Hmm, I know this is a complex and sensitive subject but I'll ask anyway ...

I've often had people, specifically christians in my instance, tell me that God put animals on earth for us to eat.

I don't believe in god so naturally I see it from a different perspective to someone who does.

To those who do believe - what is your response when someone challenges you with that kind of argument? Do you believe that god (or whoever you believe in) put animals here for us to use? Do you believe god didn't and humanity just screwed up - if so how does that wager on the 'sin' scale?

Personally, if I did believe in a God, I certainly don't think it would want us to eat corpses ... why do you think it is that so many religious people don't mind worshipping a deity that condones animal cruelty and bloodshed?


Thoughts?

I think the reason that people buy into this notion of god is because it hasn't been run past their questioning brain. Certain things like religious beliefs, dietary practices, prejudices and superstitions are learnt at an early age when a child wants and needs to believe absolutely in the way the world is being presented to it.

Some people go on to re-examine their childhood 'facts' and some don't. Christianity is a particularly difficult one to re-evaluate because it advocates the behaviour (reminiscent to the parent) of accepting without understanding or agreeing. It also menaces expulsion from its midst (not to mention the weighty threats of hell and damnation) if its given terms are not accepted. People instinctively seek shelter in the safety of the known and are unlikely to shake their collective boat.

Biblical passages are often used to justify meat eating, wife bashing, homophobia and other lovely practices. You can't argue with a chapter-and-verse haranguing person. You could offer them an alternative reading and be ok with them probably not hearing you.

Firstly I would like to say that you cannot judge God or his Word based on misinterpretations and misrepresentations of religions. If people choose to twist the Scriptures to their own ends it is hardly God or the Bible's fault. I find it quite offensive that most atheists feel that people who believe in God are mindless and simply believe because they are taught to from an early age. True Christianity does not advocate accepting without understanding, it is not about blind faith, its about looking at the evidence. And for me the evidence leads to the conclusion that there is a Creator. Also, just a side thought, the teaching of a fiery hell does not harmonise with the scriptures, which state that when you die, you're no more, you no longer exist.

As regards animals being put on the earth to serve as food: Man's original diet was a vegetarian one. Following the flood of Noah's day God permitted mankind to eat meat. Despite allowing mankind to eat meat and not viewing animals as equal to humans, God has never permitted cruelty to animals. The killing of animals for fun or sport is condemned in the Bible, and God's people were instructed to take proper care of their animals and even assist their enemies animals. God has also promised to bring an end to all the suffering and cruelty in the world. When he returns the earth to its orginal paradisaic state, mankind will live in peace with all animals.

In my opinion humans are lousy PR for an all powerful being

I get what you are saying - but how do you argue this with people who believe in the same god as you but believe he said something different? Is there even a way to argue it?

Fair question. So I was thinking...

If God exists, say; according to my understandings of organised religions, then He has no need of food?

So then I thought, if
I didn't (need to) eat, how would my reality change? If I was never faced with a basic moral dilema, and I was a god; would I even care?

Food for thought, or perhaps I'm just being silly?

Cheers, Gareth.

Ha ha - that's an interesting way of putting it ...
Even though god doesn't eat though - surely he cares what we eat? I don't know.

Guess I'm stumped as well.

I was originally going to submit this as part of the "reasons for becoming vegan" (i.e. intended for those who follow spiritual/religious paths) but it may have been perceived as too religious/puritanical for the vegan athiest/agnostic communities. However, since this topic has subsequently come up, I thought I would post the information for those interested. Please note that the following quotations are not intended to proselytize the religious or philosophical viewpoint; they are cited in order to present relevant historical references refuting the claims of those religionists/traditionalists who believe that veganism/vegetarianism -- or the belief that nature is sacred -- is incompatible with religious tradition, or that this ethos is simply the product of an unanchored 'pagan' mindset, or alternatively is a modern 'innovation'.

Btw, if you start getting bored with my writing/assertions, , then scroll down to the bottom section where I have included the direct quotes from various religious traditions.

