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Ok, so I read this and I was considerably troubled that this was acceptable. How can people let Dogs be abused and slaughtered, and not do anything about it.
Then I had an epiphany.
Why do I care so much that Dogs are being slaughtered. The exact same people that find this troubling probably eat beef and chicken. What makes Dogs better than cows? Wild dogs don't even do anything except give people rabies. Cows, however, fertilize grass and produce milk. Similarly, sheep make wool but are also killed for food.
So how come wild dogs can't be killed but cows can! I'm not saying dogs should be killed, I am suggesting that if they shouldn't then why should cows and sheep.
This is how I see it, every person who is outraged because the Chinese are eating "cute animals" is a hypocrite. The only group that can oppose the festival without being hypocritical are vegans/vegetarians. Think about it, we have festivals were we slaughter thousands of cows. Why isn't this appropriate?
Lol, yes, this is the irony of our modern day society. Everyone goes crazy over yet another social media fad. This time, it happens to be a series of torture, murder and consumption of dogs in China. All the while, the same people complaining about this atrocity, are the ones snacking on their prime cut steaks and cheeseburgers and what not. This "yulin" thing in China or whatever it was called, was nothing more than a social trend. No one who eats meat really cares about animal suffering at least not to the point where they realize what they are doing is just as bad as what went on in that Chinese festival if not, worse. Glad you realized this though.
Yes, I completely agree. Animals should not be treated differently to how we would treat another. Every life is worth the same, no matter if it's a dog, cow or spider. That spider is living a life just as important as a cow's so why should it be treated inferiorly?
However, I don't think animals shouldn't be killed for food. As long as it's a painless and quick death AND as long as someone is eating it do I think an animal's life is justified to be slaughtered by someone. Trophy and cruel deaths are disgusting things to be thought as being right just because it's an animal. Why is it acceptable to kill a lion or antelope and hang its head upon your fireplace? Just because its life seems inferior to ours? If you wouldn't do the same to a human why do it to another living being?
There is an interesting paradox here. Most non-human animals could care less about killing other animals or plants, and there is no evidence that there exists any non-human animal that regards all life to be equal, none being inferior to another. On the other hand, there exist humans who do regard all life to be equal, none being inferior to another. If this moral position is superior to the alternative, does this not make the humans who hold this moral position superior?
So you're saying that a human's moral obligation is to regard all life as equal or are you saying that because we DO regard all life as equal we are therefore superior to the animals that don't?
I suppose that because we are rational beings, unlike all other life on Earth, it makes us more superior in terms of awareness and a non-instinctive nature. However, it does not make us more superior in terms of a worthiness of life. Just because we are sentient beings does not give us more worth from a natural point of view. Although, even though I say this, I would rather kill a fly than a horse.
I'm not really taking any side on the moral issue; I'm just pointing out a thought that should induce dissonance in individuals who take this particular stance.
Here's an even more dissonant thought: if we define worth as the value that we attribute to something, and value as the amount we are willing to pay for something (not necessarily in monetary terms, but in time, work, and sacrifice), then I would say that despite our declarations that all life is of equal worth, we do not act accordance with our declarations. For instance, we are not willing to make the same sacrifices for an insect as we would a dog, and many humans are not willing the make the same sacrifices for a dog as they would another human being.
Though many declare that all life is of equal worth, I see very few, if any, that live in full accordance with that declaration (some Buddhists may get close, but I'm sure even they have their limits). I would also say that it would be highly impractical to live in full accordance with that declaration. I've learned that reality often confronts an individual with two choices: to live in hypocrisy or to drop the absolute nature of our moral convictions.
I agree with your point on value of life. However, value may be considered the benefit that it gives from a human point of view. A dog has more useful than a fly for a human so the dog is therefore more valuable to us.
Is it wrong to value lives in different ways or is it just the natural way we think about things having worth? Should we ought to give all life the same rights as we would to another human or is it simply not possible?
It's interesting that you bring this up; it seems that most people that own a dog do so not for its utility, but for it's emotional value--they own dogs because they can empathize with them to some degree. Even if flies could somehow serve a greater utility than dogs, we would not value them as much as we do dogs.
