If God wanted us to eat meat, why did He give animals defenses?
Question:
If God wanted us really to eat meat, then why did He make animals with senses? Why give animals some kind of self-defense? If really Noah's word is true, why don't you eat the flesh of a tiger every day? Why don't you yourself go and kill a python or a shark and eat his flesh? This is so because you are not a fool to risk your life. God has given them a solid system of defense and the use them to protect from any danger.
Answer:
It is interesting that you recognize that animals' defenses come from God, but you do not believe what God told Noah:
"So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it'" (Genesis 9:1-7).
But in answer to your question, animals have defenses because animals eat animals. While you see that as natural in the animal kingdom, you put blinders on your own eyes when it comes to human life. Animals have senses because God made them to be living creatures; it is a part of what we mean by "living" that we recognize that the creature is able to sense its environment.
By your line of argument, people should not be eating plants. After all, some plants have defensive mechanisms such as thorns and poisons to keep animals from eating them. I guess I could ask you why you don't have a poison ivy leaf salad if you're supposed to eat vegetables.
Neither the fact that they have senses or that they have defenses change the truth of the matter: It is God who stated that mankind is permitted to use animals as food. People do eat predators, but the reason they don't eat them often is that predator populations are small. They cannot be large because they eat other animals.