One of the many challenges to a harmonious and sustainable living on this planet -- other than war-mongering, corporate exploitation and a rampant consumerism -- is religious ignorance parading under the banner of 'traditional' justification. The attitude that nature exists solely for humans to use and abuse is not only misguided, it is pathological: the result of a progressively fragmenting human consciousness -- part of which believes that the spiritual destinies of humans and nature are somehow divergent. On the contrary, the most enlightened of the prophets, saints, sages or philosophers have respectfully acknowledged the natural or cosmological orders as that of divine theophany: described as a symbolic showing of the divine in the 'mirror' of manifest form:

"It is true, without untruth; certain and most true: That which is Below is like that which is Above, and that which is Above is like that which is Below; by these things are made the miracles of the One." (Hermes Trismegistus) "All that which exists upon the Earth, has its spiritual counterpart on high, and there exists nothing in this world which is not attached to something Above, and is not found in dependence upon it... All that which is contained in the lower world is also found in prototype. The Lower and the Upper reciprocally act upon each other." (Sefer ha-Zohar) "There is not an animal that lives on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but forms part of communities like you. Nothing have We omitted from the Book, and they all shall be gathered to their Lord in the end." (Qur'an 6:38) "The order of nature has recalled over the ages and across many religious frontiers the order both within us and beyond us. Nature has not only displayed the wisdom of God through her order and harmony but has also carried out incessantly a discourse about those spiritual realities that constitute the very substance of our existence. Her order has been nothing other than our order, and her harmony that inner harmony which still chants the eternal melody at the center of our being despite the cacophony of our ego dispersed in its world of forgetfulness. The limbs of nature are our limbs, her life our life, and her destruction our destruction." (Seyyed Hossein Nasr. 1996. Religion and the Order of Nature. Pg 24)

The roots of the Adamic religion and accompanying mythos are primarily derived from the vegetation/agricultural rites of the fertile Nile and Sumer-Mesopotamian valley communities (themselves a continuation of more primitive vegetation rites of the early Kamitic societies in Ethiopia/Kush (also moving into the Indus River Valley and India; cf. the Shivaic vegetarians). When the northern nomadic, herder, meat-eating (Amorite? later Hittite?) societies (i.e. the hill-peoples) descended into Mesopotamia and Sumer from the north and north-east (colder climates), they eventually integrated into the valley communities. In time, their meat-eating/animal sacrificing worship and diet was to gain dominance over the predominantly vegetable diets of the valley agriculturalists.

Assyriologists have theorized that the Amorites were a nomadic people ruled by fierce tribal clansmen who apparently forced themselves into lands they needed to graze their herds. Some of the literature that dates to the Third Dynasty of Ur at the end of the 3rd millennium speaks of the Amorites disparagingly. Some documents seem to imply that the local Akkadians viewed their [viz. the northern 'immigrants' = Amorites] nomadic way of life with disgust and contempt, for example we read:

"The MAR.TU [Amorites] who know no grain.... The MART.TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains.... The MAR.TU who digs up truffles... who does not bend his knees (to cultivate the land), who eats raw meat, who has no house during his lifetime, who is not buried after death..." "[The locals] have prepared wheat and gu-nunuz (grain) as a confection [for the Amorites], but an Amorite will eat it without even recognizing what it contains!" "...Thus said the Lord God to Jerusalem; 'Your birth and your nativity is of the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite'." (Ezekiel 16:3)

I'm sure that those [northern Amorites] who "forced themselves into the lands", similarly later "forced themselves" into the resident deism; hence you have a scriptural Genesis and attending priesthood that initially promotes the eating of vegetation (only), and then a later redaction in Genesis saying that meat is now permissible. In fact, as is well-known, many books/sections of the Bible were written by different people, and this includes the Old Testament. In some books you can actually detect the subtle shifts in perspective, suggesting (according to many scholars) one section/author to be subtly refuting another. These different authors (or redactors) may have come from different cultures, countries or epochs; the subtle adjustment of biblical doctrine suggests they were trying to align scripture more along the lines of their own customs.

