Dutch government plans to regulate ritual slaughter (no more Kosher meat)

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YKohen said:
I didn’t think you were claiming that we require- or even allow, animal cruelty.

But I would assume that Catholic teachings somewhere also prohibit it. No?
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To the point that suffering should not be caused to them without just reason yes. That it is intrinsically evil to cause them suffering no.
 
Inego_de_Loyola said:
What moral law is violated by animal cruelty? It’s not in the commandments, It’s not in the teachings of Christ, This is what the Church has to say: I was using a harsh example rhetorically but I would count religious obligation as a reason.
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I have little doubt that we shall agree on this issue. I do not think that because there is no moral law against animal cruelty it gives humans a licence to be cruel to animals. I fail to see how your quote from the Catechism supports your opinion. It says it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. Do humans need to be cruel to animals? I don’t object to animals being killed for food. I eat meat. It would by contradictory for me to see the killing of animals for food cruel and to eat such animals. My point is that we should do it by a means that is quick and that minimises the animal’s suffering. I do not know which methods cause the least suffering. If the ritual methods used by Jews and Muslims is more cruel then I would support its ban. If it is less cruel than the method used in abattoirs I would prefer it to be the method used to kill all animals for food.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
Let me be clear on this issue. I am not a vegetarian. I am not a vegan. I eat meat. I know that in order for me to eat meat an animal has to die. I do not want to kill any animal I eat myself so I am happy for others to do it, e.g. butchers. The point I am making is that when we kill an animal in order to eat it we should do it as quickly and with as little suffering to the animal as possible. I did say in an earlier post that I cannot take either side in this argument. I don’t know if the methods used to kill animals for those animals to be halal or kosher is quicker and with less suffering than is used in my local abattoir. If it kills animals quicker and with less suffering then I’d be in favour of all animals being killed in this way. If it is a method that causes far more suffering for the animal than I would favour it being stopped.
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I’m also not a vegetarian. I have personally witnessed animals being slaughtered according to Jewish law. Beforehand, I thought that it would be really sick to watch, but I saw that it was over extremely rapidly. I didn’t see any suffering.

The knife must be minimally 1.5 or 2 times as long as the animal’s neck is wide, depending on the species of animal and the number of strokes needed to slaughter the animal, but not so long that the weight of the knife exceeds the weight of the animal’s head. If the knife is too large, it is assumed to cause pressing. The knife must not have a point. It is feared a point may slip into the wound during slaughter and cause piercing. The blade may also not be serrated, as serrations cause tearing.

The blade may not have imperfections in it. All blades are assumed by Jewish law to be imperfect, so the knife must be checked before each session. The shochet must run his fingernail up and down both sides of the blade and on the cutting edge to determine if he can feel any imperfections. He then uses a number of increasingly fine abrasive stones to sharpen and polish the blade until it is perfectly sharp and smooth. After the slaughter, the shochet must check the knife again in the same way to be certain the first inspection was properly done, and to ensure the blade was not damaged during shechita. If the blade is found to be damaged, the meat may not be eaten by Jews. If the blade falls or is lost before the second check is done, the first inspection is relied on and the meat is permitted.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita#The_knife
 
Inego_de_Loyola said:
Unless the federal government IS Germany (Which in a socialist state that argument could be made) my post was accurate. If I were to change it I would have it read:
Germans have been fighting all summer over whether circumcision is child abuse.

Happy now?😉
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Most Germans probably don’t care one way or another so 'Some Germans . . . ’ would have been more accurate. Suggesting that Germany is a ‘socialist state’ is American Conservativespeak and a language we don’t share.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
I have little doubt that we shall agree on this issue. I do not think that because there is no moral law against animal cruelty it gives humans a licence to be cruel to animals. I fail to see how your quote from the Catechism supports your opinion. It says it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. Do humans need to be cruel to animals? I don’t object to animals being killed for food. I eat meat. It would by contradictory for me to see the killing of animals for food cruel and to eat such animals. My point is that we should do it by a means that is quick and that minimises the animal’s suffering. I do not know which methods cause the least suffering. If the ritual methods used by Jews and Muslims is more cruel then I would support its ban. If it is less cruel than the method used in abattoirs I would prefer it to be the method used to kill all animals for food.
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Except that they have a religious obligation to use those methods, so even if they caused more suffering* it would not be needlessly so.

