Animal sacrifice and morality

[Guest guest]

Dear colleagues,

With reference to the Nepali King's sacrifice, there

was a comment on AAPN that God is a benevolent being who does not need the

stupid spilling of blood to be propitiated. I did some reading on this

aspect of God's character and came up with this note on Sir David

Attenborough's comments on the nature of God. It is very important and

germane to the issue we are discussing. Regards,

 

 

 

In a December 2005 interview with Simon

Mayo<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Mayo>on BBC

Radio Five Live <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Radio_Five_Live>,

Attenborough stated that he considers himself an

agnostic<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic>

..[23] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough#cite_note-22> When

asked whether his observation of the natural world has given him faith in a

creator, he generally responds with some version of this story:

 

" My response is that when Creationists talk about God creating every

individual species as a separate act, they always instance hummingbirds, or

orchids, sunflowers and beautiful things. But I tend to think instead of a

parasitic worm that is boring through the eye of a boy sitting on the bank

of a river in West Africa, [a worm] that's going to make him blind. And [i

ask them], 'Are you telling me that the God you believe in, who you also say

is an all-merciful God, who cares for each one of us individually, are you

saying that God created this worm that can live in no other way than in an

innocent child's eyeball? Because that doesn't seem to me to coincide with a

God who's full of

mercy* " .[24]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Attenborough#cite_note-23>

*

 

He has explained that he feels the evidence all over the planet clearly

shows evolution to be the best way to explain the diversity of life, and

that " as far as I'm concerned, if there is a supreme being then he chose

organic evolution as a way of bringing into existence the natural world. "

 

In a BBC Four <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Four> interview with Mark

Lawson <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lawson>, Attenborough was asked if

he at any time had any religious faith. He replied simply, " No. "

 

In 2002, Attenborough joined an effort by leading clerics and scientists to

oppose the inclusion of creationism in the curriculum of UK state-funded

independent schools which receive private sponsorship, such as the Emmanuel

Schools Foundation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Schools_Foundation>

..