Sunday, November 26, 2006

Peacable kingdom, my hindquarters

I read through the literature that the Jehovah's Witness people brought by yesterday and now I see where the whole discrimination against animals things starts from. Or how far back it goes, at least. So according to this pamphlet, in the beginning of the Bible it tells how God made the world and all the creatures, and everyone got along perfectly and had plenty of food--no scarcity, no predators and prey, no diet dog food. (Accompanied by this obviously photo-shopped picture of lamb and lion nuzzling. Well either photoshopped, or that lamb's very last picture. I hope its family gets serious residuals).




Plus two humans (who, of course, the human Bible assumes to be superior to the rest of the creatures, so complicated that God took as much time to create them as all the other species combined. This for a species that smells and hears about as well as a pile of poop and needs shoes to walk outside.) So anyway, the animals are having a royal old time, and then the HUMAN eats an apple she wasn't supposed to, and suddenly the lamb is in the lion's digestive track and the dog is on a diet. God explains to the humans that suffering and sadness and death and eternal scarcity will be the punishment for their transgression--but who transgressed here? If God wants to smack the humans on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper, or make them get sick and die, then fine: he set the rules, they broke them. But what the heck did the lambs and the dogs have to do with any of this? How is this fair?

Don't get me started on Noah's Ark...

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