Animal Rights/Dissection Debate

[Master_Samwise]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Yes, and I admire your stance, Master Samwise. I'm sure your folks would understand your objection to cosmetics that have been tested on animals.

I disagree about the food industry. How many farms or factory farms or abattoirs get death threats from animal rights activities? How many have to cease operating because of the threat of violence? How many of their employees have threats against themselves and their families? That's what's been happening to scientists here lately.

I could go to an abattoir, and I would kill, skin and gut a lamb for myself if I was particularly hungry but a) I'd do it badly and b) someone else is prepared to do it for me so c) hooray for civilisation!

I admire you for being able to kill the meat you eat, and knowing what gose on and still having the stomach for it. I must say that you seem to be one of the more edgucated meat eaters there is. Many meat eaters don't know what gose on in factory farms and they try to keep on thinking that it's really okay that there eating something that was dead, and don't admit to themselves that at one point it really was alive and had feelings. For example, my brother thinks that animals don't have feelings, so I asked him why they cry when there hungry or get hurt, and he said it was a "natural reaction" or something like that, and that "they really can't fill the pain." Well, I could go on about the way that meat eaters in generel fill about meat, and how if you were to send them to a farm and ask them to kill there own animal for meat they probally couldn't do it.... but anyways, back onto the topic at hand...

I havn't heard about any of the death threats to scientists, but maybe I'm just missing it? It seems like something I would have run across in the past 7 months, maybe you could link me over to an artical about it?

[sun-star]

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4 (this is the most comprehensive)

Link 5

And btw Samwise, welcome back

[Master_Samwise]

Thank you for the links Sun-Star (and for welcoming me back)

I didn't get through all of them, link #5 did not work, but I read #4 and 3, and after that I was sorda getting bored of the same basic outline being said. I never noticed what was happening to those places and it's workers. Are most of these in the UK? I live in the US, so that might be why I havn't heard about it. Although I disagree with them on some points, I get a lot of my information from PETA, so maybe that's why I have been missing out on my dose of the other stuff, bucause PETA really dosn't focus on that as much as the other things they target.

I dissagree with the violence that has been going on in these places, while some of these labortorees may need to be shut down (I don't know what they were all standing for, that's why I said may), ther is a right and wrong way to do it. These extreemist groups should not attack the labotories the way they do, that's just not right. A man shouldn't have to check under his car for a bomb before getting into it, and the quote that said that a few (10-15) man dieing was worth saving tons of animals, well that's wrong to. I am a Christian, and so while I say no animal abuse, I also stand behind humans and think that God values human life more then animal life, and we should to. If there was a differet way to find cures for sicknesses, and still have no cruelity to any form of life, then I would leen in that dirrection.

[Ragnarok]

[QUOTE=sun-star]I actually wasn't weighing the human benefit achieved through scientific testing against animal welfare, I was weighing animal welfare against the behaviour of violent animal rights activists to humans. I'm totally opposed to cosmetics being tested on animals - I don't know anyone who isn't. But I'm also opposed to targetting scientists and their families in the name of animal welfare, which was my point.[QUOTE]

I think that statement is overexagerated. Perhaps you are reffering to an a small faction of extremist/militant group of animal rights activist? I've been to an animal testing protest rally and from what I saw no one was threatening people and their families. And MOST animal rights activist are more concerned with big companies who use animal testing for products, not scientific research. I've met some people other animal right activist and we were all protesting non-violently.

[Ragnarok]

Originally Posted by sun-star

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4 (this is the most comprehensive)

Link 5

And btw Samwise, welcome back

Link 1 and 5 about animal rights extremist DOES NOT represent the general numbers of animal rights activists, they are a selected handful. That is like saying all Islams are terrorists.

[sun-star]

I didn't say it was representative, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If you look back to my other posts, I said I disagreed with violent animal rights activists. Who do exist, and who do seem to value animal life above human life.

I don't see where we differ here.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Master_Samwise

I admire you for being able to kill the meat you eat, and knowing what gose on and still having the stomach for it. I must say that you seem to be one of the more edgucated meat eaters there is. Many meat eaters don't know what gose on in factory farms and they try to keep on thinking that it's really okay

Indeed if we all lived in another time and place where you had to raise and kill and butcher the animals you wanted to eat then there would be a lot less cruelty toward food animals in the world. When a huge corporation can convert a cow into hamburgers and steaks in a matter of minutes and all we have to do is go to the store and buy a package of steaks it makes it a whole lot easier to justify eating flesh. Out of sight out of mind right? So what if they are skinning calfs alive and pigs get snagged by their ankles and boiled sometimes before they are humanely killed. We dont have to think about that when they hand you a big mac in a styrofoam box. Well I say if yer gonna eat flesh then understand where it came from. Dont hide yourself from it. I love venison and I have no problem with eating deer meat because for the most part deers are killed rather humanely (a bullet to the brain seems more humane to me then snagging a cow by the ankle or binding a chicken cruely before dispatching it). And to me butchering the deer is cool (well accept for that whole gut pile thing) because you really have to work your butt off to get the animal broken down into pieces we find useful for eating. And really we should all have to put a lot of energy into processing our food. So we know its not just some thing that comes out of a machine for our pleasure. In a way it brings us closer to nature. Which makes us appreciate nature more.

