Is Meat Really Murder?

Neapolitan · 04-03-2010, 01:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

I agree, kayleigh, that the members of one species killing animals of another species *is* completely normal, and in the case of a lion is its only way to survive, brutal as that is for the gazelle: asphyxiation by having one's throat clamped by sharp teeth certainly can't be pleasant.

Yet since people can choose not to live that way, then people are left with the question: how do they decide whom to kill and eat? We each answer this question differently.

Animals do things out of instinct, a lion can not really make a decision of what it wants to eat based on whether or not it is ethical to eat another animal. I curious about the decision making process of the lion, but just the fact the "life" is transfered from the gazelle to lion. If the lion didn't eat then it would die, and because of the law survival of the fittest, it is the weaker gazelle that saves the life of the stronger gazelles and that in turn ensures the survival of the species. I look beyond what is happening at the moment the lion eating gazelle meat and question why nature works the way it does. What does it mean that life passes from gazelle to the lion? What does it mean that the gazelle save the life of the other gazelles? The lion could never know questions of life, about meaning of its life, or the meaning of the life of the gazelle. Maybe not in our culture because it isn't so spiritual, (and meat is almost presented as a manufactured product like McDonalds) but isn't there a deeper spiritual connection of a person and nature when they eat meat?