Years ago, while working as a teacher in southern Colorado, a science teacher and I were debating whether we were natural vegetarians or omnivores. I took the vegetarian side of the argument and my colleague took the omnivore side. The science teacher argued that vegetables and fruits and nuts couldn’t give us the essential iron to oxygenate our blood and the necessary protein to build muscle. I couldn’t come up with any supporting evidence for my argument so there I stood, empty handed, but I wasn’t convinced. Time rolled on, and here and there, I bumped into bits of information that supported my argument. Ten years later I had found enough evidence to support my side of the argument and I put it together on a 65 page paper I called “Animal Redemption”. The search took me to the ice ages, the Sumerian civilization, and the book of Genesis. It is an important debate because the ethical treatment of animals and our health are directly affected by the choices we make in our diet.
One farmer says to me,
you cannot live on vegetable food solely,
for it furnishes nothing to make bone with;
and so he religiously devotes a part of his day
to supplying his system with the raw materials
to make bone;
Walking all the while he talks behind his oxen,
which with vegetable made bones
jerks him and his lumbering plow
along in spite of every obstacle.
On Golden Pond/Thoreau
“For over 50 years ranchers have been administering anti-biotics to their cattle to keep the animals from getting infections because of the crowded living conditions at the feedlot where they are kept. They are kept in crowded conditions and stand in urine and feces all day. A limited number of antibiotics exist to treat cows and are also the same drugs used to treat people. When bacteria in our bodies get treated with antibiotics frequently, bacteria adapt to the drug and become immune to it. The bacteria become a super strain that won’t respond to anti biotics and result in severe infections that can end with death. Sixty thousand people lose their lives every year due to such infections.”
“Animal Redemption”
On the Illusion of Dominion
” For generations, humanity has misinterpreted stewardship
as ownership. True leadership – and true evolutionary advan-
cement – is not measured by our ability to subdue the vulner-
able, but by our willingness to protect them. When we look
into the eyes of a sentient being, we do not see a commodity;
we see a life that values its own existence just as deeply as
we value ours.”
Breaking the routine of indifference.
“The greatest tragedy of the modern food system is its invi-
sibility. It operates behind high walls and distant highways
keeping the consumer comfortably detached from the cons-
equence of their choice. But an ethical life demands trans-
parancy. If our hearts shrink from the sight of animals con-
fined and transported to their end, our conscience is trying
to tell us something vital: we should not participate in what
we cannot bear to witness.”
The gift of abundance.
“Our ancestors fought for survival in a world of scarcity, dri-
ven by the harsh realities of the ice age. Today, we live in an
era of unprecedented abundance. We no longer need to cau-
se suffering to sustain our own lives. When survival is no lon-
ger an excuse, every meal becomes a moral choice – and choo-
sing compassion is the highest exercise of human free will.”
AI
Links to pre-history
Eldowan tools
Last common ancestor
Neanderthal
You might stop eating meat if you could backtrack how the steak on your plate got there. The difference between animals and us is mainly speech. Animals have families and care for their young ones. They stick together and look after each other. They are intelligent, they plan, they form societies, they communicate with each other, and have needs. If you lived in the country you would notice these things. You have to have a hardened heart to separate a young calf from his mother, or force cows onto a truck to be transported to the slaughter house. Have you ever seen cattle on the back of a truck moving down the highway on the way to be slaughtered?
Animal Issues Links
Save the Elephants
International Rhino Foundation
To protect Whales and Dolphins
Panthera
International Fund for Animal Welfare
Endangered Species Coalition
Protects the World’s Oceans & Marine Life
“Animal Redemption” by Lamberto Castillo is available at Amazon.
Animal redemption
“This recognition of sentience often puts the ‘heretical
conscience’ at odds with historical institutional views.
For centuries, a narrow interpretation of ‘dominion’
and the Cartesian view of animals as soulless automa
ta, provided the moral cover for exploitation. By stripp
ing the animal of its spirit, these institutions silenced
the earlier, compassionate messages of the Prophets
who recognized all life as a sacred kinship.”
AI
“God said, ‘see, i give you every seed- bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food.”
Genesis 1:29-30
In the beginning, ape-like animals, called Hominims by Anthropologists, lived in Africa 5-8 million years ago. They lived in savannas, woodlands, and forest margins. They were primates more closely related to Homo Sapiens than to any other primate. Bipedal apes evolved from hominids. This new breed of ape, called Australopithecine, was characterized by larger molar and premolar teeth. Their diet consisted of nuts and tubers (yams, potatoes, carrots, etc.) Australopithecine in turn evolved into the genus Homo 2-3 million years ago. This new genus was 100% bi-pedal and had larger brains, their hands were adapted for the use of tools. Homo developed tools that were sharpened on both sides and they used them to cut and scrape meat – these tools are known as the Eldowan tools. These early people lived in camps and their diets consisted of plants and small animals as their tools were too unsophisticated to hunt large animals.
What reason did our ancestors of 2-3 million years ago have to integrate animals into their diet? They must have had a shortage of plants and roots and nuts and fruits. What could have caused such a shortage?
“Animal Redemption”/L. Castillo
“The genus Homo evolved towards the beginning of the Pleistocene. During the pleistocene, Hominids became efficient hunters, and they were probably responsible for the extinction of many mammals. The Pleistocene is noteworthy because during this time, large long-lasting masses of ice, glaciers were extensive..”
Physical Anthropology, Stein/Rowe
Links to the Sumerian Civilization.
Mesopotamia
Genesis
Before Genesis
Moses
Animal Redemption 