Blog – – ironies of living and dying:
Part III—what about animals?
Let’s be clear what we mean by animals. The etymology from Merriam Webster: Latin anima means “breath” or “soul,” and animalis, the adjective that comes from it, means “having breath or soul.” We include humans as animals.
Our co-existence with animals on planet Earth is filled with irony. Nature seems to be set upon a predatory system of natural selection, killing animals, which is very much a natural activity, deeply rooted in nature.
We kill other animals for our food; we slaughter 900,000 cattle and 202 million chickens each day.
We also perform experiments on animals and use animals to work for us. Scientific studies, on the other hand, are giving us more and more knowledge of our own place in evolution as animals, and how closely related we are to some. The genomes of humans and chimps, for example are remarkably similar. We share DNA with creatures far down the tree of evolution. Scientific study has given rise to the animal rights, movement, which includes prohibiting, experimentation of various sorts on animals, particularly higher primates. PETA and other groups are part of this movement, as is the Princeton philosopher, Peter Singer. Harvard law school offers a courses in animal rights. San Francisco, in legal documents, refers to pets as “companion animals” and their owners are termed “custodians.” We care so much thathave developed medical insurance to cover their treatment by veterinarians. Animal pets have been cloned in attempts toke them with us. There are services that provide funerals for deceased pets.
We exploit our genetic closeness to other animals by using animal parts for transplantation into humans. We go even further by genetically manipulating other animals to make their parts more friendly to humans. Genetic manipulation enables shape to give milk that is more nutritious for humans, as well as organs that are less likely to be rejected by the human recipient. We all remember the sheep that was cloned by scientist, Dolly.
In most states, cruelty to non-human animals is a punishable offense. The career of NFL quarterback, Michael Vick, was brought to an end by his conviction, on charges of promoting dog fighting. He spent 21 months in a federal prison.
Eating other animals is controversial for many. Despite scientific evidence that meat is the soul source of some elements that we need for full nutrition, including vitamin B 12, there is a large number of vegetarians and vegans in the world. Even among those who eat meat, there are interesting taboos on eating certain animals. Just recently certain Asian countries have outlawed slaughtering dogs for food. Very few countries allow it today. In some places, horse meat is avoided, because of our affection for horses. My mother, however, in the 1930s, regularly bought horse meat for our pet dogs. In my family, the children strongly opposed eating any fish that could be related to Flipper, and eating rabbit was intolerable because of their images of Peter Cottontail. These emotional responses to eating certain animals is very interesting. In contrast, I have seen interviews with teenage farmers, who express great affection for the calves they are raising and caring for very carefully, while at the same time expressing pride at the prospect of selling those calves to a meat packer for slaughtering at a very high price.
This is the irony: at the same time that we slaughter animals for food; we find that we are closely related to animals; we love them, and
keep them in our homes as companions. Many people consider their animal pets to be their children.
So what do we think about animals and our relationship to them? I will point to a number of issues associated with this whole issue.
Just how close to humans are animals? Many indigenous people believe that animals should be honored and allowed to perform their own rituals. At the same time, they kill animals for food, while saying prayers to honor the animals. I have a whale bone sculpture of an Inuit spearing a seal, while he carries the animal’s heart in his own heart. Native peoples are said to respect all animals, but there is archaeological evidence that they also slaughtered animals in great numbers for their food.
Marc Bekoff, retired professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, has written a great deal about his researches among animals. For long stretches of time, he has lived in the wild among vertebrate animals, coyotes, foxes, wolves, and the lake Bekoff argues that non-human animals demonstrate emotional and moral intelligence. He
written about the grieving rituals of several different species and has recently written articles expressing his belief that non-human animals have spiritual experiences
Primatologist Fran de Waal has spent a lifetime studying nonhuman primates. He writes that not only do they have rich emotional lives, but that they have developed patterns of moral behavior.
30 years ago, I had the privilege of participating in a tour that da Waal gave through the primate colony in the Netherlands, where he first studied. He had not been in that colony for many years. But to our amazement chimps who had lived there when he was a student went up to him and greeted him as an old friend.
A few theologians have pondered whether animals have an afterlife. Will they go to heaven? So far, their thinking is not very persuasive. One of them, John Polkinhorne, who, before he was a theologian, was a noted British physicist – – a fellow of the Royal Society, head of the famous Cavendish lab at Cambridge, and knighted by Queen Elizabeth. He wrote, for example, that God will preserve a representative selection, much like the animals that entered Noah’s Ark, and these representatives will be in heaven. Not a great argument, but we will probably see more of this thinking from philosophers and theologians in the decades ahead. Of course, there are individuals who believe very firmly that their pet animals will be with them in the afterlife.
What about animals? That is not a simple question, and it provokes much thinking. Questions of whether we should be vegetarians to questions of the legal and moral rights of animals, to the question of whether we shall meet them in the afterlife. Where do you stand?
The Bible is relevant to this issue. Here are t examples:
Genesis 9, to Noah, God says–I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
Zephaniah 14—The Lord will become king over all the earth, and on that day, the Lord will be one; on that day, there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, “Holy to the Lord” and the cooking pots in the house of the9 Lord shall be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar, and every cooking pot in Jerusalem Shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts.
Everything is holy to God; a all people and things are vessels of your presence
(c) Phil Hefner 4 February 2024