usual suspect wrote:

Glorfindel:
>
>>>>>> No animal should be bred so that he is *incapable*
>>>>>> of carrying out normal biological functions for his species,
>>>>>> such as reproduction.

>> but your basic moral priorities are
>> so different from those of normal people that the answer
>> probably won't make sense to you.

> How are my views out of step with the mainstream?

Mainstream ethics does not support seriously inhumane treatment
of animals *even* when it is to the benefit of humans. Normal,
mainstream people support SPCAs and welfare organizations and
the prosecution of people who abuse animals in the ways producers
in factory farms do. When they are *made aware* of the treatment
in factory farm meat production, they support laws to change it.
Laws against the production of foie gras, laws against the sale
of downer animals, laws against close-confinement in swine
facilities and egg production facilities are being passed in
many areas, particularly in Europe -- passed by ordinary, non-AR
voters, many of whom are not even vegetarian. The secrets are
out, and your cruel views are rapidly becoming history.

>> Animals are not ours.

> Ipse dixit.

I, and many others, do say so.

>> First, they are created by God ( or Nature)
>> to be what they are and to fill a particular ecological niche.

> Let's see what God says about them.

The Bible -- which is not, BTW, God -- nowhere supports the
kind of inhumane treatment found in factory farms. The
first diet of humans in Eden was vegetarian; it was the diet
God intended for us, the proper diet for humans, even as seen
by the ancient Hebrews who recorded the origin myth of
Judaism, Islam, and Christianity -- and were probably meat-eaters
themselves. There is no way whatever that you can use the
Bible to support factory farming. It is not good stewardship
of God's animals, and no amount of sophistry on your part will
make it so.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Jesus said it's not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean,
> but what comes out of it (Matthew 15).

> Matthew wrote that Jesus offended
> the Pharisees when he said that; it still offends people like you who
> think people are ethical, virtuous, etc., on the basis of following
> rules nearly 2000 years later.

> St Paul also addressed the issue by writing that Christians should not
> judge one another over diet, particularly over the consumption of meat;

Which, of course, had nothing to do with the issues around animal
rights or vegetarianism in general. It had to do with Jewish
religious ritual and relates to debates in the early Church over
which Jewish practices should be required of gentile converts.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

> There is *NO* Biblical case for vegetarianism.

Linzey makes one in several of his books, as do several other
pro-vegetarian Christian writers. Pro-factory-farm people
can't claim to "own" the Bible any more than right-wing
fandamentalists in general can.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>> For which, I pity you.

> Probably as much as I pity you, Karen, so that makes us even. Now try to
> make a case for why turkeys and mules shouldn't be bred, and lay off the
> emotive crap about "their little lives" and their "basic individuality"
> and try to leave God out of it (because you can't pull the wool -- or
> some vegan-approved synthetic -- over my eyes on that one).

I thought you wouldn't understand what I was saying. Sad indeed.
God bless you anyway.