Is Meat Really Murder?

Guybrush · 06-05-2010, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stone Birds

let's just answer the thread's title: is meat murder? yes, because it comes from killing an animal will that stop people from eating very few

Really? How would you define murder?

VEGANGELICA · 06-05-2010, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stone Birds

let's just answer the thread's title: is meat murder? yes, because it comes from killing an animal will that stop people from eating very few

Interestingly, Stone Birds, most people in the thread have said killing animals is not murder, because they feel murder is a legal term and refers only to people maliciously killing other people.

I agree with you that even if people were to classify killing healthy, happy animals as "murder," most would continue to eat animals. However, if people *felt*, truly felt, that killing animals is murder, and is a loss, and is cruel, then they would be more likely to want to stop killing and eating animals.

I've been reading about the Holocaust a lot over the last several months, trying to understand how people lose the ability to have empathy for others. I think children usually have a strong sense of empathy for many other beings, both humans (including those not of their own ethnic group) and non-human animals. Then, culture teaches the children that certain beings are not worth caring about. And, most children learn these lessons very well.

Here's an interesting recent news item about a study that describes how people, taught racist beliefs, lose some of their ability to empathize with people they consider to be different from themselves:

Quote:

"Skin color affects ability to empathize with pain"
Skin color affects ability to empathize with pain - CNN.com

Humans are hardwired to feel another person's pain. But they may feel less innate empathy if the other person's skin color doesn't match their own, a new study suggests.

When people say "I feel your pain," they usually just mean that they understand what you're going through. But neuroscientists have discovered that we literally feel each other's pain (sort of).

Researchers in Italy are reporting that subtle racial bias can interfere with this process -- a finding with important implications for health care as well as social harmony.

"This is quite important, because it suggests that humans tend to empathize by default unless prejudice is at play," says Avenanti.

My hypothesis is that meat-eating cultures teach children to view animals as worth less than humans, and so children stop feeling concern about those animals' emotions and experiences.

I think the process of teaching lack of empathy for animals is the same process that occurs when racist cultures teach children that people of certain ethnicities have less value. The result is that children end up not caring very much when animals or people of a "lesser" ethnicity are hurt or exploited.

I'm still not sure why I never lost my empathy for animals. Perhaps it is simply because when I was 4, I saw my dad caring for his pet fish, Ernest, who had a fungal infection. Every night, my dad caringly took Ernest from his bowl and gave him a medication bath. My first experience of human interactions with animals was one of kindness.

Burning Down · 06-05-2010, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

The reason it might be relevant, Burning Down, is that if it were true that wheat (and related grains) resulted in higher risk of certain illnesses or developmental issues, and since so many vegetarians eat a lot of grains, then this could be used as an argument against vegetarianism. My counter-argument would be that vegetarians can avoid gluten and casein (dairy protein).

I hope your brother is doing okay and enjoying himself. The nephew of someone I once dated was diagnosed with autism, and over time he has been able to make more eye contact, which I hear is a good sign, but it is hard to get the proper help he needs through the public school system.

Oh he's fine! He turns 12 in September. He is a high-functioning autistic, which basically means he doesn't show many physical signs of having autism. He does have some tics though, but if you met him for the first time without knowing about his autism you'd never suspect a thing. It's more of a learning disability in his case. Autism is just an umbrella term that covers so many different conditions.

My parents took him off the gluten-free diet about a year ago after they went to see a pediatric dietician. My brother is a very picky eater, probably the pickiest eater on the planet. A lot of autistic people have issues with food texture and taste, for example my brother will not eat something if it is burned, crunchy, or has a crusty layer. He is really underweight for a boy of his height, so the dietician has put him on a high fat diet of the foods that he likes to eat (basically the only ones he will eat) - dairy products, meat, peanuts and other legumes, and fruits. Within those categories he only eats certain things though. He drinks milk but he won't eat yogurt and he likes peanuts but not peanut butter. He doesn't eat vegetables, no matter what my parents try to do to get him to eat one. And he takes daily vitamin supplements, of course. Oh, he also won't eat something if it jiggles, like Jello (which none of us eat because of the gelatin).

I'm not a big meat eater myself. I'm not a religious Jew (neither are my parents) but I grew up with and respect the culture and traditions so I don't eat pork or shellfish. I don't eat red meat because I think it's gross. I just eat chicken and once in a while fish (because it's expensive). And I have an allergy to most dairy products but I get my calcium and other essential nutrients through supplements.

VEGANGELICA · 06-05-2010, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burning Down

Oh he's fine! He turns 12 in September. He is a high-functioning autistic, which basically means he doesn't show many physical signs of having autism. He does have some tics though, but if you met him for the first time without knowing about his autism you'd never suspect a thing. It's more of a learning disability in his case. Autism is just an umbrella term that covers so many different conditions.

Oh, he also won't eat something if it jiggles, like Jello (which none of us eat because of the gelatin).

I'm not a big meat eater myself. I'm not a religious Jew (neither are my parents) but I grew up with and respect the culture and traditions so I don't eat pork or shellfish. I don't eat red meat because I think it's gross. I just eat chicken and once in a while fish (because it's expensive). And I have an allergy to most dairy products but I get my calcium and other essential nutrients through supplements.

I'm glad your brother is doing so well, Burning Down! His food dislikes are kind of endearing (though probably frustrating when you all worry about his health!). I don't eat jello either (because of the gelatin).

Burning Down, I remembered from another thread that you and your family are Jewish. (I was engaged to a Jewish man who was a non-religious Jew...I think his whole family were atheists...but their heritage was still obviously important to them). So, I know what you mean when you say you aren't a religious Jew.

I'm wondering, if you wouldn't mind, would you please read the post I made just above yours, because I would like your opinion on similarities or dissimilarities you see between the Nazis' nearly successful attempt to exterminate all Jewish people (perceived as "sub-human"), and the practice of people raising and killing animals (seen as "sub-human").

I know this is a delicate topic, and I do not mean to offend by asking about it, but it is a question that has been interesting me more and more as I read book after book about the Holocaust and survivors' memories.

Earlier in this thread, I pointed out several ways in which the Holocaust is much, much worse than what people do to livestock. People don't *usually* intentionally try to maliciously torture animals before killing them, for example. The Nazis intentionally brutalized Jewish people...you probably know all the ways. And, the Nazis wanted to exterminate all Jewish people; livestock producers want animals to stay alive (for a short while), and perpetuate them.

However, I see a similarity: in both situations, people learned to believe that a group of living beings was "sub-human" and inferior and deserved to be killed, and are not too concerned about malicious treatment. There are many reports from livestock confinements of people being brutal toward animals...and industry practice is to bludgeon baby pigs to death, and pile up the male chicks of the "egg-laying" variety to suffocate them, without food or water.

How do you view humanity's treatment of animals given your Jewish background?

I remember a story a classmate told once about how her grandfather, a U.S. soldier in Germany or Poland at the end of WWII, gave some freed, starving Holocaust survivors a metal wire so they could kill a pig they were chasing. I thought: how ironic, how sad, yet also so understandable, since starving people will eat anything...and sometimes anyone...to survive: grass, putred rotten soup, leather, bark. The account of the Holocaust survivors slitting a pig's throat with a wire saddened me, because I felt the survivors were doing the very thing their captors had: dismissing the feelings of another being, and killing that being for their own gain. I wonder, if I were starving, who would I be willing to hurt?