Religion and animals

A few of our prophets (leaders of the church) have made statements on how we should treat animals. David O McKay, a president and prophet said "A true Latter Day Saint is kind to animals, is kind to every living thing, for God created all." There are other quotes on the subject too. Lorenzo Snow, a prophet from the early days, mentioned his distaste of the sport of hunting. Joseph F Smith said, "it is an unrighteous thing to treat any animal cruelly." So many prophets have spoken out in favor of animals and against their mistreatment.

I like it when prophets and church leaders talk about our responsibility to animals. Too often Christianity views animal welfare as a distant priority. Are humans more important than animals? Yes, of course. But does than mean animals should be mistreated or we should just ignore the subject of animal welfare? Of course not. Even my feeble mind can handle dealing with two things at once. Too often people who are concerned about animals are written off, and in fairness some animal rights activists do take it to the extreme. The wonderful Dennis Prager had a great quote about this. "Cruelty towards animals leads to cruelty against humans, but those who care radically about animals often don't care the same way about humans." He is correct, which he is often. That might not be a direct quote, so I apologize. 

Religion is critiqued for many things right now, and sometimes that critique is with justification. However it's religion that in many cases demands fair treatment of animals. It could be the prophet Mohammed talking about fair treatment of his cats, or it could be Jewish rules for humane slaughter of animals. Whatever it is, religion deserves credit for this.