Glorfindel wrote:
> Dave wrote:
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
>
> >>>Ok. How does an ordinary Joe with no direct control over his
> >>>food supply ensure that his diet is not responsible for any
> >>>animal rights violations?
>
> Glorfindel wrote:
>
> >>Probably not possible in the real world.
>
> > OK. How does an ordinary Joe with no direct control over his food
> > supply ensure that his diet is not responsible for more animal rights
> > violations than it would be if he replaced some of it with flesh from
> > large wild animals shot in their natural habitat? I realise that the
> > question may be purely academic for many people.
>
> It's academic for most people. It also ignores all the additional
> animal deaths and rights violations which are involved in that
> animal shot in his natural habitat, if the hunter does not also
> live in that habitat. It's not just one hunted animal = one death.
> It's all the collateral damage involved in the environmental impact
> of the things required to get the hunter there and back.

These fatcors are not ignored any more than the environmental
impact of getting beans from the farm to your plate.

> This
> kind of calculation ends up being pretty much academic as well,
> because the variables are so difficult to measure against each other.

It is almost impossible to measure. The best we can do is make
an educated guess.

> The best alternative would be for a person with even a small area
> where he can raise crops to grow as much food as possible --
> anything from a couple of fruit trees and some tomato plants in his
> backyard to a real vegetable garden, or participating in one of
> the community gardens which are found in many progressive towns.
> After that, buying from local farmers. In my town, there is a tour
> of local organic farms every year, so that customers can see
> for themselves the conditions under which the produce is grown,
> and a co-op which buys the produce and distributes it to members in
> the nearby towns. Beyond that, all one can do is research the
> products one buys, and try to choose those with a lower environmental
> impact.

No dispute with any of that.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> >>In the real world, all people have to work to reduce their
> >>negative impact on others, direct and indirect, as far as
> >>reasonably practical. It will never be perfect, for human
> >>or animal rights, but we can try to do our best to avoid the
> >>worst choices. Vegetarianism/veganism I see as one of the
> >>better choices.
>
> > I agree with that vegan diets and to a lesser extent vegetarian diets
> > are better as a general rule but there are exceptions.
>
> Yes, one can't make black-and-white statements about diet or other
> aspects of lifestyle.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> >>While some human pain can be seen as
> >>punishment or teaching, animal pain and pain in innocent
> >>humans are difficult to square with an all-good, all-powerful
> >>God.
>
> >>One response which makes sense to me is the idea that God
> >>is love, and love requires more than one being for its
> >>expression. The Christian idea of the Trinity involves the
> >>idea that the three Persons within the unity of God allows
> >>God to express love perfectly within His own Being. He
> >>created a universe outside Himself so that He might love it,
> >>conscious beings within it might love Him, and all might
> >>glorify Him.
>
> >>God might eliminate all pain and sin by making all created
> >>beings unable to act sinfully, and all nature to be unable to
> >>harm those within it. But in doing so, He would eliminate all
> >>freedom for created beings,
>
> > Fair enough but why not create beings with no desire to sin?
>
> Sin is defined as turning one's will away from God -- it does
> not have to result in harm for any other being. It's an issue
> of freedom again. For a being to say "yes" *freely* she must
> be able to say "no" freely; to obey freely, one must be
> capable of disobeying as well. To have a will which can turn
> to God *freely* and love and obey Him freely, a person must
> have the capacity to turn away freely as well. God does not,
> we believe, want zombie automatons, but loving sons and
> daughters.
>
> Christianity has generally taught that humans had a bit of help
> in becoming sinful -- they were tempted. Most modern Christians
> see this as metaphorical, rather than a literal Adam and Eve.
> My church teaches that original sin does not follow from the Fall
> of Adam and Eve, but from this ability and tendency of humans to
> act contrary to God's will.

I don't feel that really answers the question. I can accept that God
wanted
to give us the freedom to commit sin but that still doesn't explain why
we
should have the desire to sin.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> > Again why can a being need some evil in order to have free will?
>
> He doesn't, but free will will usually involve some times when a being
> will make wrong choices, just because we aren't perfect.

And if God is all powerful and we are not perfect the only logical
explaination is that God doesn't want us to be perfect.
>
> >>That means
> >>they must have, be allowed, the ability and freedom to act
> >>sinfully, harmfully, as well as morally, in good ways.
>
> > Freedom to act sinfully is not the same as willingness to
> > act sinfully.
>
> No. In fact, many people, starting with St. Paul, have
> complained that they don't want to act sinfully, but they
> end up doing so anyway. It's part of being human.
>
> >>Some
> >>beings will use this freedom in wrong and harmful ways.
> >>According to Christian belief, Satan has already done so, and
> >>Linzey and C.S. Lewis suggest Satan has corrupted created
> >>nature by introducing predation and animal pain even before
> >>humans existed.
>
> > I suppose if Satan is infinitely powerful and infintely evil then
> > it is possible for evil to be compatible with an infinitely good
> > infinitely powerful god.
>
> No, that's a Gnostic or Zoroastrian belief. Christianity teaches
> that Satan is also a created being and less powerful than God,
> but more powerful and cunning than humans (or animals). He doesn't
> really have to be blamed for human sin; we do it on our own.

OK. Thanks for the Theology lesson. BTW it is mathematically
possible for the Devil to be infinitely poweful *and* less powerful
than God.

