Ryan&Amber2013
Puritan Board Senior
So, this is something I've thought about for a long time. I have a sensitivity for the lives of all animals, but most people around me don't. If a spider is in our house, generally I will try to catch it and release it outside, while most people I know would kill it. In these situations, I'm typically the one who feels like the weird one. Anyway, please read this from John Angell James, from his book called "A Christian Father's Present to His Children", and respond as to whether his belief is accurate or not, and why.
(A reluctance to inflict misery, even to an insect, is not a mere decoration of the character, which we are left at liberty to wear or to neglect—but it is a disposition which we are commanded, as matter of duty to cherish. It is a necessary part of virtue. It is impossible to inflict pain, and connect the idea of gratification with such an act, without experiencing some degree of mental hardening. We are not surprised that he who, while a boy, amused himself in killing flies, should, when he became a master, exhibit the character of a cruel and remorseless tyrant. To find pleasure in causing animals to fight and devour each other, is a disposition truly diabolical; and the man who can find delight in dog-fighting, cock-fighting, bull-baiting—is quite prepared to imitate those cannibals who sported with the mangled carcases and palpitating limbs of their murdered victims, and dragged them about with their teeth in their gardens.
Horse-racing, in addition to the cruelty with which it is attended, is generally a means of assembling on the course, all the gamesters, swindlers, and vile characters in the neighborhood—and is the cause of much drunkenness, debauchery, and ruin. All field sports, of every kind, are, in my view, condemned by the laws of humanity. Shooting, hunting, fishing—are all cruel. What agony is inflicted in hooking a worm or a fish; in maiming a bird; in chasing and distressing a rabbit. And to find sport in doing this, is inhuman and unchristian. To say that these animals are given for food, and must be killed, is not a reply to my argument. I am not contending against killing them, or eating them—but against the act of killing of them for sport!
The infliction of death, under any circumstances, and upon any creature, however insignificant in the scale of creation, is too serious a matter to be a source of amusement. No two terms can be more incongruous than death and sport. It seems totally monstrous, that after having subjected the irrational creation to the terrors of death by his sin, man should experience pleasure in executing the sentence. Death is the enemy even of animals. And irrational creates manifest symptoms of instinctive horror at man's approach. For one to find delight in throwing the shuddering victim to the devourer, is shocking. I would extend these remarks to all animals, and say, that it is unlawful to find sport in killing such as are harmful. Wolves, bears, serpents, are to be destroyed when their continuance endangers human life—but to find pleasure in the act of killing even these, has a hardening tendency on the human heart.)
(A reluctance to inflict misery, even to an insect, is not a mere decoration of the character, which we are left at liberty to wear or to neglect—but it is a disposition which we are commanded, as matter of duty to cherish. It is a necessary part of virtue. It is impossible to inflict pain, and connect the idea of gratification with such an act, without experiencing some degree of mental hardening. We are not surprised that he who, while a boy, amused himself in killing flies, should, when he became a master, exhibit the character of a cruel and remorseless tyrant. To find pleasure in causing animals to fight and devour each other, is a disposition truly diabolical; and the man who can find delight in dog-fighting, cock-fighting, bull-baiting—is quite prepared to imitate those cannibals who sported with the mangled carcases and palpitating limbs of their murdered victims, and dragged them about with their teeth in their gardens.
Horse-racing, in addition to the cruelty with which it is attended, is generally a means of assembling on the course, all the gamesters, swindlers, and vile characters in the neighborhood—and is the cause of much drunkenness, debauchery, and ruin. All field sports, of every kind, are, in my view, condemned by the laws of humanity. Shooting, hunting, fishing—are all cruel. What agony is inflicted in hooking a worm or a fish; in maiming a bird; in chasing and distressing a rabbit. And to find sport in doing this, is inhuman and unchristian. To say that these animals are given for food, and must be killed, is not a reply to my argument. I am not contending against killing them, or eating them—but against the act of killing of them for sport!
The infliction of death, under any circumstances, and upon any creature, however insignificant in the scale of creation, is too serious a matter to be a source of amusement. No two terms can be more incongruous than death and sport. It seems totally monstrous, that after having subjected the irrational creation to the terrors of death by his sin, man should experience pleasure in executing the sentence. Death is the enemy even of animals. And irrational creates manifest symptoms of instinctive horror at man's approach. For one to find delight in throwing the shuddering victim to the devourer, is shocking. I would extend these remarks to all animals, and say, that it is unlawful to find sport in killing such as are harmful. Wolves, bears, serpents, are to be destroyed when their continuance endangers human life—but to find pleasure in the act of killing even these, has a hardening tendency on the human heart.)