Quote:
Originally Posted by alexanderbecker  This about sums it up.
Hypothetical question: Is veganism only an answer to factory farming or to eating meat in general? I ate strictly vegan for a year and I benefited greatly from the experience because I intended to do so.
Now I am back eating meat and it doesn't impair my spiritual awareness at all. Of course do I think that factory farming is cruel, but how about the hunter who kills an animal and eventually eats it? What's so cruel about animals eating animals?
Bliss depends on one's own reality which is supposed to take place beyond denial but with a congruent enough setup... all is possible (see above).
-Alexander |
HI Alexander
I dont think it is entirely relevant to differentiate between eating 'hunted' food or eating factory farmed food. That fact is we do not need to eat meat to survive-thrive, so the question must be- Why would anyone do so?
To ask the question as you did - "What's so cruel about about animals eating animals?- is irrelevant. We are not base uneducated savages. We belong to an advanced social system where we apply ethics to every area of out lives. We have advanced out of the food chain and have formed complex social regulations to protect the vulnerable. We have self awareness and reflective capacity and have evolved from hunters to farmers. Unfortunately, many people have abused their dominant position to use their fellow creatures as nothing more than commodities.
It must be either that they have been raised in that way- okay I accept that, but once they have been alerted to the issues of cruelty, animals rights, health etc why would they continue?
Would it be taste? Can anyone justify the slaughter and cruelty of millions of animals to satisfy their taste buds?
What about the predator/socio-biological argument? Well, what is- is not always what ought to be, as in the 'Naturalist Fallacy'. Because we have a desire for something doesnt mean necessarily that we should have that desire realised.
Look at sexual desire for instance, desire for omni-potence over our fellow beings. Taking these things without concent lead to sex crimes and totalitarianism, in these examples.
Animals are the same. We dont need to eat animals. They have not concented to be eaten by us. If anyone thinks this is dubious then I suggest they spend an hour in their local abatoir and see the fear in animals eyes as they are forced along death row to await their execution. Animals have an acute sense of smell, and boy do they smell death.
I have seen this with my own eyes. If only abatoirs had glass walls.
The arguments that animals are of a lower inteligence than us also doesnt cut the mustard. Are we to prey on creatures/beings with lower intelligence than us, or should we be kind to them?
Are we saying that animals should be killed because they are not humans? This is blatant discrimination/speciesism- No different from sexual discrimination, secterianism, racism, ageism.
Animals may not have the advanced intelligence humans have but that doesnt mean they dont feel pain, have emotions (who has ever seen a sad or happy dog? -all of us I think), or enjoy their own form of existence.
Why do western omnivores look appauled when they see asians eating cats and dogs, whilst the western society tucks into the flesh of a once healthy deer or calf etc. It is all social conditioning, thats all.
I think that this website is bursting with intelligent , compassionate human beings and it gives me encouragement to think that all of them would consider unselfishly if their animal consumption was unethical, enviromentally unsustainable and unhealthy. If people are truly engaged in self development at all levels and not just in and out for a quick buck, then I can not see why anyone could, after serious soul searching, see the use and abuse of animals as anything other than morally indefensible.