That is Proverbs 12:10. In filling out the Synod’s survey on the First Chief Part of Luther’s Small Catechism, I was reminded again that children today need to have it empathized that neither dogs, cats, nor any other animal are people too.
If a child is educated in the public school system for sure and maybe even if they are in a private school, they will be taught that animals have as much right to be here as we do. The religion of evolution teaches them this. Right now man is at the top of the food chain, but he is just a highly developed mammal.
I noticed several years ago that when movies or cable TV really wanted to shock they didn’t play the sex, violence, or race card. They played the animal cruelty card. They didn’t start out with cruelty. They started out with showing animals being butchered or hanging up field dressed (gutted) or quartered. “House of Cards” has upped the ante.
Netflick’s is more circumspect with sexual themes than HBO but not as much as AMC. In their second season, they portray a government agent stepping on a pet guinea pig till it squeals in pain and the baseness of the big, bad Republican billionaire is shown when he snaps the neck of a pet parrot. I don’t watch the credits of this show, but I’m quite sure that there is a disclaimer that no animals were hurt during the making of the show. They never say that about people.
You think it’s because they don’t have to; it’s taken for granted that no humans were hurt. I say it’s because they don’t care. Their compassion for animals makes them hardhearted to humans. A high school teacher tells me that he has several times shown pictures or videos of animals malnourished or trapped and the whole class “aww’s.” This is after he has shown the class pictures or videos of hurting humans and they displayed no emotion whatsoever.
The righteous do have regard for the life of animals. We are not for animal cruelty, but it’s not cruel to kill them for food or even for pest control as needed. God has made us “gods” over the lives of animals. We have the right and duty to put them out of their misery. Quality of life IS the standard when it comes to an animal.
When the boundary between animal life and human life is not kept sacrosanct, human life suffers. The standard for animals is applied to men. In the name of compassion, people actively or passively put humans to death. The compassion of the wicked toward human life is beastly when it regards beasts as people.
