Animal libbers would have us all behave like animals but, in so doing, we would all become more like devils, not animals.

Hitler, let us not forget, was an animal libber.

If man chooses good then he becomes more and more himself and more and more the image of He who made him.

Thus, then, says St Irenaeus:

"the glory of God is living man”

St Irenaeus, pray for us!

...

So...what do I think about animal cruelty, then?

Here's what I said to my misguided correspondent (who, by the way, seems a nice chap despite his eccentric views).

For the avoidance of doubt as to my own views, I do not accept that animals have rights, at least not in any human sense, but I do accept that wanton cruelty to animals is wrong.

That is not because animals have "rights" but because it is morally bad for humans to practice cruelty, even if only against animals.

For the further avoidance of doubt, I do not consider it cruel to kill and eat some animals.

That is, indeed, one of the reasons God put them on earth.

However, to derive enjoyment by inflicting pain upon them is a form of perversion. No hunter I have hunted with ever behaved like that and, if he did, he would be packed off by his fellow hunters as some sort of pervert to be shunned and avoided.

In heaven, there will be no killing or eating so the issue will not arise.

In heaven we shall be sustained by the love of God and shall be immortal beings like Him, without the need for physical growth and development and thus for food and drink, as we are here below. Our pleasure and contentment will be in loving and praising God which will be greater by far than any pleasure or contentment we could ever imagine, here below.

Moreover, the pleasure that we currently derive from animals will also be there in some mysterious but currently inexplicable way, whether the pleasure of the hunter in the chase or the pleasure of the grandmother stroking her favourite cat.

Yes, there is a sense in which the sacrifice of Christ can be likened to the cruel killing of a defenceless creature and we do well to contemplate upon Him in such fashion since Scripture and the Church themselves liken him to a lamb - nay, the very sacrificial lamb of the old Jewish sacrifice. In heaven we shall also continue to contemplate Him in such wise. Indeed, it the very dumbness of the lamb led to the slaughter that we see in the innocency and silence of the persecuted Christ. This is not a reflection upon the status of the lamb so much as an insight into the pure innocence of Christ and the horror we should have of sin which so caused innocence and holiness to be so persecuted.

It certainly does not mean that men and animals are in any way equal or should be accorded equal rights.

Neither does it mean that granny's little doggy Spot will go to heaven in some naive, anthropomorphic way but it does mean that granny will derive the same pleasure she currently gets from Spot, a millionfold in heaven and that, in some way, will be related to, and derive from, Christ our Lord and God.

There can be no happiness greater than that of the saints in heaven as they contemplate a God of infinite love, mercy and fathomless compassion. Simply to see Him will produce the greatest possible satisfaction, wonderment, love, pleasure and awe in the souls of the saints in heaven.

...

More animal crackers...

Proving my point, my animal-worshipping correspondent shews himself yet more obstinate.

Obstinate in refusing even to address the points I make and so - inevitably - obstinate in maintaining his false argument.

Logic escapes animal libbers yet the position is quite simple.

If animals and humans must be accorded the same rights then either animals must be given the full gamut of rights contained in human fundamental law codes like the UN Declaration of Rights, the European Convention and so on, or - which is the real truth - those charters must be changed or interpreted so that humans do not get more rights than animals.

That is what animal libbers like Professor Peter Singer believe.

Animals routinely commit infanticide and euthanasia and shun and reject the weak in total opposition to chivalry, honour and decency. But that is not surprising. They are dumb beasts, act on instinct and do not have the ability to chose right from wrong. It is ridiculous to talk about "rights" without also admitting duties and how can one expect an animal to have any kind of duty?

The result of "equality" between men and animals will mean that men will be reduced to the level of animals and will behave with the same savagery and brutality as animals.

Peter and the pig.
Prof Singer believes animals should be accorded human rights. In reality, that means that human rights should be reduced to the level of animals and, as Singer believes, infanticide and euthanasia should be allowed, as in the animal kingdom, er..., except, of course, for Peter's mother. Somehow he felt a bit different about euthanasia for her! (Oh, and note that you never see our Pete getting cosy with a crocodile, tiger or shark!)

The difference is that man has a rational soul and can make moral choices.

Thus if he chooses to act like an animal, which cannot make such choices, then he become infinitely worse than any animal, which is but a dumb beast.

Men who behave like animals become far worse than animals and much more resemble devils.

Victorian animal lovers were classically more concerned with dumb beasts than with the fate of starved, sick, abandoned children forced to work in filthy and horrible conditions.

They were but the beginning of the malaise.

She had a lucky escape - the shark only "nibbled" her!

...

Animal crackers - the devious and obstinate heterodoxy of the animal libbers

The animal lib heterodoxy shows itself as obstinate as many another heterodoxy.

The devious lack of intellectual honesty that so characterises the heterodox is not lacking, either.

Their latest wheeze is to quote Cardinal John Henry Newman from his Parochial and Plain Sermons as if to demonstrate that Newman was some form of early animal libber.

