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| Cow being restrained for stunning |
Chemical (carbon dioxide)...The animal is asphyxiated by the use of carbon dioxide gas before being bled.The reader probably saw my April 14 log, "No country for old men," which quoted a passage about animal slaughter from Jonathan Safran Foer's 2009 argument, Eating Animals. The reader may even have read Foer's book. His tolerance for the inhumane treatment of other animals seems nevertheless much greater than mine2. Sensitivity to animal suffering is a minority position in this country.
Mechanical (captive bolt)...A captive bolt stunner is applied to the livestock so as to produce immediate unconsciousness in the animals before they are bled.
Mechanical (gunshot)...The gun is used to render the animal immediately unconscious (and presumably dead) before being bled.
Electrical (stunning or slaughtering with electric current)...The current applied is sufficient to ensure surgical anesthesia throughout the "bleeding" of the animal.
Each of these methods is outlined in detail, and the regulations require that inspectors identify operations which cause undue "excitement and discomfort" of animals.
[and, from the linked-to entry on slaughterhouses] Investigations by animal welfare and animal rights groups have indicated that a proportion of these animals are being skinned or gutted while apparently still alive and conscious [emphasis mine]. There has also been criticism of the methods of transport of the animals, who are driven for hundreds of miles to slaughterhouses in conditions that often result in crush injuries and death en route. Slaughtering animals is opposed by animal rights groups on ethical grounds.
The vast majority of Americans eat their "meat" without much thought, out of habit and from tradition. If they think about what they are eating, some such rationalization occurs to them as, If my parents and their parents ate pig, cow, and chicken, how can it be wrong? And if they're Christians, they may, in worshiping their carnivorous God, even eat and drink the flesh and blood of a man.
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- The Herald-Sun ran my letter yesterday, under the title, neither reviewed nor approved by me, "Is there a moral way to eat meat?"
- Either that, or he's perhaps two or three times as sensitive as I am, which would explain his apparent tendency to want to minimize what happens in the factory farming and slaughtering of animals (that is, so that he can protect his own feelings through denial).
Why do you assume that your unnamed reader is insensitive to animal suffering or less sensitive than you? Judging by the comments in the preceding blog entry, you have no basis whatsoever for this assumption.
ReplyDeleteFurther, how do you know that Christians regard their God as carnivorous. I'm not aware of any biblical reference to God eating or even requiring food. I thought the Cristian God was unknowable, but you apparently know him intimately.
Ken, I considered the possibility that the reader might actually be two or three times as sensitive as I am, which would explain his apparent tendency to want to minimize what happens in the factory farming and slaughtering of animals (that is, so that he could protect his own feelings through denial). I rejected that possibility, possibly wrongly.
ReplyDeleteSince God doesn't exist, I can correctly and logically be said to be as intimate with him as anyone. But the God depicted in the Bible certainly does seem to be (or have been) carnivorous. Otherwise, why all the animal sacrifices?
I suppose God's demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac shows us that God is not only a carnivore but a cannibal.
ReplyDeleteNo, animal sacrifice was proof that the worship of God was genuine. In the primitive world, nothing was more valuable than livestock, so offering it up was an enormous "sacrifice." Today, a devout Jew would have to push his BMW off a cliff to make an equivalent gesture.
Yes, a cannibal too, alas.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that any sacrifice would prove authenticity; man is a wily, deceptive creature, but forgetful that God can see behind his feints to the intent behind them. Hence, Pascal's wager is a crock.
And, since God can just see whether worship is authentic or not, no sacrifice at all is necessary.
He just liked fried animal, whether man or beast.