Personally, I would suggest that the Israelites and their attending priesthood -- in their exodus out of Egypt and into the Sinai desert (thereafter into Canaan/Palestine) -- found themselves cut-off from access to fruit, vegetables and their doctrinal anchorage in the Egyptian religious traditions. It has been noted that the early Israelites/Jews, when settled in Judea/Palestine, were not agriculturalists. I further suspect that the Levitical/Kosher requirements for "draining the blood from the animal before eating" (later inherited by Islam) was merely a rationalization (due to survival in arid conditions) of earlier Egyptian proscriptions that devotees should not eat any living animal (i.e. any animal with life-blood). The most profound and respected schools of Philosophy, Mathematics and Medicine in Egypt had very strict entry requirements, one of which was a strict adherence to a vegetarian/vegan diet. Space precludes going into a detailed discussion of these particular schools/teachings, but what I will state is that much of the Adamic/Jacob/Joseph/Moses (and the Coming Son) mythos was inherited from Egyptian and the Kamitic traditions.

In his Natural Genesis, Gerald Massey noted that the primordial genetrix, or "Great Mother," was first acknowledged and worshiped as the Earth (as womb and 'bringer forth' of life), with water springs, lakes and trees finding extension of the mother figure who was known variously as Apt, Kep/Keb and Ta-Urt in the Kamite societies. According to Massey, "Earth was the womb of life when life was born of water. The birth-place was imaged by the abyss of the Tuat, the well, the gorge, or other type of utterance, from the secret source in the sacred place of creation, the creatory of the Mother-earth. The water of life became a type of the eternal, the fabled fount of immortality that was so preciously preserved in the divine under-world; the living water that was sought for by the mother when she periodically lost her child who was the same to her as the water of life, and who was found in the abyss, which was indeed the place of its rebirth. The generation of life by water, the birth of Horus by water and in food, was the profoundest of mysteries. This was the way that life actually came into the world, before the subject was made doctrinal. This was a life which did save the world when Horus the Messu was the saviour who naturally gave fulfilment periodically to the promise that he made." Massey goes on to say that "[a] spring of water welling from abysmal depths of earth, that furnished food in the papyrus reed and other edible plants, is the earliest form in which the source of life was figured by the Kamite mystery teachers... It was in the birthplace of the reeds and of the reed people in the region of the reeds that light first broke out of darkness in the beginning in the domain of Sut, and where the twin children of darkness and of light were born. The Mother-earth as womb of universal life was the producer of food in various kinds, and the food was represented as her offspring. Horus on his papyrus imaged food in the water plant as well as in the later lentils, the branch of the tree, or in general vegetation. The stands of the offerings presented to the gods in the Ritual (Egyptian Book of the Dead) are commonly crowned with papyrus plants, which commemorate the food that was primeval. Thus the doctrine of life issuing in and from the papyrus reed was Egyptian as well as Japanese [cf. the Kami]... The [African] tradition thus appears to preserve the natural fact which the Egyptians rendered mythically by means of the reed plant as a symbol of the primeval birthplace on earth with Horus issuing from the waters on the reed, which became the lap of life, the cradle and the ark of the eternal child, who is also called the shoot of the papyrus, the primitive natzer [branch]." (Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, p.255, 338, 257)

Massey goes on to say:

"The papyrus reed, uat, was turned into a symbol of most ancient descent precisely because it had been the primeval food of the most ancient people (emphasis mine), a totem of the most ancient mother of the race when called Uati in Egypt, and a type of the African paradise. As the symbolism shows, people were sometimes derived from and represented by the food on which they lived. Thus the papyrus reed that symbolizes ancient food and long descent would be the sign of the people who once lived on or who ate the shoots of the water plant. The Egyptians continued to be eaters of the lotus and papyrus shoots... In later times the papyrus plant was eaten by the Egyptians as a delicacy. Its shoots were gathered for that purpose annually. Bread made from the roots and the seed of the lotus was the gourmand's delight. Lily loaves are mentioned in the Papyrus Anastasi... The lotus and the papyrus are the two water plants worn as a headdress by the two figures that represent the Nile south and north, and who are often seen binding the flowers to the sam symbol of Upper and Lower Egypt, as if joining the two countries together as the one land of the reed. Uthlanga [i.e. Zulu 'umhlanga' = 'place of the reed'] is not irrecoverable. We glean from other Zulu legends that this was the African birthplace in the bed of reeds, where the two [mythical] children, black and white, were born of dark and day, and where the race of the reed people broke off in the beginning. This cradle of creation is repeated mythically with Child-Horus in his nest of reeds or bed of the papyrus plant, when the field of reeds was figured in the heavens as the primitive paradise of food and drink" (Ibid., p.256)

