these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter...
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Socrates: Would this habit of eating animals not require that we slaughter animals that we knew as individuals, and in whose eyes we could gaze and see ourselves reflected, only a few hours before our meal? Glaucon: This habit would require that of us. Socrates: Wouldn't this [knowledge of our role in turning a being into a thing] hinder us in achieving happiness? Glaucon: It could so hinder us in our quest for happiness. Socrates: And, if we pursue this way of living, will we not have need to visit the doctor more often? Glaucon: We would have such need. Socrates: If we pursue our habit of eating animals, and if our neighbor follows a similar path, will we not have need to go to war against our neighbor to secure greater pasturage, because ours will not be enough to sustain us, and our neighbor will have a similar need to wage war on us for the same reason? Glaucon: We would be so compelled. Socrates: Would not these facts prevent us from achieving happiness, and therefore the conditions necessary to the building of a just society, if we pursue a desire to eat animals? Glaucon: Yes, they would so prevent us.
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Take not away the life you cannot give; For all things have an equal right to live, Kill noxious creatures where 'tis sin to save; This only just prerogative we have; But nourish life with vegetable food, And shun the sacrilegious taste of blood. Forbear, O mortals, To spoil your bodies with such impious food! There is corn for you, apples, whose weight bears down The bending branches; there are grapes that swell On the vines, and pleasant herbs, and greens Made mellow and soft with cooking; there is milk And clover-honey. Earth is generous With her provision, and her sustenance Is very kind; she offers, for your tables, Food that requires no bloodshed and no slaughter.
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In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to America and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today. Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics.
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He who leads Must then be strong and hopeful as the dawn That rises unafraid and full of joy Above the blackness of the darkest night. He must be kind to every living thing; Kind as the Krishna, Buddha and the Christ, And full of love for all created life. Oh, not in war shall his great prowess lie, Nor shall he find his pleasure in the chase. Too great for slaughter, friend of man and beast, Touching the borders of the Unseen Realms And bringing down to earth their mystic fires To light our troubled pathways, wise and kind And human to the core, so shall he be, The coming leader of the coming time.
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Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?
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'Jules Verne was not the 'mad scientist' some thought him to be. In several of his novels he showed great concern for the dangers of technology/pollution caused by the oil industry/the imminent extinction of whales, and in his 1901 novel 'The Village in the Tree Tops' he exposed the slaughter of elephants for their ivory!'
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Wars are seldom caused by spontaneous hatreds between people, for peoples in general are too ignorant of one another to have grievances and too indifferent to what goes on beyond their borders to plan conquests. They must be urged to the slaughter by poli
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The clever way death cuts us down, but makes it look like just a thinning-out. Generations never fall with one blow - that would be too sad and too obvious. Death prefers to do it piecemeal. The meadow is attacked from several sides at the same time. One of us goes one day; another some time afterwards; you have to stand back and look around you to take in what's missing, to grasp the vast slaughter of your generation...
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Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.
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It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being.
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'I'm strongly against fur and all other forms of animal exploitation. I'm against the slaughter of any living being whether it was seal, cow, dog or some other animal.'
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What is clearer than that man is not furnished for hunting, much less for eating, other animals? In one word, we seem to be admirably admonished by Cicero that man was destined for other things than for seizing and cutting the throats of other animals. If you answer, 'that may be said to be an industry ordered by Nature, by which such weapons are invented,' then, behold, it is by the very same artificial instrument that men make weapons for mutual slaughter. Do they this at the instigation of Nature? Can a use so noxious be called natural? Faculty is given by Nature, but it is our own fault that we make a perverse use of it.
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To argue that we humans are capable of complex multifarious thought and feeling, whereas the sheep's perception is probably limited by lowly sheepish perceptions, is no more to the point than if I were to slaughter and eat you on the grounds that I am a sophisticated personality able to enjoy Mozart, formal logic and cannibalism, whereas your imaginative world seems confined to True Romances and tinned spaghetti.
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There's that word again (harvest)! We persist in using the euphemism wherever the slaughtering of attractive animals is being talked about. Dammit, we kill them. We slaughter them, just like we slaughter cattle. We catch them in steel traps or blow them down with shotguns. We rip off their hides and wear their furs or hang their heads on den walls. We KILL THEM, we don't harvest them!! Someday we'll all grow up and face that reality.
