Re: If god exists, what created god?

Dr. Jai Maharaj (jai@mantra.com)
Sun, 14 May 1995 21:35:05 GMT

In the article <3p5916$m7m@muss.CIS.McMaster.CA>,
received on 14 May 1995 11:53:10 -0400,
u9215482@muss.cis.McMaster.CA (C.E. Bourne) wrote:
> . . . where did this FISH thing come from, . . .

And in the newsgroup alt.culture.hawaii,
in article <014659DOMNGRUJUOHKUY@mauigateway.com>,
received on Thu, 11 May 95 04:11:41 EST,
hmonsal@mauigateway.com wrote:
> You better read your Bible again carefully. One of Jesus's
> miracles was the multiplication of the fish and bread. Who told
> you he was a "vegetarian"? Helen

This and similar threads have been in existence in the newsgroups
for several years. Below are just five excerpts from the
discussions. The sources are cited. You may wish to post your
comments after you have read the source material.

> The Christian Argument for Vegetarianism
>
> Excerpted from the book:
> Christianity and the Rights of Animals, (Crossroad Publ. Co., NY)
>
> by
>
> Rev. Dr. Andrew Linzey
> Director of Studies
> Center for the Study of Theology
> University of Essex
>
> It is well known that during the last thirty years or more, farmers
> have been under increasing pressure to tailor traditional farming
> methods to the needs of cost-effective production. Farming animals
> intensively has become the norm.
>
> It seems to me the only satisfactory basis on which we can oppose
> systems of close confinement is by recourse to the argument drawn from
> theos-rights. To put it at its most basic: animals have the right to
> be animals. The natural life of a Spirit-filled creature is a gift
> from God. When we take over the life of an animal to the extent of
> distorting its natural life for no other purpose than our own gain, we
> fall into sin. There is no clearer blasphemy before God than the
> perversion of his creatures.
>
> To the question: 'Why is it wrong to deny chickens the rudimentary
> requirements of their natural life, such as freedom of movement or
> association?' there is, therefore, only one satisfactory answer: Since
> an animal's natural life is a gift from God, it follows that God's
> right is violated when the natural life of his creatures is perverted.
> Those who, in contrast, opt for the welfarist approach to intensive
> farming are inevitably involved in speculating how far such and such
> may or may not suffer in what are plainly unnatural conditions. But
> unless animals are judged to have some right to their natural life,
> from what standpoint can we judge abnormalities, mutilations or
> adjustments? Confining a de-beaked hen in a battery cage is more than
> a moral crime; it is a living sign of our failure to recognize the
> blessing of God in creation.
>
> What makes this situation all the more lamentable is the
> realization that the use to which animals are put in intensive farming
> goes far beyond even the most generous interpretation of need. It
> will be obvious that humans can live healthy, stimulating and
> rewarding lives without white veal, pate' de foie gras, or the
> ever-increasing quantities of cheap eggs. The truth is that we can
> afford to be much more generous to farm animals than is frequently the
> case today.
>
> Churches need to reflect in their own collective actions the
> sensitivity they frequently hope for in others. [In England], under
> present legislation, animals can be subject to intensive farming and
> are so on Church land. It is anomalous that the Church of England
> should allow on its land farming practices which many senior
> ecclesiastics oppose and which one bishop recently likened to an
> Auschwitz for animals.
>
> The Christian argument for vegetarianism then is simple: since
> animals belong to God, have value to God and live for God, then their
> needless destruction is sinful. In short: animals have some right to
> their life, all circumstances being equal. That it has taken
> Christians so long to grasp this need not worry us. There were
> doubtless good reasons, partly theological, partly cultural and partly
> economic, why Christians in the past have found vegetarianism
> unfeasible. We do well not to judge too hastily, if at all. We
> cannot relive others' lives, or think their thoughts, or enter their
> consciences. But what we can be sure about is that living without
> what Clark calls "avoidable ill" has a strong moral claim upon us now.
>
> Some will surely question the limits of the vegetarian world here
> envisaged. Will large-scale vegetarianism work in practice? I
> confess I am agnostic, surely legitimately, about the possibility of a
> world-transforming vegetarianism. But clairvoyance is not an
> essential prerequisite of the vegetarian option, and what the future
> may hold, and its consequences, cannot easily be determined from any
> perspective. What I think is important to hold on to is the notion
> that the God who provides moral opportunities is the same God who
> enables the world, slowly but surely, to respond to them. >From a
> theological perspective, no moral endeavor is wasted so long as it
> coheres with God's purpose for his cosmos.
>
> An appendix :
>
> Genesis also says only eat plants
>
> Also the following extracts are relevant
>
> 'Not by shedding innocent blood, but by living a righteous life shall
> ye find the peace of God ... Blessed are they who keep this law; for
> God is manifested in all creatures. All creatures live in God, and God
> is hid in them...
>
> 'The fruit of the trees and the seeds and of the herbs alone do I
> partake, and these are changed by the spirit into my flesh and blood.
> Of these alone and their like shall ye eat who believe in me and are
> my disciples; for of these, in the spirit, come life and health and
> healing unto man...'
>
> (From The Gospel of the Holy Twelve, trans. by G. J. Ouseley.)
>
> 'And the flesh of slain beasts in his own body will become his own
> tomb. For I tell you truly, he who kills, kills himself, and whoso
> eats the flesh of slain beasts, eats the body of death.
>
> (From The Gospel of Peace of Jesus Christ by the Disciple John,
> Trans. by E. B. Szekely, C. W. Daniel, London 1937.)