Like many another Catholic animal libber, my latest correspondent quotes from Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons deviously failing to mention:

(a) that they were written when Newman was an Anglican and not a Catholic;

(b) that they were not intended to be a Christian animal libber manifesto but rather an exercise in drawing comparisons understandable to his 19th century readers so that they could move on to understand higher things;

(c) that he does not, by any stretch of the imagination, pretend that animals are saved by Christ precisely because he knows that animals do not have rational souls;

(d) there were animal libbers of a sort in the 19th century and some of them were more interested in stray cats than they were in hungry, exploited and abandoned children (so much for the claim that animal libbing leads to compassion!). Newman sought to turn the thoughts of these people back to love of humanity from the perverted substitute god that they had created for themselves.

For the record, Newman dedicated his P & P Sermons (and that in 1834) to:

"THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, B.D., CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH, AND REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HEBREW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD"

Pusey was a famous Anglo-Catholic and expressly repudiated Roman Catholicism.

The animal libbers also claim to read into Scripture their own perverse and perverted animal lib creed.

The pride of the heterodox is frequently only equalled by their obstinacy which can exceed even that of a mountain goat...

It is a characteristic of the heterodox that they claim to interpret Scripture according to their own fancy and not according to the teachings of the Church.

It is no part of orthodox Catholic theology that Christ came to save the souls of animals.

St Irenaeus of Lyons taught in the 2nd century gloria Dei homo vivens - "the glory of God is living man".

That is because we are made in His image - not because we deserve it but because that is what God Himself wanted.

If animal libbers don't like that, then they'd better take it up with God since it is His idea. They can explain to Him why they think He's wrong.

In fact, the evil of animal libbery is that it aims not so much to raise animals to the level of man (which is impossible) but rather to drag man down to the level of animals so that practices like infanticide and euthanasia - common in the animal kingdom - become acceptable practices among humans.

The animal lib blasphemy that Christ became incarnate as an animal and that His sacred humanity was not to be distinguished, in its humanity, from animals, is an extreme example of the foolishness of those animal libbers who try to marry their views with Christianity. One might as well worship Christ the sacred crocodile.

That humans and animals are intrinsically different is obvious to any 3-year-old child - but not, alas, to the animal libbers.

Here's what animals are really like - irrational, instinctual and frequently savage and brutal:

Here's a particularly amusing piece of self-rebuttal by a Quaker animal libber trying desperately to explain why it was that mankind has always hunted and eaten animals but why it should suddenly stop today in our time. It tries to marry up all the fashionable -isms of our day into one big, politically-correct, Quaker melange. For sheer fatuity it takes a lot to beat this stuff!

"Big-game hunting with neolithic weapons is a male activity, usually requiring teamwork, physical strength, physical courage, endurance, and aggressiveness, with suppression of sensitivity and compassion: in short, the qualities of machismo...[Got that people? No more strength and courage, endurance or teamwork, OK? We shall simply expect buildings to build themselves, roads to re-surface themselves, engineering work to self-construct and tough, unpleasant and difficult jobs will not be permitted to be done, lest anyone become macho, right? In short, we will demand the benefits of civilisation without the work required to build it! Hey! Go to the top of the class, wondergirl!]

Jim Mason [who he?] in An Unnatural Order suggests that males may have initiated the Great Hunt not only because of plant food shortages brought about by climatic and other changes [yep - climate change was on the front page of every Stone Age newspaper, too, folks!], but also to enhance their uncertain status in a group in which women had hitherto held the prestige of bringing forth life and sustaining it [Remember all those pre-historic digs that showed that early cultures were all dominated by child-bearing women? Err, no? Hmmm....me, neither. Pity the way the facts keep getting in the way of a good story, isn't it?].

Whatever the reasons, one of the effects of the Great Hunt was that in developing the qualities necessary to take the spiritual power of large and strong animals, men also gained psychological and physical power over the group [amazing how a bit of hunting gives you so much superiority, eh?]. Women, like the physically and psychologically weaker men who could not compete, lost their status, and came to be dominated and held in contempt [yep, fact! Men always held their own mothers in deep contempt. More recent pre-historical digs have proven this, er, haven't they?]...

Clearly [Oh, yes, "clearly", indeed! Er, just a bit of a pity about all that evidence that she, er, forgot to produce] the situation of primal hunters, with its violence, its deep alienations between the sexes and between peoples [funny how that didn't seem to manifest itself much in those early primal cultures. Dratted facts keep getting in the way of a good story again!], is far from being the paradise that contemporary romanticization of primal peoples usually portrays. Yet it evidently co-existed, to varying degrees, for a very long time with an embeddedness in and deep respect and awe regarding nature [Err, shome mishtake shurely? I thought the hunters were the bad guys but now she's saying they co-existed with deep respect and awe regarding nature!?!]. It took the further steps of herding and the discovery of agriculture, to begin to establish an outlook of dominance over nature which diminished the awe and oneness of gathering-hunting peoples [Wha...? So maybe hunting wasn't so bad after all? And agriculture and herding were the real baddies? Is that it?].