*Which to my knowledge they don’t.
 
YKohen said:
Not to be a pain, but are you sure about that?
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I just found this:

Catholic doctrine

Catholic ethics has been criticized by some zoophilists because it refuses to admit that animals have rights. But it is indisputable that, when properly understood and fairly judged, Catholic doctrine — though it does not concede rights to the brute creation — denounces cruelty to animals as vigorously and as logically as do those moralists who make our duty in this respect the correlative of a right in the animals.

In order to establish a binding obligation to avoid the wanton infliction of pain on the brutes, it is not necessary to acknowledge any right inherent in them. Our duty in this respect is part of our duty towards God. From the juristic standpoint the visible world with which man comes in contact is divided into persons and non-persons. For the latter term the word “things” is usually employed. Only a person, that is, a being possessed of reason and self-control, can be the subject of rights and duties; or, to express the same idea in terms more familiar to adherents of other schools of thought, only beings who are ends in themselves, and may not be treated as mere means to the perfection of other beings, can possess rights. Rights and duties are moral ties which can exist only in a moral being, or person. Beings that may be treated simply as means to the perfection of persons can have no rights, and to this category the brute creation belongs. In the Divine plan of the universe the lower creatures are subordinated to the welfare of man.

But while these animals are, in contradistinction to persons, classed as things, it is none the less true that between them and the non-sentient world there exists a profound difference of nature which we are bound to consider in our treatment of them. The very essence of the moral law is that we respect and obey the order established by the Creator. Now, the animal is a nobler manifestation of His power and goodness than the lower forms of material existence. In imparting to the brute creation a sentient nature capable of suffering — a nature which the animal shares in common with ourselves — God placed on our dominion over them a restriction which does not exist with regard to our dominion over the non-sentient world. We are bound to act towards them in a manner conformable to their nature. We may lawfully use them for our reasonable wants and welfare, even though such employment of them necessarily inflicts pain upon them. But the wanton infliction of pain is not the satisfaction of any reasonable need, and, being an outrage against the Divinely established order, is therefore sinful. This principle, by which, at least in the abstract, we may solve the problem of the lawfulness of vivisection and other cognate questions, is tersely put by Zigliara:
Code: 
The service of man is the end appointed by the Creator for brute animals. When, therefore, man, with no reasonable purpose, treats the brute cruelly he does wrong, not because he violates the right of the brute, but because his action conflicts with the order and the design of the Creator (Philosophia Moralis, 9th ed., Rome, p. 136).
With more feeling, but with no less exactness, the late Cardinal Manning expressed the same doctrine:
Code: 
It is perfectly true that obligations and duties are between moral persons, and therefore the lower animals are not susceptible of the moral obligations which we owe to one another; but we owe a seven-fold obligation to the Creator of those animals. Our obligation and moral duty is to Him who made them and if we wish to know the limit and the broad outline of our obligation, I say at once it is His nature and His perfections, and among these perfections one is, most profoundly, that of Eternal Mercy. And therefore, although a poor mule or a poor horse is not, indeed, a moral person, yet the Lord and Maker of the mule is the highest Lawgiver, and His nature is a law unto Himself. And in giving a dominion over His creatures to man, He gave it subject to the condition that it should be used in conformity to His perfections which is His own law, and therefore our law (The Zoophilist, London, 1 April, 1887).
While Catholic ethical doctrine insists upon the merciful treatment of animals, it does not place kindness towards them on the same plane of duty as benevolence towards our fellow-men. Nor does it approve of unduly magnifying, to the neglect of higher duties, our obligations concerning animals. Excessive fondness for them is no sure index of moral worth; it may be carried to un-Christian excess; and it can coexist with grave laxity in far more important matters. There are many imitators of Schopenhauer, who loved his dog and hated his kind.

