Frank and Mary:

I have a very good Christian friend that has know me for over 15 years. He told me that He doesn't care, and doesn't know why he should care.

I was emailing one of my Christian co-workers, who basically told me that what is important are the souls of humans, and being saved by Jesus, Soulless animals are not important.

I approached both of these guys with these reasons why Repentance must occur first before Jesus can forgive. The bible is very clear that repentance must precede forgiveness. That repentance indicates that you have learned why your actions are evil and against God, and that you have stopped doing that evil because of your love for God. That there is no reason to teach a person, that which they already know. That God might cause the unrepentant to understand the painful consequences of their actions by having that person experience the pain that they inflicted to other beings by doing that evil act.

This approach had no visible effect, and they go about their daily lives feeling all forgiven in Jesus's name, and don't believe that they have anything to learn or any painful consequences awaiting them for their evil acts, as long as they Believe in Jesus.

This is the disturbing part of what I see as the teachings of today's Christian churches. They teach only one side of the coin to get people feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, and coming back to church, and they don't teach that our forgiveness is not free, that we must repent first before we can be forgiven. (That "repent" means to stop and go in the opposite direction) It seems to me that some of the fundamental selling points of the Christian church has to be revised before flesh-eaters will think that they have any reason to be concerned about some "soulless stupid animals" as one of my friend stated it.

But here is what I see as the "Catch 22" of all this. If a person changes his actions because they fear the painful consequences of God's teaching and why that act was evil, they are not really repenting because they have found The Love of God in their hearts, they are doing it for selfish, self protecting reasons. Thus, they do not find Love and God, they only find selfishness and fear, and miss the point.

I believe that the path to God, comes from Love, Empathy, and Compassion, NOT for self, but for all other Beings. I don't believe that fear and selfishness will let a person find God in their hearts.

I'm waiting for the right opportunity to ask a few of my Christians friends that don't believe that non-human beings have souls if they care if a live chicken if kicked around like a football in a KFC plant, or if a puppy is put in the oven and cooked alive. (sorry, but both of these events have been in the news recently) Most people will say that we shouldn't be cruel and torture animals. I'm going to ask them, "if the animals don't have souls, therefore no consciousness that continues after death, and therefore no remembrance of their horrific experience that they had to endure, why does it matter if they were tortured to death?.... So they experience horrendous pain, once they are dead, it is as though they never existed and it could not matter what their experience was like here on Earth......so why does it matter ?"

I'm very curious about this seemingly discontinuity in their thinking. Of course, I believe that I know the REAL answer, the answer that they will probably never admit. That deep inside, we humans know that the non-human beings are just like us, and they do have souls, and their experiences are remembered for all of eternity, and that it does matter whether or not a beings had a wonderful experience with life, or a horrific experience, and it matters to God, because the soul and God are inseparably connected.....that God knows the experience of every soul that He created, as souls are an extension of Him. And that anything that we do to another being, we are doing to God, as "a sparrow does not fall from the sky without God knowing it".

But I would not expect the average person to have ever thought about it enough to ever come up with such a thought. Most people just want the church to tell them what to think and want to believe that the church is infallible.

I've asked a few of my Christian friends that DO believe that animals have souls (many dog and cat owners will say that they believe their pets have souls, and that they will see them again): "What are you going to say to all the souls of all the animals that you caused to suffer and die for your pleasure, when you meet them in the afterlife?" But this question has never been answered, and none of the people that I have asked this to, have given up flesh-eating. They usually just laugh at the question and dismiss it as nonsense.

So, obviously, I don't know what will cause the "church" to consider a doctrine of compassion for the animals that people like to eat. My impression is that "they" believe that God loves us so much, and wants us to have pleasure so much, that causing suffering and death to the non-human beings is perfectly acceptable to God. After all, the bible clearly says that God gave the animals to Man to eat, just as He gave the plants to Man.

Mike Shaw, in Canada, says that the people of his church do not believe that the bible is the perfect word of God, and that there is hope in converting these flesh-eaters to vegetarians for compassionate reasons. I live in the South East part of the USA (the Bible Belt), and every one that I know, has been taught that we are to never question the bible, and that it is the perfect word of God. So, it is a very delicate and fine line to walk when talking to these people about giving up flesh-eating without blaspheming the bible at the same time. A "walk" that I have yet to do successfully.

I have asked one of my friends that has a dog, how would you feel if one of your neighbors killed your dog for a back yard barbeque? He said that he would not like that because he loved his dog. I asked him to think about how much more God's love is for His pets, and how do you suppose God feels about people killing them for the pleasure of taste? I have yet to get an answer to this question...... again I get the silly laugh of absurdity to this question. I suggest that God knows every one of His pets by name, and I get silly blank stares. Christians seem happy to believe that God knows exactly how many hairs are on our heads....as if that mattered, but they think it is ridiculous that God loves His pets.

I'd like to think that "the church" is interested in truth and God and bringing souls to God, but I fear that many of them are more interested in bringing people and their donations to church. Teaching compassion for God's animals would be unpopular and would cause people to flee the church. My brother works for Tyson Foods, and at a chicken slaughterhouse in Arkansas. If you ever fly over Arkansas, you will see so many chicken houses that you will know how big a business it is. Millions of "good Christian folk" earn there living by raising and killing chickens. I cannot imagine any church in such a place ever surviving by teaching against the parishioners means of income.

Sorry, I hope that there is something in this writing that helps, but I've had little effect on my friends.

Good luck, and thanks for trying to speak for those that cannot speak for themselves, I believe that we must continue to fight against cruelty, I am, however, a bit overwhelmed at how big the problem is and how few people care.

Eyes wide open in a closed eye world...............Ray