Lions eating straw....is this possible?

by highdose 48 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Flat_Accent
    Flat_Accent

    What I never understood about this was - why did animals change in the first place? Why was there a necessity for animals to suddenly become predatory and carnivorous? And why are they so darned good at killing things if that was not their original purpose?

    I mean, does a Peregrine Falcon really need to dive at 180mph to catch. . . the grass?

    mP was right anyway - carnivorous animals are not able to process their veggies properly, so they wouldn't last very long on a green diet.

  • Witness My Fury
    Witness My Fury

    I mean, does a Peregrine Falcon really need to dive at 180mph to catch. . . the grass?

    LOL good catch

    The more I watch nature documentaries the stronger the case for evolution gets....

    Poxy quote drop down aint workin for some reason now either... (grrr)

  • Chariklo
    Chariklo

    Cats eat grass for medicinal reasons, much as Black Sheep says.

    Animals that live on grass, herbivores in general, do have longer intestines and big stomachs. Ruminants have an extra stomach and chew the cud, for the simple reson that grass takes a lot of breaking down.

    Of course lions won't eat straw. My cats regularly chew a bit of grass, and usually choose to come indoors and if they can, go to sleep on a nice cushion on the settee before vomiting it up, but if I started feeding them grass at teatime they'd look at me as if I'd lost my head.

    The whole JW thing about Paradise Earth is BONKERS. They really belieive it, but it is utter rubbish!

  • tornapart
    tornapart

    I've heard that about the Lions in a zoo too, I think it had something to do with lack of meat available in WWII. Anyway this argument about a carnivores digestive system is true. Giant Pandas who are considered vegetarian (they almost exclusively eat bamboo) actually have a canivorous digestive system, which means to get the nutrition they need they have to eat all day long with only short naps and they are very sluggish in behaviour. They will eat a carcass if they come across one.

    As for the biblical passage I think it refers more symbolically, that the natural order will be kept between wildlife and domestic life. The main reason that there are problems between wild animals and man and his domestic animals is that the two territories encroach on each other. A recent experiment in India of a reintroduction of tigers in a national park showed this. A tiger was poisoned by villagers for being a threat to their livestock. The Indian government paid the villagers to move out of the park so that the reintroduction of tigers would be more successful.

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    if they gave lions straw and grass to eat that the lions became very passive and no longer showed predator behavior??

    They are right - Dead lions are neither predetory or agrresive!

  • breakfast of champions
    breakfast of champions

    When I think of all this stupid nonsense I was taught growing up and just accepted as fact, I wish I had some grass!

  • tornapart
    tornapart

    LOL! Cantleave! Nice one! :)

  • blondie
    blondie

    I have heard many a hunter elder say of course people will still eat meat in the "new system". I tried very hard but the WT publications since 1950 don't seem to directly say humans will be vegetarians. If you have a quote please share it.

  • AnonJW
    AnonJW

    Found this:

    ***

    it-2p.257Lion

    ***

    At the time the Israelites returned to their homeland in 537 B.C.E., Jehovah evidently protected them from lions and other rapacious beasts along the way. (Isa 35:8-10) In the land itself lions and other predators doubtless had increased during the 70 years of its desolation. (Compare Ex 23:29.) But, evidently because of Jehovah’s watch care over his people, the Israelites and their domestic animals apparently did not fall prey to lions as had the foreign peoples whom the king of Assyria settled in the cities of Samaria. (2Ki 17:25, 26) Therefore, from the standpoint of the Israelites, the lion was, in effect, eating straw like a bull, that is, doing no harm to them or their domestic animals. (Isa 65:18, 19, 25) Under Messiah’s rulership, however, there comes to be a greater fulfillment of the restoration prophecies. Persons who may at one time have been of a beastly, animalistic, vicious disposition come to be at peace with more docile fellow humans and do not seek to do them harm or injury. Both in a literal and a figurative sense, peace will come to exist between lions and domestic animals.—Isa 11:1-6; see BEASTS, SYMBOLIC.

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    They might be able to eat straw. Often, lions will ingest a certain amount of straw along with the meat--it gets stuck on the meat. (Along with other forms of dirt.) However, lions are not meant to digest straw, and could not live off straw. They are geared to eating meat, which means needing much protein and fat, and little carbohydrates. And lions, like all cats, do poorly with too much magnesium in their diet (which means don't try eating cat food for a diet without extra magnesium). Straw and grass in quantities provides a lion with too much magnesium, which is toxic to cats.

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