Perhaps this is why so many people who consume pork, beef and chicken find the consumption of dogs distasteful (no pun intended); cows, pigs, and chickens have always been food for us (for those of us in the west, at least), but our ancestors chose dogs (wolves, actually) to be companions to aid in their survival, and as we both evolved, we developed emotional bonds with them.
I won't argue whether it's right or wrong to value lives differently, but reality makes it impractical on many levels to value all life as equal. The simple fact that we've evolved to develop emotional bonds with dogs makes it quite difficult for us, if not impossible, to value all animals equally, much less all life. As I've expressed elsewhere, our emotional makeup has helped us to survive in the past, but we must bear the responsibility for it--at some point, most individuals must make compromises between emotion and sense of reason in order to function.
I would just ask you to clarify what your position is. Is it okay for us to make the Chinese stop eating dogs while we are eating a burger from McDonald's with every type of meat in it.
Yes. Survival of the fittest dictates that you are the superior animal of the monkey because you have reached moral superiority, so you must kill all the monkeys who might eat the other monkeys. You can feed the bodies of the un-nice monkeys who are of your race to the nice monkeys which you excuse for eating other monkeys since they don't have the moral reasoning capacity of yourself, and prove your moral superiority is evolution's goal.
If it's about eating them, it's fine. It's not wrong. What it's cruel it's the way they treat those dogs. I mean, just google dogs in China, you wouldn't be pleased of what you see, at all. It's disgusting.
Yes, there's people who say it's cruel because they're dogs. Yet, they still eat meat, they are hypocritical.
In my country it's common to eat rabbits, people in America are like, NO, WHAI :(
haha
There's people who is very close-minded, indeed. But as long as you don't eat humans, all fine...
This may not be totally relevant to the topic of this debate but in what way is it fine to eat dogs and other animals as long as you don't torture them?
The way it is fine to eat dogs and other animals is if you cook them thoroughly before you eat them. That way you kill the germs that might infect you, and it's fine dining.
That's the way I meant it. It would not be fine to eat an uncooked animal as you would be disrespecting your own body by risking infection from disease.
Yes, but you would still be causing the worst kind of disrespect to the animal by paying for its packaged and manufactured flesh (assuming you don't kill them yourself), but I suppose harm to animals doesn't fall into your ethical values of course.
There is nothing wrong with killing an animal before you eat it, and it's fine dining after you cook it.
Do you want me to eat it alive like an animal would eat the animal? Do you want me to eat it raw and alive? Do you want me to cook it while it's alive and then eat it before it dies?
Comeon, you have to kill it before you cook it and then eat it. Put the thing out of it's misery and add some spices and make it taste better when it cooks.
You are completely missing the point. To take an intelligent being's life for the sole purpose of a pleasurable meal is something that I will never see as ethical. Although, I'm sure your values of ethics vary greatly from mine do to the fact that you are completely oblivious to what it is you have to do in order to obtain your "fine dining".
A meal is necessary. How long are you going to live without a meal? It is not only pleasurable if it's cooked right, it's needful. God made it taste good because we need to eat it. If it didn't taste good, we would probably all starve to death. I have a good dog and care for her very much, love her as much as a man can love a dog I guess....but if I starving when I still have my dog, she is going to be dinner and I won't be crying about it when I fill my belly....and I'll use salt and seasonings and make her taste good after I apologize to her for having to kill her to eat her.
But if you got on some meds to help alleviate your religious psychosis and got a job you would not have to worry about ever providing enough food for you or your dog.
But if you got on some meds to help alleviate your religious psychosis and got a job you would not have to worry about ever providing enough food for you or your dog.
A meal, I agree, is necessary for sustaining life. However, a meal consisting of animal entrails or secretions is by no means necessary. We can not only survive on a plant-only diet, but we can also live longer and healthier believe it or not. and by the way there would be far more food, enough to end world hunger, if we used the all the food we feed to livestock animals for ourselves. What's your excuse now? I highly doubt you ever eat your dog no matter what the circumstances were, if you really care for it the way you say you do.
