Wednesday, November 17, 2004
PETA v. LDS
This is old, but I just found it. There's a fascinating post and discussion at the Mormon blog Times & Seasons. PETA, everyone's favorite animal rights organization, is now targeting Latter-day Saints in particular, citing the Doctrine and Covenants as support for their position that God disapproves of eating meat.
There are a lot of great arguments made in the comments to the post at T&S, but to me the strongest ones are those that assert that Mormons aren't going to be convinced by an outsider organization telling us what we believe. Our doctrine just doesn't work like that. If the prophet tells us to stop eating meat, that's one thing. But anyone else's interpretation can and should be taken with a grain of salt. Especially when it's a radical organization like PETA, that has demonstrated support for terrorism in the past.
Yes, the D&C advocates the sparing use of meat, and many Mormons, including myself, could probably use a reminder of that from time to time. But I think it's clear, taking a holistic view of the Word of Wisdom, the D&C, and the scriptures in general that eating some meat is OK with God.
There are a lot of great arguments made in the comments to the post at T&S, but to me the strongest ones are those that assert that Mormons aren't going to be convinced by an outsider organization telling us what we believe. Our doctrine just doesn't work like that. If the prophet tells us to stop eating meat, that's one thing. But anyone else's interpretation can and should be taken with a grain of salt. Especially when it's a radical organization like PETA, that has demonstrated support for terrorism in the past.
Yes, the D&C advocates the sparing use of meat, and many Mormons, including myself, could probably use a reminder of that from time to time. But I think it's clear, taking a holistic view of the Word of Wisdom, the D&C, and the scriptures in general that eating some meat is OK with God.
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