Many important factors which cannot be explored here [oh what a pity! We were just beginning to laugh- er, I mean, sorry, get interested!] went into the process of bringing about our present state of dangerous alienation from nature, alienation that threatens global catastrophe [The hunters of the world are threatening the extinction of the planet? I think she may have lost the thread a bit, here...].

...But we who are inspired [oh, but of course she must be inspired! No, folks, let's not allow humility to get in the way of her self-obsession, now, shall we?] by a vision of true Peace among sentient beings, who see the divine in the eyes of an animal [only the eyes? And just how close has she got to a shark's eyes, anyway?], know that hunting, however reverential, always contains the seeds of Might-Makes-Right [Oh, so hunting is "reverential" now, is it? Interesting!].

It is not the answer. We cannot go back to the past [We must go forward to a bright future where there is no hunting, no herding, no agriculture, limited gathering (of what?), no strength, no courage, no endurance nor any teamwork.... just a lot of starving Quakers wondering where their next nut cutlet is going to come from and who will save them from being eaten by the wild beasts again. Golly. Stunningly lovely view of the future, isn't it?].

— Gracia Fay Ellwood"

I shall not be surprised if we one day discover that Ms Ellwood was savaged and eaten by an animal - probably an animal that she tried to ban the hunting of!

Some people actually believe that if you are sufficiently nice to tigers they will stop attacking you. When such people try hugging a tiger they usually end up as its lunch.

...

Animal crackers, again

Another anonymous animal liberationist writes in trying to tell me that the Crucifixion is really all about animal liberation and liberating animals to reason and speak like Balaam's ass.

Yes, really! I kid ye not.

Could this be Balaam's crocodile trying to tell the man in the boat something?
Or does he just want to eat him?

He writes:

"Was not the Christian religion born of the crucifixion? Of God, in human form, dying on the cross like an animal without rights?"

and this:

"There is nothing in Scripture that states that the Ten Commandments apply only to humans. Far from it, God seems to incrementally introduce fairer treatment for more animals."

and this:

"Men seem to lock themselves into very wicked ways through long tradition, practices which God attempts to save them from."

Total fantasy, of course.

And like many a believer in a fantastic creed, he drives deeper and deeper into fantasy and unreality.

God became MAN, from the womb of the Virgin Mary, in order to save us.

God did NOT (repeat NOT) become an animal.

Our Lord and Saviour, JESUS CHRIST, became MAN for us. He did not become animal.

Et homo factus est...

not

Et animal factus est...

To liken Him to an "animal without rights" and merely "in human form" is a supreme blasphemy, as I need hardly add.

He then fantasises over the Ten Commandments, pretending they are for animals as well as men and that animals can choose not to murder, commit adultery, covet, lie and, in other ways, sin, when he knows perfectly well that they have no such power of free will.

He pretends, next, that it is all about God incrementally introducing "fairer treatment for more animals".

Where does it say so in Scripture, doctrine or tradition?

Ah, err, well.... nowhere actually. But - hey! - why should that worry Mr Fantasy?

And, of course, he is opposed to "long tradition". He has to be! If not he'd have to admit that the Church never taught the nonsense he comes out with and that all Christian tradition is against him.

Poor fellow, I fear we may see him, ere long, manning the barricades in the manner of David Koresh and his Branch Davidians of the aptly named Waco, or Jim Jones, the Jonestown leader in Guyana.

Here is the woman animal liberationist who thought she could have a cosy chat with a Polar bear.
It mauled her.

His view is about as far away from Roman Catholicism - or, indeed, any form of Christianity - as even the most bizarre and evil of creeds are.

His is a deadly, evil creed which seeks not to raise animals up to the level of humans (which is, anyway, impossible) but to drag man down to the level of dumb animals.

Man was not destined to be an animal but rather a rational being, free to choose to obey his Creator. Thus, to try to make of him an animal results only in making him far lower than any animal and more like a devil.

Cronos eating his own children by Goya.
Cannibalism is the logical flip side of animal liberationism.

If men are no more than animals then they can, like animals, be subject to abortion, infanticide, abandonment, euthanasia, cannibalism and a host of other actions which animals, acting from mere instinct, do to each other but which, for men, endowed with reason and free will, to do to each other, would be deeply evil.

His odious and detestable creed is truly diabolical and, did he but know it, the invention of a satanic mind.

Let us pray for him and those like him that they may be released from the spell that has been cast over them and which has darkened their reason to such an extent that they cannot distinguish, any longer, between men and animals.

A rather well-known animal liberationist.
He used to say "I am no admirer of the poacher, particularly as I am a vegetarian".
Let us never forget what he did to men, this great "animal lover".

...

To the anonymous Neanderthal who tried to write to this blog...

