|
Moris Hoblaj, Theology and Sociology graduate, writer of critical
articles about church.
Jesus and first Christians were vegetarians and friends of animals
Moris Hoblaj was born in Štrukovec near Čakovec in Croatia. He went to
high school in Zagreb and studied philosophy, theology and sociology in Zagreb
and München. Today he lives near Würzburg and is engaged in production of
vegetarian food. In his free time he writes critical articles about church. He
left the Church as theologian – teacher of religious studies because he
believes that the Catholic Church with its hierarchic absolutistic arrangement
and rigid dogmatic teaching is not even close to the message of Jesus of
Nazareth. He says that the Bible clearly shows that Jesus of Nazareth was a
democrat and a pacifist and that the religious caste of that time prosecuted
him with the help of the authorities because of his teaching and at the end
crucified him. Moris says: „I think the same thing would happen today if Jesus of
Nazareth would come to Vatican and asked for what is written in the Bible – to
respect only one Holy Father or for people to stop slaughtering and eating
animals.“
Does God’s commandment „Do not kill!“ refer only to people or also to
animals? It is difficult to picture Jesus telling people that slaughtering and
torturing animals is alright!
God is perfect and
when he says „Do not kill!“, he means everything that lives and feels. This
commandment includes every living creature, both people and animals, and in
broader sense even plants. God let us know through His prophets that He does
not want us to kill the animals. Prophet Isaiah wrote: „Killing an ox is the
same as killing a person.“ It is interesting that the Catholic Church does not
respect this part of the Bible, has nothing against killing animals and does
not support vegetarians. In the Middle Ages, at the time of inquisition,
Catholic Church was even prosecuting and killing the members of all religious
communities, where vegetarianism was a part of religious belief, such as
Manicheans, Cathars, Bogumils and several others. It is known that members of
these communities were against torturing and killing animals for food out of
their belief and respect for animals.
The Catholic Church should therefore fight for the rights of animals.
Why is this not so?
The reason seems to be
that the self called followers of Jesus Christ with different mitres and
tiaras, Holy Fathers, Excellencies, Cardinals and Bishops preferred power over
people and animals to the succession of Jesus Christ, who was a pacifist and
loved animals. Almost every Christian Institution betrays Jesus Christ and His
teaching with its attitude to animals and definitions of animals. This is
stated also in authentic historic documents that confirm that Jesus of Nazareth
and first Christians were vegetarians and friends of animals. The Bible
includes the words of Jesus:„Whatever you do to one of the living beings, you
do it to Me.“ Jesus was not a hunter as many of His self called followers, who are
proud that they were or are passionate hunters, which are murderers of the
animals, such as Cardinal Franc Rode.
Why does the Church have such underestimating attitude to animals and
people with different views?
This is a wide-ranging
issue which reaches the core of state Catholicism in history as well as today.
Today it is no secret that the bloody history of the Church is founded on the
so called theological doctrines, such as doctrine about a fair war, existence
of eternal curse, non-existence of soul before birth in the case of humans as
well as animals. Just by reading the Bible anyone can be sure that the prophets
and Jesus of Nazareth loved animals, while religious castes and their followers
did not or loved just their dead bodies. They used dead bodies of the animals
in pagan ritual worshiping of God, such as blessing of meat at Easter or
Hubert’s masses.
In order to hide from the followers the
non-acceptance of the prophets and Jesus of Nazareth, instead of prophetic
divine declarations the clergy created its own absolutistic and forced dogmatic
theology, which is far from divine.
You are asking, why
the Church underestimates animals? It is known from prophetic essays that
animals are constantly connected to their Creator, that they are constantly
worshiping Him and that He immensely loves them. This may be the reason for its
underestimating attitude to animals. Church theology convinced people that
animals have no soul and thus people learned to have materialistic attitude to
animals. To people animals became merely soulless dead objects that can only be
used for food and clothes and towards which theology allows any possible
brutality, such as laboratory tests. Although people, especially politicians,
should know from the Bible that religious caste caused Jesus of Nazareth a
great deal of problems, prosecuted him, slandered him and at the end crucified
him because of his teaching that God and people do not need clergy, these
religious people and politicians remain faithful, throughout the history and
today, to the clergy, who according to facts manipulates them from religious as
well as from political and economical point of view. It is true that today the
Church cannot kill people, who oppose it, or burn them at the stake, but it can
discriminate and slander them and together with its political vassals and
different insulting and dangerous concepts, such as sect or sectarian, makes
them look bad in public.
It is obvious that parts about Jesus’ love for animals were deleted from
the Bible. When and why?
In all religions power
and money always play the key role. Historical facts tell us that in year 313
Constantine’s edict replaced religious leaders, who were the carriers of
prophetic words, with managers of material properties of the first Christians –
deacons, elders and Bishops, who made a pact with Constantine. With his help
they became leaders of a privileged religion and formulators of state
authority. For these favors the Emperor Constantine requested counter favors of
the new state religion, which he also got. Thus, in comparison to the first
Christians, who were not soldiers and were against war, the state church, later
Catholic Church, promised to Emperor its support in recruiting soldiers. It
promised the Emperor support in warfare and to fight against everything that
the Emperor would not approve of, among other things also against other
religious movements. This newly based state religion also needed a certain
authorized Holy Book, the Bible, in which the Christians would have to believe and
which would bring power to clergy over everything and everybody as well as
wealth and luxury.
