Oh the mental gymnastics one must engage in to believe that God commands us to do those things that hinder and inhibit the full manifestation of heaven on earth, while those encouraging people to live in the way of life to bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth are considered preaching a false gospel!

In order to escape the fact the Bible teaches God originally ordained men to live a vegan diet, and that it will once again be that way when the kingdom of God (God’s reign) is spread upon the earth, you state God doesn’t want it one way or another, but rather just knows how things will be. This notion is contradicted by the many times Jesus speaks of doing the will of the Father, as one can’t do God’s will, if God doesn’t want anything.

Further more, Jesus says he always does those things that please the Father, and is never recorded killing an animal to eat it or offering sacrifice. Therefore we can conclude that sacrifices and killing animals to eat their flesh is not pleasing to God.

It is clear you and I do not believe in or worship the same God, as I certainly do not believe in a God that ordained human slavery, animal sacrifice, war, and requires the murder of the innocent (ie. Jesus) in order to forgive sin. This is fine, and we can disagree, but for you to say Jesus never taught against slavery and therefore did not oppose it seems to me quite ridiculous.

For example, “love your neighbor as yourself,” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “the kings of the earth and their great men exercise authority over one another, but it is not to be so among you.” Not to mention his teaching,
On the equality and brotherhood of man: “call no man your master, for one is your master, the Christ, and you are all brothers.”

Are you honestly telling me that slavery is not a form of exercising authority over men and that teaching the equality of mankind as brothers without human masters is an endorsement of slavery? If you can honestly tell me that you want other men to enslave you and keep you in slavery, then maybe you could honestly say Jesus was not against slavery. Otherwise, it is obviously impossible to love your neighbor as yourself and then enslave him against his will and use him as free labor or cheap labor in order to enrich yourself, or even simply because you are lazy and don’t want to do chores around the house. Obviously the message of universal love and the brotherhood of man taught be Jesus in entirely incompatible with slavery!

Not to mention that, unless you want another man stronger than yourself, or possibly an angel or a higher being of some kind to kill you in order to eat your flesh, then there is no way the killing of animals for food is compatible with the Golden Rule. You will surely argue this is meant to apply only to people and not animals, but this is not specified, and besides it is made clear in Ecclesiastes’s that: “man hath no preeminence over beast, for they all have the same spirit of God.”

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.

It is right there in the passage you quoted, that the command to love neighbor applied to Israelites, and it says to not take revenge against fellow children of Israel, and thus does not explicitly include foreigners (only ‘strangers living among you’ are later included in this passage, implying it is just fine to not love those foreigners who live elsewhere. Nowhere in this passage are any enemies mentioned, but it could be implied that they are anyone who are not “the children of they people,” in other words anyone who is not an Israelite. This is why elsewhere it is commanded to take slaves from “outside your people”, because to take slaves of your own people is an obvious violation of true love for your neighbor!

Jesus is thus expanding the injunction not to take revenge on or shed the blood of fellow Israelites to include all people, including enemies, thus his command to love enemy as well as neighbor. This can be seen in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where he includes Samaritans as ‘neighbors’ when most Israelites would exclude them, when asked ‘who is my neighbor’ in regards to keeping this command.

And he is not responding only to a rabbinical saying, but the precedent for such rabbinical saying found in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves.

Psalm 139:22: “I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.”

Also, Paul swearing oaths is not a valid argument that Jesus didn’t forbid oaths, for many people who come in the name of Jesus still don’t follow his teachings, whether unintentionally by ignorance or intentionally as false prophets. Jesus himself warned that many would come in his name, but if they didn’t do the will of the Father (keep his teachings) he would say he didn’t know them. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ but do not do what I say?” And he clearly says to swear no oaths, neither by heaven, or by the earth, or any other thing. The teaching of Jesus on the matter is quite clear: oaths are from the evil one. Book of James agrees, whether or not you believe it came from James the Just (his brother) or not. One can argue Jesus didn’t mean what he plainly said, or that he didn’t actually say that, but the recorded words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount most clearly forbid the swearing of oaths.

This is specifically during a time when the people of Israel sinned, and when sacrifices did become selfish and thus meaningless to God. This is also what's meant in the beginning of Jeremiah.

If this is what is meant in Jeremiah, then why does God state he never commanded sacrifices in the first place, rather than just saying he was displeased with sacrifices being offered by selfish people?

That was not why he cleansed the temple. He cleansed the temple because of the money changers selling animals inside the temple, and trying to effectively turn it from a house of worship to a den of thieves.

If this were the case as you say, then why does Jesus quote from Jeremiah, in the very same speech sacrifices are condemned, and quoting the phrase ‘den of robbers’, where the Hebrew word here means ‘violent, tyrant, murderer’? Even the Greek word thief used here implies use of violence or willingness to use violence in the process of robbing. Were the money-changers violent and engaged in bloodshed, or using violence or threat of force to rob the people who were changing their coins?

I think rather these violent ones were the priests responsible for the system of sacrifice killing thousands of animals, robbing the lives of the innocent in the name of God. Plus it wasn’t the money-changers but the priests who immediately from that point on began seeking for a way to kill him, and eventually succeeded in getting the Romans to crucify him. He clearly pissed the priests off with whatever he did, which included freeing all the animals which were being sold as sacrifices and were set to be slaughtered. He clearly disrupted the system of sacrifice, along with the money-changers which were but a small part of that system. His main efforts were directed at those buying and selling the livestock, as they are mentioned being driven out first in all gospel accounts.

I believe the true sacrifice as originally taught was the sacrificing of our lower carnal natures, the sacrificing of our own ego-based systems of thought that separate us from the Mind of Christ and inhibit us from doing the will of the Father. Those who were carnally minded and lusted after flesh turned this into a literal bloody sacrifice of animals. That is my take on the OT sacrifices. David himself says in one of the Psalms that the true sacrifice is prayer and thanksgiving, and that God neither required nor desired animal sacrifices.

It seems neither of us will convince the other of our views and that is just fine. Each of us must tread our own path. My take is that you elevate the law of Moses above the teachings of Jesus and use scripture to justify the needless killing of animals carried out in God’s name, and your take is probably that I wrongly interpret the words of Jesus to support my position or don’t accept the Bible as the infallible word of God, which I don’t. I don’t worship a book, and don’t trust the men who put it together as being perfect in their choice in any way, nor do I believe the translators and copiers got everything right. I do accept the Gospel of Thomas as being just as legitimate as the four received gospels and do not see it as contradictory to the clear message found in the four gospels that made it into the Bible.

I believe that the true God is love and light, as written in epistle of John. I believe that pure love is incompatible with killing animals, and never desired by God. I believe the doctrine of sacrifice and lifestyle of unnecessary meat-eating which relies on the killing of innocent animals is incompatible with the spirit of Christ revealed in the gospels and runs contrary to the plain teachings of Jesus, as I have described in some length here.

Others will not see things the same, and that is just fine. In the end we each must live with our own consciences and consequences of our actions. I just cannot in good conscience contribute to the needless shedding of innocent blood to fulfill my own selfish desire to eat the flesh of another living being. And having researched the matter for several years, I am fully convinced Jesus taught this peaceful lifestyle to his disciples and was himself a vegetarian as well.