Dear anonymous Neanderthal who attempted to write to this blog,

If you wish to be published on anyone's blog then you will need to:

(a) use arguments rather than mere foaming at the snout;

(b) string more than 2 words together so as to make a coherent sentence rather than than the noise made by a demented hyena on heat stuck in a hole;

(c) recognise that the use of Anglo-Saxon expletives does not enhance an already worthless opinion.

In between all the effing and blinding, you seem (I use the word advisedly) to be suggesting that man is an animal but that he has a soul and that the soul has no connection with the body. Presumably this is so that man can then do what he likes with his body without affecting his soul?

I am, of course, generously assuming that your rant means anything at all.

One thing is certain. Some human beings, having free will and using it badly, can end up being much worse than animals.

It's the flip side of being higher than the animals. Get used to it, neddy!

Of men and animals: the new revolution

Some will have seen the interview of Professor Peter Singer (left) in the Catholic Herald conducted by Quentin de la Bedoyere.

Our Quent (actually the Marquis de la Bedoyere) is a lovely chap in many ways but has historically had a slightly ambivalent attitude to the moral teachings of the Church to which he belongs. In recent year he has matured and mellowed and now sees a lot more sense in the Church's teaching than he did in the days when he wrote, with his wife, Irene, Choices in Sex: a booklet for young people in which they describe love, among others things (to be fair), as a prostitute ensuring that her client gets value for money.

Err, right, Quent. Don't ring us. We'll ring you.

In fairness, though, silly thing as it was to write, I don't think they quite meant it to sound as bad as it inevitably does.

Now Quent writes for the Catholic Herald on a regular basis on the subject of science and faith. In that column he recently interviewed Peter Singer and did so in a manner which has since been described as "non-judgmental".

Right. Got that? Non-judgmental.

Well read it and see what you think. Here it is reproduced on his website called - perhaps a tad pompously - "Second Sight".

http://www.secondsightblog.com/?s=Peter+Singer&submit=Go

Can one really be "non-judgmental" about all things? Or might one be open to the criticism that one gave too much ground by so doing especially when dealing with particular evils.

To illustrate the point let us re-write our Quent's "non-judgmental" interview as if it had been written in the 1930s after interviewing the infamous founder of the Third Reich. Here goes:

"So the German government is almost certain to remove allegedly human rights from the Jews (as reported in The Weekly Waffle on August 8). I read this with mixed feelings; like many readers, I am strongly opposed to giving special rights to any ethnic group but that is a long distance from suggesting that we should say that they have no human rights. So I went to the fountainhead: Adolf Hitler, who - among other appointments - is now Fuehrer of the German Reich. He is regarded as the political champion of the cause.

Herr Hitler is a highly accomplished political leader with a particular interest in the racial question. But his views are seen by many as extreme. He has been nicknamed "the Great Dictator"; he has been attacked in Britain and America as having eugenic views at odds with civilised society; the Churches have been strongly critical; some political leaders even suspended diplomatic relations with Germany when Herr Hitler was became Fuehrer; there have been loud outcries from organisations devoted to the care of Jews.

A little imp in me suggests that such a chorus of indignation only musters when their target has something of threatening substance to say. And Hitler wrote in 1926: "As the Churches do not feel themselves bound or limited by political confines, so the National Socialist Idea cannot feel itself limited to the territories of the individual federal states that belong to our Fatherland".

The Weekly Waffle prefers to reserve its indignation until it has listened to what a leader actually has to say, and then to make a reflective judgment of the points with which we, or more particularly our readers, agree or disagree. I must thank him for his cooperation in entering into dialogue with us.

Herr Hitler on a stroll with friends to look at the sights...

Herr Hitler described himself to me as a National Socialist. That is, he holds that the criterion for proper political action is the Volkisch idea of "One Nation, One People and One Leader" as the best way of meeting the needs, or interest, of the people and of the parties required to make any political decisions for the nation. But the parties, he insisted, must include only fit Aryan people. Hitler argued that race is race no matter what sort of Aryan is involved. To think otherwise, he claimed, is to fail to discriminate on the grounds of health and race - a characteristic which is far more relevant to any political decision than anything else.

I asked how he could hold that all fit Aryans should be treated preferentially and the unfit and non-Aryans not. “To be sure, the races differ in their characteristics and therefore in the degree of importance they may be afforded. The rights, which is a popular but potentially misleading term, of the unfit and non-Aryans can’t by definition be human rights; and political judgments will vary from race to race according to their Aryan or non-Aryan origins, fitness and health and the political circumstances pertaining.” He clarified this for me with an example. “Should we have to choose between rescuing a fit person or an unfit person from death, we would - other things being equal - give preference to the fit. When it comes to a question of taking life, or allowing life to end, it matters whether a being is one who is fit, healthy and of the master race or not. Such a being has more to lose than a being incapable of being fit and healthy or part of the master race.”

But, and it was a significant point: “If, for example, a person had suffered brain damage so severe as to be in an irreversible state of unconsciousness, then it might not be better to save that person.”