> >>Humans also create(d) pain, suffering, injustice
> >>through their own free-will sinful acts. But that free will
> >>also allows them to love God and other beings (including
> >>animals) and act morally toward them. Without freedom, good
> >>and evil cannot exist, there can be no good moral action.
>
> > They say I don't belong.. I must stay below, alone..
> > Because of my beliefs, I'm supposed to stay where evil is sown..
> > But what is evil anyway? Is there reason to the rhyme..?
> > Without Evil, there can be no good..
> > So it must be good to be evil sometimes..
>
> It's sort of like light and dark: without dark, we wouldn't understand
> light. There can be good without evil, but there cannot be
> good done *freely*, good with moral value, unless there is
> the capacity to do otherwise.


That can explain away a small amount of sin and suffering but not
realisitically on the scale we witness in the real world.

> This is similar to the secular
> idea that moral patients ( in Regan's system ) cannot violate
> rights, because they cannot act either morally or immorally.
> Many people have said animals are sinless, or innocent, in
> this way, but it does not mean they cannot do harm to others.
> They are just not morally responsible for what they do. In
> the same way, a severely retarded person or a young child can
> do harm or even kill another person, but we don't hold them
> morally responsible, or try them as adults in our legal system.
>
> A similar thought to yours

I stole the thought from the South Park movie.

> is an old medieval poem:
>
> "Adam lay yboundan, bounden in a bond
> Four thousand yeare thought he not too long.
> And all was for an apple, and apple that he took,
> As clerkes finden written in here booke.
> Never had that apple, apple taken been,
> Never had Our Lady been Heaven's Queen.
> Blessed be that apple, apple take was.
> Therefore we maun sing, "Deo gratias!"
>
> The idea is that God always brings good out of evil, and turns
> all sin into redemption. The sin isn't good in itself, but
> God will use it to bring about a good result.

It's still very hard to believe that sin is necessary on the scale
of reality.

> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> > How does following Jesus's example require us not to eat meat?
>
> There is a fairly elaborate discussion of this in Andrew Linzey's
> books, and for a more complete analysis, I'd suggest reading
> at least _Christianity and the Rights of Animals_ and _Animal
> Theology_.
>
> Animals are more like us than the rest of Creation -- something
> which is obvious to everyone who has had any experience with them.
> They have consciousness and ability to feel pleasure and pain,
> and what we do to them matters more to them, than what we do to
> other created things matters to them. This is reflected in the
> Biblical story of the Flood, where the Covenant between God and
> humanity afterward includes animals as well, and animals are said
> to share the same basic nature -- the same "breath" -- as humans,
> unlike plants or inanimate objects. The story in Genesis states
> that in our uncorrupted state, in Eden, humans were created to be
> vegetarian (Genesis 1:29-30). This is the ideal. In the same
> way, there was no predation in the paradicical state, no violence.

If the "paradicial" state is superior to our current state why did
God abandon it? If it wasn't why did he create it in the first place?

> We should remember that the animals are created by God, and thus
> *belong* to God -- anything we do to them, we are doing, in essence,
> to Someone Else's property, and only under His sufferance.

The same can be said of plants, mountains, rivers, everything.

> We have
> to answer to God for the life of every one of His creatures that
> we take, and had better have a really good reason. "It tastes good"
> is not a good enough reason to kill. What Linzey says is that:
> "When we have to kill to live we may do so, but when we do not, we
> should live otherwise." We almost never *have* to use animals in the
> way they are used in commercial farming today, or kill them as they are
> killed in factory farms. We have other options. Even so, Linzey adds,
> "The truth is that even if we adopt a vegetarian or vegan life-style, we
> are still not free of killing, either directly or indirectly...it is
> only *one* very small step toward the vision of a peaceful world."
>
> If we take the example of Jesus, Linzey notes that, "...there is a
> powerful strand in his ethical teaching about the primacy of mercy
> to the weak, the powerless and the oppressed...Who is more deserving
> of this special compassion than the animals so commonly exploited
> in our world today?" In other words, the example of Jesus is
> showing mercy to those in our power, in "lowering" ourselves to
> serve those who are helpless, suffering, and in need, in sacrificing
> ourselves for those who cannot help themselves and are oppressed
> and hurt and killed. The animals, even more than humans, are "the
> least of these" whom we are to feed and offer shelter and comfort,
> for as we do it to "the least of these," Jesus says, we do it to
> Him. The fact that we *have* such near-absolute power over other
> conscious, feeling beings capable of suffering -- as God does over
> us -- is the very reason we should do our best to use it wisely and
> compassionately, and to try to reduce suffering and harm whenever
> possible, rather than add to it.

I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment but I find it odd trying to
find a justification for it within Christianity. Firstly because many
of the concepts of Chrisianity make me incredulous. A perfect
God creating a sinful World being an example. Secondly
because the Old Testament explicitly permitted people to eat
animals (at least of those species that were deemed "clean")
and there is no record of Jesus rescinding this permission or
even forbidding his followers to eat meat.

> I think that means we should not involve ourselves in modern
> commercial meat/animal products production, especially factory
> farming, and if we do not *have* to kill animals to live, we should,
> as Linzey says, live otherwise. In general, that would mean
> being vegetarian or vegan, except in the case of things like
> gathered eggs, milk shared fairly with the mother animal's young, and
> scavenged meat. We should care for other animals as we would have
> God care for us, and as He has shown He does care for us.