The first Genesis reference to the human diet clearly supports the vegan perspective, the rest is arguably politics. Here are a few quotes from the various religious traditions:

"Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed -- to you it shall be for food." (Genesis 1:29) "Know this: eventually imposters will appear everywhere, deceiving the people and teaching them that they can devour meat... When you teach people in the world to cultivate samadhi [the spiritual state], they must also cut off killing. This is the second clear and unalterable instruction on purity given by the Thus Come Ones and the Buddhas of the past, World Honored Ones... What I have said here is the Buddha's teaching. Any explanation counter to it is the teaching of Papiyan [evil, corrupt]." (Shakyamuni Buddha, Surangama Sutra) Maha-Kasyapaika-gotra: "Blessed One, what was your intention in stating that meat and fish are wholesome foodstuffs?" Gautama Buddha: "I did not say that meat and fish are wholesome foodstuffs, but I have said that sugar-cane, winter-rice, ordinary rice, wheat, barley, green lentils, black lentils, molasses, sugar, honey, ghee, milk and sesame oil are wholesome foodstuffs. If I have taught that even the various garments for covering the body should be dyed an unattractive colour, then how much more so [i.e. undesirable] attachment to the taste of meat foods! ...All creatures can recognise a person who eats meat and, when they catch the odour, they are frightened by the terror of death. Wherever that person roams, the beings in the waters, on dry land or in the sky are frightened. Thinking that they will be killed by that person, they even swoon or die. For these reasons, Bodhisattva-mahasattvas do not eat meat... In the age of the Dharma's decline, there will be monks who preserve the vinaya and abhidharma and who have a multitude of rituals, but who also look after their physical well-being, who highly esteem various kinds of meat, whose humours are disturbed... who dress themselves well as though they were sages [munis], who dress themselves as sramanas [ascetic wanderers], though they are not, and who hold spurious writings to be the authentic Dharma. These people destroy what I have devised -- the vinaya, rites, comportment and the authentic utterances that free and liberate one from attachment to what is improper, selecting and reciting passages from each of the sutras according to their inclinations. Thus there will appear [bogus] sramanas, sons of Shakyamuni [the Buddha], who will claim that, 'According to our vinaya, the Blessed One has said that alms of meat-stuffs are acceptable' and who will concoct their own [scriptures] and contradict each other... Now, on this occasion, I teach the harm arising from meat-eating. Being the time when I shall pass into Parinirvana, this is a comprehensive declaration." (Shakyamuni Buddha, Nirvana Sutra) "Killing animals and the eating of their flesh is the greatest abomination of all." (Empedocles 490-430 BCE) "Judas, called Maccabaeus... with about nine others [167 BCE], withdrew into the wilderness... eating nothing but wild plants to avoid contracting defilement." (2 Maccabees 5:27) "The table too is kept clear of animal flesh, but on it are loaves of bread for nourishment." (Philo of Alexandria, discussing the Therapeutae) "For I discerned a certain sublimity in the discipline of Pythagoras, and how a certain secret wisdom enabled him to know, not only who he was himself, but also who he had been; and I saw that he approached the altars in purity, and suffered not his belly to be polluted by partaking of the flesh of animals; and that he kept his body pure of all garments woven of dead animal refuse..." (Apollonius of Tyana, via Philostratus) "[The Nazarite] whose name was Bannus, lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than grew on trees [i.e. linen], and had no other food than what grew of its own accord [i.e. Carob-beans, Tamarisk-gum, dates, figs, grains, etc]" (Josephus: Life, 2) "John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness... and he ate 'locust'-beans [i.e. carob-beans from the Ceratonia siliqua tree, 'charuv' in Hebrew, 'kharub' in Arabic] and 'wild honey' [i.e. the gum-droplets of the Tamarisk tree]" (Mark 1:4-6) St James (in his letter to the apostles): "...[W]e write unto them, that they abstain from things strangled, and from blood." (Acts 15:20) "...from which if you keep yourselves, you will do well." (Acts 15:29) "So remarkable a person must James have been, so universally esteemed for Righteousness, that even the most intelligent of Jews felt this was why his martyrdom was immediately followed by the siege of Jerusalem ...He was Holy from his mother's womb...[and] he did not eat meat." (Eusebius: Ecclesiastical History 2.23) "[W]e have, in this passage in Paul's letter to the Romans [14:2], collateral verification of James' vegetarianism -- insisted on in all the ancient sources... Often James' vegetarianism... is taken for some kind of asceticism. From what we are seeing here, this is not the case. It has to do with the demands of all Righteousness and Perfect Holiness... (Robert Eisenman. 1997. James the Brother of Jesus: Recovering the True History of Early Christianity. Pg 264; 293) "The Ebionites were the Judaeo-Christians who were classed with heretics by the now dominant Catholicized Pauline Church... Some, following the example of James... were vegetarians and ate no meat." (E.S. Drower. 1960. The Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis. Pg 95) "Amongst Mandaeans [a pre-Christian baptizing sect] there is an oral tradition that some of them were once vegetarians." (E.S. Drower. 