Well, to clarify there is the slaughter and there is the cruelty. The morality of the issue comes into question with intention. You cannot sin, if I understand Father Serpa’s posts correctly, unless there is intention to take such action.
One of my family cats from my youth got killed and eaten by a neighbor, or so I am told. Well, I can imagine in circumstances where this person is not fully culpable for his actions, namely destroying my property, slaughtering an animal in possibly a painful fashion, and not protecting his own health due to killing a random creature which may or may not be clean. The neighbor may be hungry, does not know any better, and slayed the cat quickly. It is a tragic lost for us but if this is the case, he may have civil responsibilities, but some of the moral issues may not apply.
Taking the creature’s life is a moral action if there is intent. Assuming intent, the issue of whether it is immoral or not depends on what kind of intent is it and what actions were taken to carry out the intent.
Contrasting examples. When we mow our lawns with the intend of stewarding the property and keeping it well kept. There is not sin. One might say that the grass feels no pain so there is no sin anywhere. Well that is not entirely true. If one was told by their parents they cannot mow the lawn for just reasons and they do so anyways. They have sin in disrespect. If they believed that the lawn has feelings and can get hurt and hope to deliberate hurt the lawn. They have sin by willingness to harm even though the lawn has no sense of pain.
So the examples of how people would hunt the wild boar or the jungle boa speaks about the intention of providing food and no intention of causing pain and suffering to the animals. They are not committing an immoral act because of the fact that the act itself is not disordered as far as I know and their intentions are not disordered. What they could be culpable for is if they had means to else the pain of the creatures even more so within reason but choose not to for the sake of profit or effort. Then they would have culpability for their actions in terms of not doing more as stewards. Now in these cases, I cannot speak about that, but if they took proper means and have no cruel intentions, these slaughtering is perfectly acceptable due to the lack of disordered acts.
These examples can be a bit foreign but these are what I’m familiar with. So I cannot agree that all slaughtering of animals is cruel. In the US maybe, I do not know. I cannot obstruct learning or being exposed to knowing as an effect to avoid culpability. Yet, honestly I just do not know even if I have an idea or have some limited knowledge.
That sentence that I highlighted in blue, and bolded, is really good and to the heart of the matter. In the USA that is exactly what people do. We are divorced from our food manufacture, divorced from the treatment of food animals, to the extent that they are mistreated, abused, and spend their lives suffering, and when they, or their by-products come to the table, we know nothing of how they were treated in life, and we wash our hands of any involvement in their industrialized abuse.
I have spent much time on “meat” and “vegetarian” threads here at CAF. I chose the dog meat video for this thread because it is a different perspective that many Americans will have trouble with, as this species of animal is highly revered here as “man’s best friend.”
But does the species matter? Does the culture matter? Should we treat animals in a universal way? If you saw the video it is very brutal and cruel. Should we all take pause and learn perhaps how animals are treated in our own back yard??? How ***is ***that “meat” treated in life? Is it OK to ***purposefully obstruct learning or being exposed to knowing as an effect to avoid culpability *** so that we can eat our meat with a clear conscience?
I have found that people will argue about these issues involving the treatment of “food” animals, without the slightest knowledge, or desire to learn more about what is really going on in the food industry, and who will refuse to learn more, but will staunchly defend their right to eat whatever they want to eat. Don’t we all owe it to God, to His animals to stay informed and to act according to the situation at hand??? We are the stewards, the care takers of the Earth, of the animals. I think some of us blindly eat them, and figure that it is someone else’s job to be the stewards, prevent abuse and cruelty…
And this sentence of yours:
What they could be culpable for is if they had means to else the pain of the creatures even more so within reason but choose not to for the sake of profit or effort. This is kind of what factory farming is all about. Treating animals as commodities with total disregard for their comfort and lack thereof, with total disregard for their pain and suffering, because alleviating the pain and suffering or providing better conditions for the animal would minimize profits.