You don't eat the entrails and secretions unless that's all that is left after, in your starvation, you have no other choice. If you want to survive on a plant only diet, go ahead and survive as long as you can...which is not very long no matter what you eat. You are dying and plants can't get you out of it. You have to be saved from dying or you will be lost forever.
If things get to the point where I am starving and my dog is with me...in today's world there is strong possibility of reaching that point in the USA...my dog is around 30 pounds of good meat. The entrails and secretions would probably rot before I again became hungry enough to consider eating them.
I don't need an excuse for eating whatever I feel like eating whenever I feel like eating it as long as I'm not killing people or stealing from people to eat...and I think that in times of war there is nothing wrong with killing the enemy and taking their food when you need it. You have enemies coming to kill you and take your food and they will probably eat your dog after you fattened it up for them.
You can't live any longer than God allows you to live. Living under a death sentence is not living, it's dying when you might think you are living because you are walking and talking. Eating nothing but plants and minerals won't give you eternal life. If you don't have eternal life from God, you have eternal death and you might as well eat your dog before it and you both perish.
Animals, including mankind have been killing each other to eat, and in some species just for the hell of it, since the dawn of time. Some people constantly try to empty their sanctimonious hang ups on others. If vegans and vegetarians have a troubled conscience about eating animal flesh that's fine, but they shouldn't try to impose their own personal moralistic views on those people who don't agree with their choice of restricted diet. One of the secrets of life is to eat what you want and avoid being eaten. We humans eat dogs, horses, snails, pigs, cattle, wild game, sheep, lambs, indeed almost anything that lives and breathes. Did you ever taste roast cat?, delicious, just like chicken.
I completely agree. Predators have been hunting other animals since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, and to say it's wrong is to say that nature is wrong. If they abuse the animals then they're dicks and that's not OK, but the only reason western culture finds this inappropriate is because we've become so attached to the species that we see them as more valuable than other species, adopting them as pets and such. Notice, also, that when we purchase a dog we refer to it as "adoption", like a child, but when purchasing say a cow, we "bought" the cow, like merchandise.
Predators have been hunting other animals ever since God made the first animal kill to provide a covering for Adam and Eve's sin....and maybe they were killing and eating each other even before the first animal kill since the harmony of Creation was ruined by man the creature's sin.
Following your logic, let's say my diet consists of human flesh. Are you saying that it is completely fine if I decide to eat you and your family? Who are you to try and impose your own beliefs on my choice of diet right anyway right? The reason why we don't do this anymore is because we have become civilized and grown out of the point where we needed or at least thought that we needed to eat our own species in order to survive. Believe it or not, we don't need to eat human flesh any more than we need to eat animal flesh for survival needs. A plant-based diet has actually shown to increase longevity and of course without the torture and mass genocide of other sentient beings.
That's a cute dog in your icon picture. What flavor of dog do you call it? My dog is a German shepherd. I believe that's a cross between German chocolate cake and shepherd's pie....I really hope I don't have to do a taste test, but I'm sure she would taste good if I was hungry enough to eat her.
I don't know, it's the default picture I was given when I made an account here. I'm confused about why you replied to my argument months later and why you replied with an irrelevant comment.
You're confused because you believe you have the right to exist outside of Hell as a sinner, and you are working hard to convince yourself that your belief is reality.
Okay, another irrelevant comment. I'm not working hard to believe that the religion, much less Christianity is bullshit at all. It's pretty clear that the your entire bible is just as nonsensical as any other fictitious story, like Harry Potter for example. The only one working hard here is you. You try to deceive yourself from your own empirical senses by imagining that your idol is actually speaking to you, it's so funny because people like you can't even realize how completely absurd that is. You are a fool; an absolutely crazy, brain-dead, indoctrinated fool.
why are you making irrelevant comments? I'm not going to read it since you said it's irrelevant.....and it's probably lace with cursing anyways, because you hate God and cuss in an effort to show how you are stronger than God.