*--- Excerpt 2 ---*
[ From: Nathan Parker <nparker@crl.com> ]
>
> -------------------
> Thou shalt not kill
> -------------------
>
> [an excerpt from "Food for the spirit", (c) 1990, Steven Rosen]
>
> Essential to the principle of compassion and mutual love is the
> sixth commandment: Thou shalt not kill. Although simple and
> direct, the commandment is rarely taken literally. The exact
> Hebrew for Exodus 20:13, where this commandment is found, reads
> "lo tirtzach." According to Reuben Alcalay, the word tirtzach
> refers to "any kind of killing whatsoever." The exact
> translation, therefore, asks us to refrain from killing in toto.
>
> "Thou shalt not" needs no interpretation. The controversial word
> is "kill," commonly defined as: 1) to deprive of life; 2) to put
> an end to; 3) to destroy the vital or essential quality of. If
> anything that has life can be killed, then an animal can be k
> illed; according to this commandment, the killing of animals is
> forbidden.
>
> Life is commonly defined as the quality that distinguishes a
> vital and functioning being from a dead body. Although a complex
> phenomenon, life manifests its presence by symptoms as
> recognizable to a student of the world's scriptures as to a
> biologist. Al l living entities pass through six phases: birth,
> growth, maintenance, reproduction, dwindling and death. An
> animal, then, by man's definition as well as by God's, qualifies
> as a living being. What is living can be killed, and to kill is
> to break a comman dment as holy as any: "For whosoever shall
> keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of
> all. For He that said, `do not commit adultery,' also said, `Do
> not kill.' Now if thou commit no addultery, yet if thou kill,
> thou art become a tra nsgressor of the law." (James 2:10,11)
>
> There is much in the Old Testament that supports vegetarianism.
> It may be argued that Christians need not accept the Old Law and
> instead embrace only the New Testament. Jesus himself, however,
> taught otherwise: "Think not that I have come to destroy the
> law, or the prophets: I am come not to destroy, but to fulfill.
> For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot
> or one title shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
> fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least
> comma ndments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the
> least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach
> them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of God."
> (Mathew 5:17-19)

*--- Excerpt 3 ---*
[ From: Jennifer Ewald <jewald@envirolink.org> ]
>
> "Food of the Gods" by Max Friedman (Aug 1994, Vegetarian Times)
> elaborates on this too . . .

*--- Excerpt 4 ---*
[ From: Nathan Parker <nparker@crl.com> ]
>
> Does the Bible sanction meat eating?
>
> [excerpts from "None shall hurt or destroy" (c) 1984]
>
> That the teachings of the Old Testament were to lead one to
> vegetarianism is a view held even today by some Jews. For
> example, Shar Yeshev Cohen, the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Israel,
> recently stated:
>
> "Very deep in our Kabala, which is the mystic tradition of the
> Jewish religion, is the belief that you can find in a human
> being and in an animal the same living spirit that is divine.
> True, it is usually allowed in the Jewish religion for an animal
> to be consumed, but it is also accepted in the religion that as
> part of the procedure of eating kosher foods you limit the
> number of animals and the kind of animals you can eat. So we
> explain these as stages which educate mankind toward the idea of
> being vegetarians."

*--- Excerpt 5 ---*
[ From: Nathan Parker <nparker@crl.com> ]
>
> Does the Bible sanction meat eating?
>
> [excerpts from "None shall hurt or destroy" (c) 1984]
>
> Within the mainstream of Judaism there was in ancient times a
> sect of people called Nazarites or Nazareans. According to the
> "Book of Numbers" (6:1-21), the sect was established by Moses on
> the instruction of God Himself who set down the rules to be foll
> owed. There it mentions specifically that they must foully
> dedicate themselves to the Lord, which is the meaning of the
> word nAzIr in Hebrew, as well as refrain from intoxication and
> intercourse with the activities of worldly society. In time, as
> the Israelites became increasingly fixed in their vitiated
> religious system, the Nazarites stood out so much that they
> eventually emerged as an independent sect. They considered it
> their sacred duty to preserve the original covenant of God as
> opposed to that presumtuously followed by the ordinary Jews.
>
> According to the Nazarites, Moses was truly a patriarch of the
> Jewish religion and God had surely given him the law, but they
> asserted that that law had been lost and that the Torah had been
> corrupted with interpolations and superstitions."
>
> "They practice circumcision, kept the Sabbath and the Jewish
> festivals, rejected the sacrifice of animals and ate no flesh.
> It follows from this that they rejected the history of Genesis
> as well as the laws of Moses." (Dictionary of Sect Pharisees,
> Ecclesiastical Parties and Schools of Religious Thought, edited
> by reverend John Henry Blund)
>
> The Nazarites were also loosely associated with the Jewish sect
> of Essenes, with whom they shared many common features. They
> were called Essenes, or "Bathers" because of their practice of
> baptism. In the same book quoted above by Rev. Blund it is
> stated in regards to the Essenes:
>
> "An ancient Jewish sect which renounces the temple worship
> (which consisted mostly of animal sacrifices) and the Levitical
> priesthood and embodied in itself the esthetic and mystical
> elements of the Jewish religion... Again Philo says of them that
> they do not sacrifice to God any living creature, but rather
> choose to form their minds to be holy; thereby to make them a
> fit offering to Him." (continued...)

End of Excerpts.

*-=Om Shanti=-* Jai Maharaj

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