The uncompromising application of the criterion of race and health had already led us into controversial territory. I felt this took us further. His principle, it seemed, must lead to the unfit or non-Aryan, not being a healthy member of the master race, having no special status. He concurred firmly. “And even when the non-Aryan is developed and educated, it will still be inferior to the healthy Aryan master race, and so no claim can be made on the basis of that either. The new-born Aryan will have greater right to consideration than the mature non-Aryan or the unfit and so merits preferable consideration. Though the inconvenience that may be caused to the state should be taken into account, of course. The same could be said of any non-Aryan or unfit person who lacks the racial superiorityad health of the Aryan master race.” I instanced the objections made about this view by so many people of substance and concern. But he did not resile.

“I think that every fit Aryan is entitled to equal consideration of his or her interests. The joys and the pains of the unfit or non-Aryan should not be given equal weight with the joys and pains of the fit Aryan - and here Aryan includes both you and me, but not the lower races, the unfit and, above all, not the Jews. I don’t think that is devaluing the non-Aryan.

“On the other hand, just as I think it is less wrong to kill a non-Aryan or an unfit person, say, than an Aryan (because the non-Aryan or unfit person has no right to live, and so has less of an interest in continuing to live) so I think non-Aryans and the unfit who are thus not members of the healthy master race have less of an interest in continuing to live than fit Aryans. I’m open to other arguments, but it isn’t easy to see what can justify us in granting a more serious right to life to an unfit or non-Aryan person than we give to a fit Aryan who will always have superior racial characteristics and physical and mental level.”

How about the use of non-Aryans or the unfit for medical research? He thinks that much more effort should be put into other methods which involve Jews but he would not necessarily exclude all non-Aryans or the unfit if the balance were right. “A good test would be whether experimenters who use Jews would be prepared to carry out their experiments on non-Aryans at a similar mental or physical level - say, the unfit or those of an inferior race like the Slavs.”

I put it to him that he is often quoted by militant American eugenicists and white supremacists. But he told me that he had no sympathy with this. “They do harm to the cause. National Socialism can only achieve its objectives by winning the struggle in Germany and persuading the German nation that it is right. Opening up the struggle to include American people is not the way to do that.”

The concept of the sacrosanctity of human life, as Catholics would see it, is derived from a belief system which Hitler rejects. It must be translated as a special status given to the healthy Aryan, at any stage in his or her life, because they belong to the fit master race. So I asked him how he saw the Catholic view that humans have an obligation towards their people and homeland, and that lack of pride in one's nation is not only a defiance of God but a corruption of the individual who chooses to ignore his duty. It comes, he told me, very close to his objectives - although the basis differs.

So what are we to make of Herr Hitler? At the very least we cannot question his sincerity. His views have been well and consistently worked out and he has maintained them against manifold attacks over the years. And even if we disagree, perhaps strongly, with his basic criterion and where it can lead, I think that many of us would share some of his key objectives. I am left with a comment from my daughter, a biologist who has written much about racial characteristics: “I’m not worried about the philosophy, but if giving Aryans special rights means that they are protected from the weakening of their gene pool and race and are enabled to prosper, then I am all for them.”

The Weekly Waffle


Well! That makes you sit up and think, doesn't it? Maybe "non-judgmental" interviews aren't always such a brilliant idea after all. It just depends whom you are interviewing!


...

Replying to the Animal Libbers: man is not a beast but made in God's image

I have been replying to an Anglican who claims that animal liberationism is Biblical and who criticises the Catholic Church for not being interested in rights.

Once again, we see the image of Satan trying to get Christians to accept beliefs that are fundamentally opposed to Christianity and to pretend that there is no difference between them and Christian beliefs. Thus does the Father of Lies work.

Between radical Animal Liberationism and God there can never be any compromise because they are utterly opposed to each other. God is truth and love; animal liberationism is an attempt to turn man into a beast.

Here's what I wrote to him:

"There is always something peculiarly odious about an Anglican attempting to lecture Catholics about human rights, especially when one considers the utterly appalling – nay, near-satanic – abuse by Anglicans of the human rights of Roman Catholics that has been, for most of its history, one of the primary hallmarks and dirty little secrets of the Anglican Church.

For sheer hypocrisy there are few things as rank as Anglican hypocrisy toward Catholics and especially on the issue of human rights.

Some of the most odious penal laws ever then invented to oppress Christian men were devised by an Anglican Parliament for the ill-treatment of British and Irish Roman Catholics.

They included, among others: 25 Henr. VIII c.22 (1534); 26 Henr. VIII c.1 (1534); 1 Eliz. I c.1 (1559); 1 Eliz. I c.2 (1559); 13 Eliz. I c.1 (1571); 13 Eliz. I c.2 (1571); 23 Eliz. I c.1 (1581); 27 Eliz. I c.2 (1585); 1 Jac. I c.4 (1604); 3 & 4 Jac. I c.4 (1606); 3 & 4 Jac. I c.5 (1606); 3 Carol. I c.2 (1628).

