Humanity has been deceived by "authorities" for so long, that speaking truth that exposes any of those deceptions can seem far-fetched; the key is discerning when assumptions are being made, in the context of this discussion those assumptions being that whatever authorities (of church, science, or education) say, and whatever has been the tradition, are both based on the best reasoning, facts and morality. Oftentimes they're not, and that's why those are logical fallacies (Appeal to Authority & Appeal to Tradition).
An important question (important because of how much animal domestication effects our lives, the lives of animals, and the environment), that will help expose those aformentioned logical fallacies, used to defend humans turning wild animals into domesticated animals, is: "What does God think of animal domestication?"
Being that most people aren't opposed to animal domestication, it's safe to say, among those that believe in God, they'll say that God is perfectly fine with it, and maybe even encourages us to domesticate animals. This may in part be due to reading and believing the clear mistranslation (thought to be "authoritative") of Genesis 2:20 that says Adam "gave names to all the livestock," as if the practice of animal domestication/slavery had already been established somehow at the beginning of Creation; it wasn't, all the animals were wild animals. The original Hebrew word behemah translated in many Bibles as "livestock" or "cattle" actually just meant "beast" or "animal." Once again Bible editors push their own agenda, not God's, and once again people follow those editors/writers/scribes as if they were Divine themselves (again, the Appeal to Authority Fallacy).
Another Fallacy at play with animal domestication is the Bandwagon Fallacy, assuming something is good, logical and true because it's popular/trendy. "Sustainable grazing" is super popular and trendy now; it's just another re-hashed version of animal slavery, presented as supposedly "essential" & "ecological," ignoring the immorality of it, and ignoring how it creates more hassles and distractions for people than benefits, and ignoring how it is nowhere near the superiority of veganic gardening & orcharding.
Many unfortunately consistently go for mainstream/institutional b.s. that's based on abuse (the other big example being politics); rather than just stick with the Golden Rule, they are following the false morality of false gods.
Jesus said "[T]hat which is highly esteemed among people is detestable in the sight of God," (Luke 16:15) and I believe He actually views domesticated animals as such a detestable sight; not the Spirits of the animals, not the individuals themselves, but rather the forced departure from their wild ancestors being the abomination, the distortion of their bodies and minds is the abomination.
Domesticated cats will leave dead songbirds they killed (but didn't eat) laying in your garden, while the peace-giving sounds of the song of that bird's still-living relatives are overwhelmed by the sound of barking dogs (a simultaneous and compounded disturbance originating from the forceful domestication of wolves into dogs and wild cats into house pets). In the United States alone, outdoor cats kill over 2 billion birds every year. And some neighborhoods, all around the world, have the sound of barking dogs 365 days a year, it's become normalized permanent background noise for people's lives, adding stress and sleep deprivation.
These, along with many other similar observations of domestic vs. wild animals, like the negative environmental effects of the pet and livestock indusries, is actually observation of karmic feedback from the moral fabric of Creation. The simple truth is that domesticated animals produce more disturbance and unproductive distraction in our lives than they do produce any real qualitative benefit, and that's because they're not part of God's perfect design of Nature.
I'm sure that by claiming that domesticated animals are unpleasing to God, most people will find that claim "too extreme." Understandably, most people will probably immediately think of some benefits of domesticated animals, and ignore or deny the severe negatives (just like those that focus on some good things Paul said in his letters found in the New Testament, ignoring/rationalizing the very toxic and false things he also said), missing the forest for the trees, a biased evaluation (the Special Pleading Fallacy) + assuming a conclusion can't be right because it's "too simple" (the Complexity Bias), preventing the correct conclusion, namely that domesticating animals was a mistake by humanity, going against God's design and moral law. The latter moral component can be readily understood when you recognize it was mainly abuse that transformed wild animals into domesticated animals, and abuse is pure evil, pure evil that distorted and Corrupted Creation to breed domesticated animals that don't fit in Nature's perfect design, and do things like decimate the Beauty of entire songbird populations and fill whole communities with noise pollution.
Worth repeating, because of its significance and because it is repeatedly ignored, animal domestication originated from abuse, and relies on abuse to keep it going. Abuse is the opposite of love; Jesus taught us that the true Law is comprehensive love; therefore animal domestication violates the Law & will of God. And He gives us negative karmic feedback as a consequence of breaking that Law and going against His perfect will.
Domesticated animals really are a corruption of God's Creation, and therefore that corruption karmically produces disturbances, in stark contrast to the pleasant sites and sounds of wild animals.
Being Christian (and/or vegan) doesn't necessarily equate w/ being a pet lover. People used to worship the "golden calf," now some people basically worship their pets. But before discussing pets I should first speak of the worse use of domesticated animals, the livestock industry, which is not acceptable in God's sight, yet most Christians have been told it is by the Establishment/Paulinist Church.
