Animals

Ever since I sparred with Victoria about animal rights a few months ago, I've been trying to figure out what I think. There are several things I've been mulling over:

1. The loyalty of a dachsund.
2. Balaam's ass protected him him from a sure death. (Numbers 22)
3. I have tasted the best meat ever.
4. Most Americans are fat.
5. I saw this. This is no way for a cattle to live. Cattle belong on pasture, not in crates.
6. I tasted the best milk ever.
7. I saw the Meatrix.
8. God gave people permisison to eat meat only after the flood. (cp. Gen 1:29 with Gen. 9 )
9. "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast" (Proverbs 12:10)
10. There are horses in heaven. (Rev. 6:2)
11. God cares about sparrows. (Luke 12:6)
12. The happiness, even joy, with which a pack of feral dogs greeted me when I was a boy. My parents had a cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains above Sonora. Everytime we drove up there the dogs would hear the car and come running running to greet me. They often fought among themselves (sometimes visciously) but they always treated me like their special guest.
13. Animals are not people and people have been given the authority to use and eat animals.
14. I am truly a glutton. How is creation groaning under my sin?
15. I am a conservative and think that farms (and all of society) should stick with tradition. What I mean by that is that animal husbandry should resmble Farmer Hogget's farm and not an automobile assembly line.
16. The fact that I utterly despise, hate, and pray for the destruction of PETA. (No matter what they say animals and people are not equivalent.)
17. I liked my uncle Fred's little farm and saw how he took care of the cattle, the goats, the turkeys, and the chickens. None of them were kept in tiny pins or cages. I used to feed oranges to the cattle. I think they liked me.
18. I am a hunter. I shoot animals from a distance. I don't use a scope. I kill them and eat them. (According to the U.S. Army I am an expert rifleman. I only missed 4 shots out of the thousands I fired when I was a soldier. Thank you, Drill Sergeant McCain.)
19. I read an essay about factory farms by Matthew Scully.
20. Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow has condemned bull fighting.
21. A sign of a person's holiness is that animals trust that person. (See St. Kevin and St. Seraphim)
22. I saw these pictures.
23. Even though we are made in God's image and likeness, we are more like animals than we can ever hope to be like God. For God is the Creator while we and the animals will always be creatures.
24. Animals praise God. (See Palsm 150:6)
26. The Orthodox church teaches: "Today all creatures shall be filled with joy, for Christ hath been born of the Virgin." (Matins for the Feast of the Nativity of Christ.)
27. I feed a little squirrel everyday. I love the squirrel. I make the sign of the cross over it while it is eating and pray for it. (It is a new mother.)
28. Jesus raised the animals to heights of amazing dignity by being born in a stable.
29. The vast majority of Americans are protein overnourished, that is we (myself included) eat too much milk and meat.

So, what does all of this mean? I think it means I am going to be eating a lot less meat and dairy food.
Why? Because my money is really God's money, and do I want to have to explain to Him why I used His money to reward people who mistreated His animals? And, I don't have the time to hunt, or the money to buy only free-range organic meat and milk.