For The Animals

Today Ethan stayed home from school. He went to bed early last night cause he was feeling ill. When I woke him up this morning he still felt sick and tired and just couldn't get out of bed, so I let him sleep, and he slept until 11:30. He called me at 11:30 asking where I was. I was at Study group. Our discussion today was on The Ten Commandments. Among the things that came up during the discussion was hunting, and someone shared this excerpt by President Kimball in his October 1978 General Conference talk titled "Fundamental Principles to Ponder and Live"

Now, I also would like to add some of my feelings concerning the unnecessary shedding of blood and destruction of life. I think that every soul should be impressed by the sentiments that have been expressed here by the prophets. And not less with reference to the killing of innocent birds is the wildlife of our country that live upon the vermin that are indeed enemies to the farmer and to mankind. It is not only wicked to destroy them, it is a shame, in my opinion. I think that this principle should extend not only to the bird life but to the life of all animals. For that purpose I read the scripture where the Lord gave us all the animals. Seemingly, he thought it was important that all these animals be on the earth for our use and encouragement. 

President Joseph F. Smith said, “When I visited, a few years ago, the Yellowstone National Park, and saw in the streams and the beautiful lakes, birds swimming quite fearless of man, allowing passers-by to approach them as closely almost as tame birds, and apprehending no fear of them, and when I saw droves of beautiful deer [feeding] along the side of the road, as fearless of the presence of men as any domestic animal, it filled my heart with a degree of peace and joy that seemed to be almost a foretaste of that period hoped for when there shall be none to hurt and none to molest in all the land, especially among all the inhabitants of Zion. These same birds, if they were to visit other regions, inhabited by man, would, on account of their tameness, doubtless become more easily a prey to the gunner. The same may be said of those beautiful creatures—the deer and the antelope. If they should wander out of the park, beyond the protection that is established there for these animals, they would become, of course, an easy prey to those who were seeking their lives. I never could see why a man should be imbued with a blood-thirsty desire to kill and destroy animal life. I have known men—and they still exist among us—who enjoy what is, to them, the ‘sport’ of hunting birds and slaying them by the hundreds, and who will come in after a day’s sport, boasting of how many harmless birds they have had the skill to slaughter, and day after day, during the season when it is lawful for men to hunt and kill (the birds having had a season of protection and not apprehending danger) go out by scores or hundreds, and you may hear their guns early in the morning on the day of the opening, as if great armies had met in battle; and the terrible work of slaughtering the innocent birds goes on. 

"I do not believe any man should kill animals or birds unless he needs them for food, and then he should not kill innocent little birds that are not intended for food for man. I think it is wicked for men to thirst in their souls to kill almost everything which possesses animal life. It is wrong, and I have been surprised at prominent men whom I have seen whose very souls seemed to be athirst for the shedding of animal blood.” (Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed., Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1939, pp. 265–66.) 

One of the poets stated in this connection: 
Take not away the life you cannot give, 
For all things have an equal right to live. 

—and I might add there also, because God gave it to them, and they were to be used only, as I understand, for food and to supply the needs of men. It is quite a different matter when a pioneer crossing the plains would kill a buffalo to bring food to his children and his family. There were also those vicious men who would kill buffalo only for their tongues and skins, permitting the life to be sacrificed and the food also to be wasted. 

When asked how he governed so many people, the Prophet Joseph Smith said, “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.” We look to the Prophet Joseph Smith for proper teaching. He said once: “We crossed the Embarras river and encamped on a small branch of the same about one mile west. In pitching my tent we found three massasaugas or prairie rattlesnakes, which the brethren were about to kill, but I said, ‘Let them alone—don’t hurt them! How will the serpent ever lose his venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless, before the brute creation; and when men lose their vicious dispositions and cease to destroy the animal race, the lion and the lamb can dwell together, and the sucking child can play with the serpent in safety.’ The brethren took the serpents carefully on sticks and carried them across the creek. I exhorted the brethren not to kill a serpent, bird, or an animal of any kind during our journey unless it became necessary in order to preserve ourselves from hunger.” (History of the Church, 2:71–72.)

So I looked up that talk above after I got home, then I got on a vegan tangent on Youtube. Ethan was my captive audience today (last week was Hyrum) and Eth watched this compilation of Vegan things with me, cause he was in the kitchen eating, ha! He agreed it was sad all the animals that die and also said "Humans are jerks." At minute 48 there, a man who is a holocaust survivor and he compared how the slaughter house shows a disregard for life the same way the Nazis did - hearts of cows, hooves, and other body parts all neatly stacked. Both the meat and animal industry use a highly efficient and dispassionate process and seem to feel no guilt about what they are or were doing. It is a long video, so we didn't see all of it but it stayed up on my computer and I'd get in another 10 minutes here and there. Ethan turned it on again tonight when I was washing dishes. I listened, and Lily came in and watched when an alligator got killed and it reasonably made her really sad. Sorry Lil. I didn't mean for you to see that. She then went over to the computer where she typed up then printed about 40 of these. She meant to do 5, but didn't think the printer was working, but it's just slow, so she accidentally printed 40. Cute girl. She wants to put them around the neighborhood. Become Vegin!

Tonight I finished watching it, it showed a clip about ostrich bags, which led me to this peta ostrich video. I feel really bad about the ostrich farms - and for a $4000 hand bag?!? Really? Poor creatures. and of course they show us the adorable baby ostrichs, so sad. Poor sweet little things. If I ever see some one with one of those bags, I might try to nicely inform them and encourage them to really think about where it came from and the animal that died for it. Although, in a near death experience book I read a few years ago, the guy died and his spirit was walking through the hospital and went into a doctors office. As his spirit walked through the leather sofa in the office, he was able to know in an instant the cows it came from, where they lived, their whole existance. Same with the trees that made the wood desk he walked through. He was told that the animals and trees were glad that they were able to be of use to the children of God. And I think it could/should be okay to use them a little bit, but me thinks it's gotten a bit out of control in our world. And I don't know why animals being used for shoes, car interiors, etc hadn't registered in my aspiring vegan head. We have a few leather things around here, but now I'm going to go for only purchasing plant-based items. "Vegan fabrics" - I didn't even know that was a thing until today. You learn something new every day.