"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful. At the same
time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel
called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.
We’ve all heard that old saying, “Practice makes perfect.” This is true for good pursuits, like playing the piano, as well as bad ones, like killing.
Killing? Yes, killing! Whether it’s killing other animals, such as deer, bears, or fish; or killing companion animals and then graduating to killing and raping humans, one becomes more adept and also more addicted with practice. The F.B.I. has found that one of the traits that serial killers share is a history of cruelty to other animals.
The notorious serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer impaled the heads of dogs and cats on sticks. The Columbine High School’s Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who shot to death 12 fellow students and a teacher and injured more than 20 others, had boasted about mutilating animals. The perpetrator of the Washington D.C. sniper attacks, Lee Boyd Malvo, is believed to have hunted and killed stray cats for nearly five years before moving on to human beings.
More common is family violence that is strongly connected to animal abuse. A target of this abuse is an animal who lives in the home. Batterers often control their human victims by threatening, torturing, and/or killing the victims’ companion animals.
The increasing promotion and popularity of rodeos, hunting, and fishing, as well as the increasingly “macho” trend across the board, is dangerous for this society and for the world, since our country sets the style for other societies who copy us. All you have to do is look at the ads for anything from food products to cars and trucks: violence sells. The problem is that it also sells anti-social behavior to those who are susceptible.
States eager to increase their revenues from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses, as well as businesses eager to sell hunting and fishing paraphernalia to more customers, actively recruit females. This is a good example of what I wrote in an earlier Blog: the oppressed become the oppressors.
Rightly does the Bible state that one reaps what one sows! Unfortunately, the innocent always suffer along with the evil-doers. Practice does indeed make perfect. This makes perfect sense – whether for good or for evil.
Go on to: Skiing in Heaven? – 2 August 2006
Return to: Consequences of Denial, Part II – 31 July 2006
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