King Henry VIII, the wife-murdering founder of the Church of England who was the first to bring in horrific laws persecuting Catholics and depriving them of their human rights

Thereafter, came the Test and Corporation Acts.

The Corporation Act of 1661 required that, besides taking the Oath of Supremacy, all members of corporations were within one year after election to receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according to the rites of the Church of England.

This act was followed by the Test Act of 1673 (the full title of which is “An act for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants”).

This act enforced upon all persons filling any office, civil or military, the obligation of taking the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and subscribing to a declaration against transubstantiation and also of receiving the Anglican sacrament within three months after admittance to office.

Catholics were thus precluded from holding any kind of public office, in the state, in the law, in the Services, in the Universities, even as Schoolmasters, both by reason of their being Catholics and also by reason of such office-holders having to swear an anti-Catholic oath.

At that time the Penal Laws against Catholics meant that those who did not attend the services of the Church of England every week and take the Anglican Communion 3 times a year were guilty of “recusancy” and were to be fined either £20 a month (a vast sum then) or 2/3rd of their income as the government chose.

This was a requirement most offensive to the consciences of Catholics who were only permitted to receive the Catholic Holy Communion and were, in conscience, forbidden to attend the services of non-Catholic churches.

Furthermore, it was felony to attend the Catholic mass and Catholic priests and those who sheltered them were to be hanged until half dead, then, while still alive, gutted from the genitals to the rib-cage and their internal organs removed and burnt before their eyes, their hearts being ripped out last and held up to the gaze of a blood-thirsty crowd, and then, finally, the lifeless body cut into four parts and displayed on pikes on the city gates or elsewhere.

It was a most disgustingly brutal and savage punishment deliberately preserved and made use of by the very Anglicans who claimed to be opposed to “cruel and unusual punishments”.

Utter, utter hypocrisy and cruelty of the most disgusting, foul and bloody kind.

No-one coming from this Church tradition has any business lecturing anybody else about human rights.

And yet with wonderful hypocrisy you write: “the Catholic Church... has a reputation for opposing humanitarian, progressive movements throughout history – merciful progressive causes such as slavery et alia, now animals”.

Actually, when Anglicans and other Protestants were still arguing in favour of human slavery and the slave trade, the Catholic Church had long since condemned it.

See my posts at:

http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2007/10/anti-slavery-and-spanish-empire-where.html

http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2008/01/recent-correspondent-thinks-that-all.html

The Rev Cotton Mather, a Protestant, referred to black people as “Adam’s degenerate seed” and Anglicans in large numbers were profiting from the slave trade. Even Gladstone inherited a fortune made from slaving.

But you Anglicans always have a way of going about with your eyes shut to truths that you do not like.

Actually, the Catholic Church has long since earned a reputation for being a champion of real human rights.

It is the Anglican Church which has an odious and tainted reputation for grossly ignoring the human rights of others and for spilling oceans of innocent human blood.

Try reading William Cobbett’s savage indictment of the Anglican oppression of minorities, Catholics and the poor in A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland.

And Cobbett was himself an Anglican, so he cannot be accused of bias.

Frankly Catholics and others are no longer interested in the tired old lies and hypocrisy exhibited by all too many Anglicans.

So you will forgive us if we take your talk of human rights, compassion and care with a very large mountain of salt!

Your claim to go with Abraham Lincoln does not help you either.

Abraham Lincoln was an unbeliever who planned to expel all blacks from America

Since the 1840s Lincoln had been an advocate of the American Colonization Society program of colonizing blacks in Liberia. See his 1854 speech in Illinois.

Lincoln appointed the Protestant Minister, Rev James Mitchell, as his Commissioner of Emigration to oversee colonization projects from 1861 to 1865.

Between 1861 and 1862 Lincoln actively negotiated contracts with businessmen to colonize freed Blacks in Panama and on a small island off the coast of Haiti.

The Haiti plan collapsed in 1862 and 1863 after swindling by the business agents responsible for the plan, prompting Lincoln to send ships to retrieve the colonists.

The much larger Panama contract fell through in 1863 after the government of Catholic Colombia backed away from the deal and expressed hostility to colonization schemes.

In 1862 Lincoln also convened a colonization conference at the White House where he addressed a group of freedmen and attempted to convince them of supporting his policy.

Despite the setbacks in Panama and Haiti, Lincoln discussed plans to renew his push for colonization during his second term.

About a week before the assassination, Maj-Gen Benjamin F. Butler recalls a meeting with Lincoln at the White House, in which Lincoln asked him "But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free?".

He then asked Butler to consult Secretary of State William H. Seward and devise a colonization program for Panama.

Butler would oversee the transfer beginning with the deployment of the United States Coloured Troops to the isthmus, where they would be employed digging a Panama Canal.

So much for the “great” Abraham Lincoln. In fact, Lincoln was no Christian but a self-confessed unbeliever.