Many experts and theologians are of the opinion
that a lot of today’s Biblical Essays were manipulated at the very beginning of
their formation, as also tell us authentic historical records and authors or
translators – formulators of today’s Bible.
Can you state an example of forgery of God’s word?
One example is St.
Hieronimus who was given a task by Pope Damasus to formulate and translate a
unique work. This work is today named the Vulgate or the Bible. Hieronimus
wrote to the Pope: „…I have several different translations of which I have to
make one uniform work, which is impossible, therefore I have to formulate
something completely new and that will probably make me a forger of holy
essays.“ Hieronimus had to formulate the Bible in accordance to the teaching of
the state church, which means he could not include some basic truths of the
written teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, which was known at that time. These
truths were especially essays of reincarnation, nonexistence of eternal curse,
truth about the animals in relation to Jesus’ love for them. All this was not
allowed to be included in the Bible, which today many Christians think is the
authentic God’s word, so that there could exist a privileged state religion
that has nothing in common with the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, except for
His name, with which the Church manipulates religious people.
Where can be found more about Jesus’ vegetarian life and His living in
harmony with animals?
First, there are
apocrypha from the time of the first Christians. These are not part of Biblical
texts. Then there are many Roman state documents from the time of the first
Christians and Christian movements that talk about the prosecution of these
movements because they followed the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and
vegetarianism as one of the main truths. These are foremost essays of
Manicheans, Cathars, Bogumils or the essays of the Grand Christians in
Universal Life. In one of the most recent leaflets Great Gabriella’s letter No 4 it is stated that the great Church
Father Hieronimus (331–420 A.D.) wrote about vegetarianism in one of his essays
the following: „Until the Flood, consumption of animal meat was unknown. From
the Flood on our mouths are full of fibers and smelly juices of animal meat…
Jesus Christ, who came when the time was right, made ends meet again and now
consumption of animal meat is not allowed anymore“.
The Apostle Paul wrote in his official letter to Romans:
„We know that all beings breathe and suffer together. Beings await in fear for
people to recognize themselves as God’s children, as all beings shall once be
freed from the slavery of circle of mortality into the ultimate freedom of
God’s children“.
John the Goldenmouth
(354–457 A.D.) describes life of a certain group of Christians of that time:
„They do not shed blood, slaughter and cut meat… There is no horrible smell of
meat… no raging and terrible uproar. They only eat bread they earn with their work
and drink spring water. When they wish for a luxury meal they eat fruits and
enjoy more than at King’s table“.
I know a lot of historical researches about life and teachings of Jesus
of Nazareth, but the most authentic and comprehensive is the book This is My Word. Alpha and Omega. The Gospel
of Jesus. A Christ-Revelation which the world does not know., in which He,
who walked this Earth as Jesus Christ, explains in details about what really
happened at the time of His life.
In one of the newspapers there was an interview with former Slovenian
Archbishop, Cardinal Franc Rode, in which he said that he was once a passionate
hunter, but the new hunting law does not allow him to shoot wild animals as
much as before. How do you comment his statement?
This surely is not
something Jesus Christ would approve of. Those, who on vile impulse treat
animal like this, kill them with a gun, slaughter and at the end eat them, as
Archbishop said in the interview, are well described in the statement of the
first president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Theodor Heuss (1884–1963):
„Hunting is a definition of a very cowardly murder of a helpless being. Hunting
is a parallel form of a mental illness“. Jesus of Nazareth, in whose name Franc
Rode thinks is acting, did not teach nor do so. He was a pacifist and loved
animals. Unfortunately, the hunting of Franc Rode is not the only wickedness
toward animals in connection to torturing and killing animals that has full
support of the Church. There are also the so called Hubert’s masses. These are
offered by his college Bishops and priests in front of dead bodies of animals
that are blessed at the end of the mass.
Tolstoy said: „As long as there are slaughter houses there will be
wars!“ Is the Catholic Church, which abuses the fifth commandment, also
responsible for violence and wars all over the world?
Even the late Pope
John Paul II obviously did not doubt it, otherwise he would not ask for
forgiveness of the victims, who were killed by suns and daughters of his
organization. Many historians and free-thinking people are of the opinion that
the Catholic Church carries a great deal of responsibility for wars that
happened in the last 1700 years because it was ethically-moral institution of
the authority or it was the authority itself, which means that it was actively
deciding for wars. It is a historical fact that churches, which claim to be the
followers of Jesus of Nazareth, from the time of their establishment in year
313, have caused only suffering, problems and deaths to people as well as to
animals and nature. Just think about the Crusades, the Middle Ages, burning of
witches at the stake, massacre of Catholic Croatians over Orthodox Serbs in a
period 1941–1943 in Yugoslavia – former Pope asked for forgiveness for this crime
in Banja Luka.
It is almost impossible to believe that an organization, such as the
Catholic Church, has been killing, prosecuting and, as at the time of
inquisition, slaughtering people and animals for almost two thousand years,
without people being able to fight against it, and all this in the name of
Prince of peace, Jesus Christ.
Resource: Magazine Liberation of animals, April 2004,
Edited by The Society for the Rights and the Liberation of Animals,
Slovenia, info@osvoboditev-zivali.org , www.osvoboditev-zivali.org
Damjan Likar
|
