Is It Wrong To Eat Meat? Part 2
For the first part, please read here.
Relatively speaking, meat eating itself is not in question here. There are obvious risks associated with eating too much meat, and advantages of eating at least SOME meat. Besides the obvious, the animal in question is usually dead and doesn't feel ANYTHING.
The issue, instead, seems to be the inhumane treatment of animals that are bred for meat processing and the like. Brother Shawn Johnston has a very interesting post on this topic over at his blog site here.
Confronted with these harsh realities, I can of course only go on the evidence in hand and conclude that these animals are treated rather savagely. I offer no form of excuse or defense for the types of behavior that some of these meat manufacturers institute in their business, and I am offended that there are not better rules and regulations in place to help better safeguard these kinds of atrocities.
That being said, I'd like you to take a minute now and examine the things we do on a daily basis that has just as bad if not worse treatment for life. I'd like to put things in perspective.
- Should we stop mowing our lawns? I can only imagine the grass screaming as a plague of moving mechanical parts comes to mutilate scores of fellow specimens.
- Should we not bathe? The numbers that die in these forms of disinfection and contamination are incalculable, much less appetizing.
- Should we cease to partake in eating fruits and vegetables? We know beyond a doubt that these plants are living creatures, and they are very possibly much more complex organisms than originally suggested.
- Forget bathing, just stop cleaning altogether. The micro bacteria that exist are apart of an ecosystem that we obviously have no right putting to an end.
- Should we also set up some form of punishment for those animals that eat meat? Obviously, they are not as advanced as we humans, but I believe I've seen some gruesome and terrible things on the Discovery Channel, and I cannot sit by idly and watch these crimes against nature occur.
Okay, okay, I'll admit. This was probably a wee bit exaggerated. No harm was intended by my sarcasm, and I hope none is taken. But I do insist that we view this as a normal process of nature.
Not all butchers and meat processors are heartless scum. They don't exist solely to extract life - but to extract food. We should DEFINITELY punish those who are found to be heartlessly cruel to the animals in which they harbor, but a boycott on the meat industry altogether is equally unjust, and impossible.
Which brings me back to my original point: naturally speaking, of course, meat intake is going to be existent amongst life forms. It is definitely natural to assume that is a part of the natural course for human consumption.
posted by Joe Daher @ Wednesday, January 24, 2007
5 comments
5 Comments:
Ooooooh...you're just trying to bug me now.
OK, as I said in the post, it is not the meat eating I have a problem with per se, but the industry that provides it. There are realities that don't go away just because you say "they're going to die anyway" and be on your merry meat-eating way.
All of your examples are spurious and without any real merit, designed more to mock than to actually address the question at hand. The question is not the extinguishing of life, but of the sentience of the life forms in question. If it were about the loss of life, then I'd be real miffed with God, how dare he sanction the laws of death!
Cows, pigs and chickens are sentient and embodied with some level of divine intelligence, albeit different from our own. Would you eat your dog, or your cat? No, because you have come to know them and see that they have personalities, likes, dislikes and fears. It is this disassociation with the very essence of animal being-hood that I have taken issue with. We no longer associate the steak wrapped in plastic in the store with the cow grazing in the meadow.
I found it increasingly difficult to straddle this issue of eating meat as long as it's happy. So I decided to simply become a vegetarian because it simplified my choices.
I still eat dairy, albeit only organic free range. I still eat seafood though I try to eat only that from a sustainable source. You see, I believe that sea life is OF nature, rather than being beings living within it, much in the same vein as the plants, bugs and germs of your sarcastic examples. I am not naive enough to think that the world is a pretty place where bad things don't happen but I strongly feel that it would behoove us all to act and live in ways that reduce the amount of suffering and damage our actions create.
To be a priest is to become one that feels this understanding very keenly.
There are a lot of reasons for living a vegetarian life style, some of which are more immediate and relevant than perceived fuzzy-wuzzyness of avoiding the loss of life. Please check out earthsave.ca to learn of this reasons. Out food industry is inefficient and is one corner of the global warming problem.
In the spirit of growth-encouraging debate,
Shawn
Shawn:
Please don't take my half-hearted humor-intended sarcasm as my entire stance.
I did check on the website of your post, and I was set aback. Part of what this post was about was meant to convey this, and I thought I did a decent job.
However, I do not feel that every meat plant that sets up shop goes about beating chickens and pigs to death with clubs (or any other example you have), and I do believe that it is NOT morally wrong, in and of itself, to eat meat.
What I was doing with my sarcasm was trying to set the scope of my debate: we kill organisms inhumanely everyday. It is the nature of the world, and I don't believe that you can judge the entirety based on it.
If you're a vegetarian, that's absolutely wonderful (and I'm really not being sarcastic here). However, I do not feel that those who still partake of meat-eating are only fueling an evil capitalist market, nor will I make someone feel bad (in my future priestly role) for not wanting to give up the foods they've grown up with (plus, I feel that it's kind of unhealthy to go cold turkey like that).
If you could, too...I'd like to hear and speak with you more on your example "I believe that sea life is OF nature, rather than being beings living within it, much in the same vein as the plants" - this sounds curious to me, and I would love to get a better idea of where that comes from.
Joe, you focused on the wrong parts of what I said. I was mostly being flippant rather than taking offense to your sarcasm.
I am not saying that it is morally wrong to eat meat, only that it is morally wrong to be blind to the truth of what we are ingesting. If you can look at the truth squarely and be fine with that, that's cool. The important part is that you are being real.
Tim, the new seminarian, and I were discussing this earlier today after I finished posting. The question, which you did not address in your retort, is of the level of sentience you consider "above the line" of acceptable dismissal.
Sure grass and plants have been scientifically shown to respond to stimuli. But I do not believe that they are able to be cognizant of what is occurring to them and in that regard, suffer because of it. Fish, shellfish, etc... also fall in this category. For this reason, I label them as OF nature, in the same sense as a stone or a tree. All of things are divinely created and as such are imbued with divine energy. But the realities are we must eat so it is up to the individual to decide where to draw the line.
Mammals and birds I believe begin to cross that line of acceptable dismissal. In my mind, anything that a person can form a bond of friendship and love with moves beyond the realm of an acceptable food source. To me eating birds or cows would be the same as butchering Rover for Sunday dinner.
I never once implied that to be a good priest was to be a vegetarian or to force your opinions on others. What I said was that to be a good priest we must be cognizant of the consequences of the choices we make and the ripples that occur therein.
The realities are that the meat industry does in fact use an enormous amount of fossil fuel, is responsible for untold levels of environmental decay as well as contributing more green house gases than all the cars in the world put together. This is fact and is confirmed by scientists all over the world. I would paste some links here but they're at work. We consume so much meat that the amount of animals required to slake this demand is unbelievable, exponentially beyond the population levels that would occur naturally.
Right now your arguments are a little round about. I am just asking you and any others to be honest with themselves first and foremost.
If after that, you are OK with eating meat, good on ya. I wasn't.
And you would be surprised at how many meat factories ARE in operation that behave as you saw in the videos. Don't dismiss that so easily. It is prevelant and by far the norm, by a large margin. That's another fact.
Thou shalt not kill. It's up to you to decide what that means.
Oh, and thanks for your kind words on my last post. It meant alot
Peace
If god didn't want us eat meat why did he make it taste so good?
-Homer Simpson
Enjoyed both posts and pardon the pun food for thought!
For me the justification for meat eating is found in our teeth, i.e. incisors for the tearing an rendering of flesh...I agree with you when it comes to killing for sport, having done my share of hunting and fishing, I've eaten what I've killed and made very sure it was dispatched kindly and quickly...
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