To voluntarily add animals to your home that attract fleas & parasites, and that shit and pee in and/or around your home daily, and bark, and chase wildlife, etc., is not really wise. (And when the dog barks a lot that's not actually increasing your safety, it's decreasing it, because you won't be able to hear an intruder well.) Whether it's a country woman's morning ritual to clean up chicken shit or an urban man's ritual to pick up dog shit with his hand in a plastic bag (I cringe when remembering myself doing that as a teenager), this is all a waste and degradation of human life, time and energy. Again, one may think the downsides are outweighed by the supposed upsides (e.g., chicken flesh to eat, pet companionship), but closer examination shows that these "upsides" are actually just downsides too (e.g., a barking dog).
"Pet Life"
Being Christian (and/or vegan) doesn't necessarily equate w/ being a pet lover. People used to worship the "golden calf," now some people basically worship their pets. But before discussing pets I should first speak of the worse use of domesticated animals, the livestock industry, which is not acceptable in God's sight, yet most Christians have been told it is by the Establishment/Paulinist Church.
If you don't look to the book & letter compilation called The Bible as the only source of possible historical and religious truth, then you will discover that the vegetarianism/veganism of Jesus and the original followers of Jesus is not far-fetched at all; you can learn this from modern books like The Lost Religion of Jesus by Kieth Akers, and Vegetarian Christian Saints: Mystics, Ascetics and Monks by Dr. Holly Roberts, along with the ancient writings of Saint Jerome, Ephrem The Syrian, Epiphanius's writings on the Nasaraeans/Nazarenes (writings in a text called the Panarion, chapter 18 specifically), The Syriac Clementine Recognitions & Homilies (The Ebionite Book of Acts), The Syriac-Aramaic Gospel of Luke, and The Gospel of The Holy Twelve, et al., as you can learn from the following video playlist:
For even more information/evidence on Christianity and veganism see these websites:
Returning to the issue of pets, people devoting much of their lives (and resources) to pets, talking a lot to dogs, cats, chickens, etc., as if they're people (which of course I've done too)... it's kind of delusional behavior, if we're objective about it; humans are supposed to talk with other humans and have human friends (along with pray to and befriend God), not cohabitate with animals and have the as our substitute friends and children; it's all an unnatural phenomenon that isn't as harmless as it may seem, again it's living contrary to God's will and design, and there is nothing of real lasting quality to be found in that territory. When we understand the reality of the spiritual life better, then we can clearly see the spiritual problem with pets (along with the health problems, like fleas & parasites they carry, requiring major amounts of pharmaceuticals to counter, pharmaceuticals that pollute water supplies, etc.). Whether the dog or cat is generally calm or noisy, it's actually a spiritual/religious hindrance; the former is likely to have you spending more time with them, the latter has less interaction but more disturbance, so either version evens out to be basically the same in the context of a spiritual life, either one is bad for you.
To go on about the the therapeutic value of pets is to ignore their substitute nature, an inferior substitution for human/Nature-based therapies; just because some benefit is received doesn't mean it's not actually overall a hindrance for your life, overall putting a ceiling on your development through the unnatural substitution. To have irrational fixation on the limited benefits, while ignoring the overall negative effects in the biggest important context (spiritual reality & practice), leads to integrating into one's life that which should be rejected.
To go on about the the therapeutic value of pets is to ignore their substitute nature, an inferior substitution for human/Nature-based therapies; just because some benefit is received doesn't mean it's not actually overall a hindrance for your life, overall putting a ceiling on your development through the unnatural substitution. To have irrational fixation on the limited benefits, while ignoring the overall negative effects in the biggest important context (spiritual reality & practice), leads to integrating into one's life that which should be rejected.
To voluntarily add animals to your home that attract fleas & parasites, and that shit and pee in and/or around your home daily, and bark, and chase wildlife, etc., is not really wise. (And when the dog barks a lot that's not actually increasing your safety, it's decreasing it, because you won't be able to hear an intruder well.) Whether it's a country woman's morning ritual to clean up chicken shit or an urban man's ritual to pick up dog shit with his hand in a plastic bag (I cringe when remembering myself doing that as a teenager), this is all a waste and degradation of human life, time and energy. Again, one may think the downsides are outweighed by the supposed upsides (e.g., chicken flesh to eat, pet companionship), but closer examination shows that these "upsides" are actually just downsides too (e.g., a barking dog).
Yes I know dogs can be awesome and many people really love their cats, etc., I know we can have meaningful connection with domesticated animals, but we have to look at the big picture here, and be objective about whether the perceived great things about dogs and cats are really that great at all from God's point of view, concerning what our higher purpose as humans is here on Earth.