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'I refer to those who describe murders/riots/panics and other catastrophes perpetrated by humans, and who say to be 'acting like animals.' I refer specifically to comments regarding a recent ship hijacking where it was said that the terrorists acted like 'cowardly animals.' These terrorists and guerrilla acts are NOT animal in nature - they are HUMAN in nature. As one who sees the balance, beauty and meaning of the world in which nonhuman animals must face life-or-death situations everyday just to survive and perpetuate their species, I grossly resent and take offense at these statements! When was the last time we saw a gorilla hijack a plane? A pod of whales hijack an ocean liner? A group of nonhuman animals walk down the street and terrorize the neighborhood??? Human animals are the terrorists and guerrillas when they go into the nonhuman animals' homes to slaughter them for fur coats, hunting trophies, plumage and all the other atrocious reasons society gives for the gross lack of respect for life, and murder of our fellow creatures inhabiting this world. If and when man comes off his ego trip, maybe he'll see just how insignificant he is to the total scheme of beings on this planet in which ALL creatures share. Then, the saying will be turned around to 'They behaved like people.'' (Letter to Abigail Van Buren in the York Daily Record)
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Our generation, like the one before us, must choose. Without the threat of the Cold War, without the pain of economic ruin, without the fresh memory of World War II's slaughter, it is tempting to pursue our private agendas -- to simply sit back and let history unfold. We must resist the temptation.
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The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind, but kindness and benevolence should be extended to the creatures of every species, and these will flow from the breast of a true man, in streams that issue from the living fountain. Man makes use of flesh not out of want and necessity, seeing that he has the liberty to make his choice of herbs and fruits, the plenty of which is inexhaustible; but out of luxury, and being cloyed with necessaries, he seeks after impure and inconvenient diet, purchased by the slaughter of living beasts; by showing himself more cruel than the most savage of wild beasts ... were it only to learn benevolence to human kind, we should be merciful to other creatures.
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Meat cannot be obtained without injury to animals, and the slaughter of animals obstructs the way to Heaven; let him therefore shun the use of meat. … He who injures harmless beings from a wish to give himself pleasure, never finds happiness, neither living nor dead. He who does not seek to cause the sufferings of bonds and death to living creatures, but desires the good of all, obtains endless bliss. He who does not injure any creature, obtains without an effort what he thinks of, what he undertakes, and what he fixes his mind on. He who does not eat meat becomes dear to men, and will not be tormented by diseases. He who permits the slaughter of an animal, he who kills it, he who cuts it up, he who buys or sells meat, he who cooks it, he who serves it up, and he who eats it, are all slayers. There is no greater sinner than that man who seeks to increase the bulk of his own flesh by the flesh of other beings. … Thus having well considered the disgusting origin of meat and the cruelty of fettering and slaying of corporeal beings, let him entirely abstain from eating flesh.
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Most of us are able to obtain an abundance of nonflesh foods that can keep us robustly healthy our whole lives. With such a variety of nonanimal foods available, who would choose to support the slaughter mills and foster the misery involved in factory farming by continuing to eat flesh? . . . It is sad to see how many American Buddhists are managing to find a self-satisfying accommodation to eating meat . . . [In the first Bodhisattva vow of Mahayana Buddhism] we commit our compassion to all beings, not just humans. Eschewing meat is one way to express that commitment to the welfare of other creatures.
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As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
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Colonial system, public debts, heavy taxes, protection, commercial wars, etc., these offshoots of the period of manufacture swell to gigantic proportions during the period of infancy of large-scale industry. The birth of the latter is celebrated by a vast, Hero-like slaughter of the innocents.
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What was the necessity for the entire procedure of ritual slaughter? For the sake of self-discipline. It is far more appropriate for man not to eat meat; only if he has a strong desire for meat does the Torah permit it, and even this only after the trouble and inconvenience necessary to satisfy his desire. Perhaps because of the bother and annoyance of the whole procedure, he will be restrained from such a strong and uncontrollable desire for meat.
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'Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them. Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint.
Peace is his highest value. If the peace has been shattered, how can he be content?
His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn't wish them personal harm. Nor does he rejoice in victory. How could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?
He enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if he were attending a funeral.'
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You are permitted to use the animals and employ them for work, have dominion over them in order to utilize their services for your subsistence, but must not hold their life cheap nor slaughter them for food. Your natural diet is vegetarian.
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Cows when not bred for passivity so that they will go meekly to slaughter.. revert to their acute intelligence, and can live easily in the wild.
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The very people who shudder over the cruelty of the hunter are apt to forget that slaughter, in the grimmest sense of the word, is a process they entrust daily to the butcher; and that unlike the game of the forests, even the dumbest creatures of the slaughterhouse know what is in store for them.
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If you don't think animal protection is a battle, consider the weapons we're up against: harpoon; leg-hold trap; cockfighting spur; puntilla (knife used in the slaughter of livestock in certain countries); ferao (used in Brazil to poke out the eyes of cattle before leading them to slaughter); hakapik (used to club baby seals)... among others!'
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There is no doubt, that man is not built to be a carnivorous animal. … What a sweet, pleasing and innocent sight is the spectacle of a table served that way and what a difference to a make up of fuming animal meat, slaughtered and dead! Man in no way has the constitution of a carnivorous being. Hunt and voracity are unnatural to him. Man has neither the sharp pointed teeth or claws to slaughter his prey. On the contrary his hands are made to pick fruits, berries and vegetables and teeth appropriate to chew them
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Is there any difference between Hitler's camp and our slaughter-houses?
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