[Grv]

I told myself to take a break from anything trivial until I cleared some tasks I have ahead, but noooooo... I had to go to emuforums and click this thread. And several others.

I could't care less how farm animals are treated I just want to see an intense discussion about weather animals have feelings here

There is no discussion about that, because A) "weather animals" do not exist, and B) quite an amount of animal species can and have displayed emotions such as anger or sadness. The flash movie concerns a pig; I find it odd you expect discussion hereof when the answer is so blatantly established each and every day.

I wonder when they would start feeling sorry for plants as well

..

FYI, as common sense tells me it, people who disregard animal life have an exponentially larger potency to have similar disregard for (read: able to mistreat) human life than those who do not.

The analogy you present is nonsensical even on the most basic level, as plants in general lack any functional brain, whereas mammals most definately do not. People feel sorry for animals because a lot of animals feel pain and display emotions; we can relate to them. The majority of people who take dogs (aside from the fact that a lot aren't suited to take them) treat them as if they were a family-member, or even a child. Pigs are fully able to fill the same position in each and every aspect, even though it is not commonly practiced. Plants are taken in for decoration or atmosphere.

I think it's horrible to read about and see pictures of terribly mistreated animals, including farm animals. Mock me for it, and no words are needed to further reveal an unsympathetic prick.




EDIT:
Before I get some smartass reply, saying: "klatch, you ****ing hypocrite! You don't care about tragedies involving human beings, but you DO care about animals?"

1. I can't explain my feelings any more than through educated guesses.

2. Most mistreated animals are helpless because they either can't or learned not to defend themselves against their ill-treaters. Furthermore, they cannot comprehend and relate the reason to their mistreatment, this while many being able to logically deduce consequences of iterated actions to a certain extent; many animals can learn and be trained. To me, there is nothing worse than seeing such a trusting (and dependent) animal being mistreated. If there would be "hell", I hope it keeps vacancies for torturers of practitioners of animal-cruelty. I don't think "hell" would want to frivolously dissipate my overabandunce of rage. IMHO, animal-cruelty is the pinnacle of injustice. One of the few things I can be very passionate about.

3. Animal-cruelty is condoned much too often, or given extremely subtle penalties. That's probably the biggest reason why it ticks me off more than human-cruelty: I hunger for the amount of justice this "branch" lacks.

To spell it in plain english. We are the top of the food chain, so we eat whatever we want. OK. I don't feel sorry for these animals. They are raised for food.

I think the emphasis here (and in the flash movie) lies on the cruelty that is so common in the business. You won't find me complaining (at least, not yet) if the animal had a good life and was killed painlessly.

(if your dog is your best friend, you don't have a life IMO )

It's a figure of speech, originally applying to racial rather than individual friendships. BTW, my remaining dog is like a daughter to me.

 

[Grv]

so you're saying that living things only deserve consideration if you know how that animal lived (like keeping a dog as a pet or looking at a photo of a slaugther house) and not if they are just sold packaged and ready to cook?

That's one brilliant deduction, because it goes way over my head.

What I said is that I find it horrible when I see or read about cruel living-conditions of animals; if I'm ignorant on such matters, I can't be expected to consider every specific cow I know nothing about, now can I? I also said that I feel there isn't enough penalty in many countries for such cruelty, if any at all, and that it deserves to be changed. Your post is a perfect example of things I did not say, and in a manner I will avoid at all times.

Razor Blade had a point: A lot of farm animals are raised to serve us for our needs in food. I have never had any problems with that, as long as these animals do not suffer. Here in the Netherlands, there is at least quite some effort being put in offering alternatives to the boxed types of farm animal treatment. It is also required here nowadays to have the facilities/means to kill these animals painlessly, and to do away with methods that often end up completely brutal, like slitting throats. Such things definitly put my mind to ease, whether I buy meat or not.

And in a less serious tone: Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian.

Yes, which brings an interesting question to mind: Was he a vegetarian out of sympathy for animals, or was he convinced eating meat was bad for his metabolism?

The animals feel no pain really. Cows I know for sure. They are "slaughtered" with some huge number of volts of electricity and are dead within less than a second. One of my friends is in the cows business

You'd be right if this was practiced everywhere. But it's not.

What I find worse are the living conditions. Ever since the industralization started, each affecting community tried to do so in agriculture as well, where space with live cattle was being maximized in efficiency by boxing the poor things up in spaces just big enough so they could stand up, lay down, eat and drink. There are still farm animals being treated this way all over the world.

The normal way for slaughtering meat is to deliver a huge shock to the animal to stun it, then you kill it. When it has it's throat slit it is usually being made for the Jewish and Muslim community in a specialist slaughterhouse that deals in Kosher/Halal goods as the Torah and Koran deem that the animal must be killed in one move then be drained of blood. Recently, animal rights activists have released quite grizley footage of supposedly "torturous" Kosher slaughterhouses.

And it is. No matter how the Quran and Torah say the animal must be killed, it reportedly still goes wrong very often. Stupid mistakes in slitting the throat often create unnecessary and gruesome suffering.

Considerations like these weigh heavily in my evaluation of traditions and superstitions.

They're not mutually exclusive worries

A much nicer reply than I would have given. I'd best leave it at that..