1960. The Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis. Pg 32) "They [the Cathar Christians (c. 1050-1328 CE)] had to convert to vegetarianism... excluding meat and all other prohibited food from their diet." (Philippe Roy. 2006: Doctrines and Philosophy of Catharism) "Keep away from those who eat meat -- their company will ruin your meditation... The sufferings of all beings are the same, but a foolish man is blind to others' pain. Why not cut the throat of your own ego, so that the bliss of Liberation can be attained? ...You violently slaughter innocent animals and claim it to be in keeping with the canons of your creed. When God places before you the record of your cruel deeds, what will your fate be?" (Kabir c. 1398-1512 CE) "Do not kill any living beings, says Ravidas. Living beings are one with God. Even if you compensate by giving away herds of sacred cows as some form of charitable atonement, the sin of killing cannot be washed off.... Having no sense of compassion in their heart, they eat the flesh of another... Those who turn living beings into dead, and the dead bodies they eat, like dead bodies will they all become, says Ravidas with due reflection on it." (Ravidas c. 1433-1530 CE) "Countless are the cutthroats, who trade in violence... Countless are the impious, who live on unwholesome food... False is their speech, false is their repast... In their hands is a knife, and they are the butchers of the world." (Guru Nanak c. 1469-1539 CE) "These meat eaters are cruel, ill-directed and unaware. As heartless evil doers, they are like living corpses in this world... What bravery is there in killing defenceless beings? Kill your own 'attachments', brave man... The creatures who have no words to communicate, who live on grass -- such creatures do men destroy, and no Awakening shall come to their Heart... Cut the throat of anger; kill egotism, O noble one; make a sacrifice of the five senses and spare these living creatures... You create animosity against living beings; you have no compassion in your heart. Those which are images of God, them you go to destroy?" (Dadu c. 1544-1603 CE) "Eating the flesh of animals, considered in itself, is somewhat profane; for in the most ancient times they never ate the flesh of any beast or bird... To kill animals and eat their flesh was to them unlawful, being regarded as something bestial... But in the course of time, when mankind became cruel like wild beasts, yea more cruel, then first they began to kill animals and eat their flesh." (Emanuel Swedenborg c. 1688-1772CE: Heavenly Arcana) "They that kill for food, seek the pleasures of the palate, and they cause life from the living to be extinguished. For the sake of sensual gratification they buy sin... Whoever eats meat and fish is bound in captivity by the butcher of Death. Nothing good will come out of such conduct. Take this as evidence from the writings of the Saints: Nanak and Kabir have given the same message; Dadu and Dariya have sung the same song." (Tulsi Sahib c. 1763-1843 CE) "One must abstain from animal foods, including eggs, fish, fowl and all preparations made from them, such as cakes and pastry." (Maharaj Sawan Singh 1858-1948 CE) "The longer I am a vegetarian, the more I feel how wrong it is to kill animals and eat them. I think that eating meat or fish is a denial of all ideals, even of all religions. How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy? How can we speak of right and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood? Every kind of killing seems to me savage and I find no justification for it. I believe that the religion of the future will be based on vegetarianism. As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures, there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together." (Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel-Prize winner) "Regarding meat eating: it is a fallacy that we cannot get protein except from meat and eggs. There are millions of men and women all over the world who are strict vegetarians... There have been eminent people in the history of the world who were strict vegetarians and lived a long and healthy life." (Maharaj Charan Singh 1916-1990 CE) "All your life you have been drinking the blood and eating the flesh of animals without realizing what you have been doing. You love flesh and enjoy murder. If you had any conscience or any sense of justice, if you were born as a true human being, you would think about this." (Bawa Muhaiyadeen: Come to the Secret Garden: Sufi Tales of Wisdom. 1985, Pg 26) "Whoever is kind to the creatures of God, is kind to themselves." (Prophet Mohammed) "If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal, in the same way, with their fellow men." (St Francis of Assisi) "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated" (Mahatma Ghandi) "If you can kill animals, the same attitude can kill human beings. The mentality is the same which exploits nature and which creates wars." (Satish Kumar, Environmentalist, Peace Pilgrim and Educator) "If we accepted the Cartesian view, that [animals] are mechanical objects and they do not share in our reality, we would do with them what we have been doing with the macro-nature around us, decimating it in the name of human needs -- sitting on a limb of a tree and cutting it without knowing that we are going to fall down and break our neck very soon, through this very process." (Seyyed Hossein Nasr: In the Beginning was Consciousness)