[Ragnarok]

Killing animals for food is completely different from abusing animals for products. One could argue that man, since the begining of time, has hunted animals for food, clothing and other uses on the sole basis of survival.

[BeardofPants]

No, one could not, unless one provides a clear definition of "man". Hominids were most likely scavengers up until Homo erectus. The austrolopithecines were primarily frugivores who subsisted on hard grains, nuts, and fruit.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Nerdanel

too few people understand that we are animals too, with no right to see ourselves as better than other animals.

I disagree with your opinion Here's my opinion - Humans, altho having a physical body similar to animals, are not just smarter animals. We are a whole different type of being - we are "soul-bearers". We have a soul, given to us by God, and a conscience, in addition to instinct. And our conscience often overrides our instincts, unlike animals, who don't contemplate whether it's morally right to kill something for dinner


I like how G.K. Chesterton puts it :

by G.K. Chesterton, from The Everlasting Man (talking about prehistoric man, and pictures found in caves)
What would be for him the simplest lesson of that strange stone picure-book? After all, it would come back to this; that he had dug very deep and found the place where a man had drawn the picture of a reindeer. But he would dig a good deal deeper before he found a place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man. ....

It is the simple truth that man does differ from the brutes in kind and not in degree ...

The higher animals did not draw better and better portraits; the dog did not paint better in his best period than in his early bad manner as a jackel; the wild horse was not an Impressionist and the race-horse a Post-Impressionist.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

No, one could not, unless one provides a clear definition of "man". Hominids were most likely scavengers up until Homo erectus. The austrolopithecines were primarily frugivores who subsisted on hard grains, nuts, and fruit.

possibly, but all life, plant life included, thirives off of the death of other forms of life... animals killing other animals (which is what we are... whether rÃ*an thinks so or not ) spread the nutrients that allow plant life to flourish... humans eating animals is just as 'natural' as any other animal killing another to survive... though you do not directly kill animals by being a vegetarian... the food you eat is what it is because of the killing of other animals

that said, i do agree that animals should be treated with an equal, or close to equal, amount of respect as we would treat another human being... if for no other reason than because we can... of course, any advanced med student will tell you that cats are not the only thing they have to dissect

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

unlike animals, who don't contemplate whether it's morally right to kill something for dinner

how do you know? carnivores very rarely kill their own kind... why is this do you suppose?

[Earniel]

I've removed all posts dealing with animal morality and put them into a new thread found here.

[Valandil]

Please note that I have split off the off-topic comments in this thread on the splitting of this thread into a thread on splitting threads.





EDIT: It's right HERE!

[brownjenkins]

you mods are all mad i tell you... mad!!

not only do you make it look like i started a thread on something as pointless as 'thread splitting'... though i think we may have to speak about just such a topic

but you lock it as well!!!

Originally Posted by Valandil

(let's see... Moderator Decathlon: Splitting, Merging, Closing, Deleting, Banning, Spamming... which events am I forgetting??)

making things easier

[BeardofPants]

I vote that you ban bj ... he's been naughty.

[brownjenkins]

bah... just wait till they split you spunky

you mod-types are all the same

[Janny]

Frankly, I have no idea where to post to get a view across. However, the thing which disturbs me about the approach that humans are in no way superior to, or of a greater value than any other animal is what one can then deduce from such a rule.

I apologise for the slightly topical nature of this example, but I feel it only serves to highlight the folly of the suggestion of equality:

A man is taken hostage with his dog. The hostage takers could do one of two things; kill the man and release the dog, or kill the dog and release the man. Which do you find more morally reproachable? Surely neither, for the value of man and dog are equal.

Now suppose you were in that situation where you must kill either a dog or a human. Which would you do?

The argument that if you pose the second problem to a dog it would kill the human on the grounds that it would avoid killing its own kind is also flawed. Surely the dog has no understanding of the situation, the morality, and indeed has no way of communicating the problem to other dogs... unlike one other animal I can think of off hand.

[Master_Samwise]

Originally Posted by Janny

Frankly, I have no idea where to post to get a view across. However, the thing which disturbs me about the approach that humans are in no way superior to, or of a greater value than any other animal is what one can then deduce from such a rule.

I apologise for the slightly topical nature of this example, but I feel it only serves to highlight the folly of the suggestion of equality:

A man is taken hostage with his dog. The hostage takers could do one of two things; kill the man and release the dog, or kill the dog and release the man. Which do you find more morally reproachable? Surely neither, for the value of man and dog are equal.

Now suppose you were in that situation where you must kill either a dog or a human. Which would you do?

The argument that if you pose the second problem to a dog it would kill the human on the grounds that it would avoid killing its own kind is also flawed. Surely the dog has no understanding of the situation, the morality, and indeed has no way of communicating the problem to other dogs... unlike one other animal I can think of off hand.

But that's just it, lots of people would dissagree, and say that killing the dog would be more moral then killing the human, and what you just posted said was that weather you saved the dog or the human, it wouldn't matter, because they are both equal.

[Janny]

Originally Posted by Master_Samwise

But that's just it, lots of people would dissagree, and say that killing the dog would be more moral then killing the human, and what you just posted said was that weather you saved the dog or the human, it wouldn't matter, because they are both equal.

I was attempting sarcasm. It failed.

[Master_Samwise]

Originally Posted by Janny

I was attempting sarcasm. It failed.

sorry, i'm slooooooooooow.