Ecology and Religion?

Ecology and Religion

According to the Holy Bible, after creation was completed, on the Sixth Day, God saw His creation to be good, and He rested on the Seventh Day – The Sabbath Day. In other words every creature is good. Then later God identified the animals that could and should not be eaten. Again Catholics are accused of being transgressors of the law on eating because Catholics eat pork. I do not wish to argue on the dogma of different religions but present the other side. It is true that as followers of Christ we must emulate and follow His example and it is clear that Jesus did not eat pork nor held his ministry on a Sunday. When He said that it is not what comes to the mouth that makes a person dirty but what comes out of his mouth, he was not referring to eating pork. Jesus said that He “came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill the Law,” in other words since the Law states that pork is prohibited therefore Jesus had observed the Law.

But let me go deeper, when God created the world and found it good, every creature has its own function. The bigger eats the smaller ones and thus complete the cycle of life or biotic relationship, the focus of ecology - the study of man and his environment. In the olden days, the Israelites used horses and camels, that is why, if these are the burden animals then why eat them. The goat has its own function too. They are bought by sinners as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. The pigeons are bought and set free as a symbol that women are clean, meaning their menstruation is through. Perhaps this is beginning of the Filipino term for prostitute ‘kalapating mababa ang lipad,” because they could be considered clean after menstruation simply due to their profession. When it comes to pork, swine at this time were domesticated not to be eaten but to eat the refuse of men. In short, everything has a purpose.

When men started eating animal meat, particularly pork, men started to have hypertension because in the first place the pig’s function is to eat men’s refuse and it is therefore dirty and when one eats the product of dirty animals then he gets dirty too and this uncleanliness causes sickness. This is what we are experiencing now. Too many are sick of hypertension because of not following God’s Law. In the first place God give man the fruits of the plants to eat not the meat of animals.