Also, within the early Christian tradition, know that St Paul's entire tirade against those who excluded flesh and animal products from their diet (e.g. 1. "For one believes that he may eat all things; another, who is weak, eats only vegetables" -- Romans 14:2]; and 2.) "Eat everything that is sold in the marketplace. There is no need to raise questions of conscience" [1 Corinthians 10:25]) was cynically aimed at James and the Jamesian communities who certainly did not eat (any) meat, or fish, or dairy. Paul was intentionally and systematically inverting James' prescriptions and proscriptions -- which means that the earliest of Christian communities (under the leadership of James as "Bishop of Bishops" in Jerusalem) were VEGAN. Since James was known as "the Just" and "the Righteous" (i.e. the Zaddik) who put utmost emphasis on "Good Works" ("For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works [and ethics] is dead also" -- James 2:26), then one can rest assured that his vegan prescriptions were not innovations or deviations -- his conduct and path was most respected, and this is precisely why he earned the epithet, "the Just" (also 'oblias/bulwark': protective "Pillar" of Jerusalem).

Furthermore, the Jewish Zadokites (Sons of Righteousness) and wilderness-dwelling Nazarite Essenes (nazar = consecrated separation) were all strict vegans of the highest order -- in fact they chose death rather than break with their diets, which consisted of dried figs, wild dates, carob beans (the so-called 'locust' bean) and Tamarisk gum (i.e. 'wild honey' so-called). Here is a passage from the works first century Jewish historian, Josephus:

"They [the Essenes] are long-lived also; inasmuch that many of them live above a hundred years, by means of the simplicity of their [vegan] diet... And indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them..." (Josephus, Wars 2.10.)

Wow, David!

Hot damn! Very interesting David!

