And here’s something the Bible says about the whole event:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. e was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:1-17)

Merry Christmas

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Not much for the local elections (well, they are local – even if the cuts are one of the biggest local issues in a lot of places), or for the Welsh and Northern Ireland elections. The Scottish Parliament elections are looking interesting, though as, if the polls are right, it looks like the Greens will push the Lib Dems into fifth place.

And, speaking of Greens and elections, the Canadian Greens got their first MP yesterday.

And, of course, there’s that AV referendum. If you’ve still not made up your mind, then here are eleven reasons to vote yes.

Plus, there are some pretty good campaign videos out there (sadly they’re not by the official campaigns).

First, there’s AV Cat

Then there’s the Musical Argument

And, just to provide some balance, here’s David Cameron’s AV Rap, which completely sums up the No Campaign.

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Before starting on the reasons people give, though, it’s worth noting that the New Testament’s teaching on food (such as Romans 14) is that Christians are free to eat whatever they want, within the bounds of your own conscience, but that you should respect the consciences of other Christians with regard to what you eat.

Is killing animals for food wrong?

This is the most principled reason of the three reasons I’ll be covering. Many vegetarians consider that killing animals for food is simply wrong, and some vegans with this perspective take it further by arguing that exploiting animals for our own benefit is also wrong. Having said that, most people who take such a position will acknowledge that there are some circumstances where somebody has no choice.

This is a perspective that Christians can’t really share. Whilst you could point to the early chapters of Genesis – saying that Adam and Eve were vegetarians – a few chapters later, God tells Noah that he can eat meat. And, of course, Jesus – the Christian’s supreme example of morality – is recorded as having eaten meat on several occasions. So a Christian is not free to say that eating meat is sinful in and of itself, or even that it is sinful except when you have no alternative.

Animal Cruelty

This is, to some degree, a toned down version of the first reason. The meat industry as a whole inflicts horrible cruelty on animals, and this is very much at odds with the Biblical principle that human beings are stewards of creation – responsible to God for looking after the Earth and everything on it. This is also the case with many other industries that produce animal products.

Of course, this isn’t true of every sector of the industry. Farms that are properly certified as free range and organic almost always treat their animals well, and there’s a strong case to be made that eating animal products from such sources will increase animal welfare standards, whilst buying animal products from battery farms will decrease it.

There are, of course, a host of other reasons to avoid battery farmed meat wherever possible. The film Pig Business highlights a shocking range of environmental damage done by battery farming of pigs, as well as the fact that this industry causes serious ill-health amongst those living near to pig factories.

So whilst animal cruelty isn’t a compelling reason for a Christian to avoid meat altogether, it is a reason to be careful to buy responsibly farmed meat (or responsibly-caught fish) in preference to any other kind whenever possible.

Sustainability

This is the most pragmatic of the three main reasons, and the one that would make me consider cutting meat out of my regular diet if I was able to do so. Eating large quantities of meat is simply not sustainable in the long-term.

The most obvious example of this is fish (and if you’re one of those people who thinks that fish is a vegetarian food, then go and read some basic biology). There are plenty of parts of the world where overfishing has put species in danger of dying out in that region. Buying fish products that are overfished is to abandon our responsibility to be good stewards of creation. Buying farmed fish is also not a solution, as they will be fed wild fish, which may – in turn – be overfished.

With other forms of meat, and animal products, there are two sustainability issues. The first is the use of land. It takes a lot more agricultural land to produce a given number of calories from meat or dairy products than it does to produce those calories via vegetables, as you need to grow things to feed the animals. Of course, there is some agricultural land that is suitable for grazing but not for growing crops, so this isn’t entirely an either/or issue. But there certainly isn’t enough agricultural land for everybody to enjoy the meat-heavy diet that most Westerners enjoy, and with the global population predicted to grow to a peak of around 9 billion by 2050, this is going to be an increasing issue. If we want everybody to be able to get a healthy diet, then we must ensure that agricultural land is put to the most efficient use. Part of that means fewer cash crops, but part of it also means less meat.

The other issue is energy and climate change. It takes a lot more energy to produce meat than it does to produce the equivalent amount of food in crops (the energy output comes from modern farm equipment and transport). Plus, animals produce some greenhouse gases (notably methane) as well. In addition to this, in some parts of the world the meat industry contributes to environmental destruction. The beef industry in Latin America (which supplies a lot of the USA’s beef) is a major factor in the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest which is, in turn, a factor in climate change.

This reason is probably the most compelling for a Christian – the impact on both the environment, and on the food security of the poor demands that we at least try to reduce our consumption of meat in favour of more sustainable alternatives. However, this is still a matter of conscience – much like the food issues Paul was writing about in Romans, so we should be sensitive towards those Christians who don’t share this perspective. Whilst we may seek to persuade them, we should not force them to abide by our conscience when they are not convinced themselves.

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The reason I’ve been wondering this is that, as somebody who travels everywhere by foot or by bus, I’ve barely had any trouble. My bus journey to work is almost entirely unaffected. It’s been a little bit slower, allowing me the time to finish the Metro (the free paper they give out on public transport) by the time I get to my stop, but still on time. On foot, the main difference is that I’ve had an excuse to wear my walking boots. When I have slipped, it’s mostly been on water in a subway – the exceptions being when I’ve been out late in the evening, it’s been dark enough that I have trouble watching my footing, and the snow is in the process of freezing. Meanwhile, my colleagues who drive to work have had all sorts of complaints.

Now, obviously it is possible to have a car culture in a permanently snowy place – that’s what snow tyres and snow chains exist for. But such adaptations aren’t worth it where snow only happens for a week or two each year. Also, the snow and ice does cause problems getting around on foot for the disabled and elderly. But for those of us who are able-bodied, I think we’d suffer far less disruption from the snow if we were less dependent on our cars to get us around.

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Whilst I sympathise with Mr Johnson – having your advisers criticise your policy in public does make it a lot harder to work with them – I think firstly that Mr Johnson appears to have handled this situation very badly (sacking Professor Nutt has simply highlighted that drugs policy is not based on scientific evidence), and secondly that Professor Nutt is, on balance, in the right. Here are two reasons why.

The Nature of Science

If you want good scientific advice, then you need to choose advisers who are active in a relevant field. And that means that your advisers must be free to publish papers and deliver lectures in that field without interference from the government. If, as a government, you consistently ignore the advice you are given, then you must expect that these papers and lectures will reflect the advice rather than your policies.

In his lecture, Professor Nutt pointed out that Cannabis is much less dangerous than alcohol, and that government policy is not formed solely on the basis of scientific evidence. As a scientific opinion, this is not remarkable and had Professor Nutt not been on the advisory council, nobody would have batted an eyelid. It would appear, therefore, that Mr Johnson believes that advising the government means that scientists are not allowed to advise the government and also continue doing science independently of government policy. Which is presumably the reason that the rest of the council are very concerned and either have resigned or are thinking of doing so.

The Misuse of Drugs Act

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was set up by the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. That act has been amended a number of times, and I haven’t been able to easily find the text of the act as amended. However, the original text says this about the purpose of the council:

(d) for educating the public (and in particular the young) in the dangers of misusing such drugs, and for giving publicity to those dangers; and

So Professor Nutt’s remit as part of this council is to educate people about the dangers of drugs (assuming that this clause was not removed in any of the later amendments). Which is precisely what he was doing in the lecture which got him sacked.

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