What scripture or scriptures did the cult use to imply animals vegetarian?

by Crazyguy2 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • LeeT
    LeeT

    I brought up this with an elderly JW carter today.

    He has no problem with the notion that animals were vegetarian before the flood.

    He concurred that coprolites have been correctly identified as fossilised turds.

    He agrees that those coprolites which appear to contain bone fragments do indeed contain bone fragments and that this is clear evidence of carnivory.

    He also agrees that those identified as being from dinosaurs were indeed from dinosaurs.

    He recognizes that dinosaurs pooping bone fragments must, therefore, be post-flood and that Noah must have had dinosaurs on the ark.

    He was familiar with the consensus that an asteriod impact pretty much saw off the last of the dinosaurs and this event coincided with a mass extinction event of other species too and saw no reason to object to this.

    He didn't find anything puzzling in the idea that Jehovah should seek to preserve animals on board the Ark and would then sit back and let an asteroid cause most of them to go extinct.

    He didn't worry at all that no Bible writer, nor any other ancient text mentions the disruption caused by this massive post-flood extinction event.

    We were stood a little way from the cart but his wife was visibly shocked when she heard me say that "I find it odd that you believe there was a post-flood mass extinction event which killed off a huge proportion of plant and animal species, including the dinosaurs Noah had on the Ark and yet you're quite content that the society literature never explores this key event in human history or the Bible's silence on the matter."

    Well, at least this JW is still prepared to speak to me. The most regular JW in town, Sister Battleaxe accused me of being a demon-possessed apostate and won't talk to me any more.

  • LeeT
    LeeT

    Magnum

    #2 - It's right and Ge 1:30 means that vegetation is the ultimate source of food for all creatures - not directly the source for all creatures.
    *** g83 1/8 p. 28 From Our Readers ***I am profoundly disturbed by your article “The Design in Nature.” Surely, when Almighty God announced that ‘to every wild beast of the earth I have given all green vegetation for food’ he meant that he had provided green vegetation as the basis of the food chain.R. B., EnglandI found your article convincing as concerns the principle that design requires a designer. But on page 11 you make the statement that features of animals that are used for maiming and killing have evolved by adaptation to the new situation in Eden. Can this be said of the poison that some snakes and spiders use to kill their prey? What of other ingenious instruments of various kinds of predators. How can they exist if not by creation?D. K., GermanyWe did not claim that certain features evolved by adaptation, but that existing features were put to a different use from what was originally purposed. We do not believe it is possible to establish for a certainty how things were in the distant past by observing the present. Conditions have changed. But we do have a clear statement from the past, namely Genesis 1:29, 30: “And God went on to say: ‘Here I have given to you all vegetation bearing seed which is on the surface of the whole earth and every tree on which there is the fruit of a tree bearing seed. To you let it serve as food. And to every wild beast of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving upon the earth and in which there is life as a soul I have given all green vegetation for food.’” This does not mean that vegetation was merely the ultimate basis for food supply through a chain of animal life. Obviously it was not the case with humans because later when they were to begin to get some nourishment from animal flesh they had to be given a special concession. (Genesis 9:3) Further, during the Flood of Noah’s day, eight humans and ‘flying creatures and all moving animals of the ground’ were obliged to live on vegetable matter exclusively for more than a year. (Genesis 6:17-21) And the fact that Isaiah 11:6-9 and 65:25 specifically state that former predators will be at peace with other animals, and the lion will eat straw like the bull, would seem to confirm that animals and humans were meant to be vegetation eaters.As for the many predators being suited for the chase and the kill, what about humans? They have shown an extremely efficient talent for attacking and killing their fellowman. Does that argue for humans’ being designed that way from the beginning? Admittedly, we cannot answer all questions that arise in this matter from what we can observe today, and the account in the Bible is quite brief. Yet, we believe that humankind and animal kind were originally designed to live at peace with one another and to get their nourishment from vegetation. That original purpose will be restored during the Messianic Kingdom. We will have to wait and see how those prophecies are fulfilled.—ED.
    It is in the last bolded section in the quote above that they give themselves wiggle room to get out of the straightjacket.
    If they're going to start making messy compromises with reality, they might end up accepting evolution.
  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    "Messy compromises with reality"... that's good, I like that.

    I recently read a very appropriate quote (in a work of fiction, no less), that's stuck in my head like almost nothing else...

    …"ideological purity never survives contact with the enemy".

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