^{Imagine this scene: Jesus Christ was out walking with his disciples and they came across a cat slowly killing an injured bird. The bird cried out in pain and terror but the cat kept tossing it up in the air and pouncing on it when it landed. The cat wasn’t hungry. It was just having fun. What would Jesus have done on witnessing this? His “loving” father, the creator, had given the cat the instinct that made it behave that way so logically Jesus couldn’t stop the cat without going against the will of his Father. But if he chose to ignore what was happening and walk on by what would that have said about his concern for the suffering endured by an innocent bird?}

^{This scenario causes many religious leaders to shift uneasily on their feet. None of them like to discuss this subject! Even though almost all of them believe God has no place for animals in heaven, they can’t deny He is fully aware when an animal is suffering (1 John 3:20). Some try to rationalise this by saying that God gave Adam and Eve a perfect Garden of Eden but because they disobeyed his instructions their “sin” somehow transferred to all the animals. Some will say that animals don’t count. They were put on the earth solely for our enjoyment. Well, SMART people’s logic and sense of right and wrong tell them that animals do count. Even the most brainwashed religious fanatic cannot deny that animals can experience pain. You can make a case for some animals being carnivorous, possibly, but how do you explain one animal torturing another animal to death for fun?! Does a God who justifies this by blaming Adam and Eve, or by saying that animal suffering doesn’t count, deserve to be worshipped?}

^{If you push religious people on this issue many of them fall back to the age-old last lines of defence: “Well, you just have to have faith” or, “God works in mysterious ways”. Both of those statements are cop-outs. They are statements that allow them to ignore logic and common sense and continue to live in their fantasy world.}

^{If God wants people to make a free choice about following Him why would He unnecessarily do things that defied logic and required blind faith to accept?}