If you are an animal liberationist and pro-life then you also oppose the euthanasia of animals, including fleas, pests, poisonous animals and other dangers to human life.

That is plainly ridiculous in which case, if you are honest with yourself, your position is either inconsistent or else not pro-life.

The quality of your mercy is indeed highly selective.

Your next deception is to claim – without any evidence – that Hitler was not a vegetarian.

The fact is that he was not only a vegetarian, he was also an animal liberationist.

Go to this post on my site and you can see for yourself how wrong you are:

http://romanchristendom.blogspot.com/2008/10/st-hubert-against-fanatics.html

So cut the cackle, Barry, and face the facts.

It may be inconvenient for you that Hitler was a veggie in principle and an animal-libber but truth does not become false merely because it is inconvenient.

Hitler did rarely and hypocritically eat meat but so do many moderns who call themselves vegetarians. Hypocrisy among vegetarians (or Nazis for that matter) is nothing new.

Another Animal rights loony who wanted to change the world his way

Your Scripture quotes are also a mendacious deception.

You mention Gen 1:29-30 but omit verses 26-28 which say:

“26 And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. 27 And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.”

Plain as a pikestaff! Animals are under man’s dominion, Barry. And Man was made in the image of God but no mention of animals being so made.

Isaiah 11:6-9 (“the lion shall lie down with the lamb) is a reference to heaven and the new earth at the end of time since – plainly – the lion does NOT currently lie down with the lamb but instead eats it.

Revelation 5 is also about heaven and the new earth but – please note – it also talks about the “lamb that was slain” which is both Christ and the Passover lamb. No Passover lamb – no Christ. The eating of meat was central to the religion of the Jews. No veggies they!

Proverbs 12:10 confers no rights upon animals but merely enjoins the just man to regard his beasts i.e. to tend them so that they can later be used for food and –arguably – not to be unnecessarily cruel to them. But that is an obligation upon humanity for man’s own good – not because the animal has any “rights”.

Genesis 9 says the opposite of what you say:

“And God blessed Noah and his sons. And he said to them: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 And let the fear and dread of you be upon all the beasts of the earth, and upon all the fowls of the air, and all that move upon the earth: all the fishes of the sea are delivered into your hand. 3 And every thing that moveth and liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herbs have I delivered them all to you: 4 Saving that flesh with blood you shall not eat.”

“Everything that moveth and liveth shall be meat to you” – what could be clearer?

Jews follow the Old Testament and are happy to eat meat

The only flesh that cannot be eaten is flesh with the blood still in it which, as we know, is what orthodox Jews and Moslems continue to do to this day in Kosher and Halal kitchens.

But note this, Barry: THEY STILL EAT MEAT.

Got it?

Animals are not merely “companions” for men. A true companion for man must be another being with a rational soul e.g. other men, angels or God. Animals are for man’s “use”.

It is quite clear even from your own quotes from the Bible that animals were made for man’s use. Yet you still claim that you “go with the Bible”. Sorry, Barry, but you just don’t.

Romans 8:19-23 does not confer any rights upon animals it merely says that corruption shall cease in heaven. That is hardly surprising since there can be no corruption (i.e. death and decay) in heaven, even of animals.

Your chatter about Greek influences on Aquinas shows how little you know him or his work since the greatest influence on him is Scripture and the teaching of the Church.

The only thing you are right about is that the current concept and terminology of human rights isn’t old or Biblical but based upon secular values brought in by the Enlightenment 200 years ago.

You are also correct to say that for a Christian “rights are rooted in God’s creation of us, His sustenance, redemption and concern for our welfare”.

But this is not only for Christians.

This is the meaning of the phrase “the Natural Law”. It is a law of God that is written in the hearts of all men, including those who are not Christian. It is a creation ordinance for men e.g. like not doing murder.

You go wrong in the very next sentence when you say “but all this also applies to animals”.

Says who?

No-one except the loony animal liberationists.

You have no Scriptural, doctrinal or any other Christian authority for your additional claim, at all.

None whatsoever.

It’s baloney.

Not only that, it is baloney that came in with the Enlightenment – the very secular values that you claim to repudiate.

You write: “We are made in the image of God, which means we should behave better”.

Better than what?

Better than animals?

Ah, so they are NOT made in the “image of God” then? Well, then, they are inferior.

On the other hand, if you say they ARE made in the “image of God” then why should we behave better than them when, by your own analogy, they should also behave “better” for the same reason.

But, of course, they don't. They brutally savage each other, kill each other, rip each other up and eat each other, every day.

It is customary to refer to a brutal or savage person as "an animal" indicating that they are behaving like a mere beast instead of a man and that the two are fundamentally different in kind and character and soul.

Your whole argument is an illogical non-sequitur from beginning to end.

It is also totally, completely and radically unbiblical.

Indeed, it is a reversion to that savage, cruel heathenism in which men behaved like animals and treated each other like animals because they thought of themselves as mere animals.

