Equating Animals with Humans

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Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:58 am Agree: 1   Disagree: 1

I have a few comments:

Matthew Scully, Christian conservative and former chief White House speechwriter holds a very different view from Mr. Colson and has some wonderful articles about what scripture says about our treatment of animals, at his website: http://www.matthewscully.com

Here's an excerpt about factory farms:

"Corporate farmers hardly speak anymore of "raising" animals, with the modicum of personal care that word implies. Animals are "grown" now, like so many crops. Barns somewhere along the way became "intensive confinement facilities" and the inhabitants mere "production units."

"The result is a world in which billions of birds, cows, pigs, and other creatures are locked away, enduring miseries they do not deserve, for our convenience and pleasure. We belittle the activists with their radical agenda, scarcely noticing the radical cruelty they seek to redress."

"Here's a link to the full article:
http://www.matthewscully.com/fear_factories.htm

Additionally, I don't know of any serious philosopher who holds the view Colson says. Serious philosophers argue that humans and other animals are _morally equal_ in the same way that Alzheimers' patients and Nobel Prize winners are morally equal. But there is a big difference between saying that Alzheimers' patients are morally equal to Nobel Prize winners, and that they are equal in every other way.

When we say "morally" equal, we do not mean anything like equal intelligence, talent, beauty, skill, strength, etc. We mean only "equal morally"! An Alzheimer's patient and a genius are both morally equal.

And a question to ask Colson: If animals don't have souls as Mr. Colson claims, then that seems a good reason not to make their life here on earth into a living hell. If they don't have an afterlife, then we shouldn't make the only life they DO have miserable.

Speciesism and Rights for Animals

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Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:30 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 1

Muggleborn said:
"...please PLEASE be careful about what you read that’s positively reviewed by the NY Times. "

I didn't say it (Matthew Scully's book Dominion) was positively "reviewed" by the NYT. I said it was on the NYT best-seller list. That means that many people liked the book and bought it. The best-seller list reflects what is being purchased by everyone, not what the newspaper has to say about it.

Speciesism and Rights for Animals

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Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:14 am Agree: 1   Disagree: 0

JC said: >> If we stopped eating animals, we would cease to exist <<

This is a ludicrous statement! There are millions --if not billions-- of healthy happy people all over the planet who have been vegetarians and vegans for centuries...the Indian culture for example.

And in fact, the American The American Dietetic Association (and other medical associations) heartily endorses a vegan/vegetarian diet. At their website they say:
(http://tinyurl.com/djodu )

"Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, potassium, folate, and antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer."

I don't know where you're getting your false (and very strange) information, but you are beginning to look very uninformed.

Speciesism and Rights for Animals

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Wed Nov 14, 2007 10:53 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

A benevolent and omnipotent God would never allow what is being done to animals now on factory-farms. How about this new product? Would God approve of this?

RECTITE

"PoultryPress Vol 5, No 3, Summer/Fall 1995 reported on a proposed product
called RECTITE. Pacer Technology seeks government approval of this product
for use in slaughter plants to glue shut the rectal cavities of turkeys and
chickens to prevent the birds from reflexively excreting fecal material at
the time of death (Food Chemical News April 24, 1995, p. 12). UPC's Freedom
of Information Act request to the USDA Food Safety & Inspection Service
yielded the following information dated Feb. 8, 1996, concerning "an
adhesive variant of super glue or cyanoacrylate adhesive (CA) to seal the
vents of poultry during the slaughter process to prevent salmonella
contamination."

There is something grossly wrong with a society that invents Rectite!
Probably the same people who want to breed chickens without feathers, so they can
eliminate the costly process of defeathering or without eyes so that they don't peck each others eyes out. Christians need to let the factory farmers know that they disapprove of all these "innovative" ways to raise their profit-margins.

Speciesism and Rights for Animals

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Wed Nov 14, 2007 10:47 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 1

Muggle born said:
"...we are not without a soul. The same cannot be said for lower order creatures."

How exactly do you measure if a being has a soul?? I don't think we should torture or slaughter beings using an unprovable criterion like a soul. Perhaps, they do have souls, you don't know.

But even if you believe-- without evidence-- that animals don't have souls then that's an even better reason NOT to torture them or cut their lives short. If this is the only life they have...and they have no "everlasting life" to look forward to, you should want them to have the best life possible in this world and that doesn't include raising them on factory-farms or cutting their lives short.

Here's a link to a good article by Matthew Scully about the kind of lives animals live on factory farms: http://www.matthewscully.com/sunless_hell.htm

Speciesism and Rights for Animals

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Wed Nov 14, 2007 10:37 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

JC said:
"First of all, human beings are made carniverous, which means we eat meat. "

Dan Piraro, the Bizarro cartoonist sorts it all out for us in a very entertaining way: See his short essay and then view his short funny video. Enjoy!

http://www.bizarro.com/vegan/vegan_carnivores.htm

http://www.bizarro.com/videos/mov/VeganVideoWeb.mov

Speciesism and Rights for Animals

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Tue Nov 13, 2007 6:39 pm Agree: 3   Disagree: 1

Chuck Colson said:
"...we think that people are human and, thus, different than animals."

This is sheer nonsense. Yes, people are human. But humans _are_ also animals, therefore they cannot be "different" for that reason. Colson may have some other argument about why humans are different from other animals, but it is not simply because they are human.

If you want to read about animal issues from a Christian Conservative who has his head on straight, try Matthew Scully who served until 2004 as special assistant to president George W. Bush and deputy director of presidential speechwriting. His book "Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy" was a NY Times best-seller. You can find some of his articles, reviews of Dominion, and a bio here:

http://www.matthewscully.com/index.htm