Bullfighting: Justify Cruelty with Tradition

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Nabooru said:
In India, girls can be married when they’re very young, say five or six, but the marriage isn’t supposed to be consummated until she’s around thirteen or so. However, since he paid a dowry her husband can technically show up at her home at any time and insist on having her right then and there.

In Islamic societies run according to sharia law, a marriage can be consummated when a girl is nine.

And I wasn’t trying to make an argument. I was just pointing out that there is a cultural tradition of rape in some places. Although I must say, the fact that you’re becoming increasingly hostile is not helping your side.
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How were my questions hostile? They were not intended to be. I was seeking information from you about the culture(s) you were referring to regarding child marriage and rape. In addition, “my side” is in opposition to bullfighting. Any form of animal cruelty is against Torah Law, even slaughtering animals with a knife that is not sharp or has nicks since it causes too much suffering, and which renders them non-kosher for consumption. Hunting animals for sport is also forbidden by the Law. Are you opposed to hunting for sport? My caveat was that in the case of bullfighting there are also cultural considerations, not necessarily excuses, that I believe should at least be heard.
 
Nabooru said:
I doubt many nine-year-old girls have voluntary sexual intercourse. At least during the commission of the act, they’d react with pain and demand it would stop, with no relief in these cases.
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While your statement is factually true, it does not change the act into one of violent rape. To be clear, I think it is **very wrong **but not the same crime as rape.

This is starting to go off-topic. If you want to discuss the cultural definitions of rape, I suggest a new thread.
 
Corki said:
While your statement is factually true, it does not change the act into one of violent rape.
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Yes, it does - rape is inherently violent. The fact that a woman isn’t being beaten or struggling (out of fear for repercussions) doesn’t mean the act isn’t violent.
 
meltzerboy said:
How were my questions hostile? They were not intended to be. I was seeking information from you about the culture(s) you were referring to regarding child marriage and rape. In addition, “my side” is in opposition to bullfighting. Any form of animal cruelty is against Torah Law, even slaughtering animals with a knife that is not sharp or has nicks since it causes too much suffering, and which renders them non-kosher for consumption. Hunting animals for sport is also forbidden by the Law. Are you opposed to hunting for sport? My caveat was that in the case of bullfighting there are also cultural considerations, not necessarily excuses, that I believe should at least be heard.
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I wasn’t referring to you. For the record, I also oppose hunting merely for sport.
 
Guys, can you just drop the strawmen? It’s not helping in this discussion!
 
Corki said:
While your statement is factually true, it does not change the act into one of violent rape. To be clear, I think it is **very wrong **but not the same crime as rape.

This is starting to go off-topic. If you want to discuss the cultural definitions of rape, I suggest a new thread.
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Arranged child marriage is, in fact, rape. These little girls have no say in the matter. They are beaten and abused until they are compliant. I remember watching Christiane Amanpour interviewing a 10-year-old Afghan girl in front of the girl’s husband, who had to be in his late thirties or early forties. She asked this child if her husband “tries to make babies with her”. The little girl glanced sideways at her husband with an uneasy look on her face . Then she silently nodded her head. She did NOT look happy. Girls in these Muslim backwaters are coerced, attacked, beaten, humiliated and threatened by her husband and his family because, after all, they own her. If she runs away, they’ll find her and set her on fire. Another tradition, like bullfighting, that should be flushed down the toilet.
 
Nabooru said:
A boxer, wrestler, or football player willfully engages in the sport, despite the risk of which he is well aware.

Animals cannot give their consent. And it is wrong, under any circumstances, to kill for sport. Period. Killing for food or self-defense is one thing. To delight in the bloodshed of any being, human or animal, indicates a deep depravity on the part of the participant. In fact, animal torture and abuse is one of the key features of a serial killer (zoosadism).

Don’t hide behind the tradition argument. Gladiatorial fighting was a great roman tradition, and in its case many gladiators knew what they were doing, and at least had a chance of survival and glory. In fact gladiatorial combat existed into the Christian Era on this one excuse. To say that a prolonged, agonizing death of an animal whose last hours are spent being deliberately angered and maddened is acceptable due to “tradition” is one of the sort cases of cultural relativism one can proffer.
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This is exactly what I wanted to say. As to the tradition argument, do we also say that the Phoenicians were justified in the practice of child sacrifice on the basis of tradition and cultural differences? God didn’t seem to think so.
 
I don’t think Catholics as a whole have a unified stance on such a geographically localized sport. I wish I had a better answer for you but I really feel like its much simpler than everyone is making it. Its a personal preference and probably a very culturally bias one at that. I’m willing to bet any vegetarian or animal rights supporting Catholic will have a different view from Catholics who eat meat. I promise i’m not being sarcastic I’m just trying to say its a subject some people are passionately for against or indifferent to and I don’t think it has much to do with religion…but I could be wrong.

I do want to leave you with this thought though and please don’t tear it apart just think about it because it’s something I never though of until today when reading this thread.

I’m 30 years old now but when I was a child and my grandfather was still alive he used to read me the same bed time story over and over, he loved it and knew it by heart. He would actually recite it and act it out and eventually I could too. The story was “Ferdinand the Bull” and my Grandfather was bullfighter in Mexico.

Think about the poetry of that, a retired bullfighter reading a children’s story about a bull who refused to fight and would rather smell the roses. He had four daughters, but he treated my cousin and I, his grandsons, like the sons he never had and one of the first things he shared with us was that story. A man who risked his life every time he stepped in the ring preached peace.