The sad reality is that it is loony animal liberationists like Hitler who have often been the biggest disaster for mankind and for creation.

Is that the destination you really want to travel to?

Take care – you will certainly find Hell at the end of it".

Cronos devouring his children. Francisco de Goya (1746-1828).
If we are all animals and animal eat each other, then shall we be returning to the Greek "god" Cronos who ate his own children? Cronos was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Ouranos, the sky. Jealous of his own children Cronos ate them. Animals sometimes eat their own children, too. Men who eat men are called "cannibals" and are regarded with horror by civilisation and civilised society.

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Animal "rights" sentimentalism: irrational and often lethal

Coochy, coochy, coo - nice sharky warky!

Mr Shark, having just painted the Sistine chapel, written Dante's Inferno and built Chartres Cathedral, is on his way to file suit at the US Supreme Court in defence of his "right" not to have his piece of the ocean trespassed upon by man.

Err...

The debate on so-called "animal rights" continues - and plenty of good people are falling for the sentimental and irrational arguments with which the animal liberationist revolutionaries try to deceive people.

There is simply no teaching of the Church that confers rights upon animals and plenty that say the opposite. Animal rights is an entirely invented and modern concept that has no basis in Christian doctrine - or truth - whatsoever.

Thus, to pretend that animals have rights is to be in disagreement with God, the Creator of all creation, including animals.

If an animal had a "right" then it would have to have at least the potential ability to enforce that right - but it can never do so because animals are not rational creatures.

The fact that one finds one's cat or dog cuddly or "nice" does not confer rights on them.

Indeed, it is the argument of the animal liberationists that creatures have the right to life only if they are "wanted" and thus that humans can be discarded if they are not wanted i.e. if they are no longer "cuddly" or "nice".

Silly sentimentalising plays straight into the hands of this extremely odious ideology, just as all those intensely silly people in the 1920s (women as well as men) fell for the odious nonsense that Hitler spewed forth. They exchanged logic and rationality for woolly sentiment and irrational emotional feeling.

Not wanted?
Then, according to animal liberationists - like vegetarian Adolf Hitler - you have no rights!

Look what the result was: the utter horror of the death camps and vile experiments on human beings.

On the other hand, human beings do have obligations toward God's creation and are obliged not to abuse God's creation, including animals, such as is happening on a vast scale in all too many factory farms that produce genetically-modified animals for use in fast-food outlets.

That is a serious abuse of God's creation and should certainly be banned. It is bad for humans: morally, intellectually, spiritually and digestively.

But man's obligations towards creation do not create "rights" for animals and any attempt to argue for such "rights" is inevitably incoherent. Why stop at baby seals or horses or cats or dogs? If they have rights then why not poisonous spiders, rats or even bacteria?

There is no logical reason to stop at one's favourite pet, or animals that one finds "cute", like baby seals, save that they are "wanted" (because cute) and so we are back to having rights only when "wanted" and no rights when "unwanted" - the classic argument for abortion and euthanasia.

A monster croc - cute, cuddly, "nice" and friendly???

The only solution is that humans have rights and animals do not, but that humans have obligations toward God's creation.

Take Rodeo, for example.

Every time a horse is broken in it requires a type of "Rodeo" since someone has to ride the horse until it is tamed. It is, rather, a question of how it is done.

It can be done cruelly (which is usually an ineffective way of doing it) or it can be done sympathetically, which is usually a more effective way. But there will very often be bucking and resistance from the horse, even for the best and cleverest of horse-tamers.

 

Rodeo and horse-breaking are not necessarily cruel

No-one can rationally suggest that the age-old practice of "breaking-in" or taming a horse is "very cruel".

Moreover, animals attack and eat each other. They often do so very savagely. It's a fact of life. Indeed, that is another difference between men and animals - animals are naturally savage, men are not (although they can become so if they choose).

Animals have to be tamed or contained. That is their natural condition. It is not cruel or savage for men to tame animals nor, indeed, to hunt them and eat them. Indeed, God made the animals for our use - as pets, for work, for food and, indeed, also, for their simplicity.

A wild cat or dog is by no means "cuddly" or "nice". However, they do not choose to be wild, as some men do. That is because they cannot choose at all since they are not rational beings. Thus they cannot have "rights".

A man who chooses to be wild can have his rights curtailed but, since he remains a rational being (however wild or sinful), he never loses all his rights. But an animal is not rational and so cannot have rights at all, wild or tame.

No amount of silly sentimentality can overcome the facts of nature. Indeed, it can often lead to dangerous consequences as happens when silly sentimentalists think they can tame wild animals by lovey-dovey, sweet-talking to them, as if they were rational creatures.

Some foolish people have even attempted to do so and have got themselves and others killed or maimed into the bargain.

Try hugging a grizzly bear - silly sentimentality can be lethal!

One simply has to face the facts of life: silly sentimentality can be lethal - literally.

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"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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