“…How are we to promote the need for improved animal welfare … when battling religious views formed centuries ago?..
Last week, the chief minister of Malacca, Mohamad Ali Rustam, was quoted in the Guardian as saying that God created monkeys and rats for experiments to benefit humans.
Activists had been protesting against his approval of an Indian company’s proposal to build an animal research laboratory in his state.
They said that Malaysia has no regulations to protect animals in laboratories.
His answer was the reference to God’s purpose in creating animals.
If it were not for the dire consequences for the animals who will suffer in the laboratory … the chief minister’s remark would be hilarious.
Here is the head of a Malaysian state justifying the establishment of a scientific enterprise with a comment that flies in the face of everything science tells us.
The belief that the animals exist because God created them – and that he created them so we can better meet our needs –
– is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and … of course, to the fossil record …
… which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.
Though the chief minister is, presumably, a Muslim, there is nothing specifically Islamic about the claim that God created animals for our sake.
Similar remarks have been made repeatedly by Christian religious figures through the millennia …
… although today some Christian theologians offer a kinder, more compassionate interpretation of the idea of our God-given dominion over the animals.
They regard the grant of dominion as a kind of stewardship …
… with God wanting us to take care of his creatures … and treat them well…”
go to source/story>>>Religion’s regressive hold on animal rights issues | Peter Singer | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