I included a link below so you can check it out.

silvertongue7.tripod.com/ferdinand.html

Maybe it’s the artist in me but I find a stoic beauty in that memory now that I never noticed previously.
 
pebble21 said:
I don’t think Catholics as a whole have a unified stance on such a geographically localized sport. I wish I had a better answer for you but I really feel like its much simpler than everyone is making it. Its a personal preference and probably a very culturally bias one at that. I’m willing to bet any vegetarian or animal rights supporting Catholic will have a different view from Catholics who eat meat. I promise i’m not being sarcastic I’m just trying to say its a subject some people are passionately for against or indifferent to and I don’t think it has much to do with religion…but I could be wrong.

I do want to leave you with this thought though and please don’t tear it apart just think about it because it’s something I never though of until today when reading this thread.

I’m 30 years old now but when I was a child and my grandfather was still alive he used to read me the same bed time story over and over, he loved it and knew it by heart. He would actually recite it and act it out and eventually I could too. The story was “Ferdinand the Bull” and my Grandfather was bullfighter in Mexico.

Think about the poetry of that, a retired bullfighter reading a children’s story about a bull who refused to fight and would rather smell the roses. He had four daughters, but he treated my cousin and I, his grandsons, like the sons he never had and one of the first things he shared with us was that story. A man who risked his life every time he stepped in the ring preached peace.

I included a link below so you can check it out.

silvertongue7.tripod.com/ferdinand.html

Maybe it’s the artist in me but I find a stoic beauty in that memory now that I never noticed previously.
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Thanks for your heartfelt response, and for the link to the story. From my first reading, the moral of the story seems to be about nonviolence and its power to affect change – definitely an anti-bullfighting story. So I find it very surprising that your grandfather, a former bullfighter, would tell you this as a regular bedtime story. I’m not sure what to make of that.
 
pebble21,

When your grandfather told you the story, was he still a bullfighter? Do you know if he ever rejected bullfighting at some point in his life?
 
I know. It kind of stopped me in my tracks today too! I think all we can really take away from it is that not everything is so cut and dry.

He taught us many things but the fact that he chose that as one of his first lessons kind of blows me away. Maybe it says something about him or maybe it says something about the sport…I have no idea. He never bragged about his bullfighting days but he never really denounced them either. When he did speak about it he had a certain reverence for it and a tone that let us know it wasn’t to be glorified or pursued. I wish he was still around to ask how he felt about it before, during and after. I do know that he had a couple close calls and he eventually walked away from the ring because his mother couldn’t take the stress of watching him anymore.

I know it was a different tangent but I just thought the perspective might be welcomed in your convo.
 
spencelo said:
Thanks for your heartfelt response, and for the link to the story. From my first reading, the moral of the story seems to be about nonviolence and its power to affect change – definitely an anti-bullfighting story. So I find it very surprising that your grandfather, a former bullfighter, would tell you this as a regular bedtime story. I’m not sure what to make of that.
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Wouldn’t this be similar to a soldier who knows the horrors of war better than anyone else and therefore hopes and prays for peace more than anyone else?
 
meltzerboy said:
Wouldn’t this be similar to a soldier who knows the horrors of war better than anyone else and therefore hopes and prays for peace more than anyone else?
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Something like that. I guess peddle21’s recount would make more sense to me if his grandfather had renounced bullfighting, realizing that it was wrong. Perhaps he did.
 
No. He hadn’t fought for quite some time. He was a bullfighter in Mexico in his Twenties. He and my grandmother moved to California in the 50’s, his mid thirties. In the 60’s they moved and started a business in San Antonio Texas, where I was born, and he would have been about 61 when he started reading us that story.
 
I found some interesting stuff here. It is the full text of the book called -

The Church and Kindness to Animals

Just search for “bull” in the above. There are a lot of references to bull fights. It’s also available on google books.
 
"Respect for the integrity of creation

2415 The seventh commandment enjoins respect for the integrity of creation. Animals, like plants and inanimate beings, are by nature destined for the common good of past, present, and future humanity.195 Use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives. Man’s dominion over inanimate and other living beings granted by the Creator is not absolute; it is limited by concern for the quality of life of his neighbor, including generations to come; it requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation.196

2416 Animals are God’s creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory.197 Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals.

2417 God entrusted animals to the stewardship of those whom he created in his own image.198 Hence it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing. They may be domesticated to help man in his work and leisure. Medical and scientific experimentation on animals is a morally acceptable practice if it remains within reasonable limits and contributes to caring for or saving human lives.

2418** It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly**. It is likewise unworthy to spend money on them that should as a priority go to the relief of human misery. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons."
So yes, I do have a problem with bull fighting if there is needless suffering caused to the bull. I’m not aware of any kind of bull fight which doesn’t cause such needless suffering to bulls (if there are such fights, please let me know). Therefore, I am opposed to bull fighting.
 
"It’s not unusual for horses used in bullfights to be so badly gored by the bulls that they have to be killed, but only after they have been dragged from the ring and the view of the spectators.

Spanish bullfights also employ “picadors”, men on horseback armed with spears.

These horses are often gored even though they are protected by what is termed a “peto”, or a protective cape. These petos often do little more than hide the horses wounds.

Scene from a Portuguese bullfight.
The horses are blind-folded to prevent them from becoming terror stricken at the charge of the bull. It is commonly believed that their ears are stuffed with cottonwool to prevent them from panicking and their vocal cords cut to stop them screaming with fear at the bull’s attack.

As little as 12 days ago in Madrid another horse was gored by a bull and had to be killed.

This is the fate of these beautiful animals. To be used to entertain a crowd that lusts for blood and claims that bullfighting is a tradition and “cultural heritage”."

And the “fun” was had by all!!!
 
I thought you guys were big on traditional stuff? 🤷

But, yeah, this is wrong. Animal cruelty. I don’t have much to add, really.
 
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