Think objectivley about time spent with domesticated animals, there is definitely a ceiling to how significant the relationship can be, and a lot of the downsides are often overlooked, like constant barking and other distracting/disturbing behavior by the animal. Why do dogs (yes, I know not all) often act in an extremely annoying way, e.g., a dog running away from you and then toward you, and then yelping as if being harmed when you try to get them out of the house/room, or a cat that walks right in front of you and then makes it so you have to stop or walk into them, etc. This is all really "dancing with the devil," crazy-making disturbing behavior that is a product of their crazy origin: slavery. Dogs/cats, overall/globally, are either constantly causing disturbances or being a constant distraction and attention/energy-drain. They are either like toxic-people that constantly push your buttons to make you react with anger and thereby fall into sin that way, or, even though it can be in a very friendly way, like energy-vampires who constantly drain your time and energy for no real (big-picture-of-life-and-purpose-wise) good outcome whatsoever, being a vehicle for the sin of sloth that way.
What I observe is people's lives sadly revolving around their pets (as mine often did when I was younger), pretty much daily family questions being "Where is Spot?" "Spot! Spot!" "Why is Spot barking now? What is it Spot?" Etc. etc. Perhaps God actually sees this as a pathetic corruption of the human life, perhaps He sees it as another big example of how humans have strayed from His original design.
Pets have become so normal in our society though, that people can't see this possibility clearly, they think it's no big deal to have a pet, but in fact it is a big deal, again just on the everyday mundane level, IMMENSE amounts of your time, attention and energy are given to an animal that was never part of God's original design or plan for humanity, and because of that, ends up being more detrimental than beneficial. You may object that you're not a "crazy cat lady," or whatever, but the truth is that even just having one cat (or dog) invariably leads to some crazy behavior (adapting to something out of harmony with Creation), and is also wasting your time that should be given to higher pursuits.
Remember, domesticated animals are the result of human aggression toward wild animals (just like cruelly putting a wild bird in a cage and clipping their wings), and they are a distortion/corruption of the original design of Creation/Nature; those are not minor issues; again this is of course no fault of the animal, they are not bad as individuals, it's the violence and slavery (namely capture, abusing/"breaking" and breeding) that was bad; but since they are unnatural in that way, it causes disharmony & disturbance in Nature, e.g., the massive number of songbirds that are killed by domesticated cats, and disharmony in our personal lives when we take on their dependency (taking a lot of time that would normally be utilized for prayer, meditation, human relationship, community development, gardening, travel, the Arts, etc.).
The seemingly harsh truth is that we need to "remove all the abominations from all the lands belonging to the sons of Israel" (2 Chronicles 34:33), ultimatetly by utilizing and supporting more domesticated animal sanctuaries, if we want to live as God intended (Genesis 1:29 & 2:15), not living with an contrary to God's perfect design of Creation, because going against that design, thinking we can improve upon it, inevitably causes disturbance (going against the grain of Creation), robbing us of deeper peace found on the Higher Path of His will. Accepting the regular distractions and disturbances of pets is contrary to discipleship; it's ignoring God's superior design, and ignoring the crucial importance of having ample peace and awareness available to perceive and follow His living presence.
Remember, domesticated animals are the result of human aggression toward wild animals (just like cruelly putting a wild bird in a cage and clipping their wings), and they are a distortion/corruption of the original design of Creation/Nature; those are not minor issues; again this is of course no fault of the animal, they are not bad as individuals, it's the violence and slavery (namely capture, abusing/"breaking" and breeding) that was bad; but since they are unnatural in that way, it causes disharmony & disturbance in Nature, e.g., the massive number of songbirds that are killed by domesticated cats, and disharmony in our personal lives when we take on their dependency (taking a lot of time that would normally be utilized for prayer, meditation, human relationship, community development, gardening, travel, the Arts, etc.).
Undoing the Mistake
The seemingly harsh truth is that we need to "remove all the abominations from all the lands belonging to the sons of Israel" (2 Chronicles 34:33), ultimatetly by utilizing and supporting more domesticated animal sanctuaries, if we want to live as God intended (Genesis 1:29 & 2:15), not living with an contrary to God's perfect design of Creation, because going against that design, thinking we can improve upon it, inevitably causes disturbance (going against the grain of Creation), robbing us of deeper peace found on the Higher Path of His will. Accepting the regular distractions and disturbances of pets is contrary to discipleship; it's ignoring God's superior design, and ignoring the crucial importance of having ample peace and awareness available to perceive and follow His living presence.
So again on a practical level, I'd say they are best nonviolently phased out of society via spay/neuter and animal sanctuaries where they would enjoy the company of other animals and people that enjoy caring for them full-time, but because they're no longer being bred by humans, their populations would steadily drop. I know that can seem uncaring but it's not really, it's making the best of a bad practice that needs to end, a bad practice we need to recognize has had overall bad outcomes/consequences, as aggression and slavery and going against God's perfect plan always do (just like with abuse toward humans as well, i.e., "human domestication").
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