newadvent.org/cathen/04542a.htm
 
Matthew_Holford said:
I have little doubt that we shall agree on this issue. I do not think that because there is no moral law against animal cruelty it gives humans a licence to be cruel to animals. I fail to see how your quote from the Catechism supports your opinion. It says it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly. Do humans need to be cruel to animals? I don’t object to animals being killed for food. I eat meat. It would by contradictory for me to see the killing of animals for food cruel and to eat such animals. My point is that we should do it by a means that is quick and that minimises the animal’s suffering. I do not know which methods cause the least suffering. If the ritual methods used by Jews and Muslims is more cruel then I would support its ban. If it is less cruel than the method used in abattoirs I would prefer it to be the method used to kill all animals for food.
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My impression is that there is almost no difference between the way poultry, at least, is killed for kosher or halal, and the way it is done by processors for non-kosher, non-halal.

A local poultry processor here used to have a “kosher line”, and the only difference was that they had to have a rabbi there to look at the product and say certain prayers and put the kosher seal on the product. Otherwise, there was no difference at all. Later, they moved the kosher processing to another of their facilities, and the only things that changed were that they didn’t have to pay the rabbi anymore or divert product down that special line.

Wonder if that company’s sales people are gearing up to send kosher product to the Netherlands. Might be an opportunity there. 🤷
 
Inego_de_Loyola said:
Except that they have a religious obligation to use those methods, so even if they caused more suffering* it would not be needlessly so.

*Which to my knowledge they don’t.
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Can you apply the needlessly to that situation? Can Catholic teaching support the practice of another religion? If Judaism has a religious obligation to kill animals by a particular method I am not convinced we can defend that method by Catholic moral teaching.
 
Kaninchen said:
Most Germans probably don’t care one way or another so 'Some Germans . . . ’ would have been more accurate. Suggesting that Germany is a ‘socialist state’ is American Conservativespeak and a language we don’t share.
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Germany is strictly speaking Capitalist with powerful socialist elements and more everyday. My political orientation has no bearing on the facts on the ground.
 
YKohen said:
Not true.
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Perhaps, then, you can point out the differences. Maybe the local poultry processor was conspiring with the rabbi, you think, to sell non-kosher as kosher? Or are there, perhaps, differences among Jews as to what is considered 'acceptable" for kosher and what isn’t?
 
Ridgerunner said:
Perhaps, then, you can point out the differences. Maybe the local poultry processor was conspiring with the rabbi, you think, to sell non-kosher as kosher? Or are there, perhaps, differences among Jews as to what is considered 'acceptable" for kosher and what isn’t?
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From what I can remember researching there is a LOT of argument and leeway regarding kashrut (dietary laws) both for the actual food itself and also preparation, storage etc. nd it seems that even rabbis disagree among themselves.
 
YKohen said:
Not so.

BTW- see what I found at the end ofthe previous page.
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To be “Intrinsically evil” means that the act is wrong in and of itself. Clearly it is not wrong always and everywhere to cause suffering to an animal. To cause UNDUE suffering is evil for precisely the reason your article mentioned, but that is not the same as saying it is intrinsically evil to cause suffering to an animal.
 
Kouyate42 said:
From what I can remember researching there is a LOT of argument and leeway regarding kashrut (dietary laws) both for the actual food itself and also preparation, storage etc. nd it seems that even rabbis disagree among themselves.
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I couldn’t say about that. But in looking at this: star-k.org/kashrus/kk-beef-chickens.htm, and having been in a number of poultry plants, I can say that the only real differences between kosher and non-kosher in these plants start only after the killing process and relate to certain issues of product selection that, for the most part, are not terribly different from what USDA requires anyway. I will admit I have only been in state-of-the-art plants.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Perhaps, then, you can point out the differences. Maybe the local poultry processor was conspiring with the rabbi, you think, to sell non-kosher as kosher? Or are there, perhaps, differences among Jews as to what is considered 'acceptable" for kosher and what isn’t?
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I pointed it all out in posts on the previous page. It isn’t about a rabbi making a blessing (and any Jew can learn how to slaughter. Most who do aren’t rabbis). The process is different:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita
 
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