DO ANIMALS SIN?           

“The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.  So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them.

                                                                          ~  Genesis 6:6-7

            Throughout his book, On Animals, David Clough consistently challenges our common human understanding of “animals” as simple creatures, wholly separate from humans.  Instead, he develops a complex image of our fellow creatures, urging us to appreciate the wide range of creatures with whom we share this planet, the richness and complexity of their lives, and many ways humans and other animals are alike.  In addressing the doctrine of atonement, he continues to invite us to broaden our understanding of other animals’ places before God, asking, among other things, whether animals sin and whether they are in need of reconciliation with God.     

ON PTSD AND BACON

Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, 
so that I may not cause one of them to fail.
                                                                      - 1 Corinthians 8:13 

        I recently saw a link to a February 2014 article in Texas Observer, titled, "PTSD In The Slaughterhouse."  (I posted a link to it on the Dominion In The Image Of God Facebook page, so you may have seen it there.)  This came shortly after I attended the Humane Society of the United States' annual conference, Taking Action For Animals (TAFA), and the two incidents together gave me much food for thought.  The article is a short piece, and well worth clicking through to read, but here is what particularly caught my eye - and my heart:

Slaughterhouse employees are not only exposed to a battery of physical dangers on the cut floor, but the psychological weight of their work erodes their well being. As one former abattoir employee attests in the book Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry:

“The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll. If you work in the stick pit [where hogs are killed] for any period of time—that let’s [sic] you kill things but doesn’t let you care. You may look a hog in the eye that’s walking around in the blood pit with you and think, ‘God, that really isn’t a bad looking animal.’ You may want to pet it. Pigs down on the kill floor have come up to nuzzle me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them. … I can’t care.”

It will come as no surprise that the consequences of such emotional dissonance include domestic violence, social withdrawal, drug and alcohol abuse, and severe anxiety. As slaughterhouse workers are increasingly being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers are finally starting to systematically explore the results of killing sentient animals for a living.

      I've written before about the link between violence to animals and violence to humans.  I've also written about how we are all connected, and there will be no peace, no shalom, for humans until there is shalom for the animals; that is, humans will never know peace until we recognize that we are called by God to care for the animals, not to exploit them.  

Psalm Of A Downed Dairy Cow

“A cow’s a piece of machinery.  If it’s broke, we try to fix it, and if we can’t, it’s replaced.”

                                                 ~ quoted in Dominion, The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals, and The Call to Mercy by Matthew Scully

            Following up last week’s post on animals and Sabbath, and in keeping with a Lenten theme of penitence, I offer this “psalm.”  It is written from the perspective of a downed dairy cow (that is, a cow so exhausted from over-breeding and over-milking that she cannot stand or walk) in a factory farm, where animals are given no rest, but are manipulated solely for profit, without regard to their most basic needs. This is a system that disregards the rhythm of work, play, and rest, that, as Ex. 20:8-11 tells us, are woven into creation and into the Sabbath commandment, as discussed in last week’s post.

            We know that farm animals have a great deal more intelligence, self-awareness, and emotional depth than previously believed.  They know pain, fear, and loneliness. Those on factory farms know these emotions intensely.  Farm animals do cry out - with bellows and squeals and squawks - and just as the God of the Exodus heard the cries of the slaves in Egypt which were not intentionally cries or prayers to God, so I believe he hears the cries of the animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses.  This psalm is my effort to render those cries and my understanding of the divine response into a theological representation. 

ASK THE ANIMALS AND THEY WILL TELL YOU, PART FOUR:

FARM ANIMALS AND SENTIENCE

When a man’s love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets a demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice.

                                                                                     ~ Matthew Scully

            We have seen in Parts One, Two, and Three of this series that animals feel, are aware of, and suffer from physical pain, that they can suffer emotionally, from fear, sadness, and depression, and that they are more intelligent than previously believed, more engaged in their surroundings, and capable of suffering from boredom, as well.  Conversely, animals are also capable of experiencing the richness of life, enjoying their surroundings, forming meaningful relationships with others of their own and other species, and enjoying the task of learning new things.  God has made the animals, like humans, for abundance and joy. 

            This Part Four will look specifically at how farm animals experience the world.  I want to look at these creatures in particular because they suffer in far and away the greatest numbers, they suffer extreme cruelties at human hands, and nearly all of us participate in these cruelties through our purchasing decisions.  But because our diets and purchasing habits are so deeply engrained as habits and traditions in our lives, they are the animals we are most likely to “forget” or to fail to recognize as individuals (not herds, or flocks, or food), or to turn away from when we are asked to consider how we impact their lives.  This post looks at farm animal sentience. It touches only very briefly on how we treat them.  That will be considered in more detail in a later post.