Christian theology provides some of the best arguments for respecting animal life and for taking seriously animals as … - Andrew Linzey

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I find that each job that I do, the thing that gets me there is when I'm not smarter than it, when I don't know instantly how that thing is made. Because if I do, then it's boring. Or it would be simple.

Andrew Linzey

Christian theology provides some of the best arguments for respecting animal life and for taking seriously animals as partners with us within God's creation. It may be ironical that this tradition, once thought of as the bastion of human moral exclusivity, should now be seen as the seed-bed for a creative understanding of animal liberation.

Christian, Animal, Creative, Seen, Moral, Life

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When I was in my teens I had a series of intensely religious experiences. They deepened my sense of God as the creator of all things. And they also deepened my sensitivity towards creation itself so that concern for God's creatures and animal rights followed from that. Some people think I'm an animal rights person who just happens, almost incidentally, to be religious. In fact, it's because I believe in God that I'm concerned about God's creatures. The religious impulse is primary.

Believe, Incidentally, Religious, Rights, Things, Thinking

The Bible nowhere says that animals are just made for human use. It does not say that the whole earth is just ours to do with as we like. Neither does it say that God's sole interest is with the human species. We cannot allow such an important and influential book to become the preserve of those who want to exploit animals. The Bible needs to be read, studied, and reclaimed for the animals.

Book, Animal, Important, Use, Reclaimed, Earth

Humans have "dominion" over animals. But that "dominion" (radah in Hebrew) does not mean despotism, rather we are set over creation to care for what God has made and to treasure God's own treasures.

Animal, Creation, Doe, God, Mean, Radah

Animals are God's creatures, not human property, nor utilities, nor resources, nor commodities, but precious beings in God's sight. . . . Christians whose eyes are fixed on the awfulness of crucifixion are in a special position to understand the awfulness of innocent suffering. The Cross of Christ is God's absolute identification with the weak, the powerless, and the vulnerable, but most of all with unprotected, undefended, innocent suffering.

Christian, Eye, Animal, Powerless, Sight, Property

We can't change the world for animals without changing our ideas about animals. We have to move from the idea that animals are things, tools, machines, commodities, resources here for our use to the idea that as sentient beings they have their own inherent value and dignity.

Moving, Animal, Ideas, Things, Tools, Resources