That really is food for thought. Thanks David

One hell of a good post.... you most certainly have impressed me completely

What work do you do David... where did you gain all this knowledge... as it has obviously has taken some intensive study and thought..

Hmmmmmmmmmm! After that, my comments are probably going to sound very simplistic:-) I just can't understand why people, who believe organised religion's explanation for the creation of everything that exists to be mythical nonsense, feel they have to throw the baby out with the bath water! Even if the bible and all other religious writings are mythical accounts of the creation, why should that necessarily mean there is no creative force? In fact, I don't see why belief in a creative force should even be regarded as a "religious" view! The bottom line for me is that, whatever force created the matter that resulted in the "big bang" (if the big bang ever happened:-) THAT force is the "creator". People may ask "who created that force", well, whatever did create that force, THAT is the creator!!
As for animals being created for the benefit of humans - why would animals have been created so many millions of years before humans appeared on this earth, if the were created for our benefit?

@Beryl (re: terminology and conception)

Reminds me of something John Godfrey Saxe wrote:

It was six men of Hindustan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind) That each by observation Might satisfy the mind. The first approached the Elephant And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side At once began to bawl: "Bless me, it seems the Elephant Is very like a wall". The second, feeling of his tusk, Cried, "Ho! What have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? To me 'tis mighty clear This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a spear". The third approached the animal, And happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Then boldly up and spake: "I see," quoth he, "the Elephant Is very like a snake." The Fourth reached out an eager hand, And felt about the knee. "What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain," quoth he; "'Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!" The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: "E'en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can, This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a fan!" The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, "I see," quoth he, "the Elephant Is very like a rope!" And so these men of Hindustan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right And all were in the wrong. So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!

Incidentally, here is the Persian original (itself a development of trans-Eastern sources):

Some Hindus had brought an elephant for exhibition and placed it in a dark house. Crowds of people were going into that dark place to see the mighty animal. Finding that ocular inspection was impossible, each visitor felt it with his palm in the darkness.
The palm of one fell on the trunk. 'This creature is like a water-spout,' he said. The hand of another lighted on the elephant's ear. To him the beat was evidently like a fan. Another rubbed against its leg. 'I found the elephant's shape is like a pillar,' he said. Another laid his hand on its back. 'Certainly this elephant was like a throne,' he said.
The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the animal. The eye of the Sea is one thing and the foam another. Let the foam go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea. Day and night foam-flecks are flung from the sea: How amazing! You behold the foam but not the Sea. We are like boats dashing together; our eyes are darkened, yet we are in clear water.

@Monika,
I have an interest in this and a few other related areas, so a lot of my readings/writings fall within the scope of these topics/issues.

Ahh, all you intelligent and insightful people - I see that my question is really irrelevant here because you all think and question and live lives that are progressive and bloody interesting. My bad!

A lot of people sadly, are morons. In my opinion at least. The type that constantly refer to god and religion to strengthen their arguments, or so they think, really make me angry. I find it incredibly silly that so many people use god as an excuse for eating meat or as their reason for not living more ethical lives - the whole 'god will take care of it so I don't have to' mentality is a joke to me, especially in the context of animal exploitation.

I guess my original post is aimed at people like that

Now after all the highly eloquent posts on this topic,here comes my 2 cents.
I have to say that if God exists he is a woman (really I am joking ).
Seriously though I was very sick the last 4 years and the amount of preaching that came my way made me wanna vomit. That I should quickly give my life to Jesus before I peg... What rot.......besides I'm jewish...!
Not that I have a religous bone in my body and I was also brought up without any religion per se.
Like you said jackyl, the syndrome of "god will take care of it:" is so nauseating for me too.
I think all there is Nature and that is all the god we have...and nature is pretty blood-thirsty......in my opinion.

Hi Biddy,

Your jest is perhaps closest to the mark. "God is female!"?

David, as our learned theologist, please sail me straight here.
I have recall reading that archaeological discoveries of pre-historic effigies were sculpted in female form.
World-wide, there are common linguistic links - I have the letter 'O' in mind as universal for God and Womanhood as well as a fertility symbol. 'O' also refers to life, and the circle/ cycle of it? What about Egyptology and the ironic “hermaphroditic” – (such a word??) – Ankh – especially the positioning of the female symbol atop the male symbol? Venus sharing a similar symbol, and the Celtic Cross etc, etc…

If I remember correctly many scholars argue that our earliest religions were most probably maternal? How would it have worked/ does it work in cultures where God is viewed as a hermaphrodite. The symbols for sun, and moon, and female are often similar? It’s been a while years since I’ve read any of this properly.

I wonder to what extent the "official sexing" of the Omnipotent alters the general opinion of god's existence and "character". What if God were essentially sex-less?

Cheers, Gareth.

Hi Gareth,

I'm no theologian, but from what little I do know, the Ancient Egyptian mythos was largely built on the necessity of timekeeping/timekeepers and measurement (prior to this it was as record of the natural elements impacting on the lives of paleo-Africans). Naturally, the mother as "bringer forth" (compare the need for water, food-resources, etc) would be afforded priority as Source and Sustainer. The very fact that our own life and beginnings issue from the womb of the mother, places Her at the foremost of the mythos. Before representation as human mother, though, the African mythical records show that She was typologically represented as the Earth itself (which 'brings forth' the elements, including water and vegetation [often viewed as her 'Sons'); in botanotype form as the Tree (with the extending branch and fruit as her 'Son'); in zootype form by the Hippopotamus ("water-cow", often representing the Earth itself floating in the Nun-waters of Primordial Space) and Crocodile, then the Water-buffalo/Buffalo, then as the Cow (of course, she has also been the Bear, Sow, Bitch-dog, etc, etc). For thousands of years the 'father' was not as yet recognized or represented in the mythos; it was the Mother and her child Son (or twin sons; or five/six/seven sons as primary elements). Later you get the mother and the adult-son as consort. All this is ultimately too involved to get into major detail in this forum.

In the stellar mythos (the first in time-keeping) Sirius (the brightest fixed star) was the first star-mother [though, it is quite possibly that Venus (the brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon) preceded Sirius in the mythos as marking the "first day" (cf. the morning and evening star)]. The Son star, as establisher of the Celestial Pole and the 'founder' of ancient astronomy was Canopus (Sanskrit Agastya; geo-corresponding with the town of Eridu in Sumer). Once again, we could go on but I think this will suffice.

The 'father' figure (termed 'Father of fathers' in Egypt) ultimately arrives in the form of Kheper-Ptah, and this is in the rise of the solar mthos (i.e. the sun as time-keeper; preceding this was the lunar and the stellar time-keepers). I would argue that the the name father/pater/pitar/etc originated in Ptah-'Ar (the opener=putah and excavator=khar of the 'underworld' where the sun travels 'through' the earth at night).

Myths do vary, some include the father/mother/son. In many primitive societies, the sex of the children were only distinguished at puberty. Prior to that, they were viewed as both male and female. If I am correct, I think the foetus in its primary stages of development is also both male/female, only later does a single sex develop.

Yes, there are examples of hermaphrodite (hermes/aphrodite) figures in mythology. We see it in the "Young Horus", in Alexandrian Hermeticism and some of the gnostic sects in the first three centuries CE, and periodically thereafter.

'God' (if we are assuming some sort of Absolute Reality here) would/should not be distinguished by any sex and would be potentially both. It was simply according to convention (following the masculine solar mythos, solar time-keeping, which we still observe) that God is referred to as 'He'. Interestingly, the Arabic term dhat (as absolute essence) is a term in feminine form. Also, some mystics use the term hiya (She) in preference to huwa (He) when speaking of the Absolute.

What you have written about the O (cf. Om, Ouma, Umm, Uma, etc -- all denoting Origin and Mother figures) and the circle/cycle, pretty much sums up the rest.

I have gone on, I must stop now

As a Christian, I view a cruelty-free, love-filled lifestyle as part of my religion. After all, "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Thus, while I don't think the term vegan can be applied to God, I'm certain he approves