Would Jesus Eat From Factory Farms?

[Rubia Warren]

Okay yeah maybe I am getting kinda weird.

But I just saw this other PETA movie about factory farming. You can view it here, it is called "Meet Your Meat."
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=meet_your_meat

I don't wanna know if if it is a sin to eat meat in general, but is it wrong to buy meat & animal products that come from factory farms?

I know that animals are not people, and I don't think they have souls like we do. But as I watched the movie, and have read in the past about chickens packed so tightly all their lives they cannot even stretch their wings a single time, and dairy cows who just stand there getting milked several times a day, I can't help but wonder if this is something that God is pleased with?

I mean, these creatures were created by Him, no? And although we are higher up in the pecking order than them, does that mean that it is okay to run a farm like a factory? Or fund it by buying the meat or products?

My knee-jerk reaction to the movie is that it seems a bit of an abusive system for animals. Obviously the slaughtering of any animal is not going to be a pleasant sight. But the way we are commonly getting our food just seems really...... I dunno the word to describe it.

Is the way that humans are utilizing animals for food sinful or bad? Is this how God intended for us to treat them? It's a real question, cuz I am confused by what I see.

I'm not talking about that we should never eat them, and that they have rights, and we should hang out with them like pals or something forever and ever. I'm talking specifically about factory farming.

Please only respond if you watch the video first.

[Ryokan]

Okay yeah maybe I am getting kinda weird.

But I just saw this other PETA movie about factory farming. You can view it here, it is called "Meet Your Meat."
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=meet_your_meat

I don't wanna know if if it is a sin to eat meat in general, but is it wrong to buy meat & animal products that come from factory farms?

I know that animals are not people, and I don't think they have souls like we do. But as I watched the movie, and have read in the past about chickens packed so tightly all their lives they cannot even stretch their wings a single time, and dairy cows who just stand there getting milked several times a day, I can't help but wonder if this is something that God is pleased with?

I mean, these creatures were created by Him, no? And although we are higher up in the pecking order than them, does that mean that it is okay to run a farm like a factory? Or fund it by buying the meat or products?

My knee-jerk reaction to the movie is that it seems a bit of an abusive system for animals. Obviously the slaughtering of any animal is not going to be a pleasant sight. But the way we are commonly getting our food just seems really...... I dunno the word to describe it.

Is the way that humans are utilizing animals for food sinful or bad? Is this how God intended for us to treat them? It's a real question, cuz I am confused by what I see.

I'm not talking about that we should never eat them, and that they have rights, and we should hang out with them like pals or something forever and ever. I'm talking specifically about factory farming.

Please only respond if you watch the video first.
I have mixed feelings. I don't like it, and can't imagine God does either. But I still by processed meat products. So, I'm a hypocrite I guess. If I had more money, it'd be easier, but right now...

[Dave G]

I just got back from the pound, with all the dogs and cats sitting miserably in their concrete cells. Like factory farms, I don't like it, but I don't know what else to do. At least we have the hope that heaven will not be this way.

[Little Shepherd]

I figure it's maybe wrong. The Bible's pretty clear that we're not to mistreat animals, and that slaughter should be quick. I don't know if factory farms would be considered torture(Do chickens actually care that they can't stretch their wings? Can they even think on that level? I dunno.), but definitely maybe.

[Piebald]

I eat meat, and I don't think there's anything wrong with eating meat. This is not an eating-meat issue, it's a How-we-Get-That-Meat issue.

Animals aren't people. Cows and chickens and such are not self-aware in the same way that we are. That doesn't mean that we should fill whatever consciousness they have with agony.

I don't know what I can do about it, though, because I depend on meat.

The factory farm stuff is just part of a bigger problem. Living things are now just products. And that is quickly including human beings.

Pro 12:10 An upright man has thought for the life of his beast, but the hearts of evil-doers are cruel.

[Ytaker]

"The common Christian attitude to ‘Factory Farming’ is that it is wrong. Firstly the Genesis 1 principle of stewardship shows that it is wrong to abuse creatures by putting them in cages without ample sanitary care, space to move, or food to eat, as we are supposed to manage the world with care.
The teachings in Luke 12 on ‘treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted’ show that it is wrong to try to maximise earthly profit at the cost of heavenly goodness, so we should not use cruel practises on animals to gain a lot of money.
Mathew 10: 29 says that “And yet not one of them [pigeons] will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Meaning God values animals, so it is wrong to imprison them in tiny cages, as their deaths for your pleasure will be noted by God as a black mark on your morality, and each life lived in poor conditions will be noted for the same reason by God." An excerpt of an essay I wrote, slightly modified.

The reason for Factory farming is to gain a lot of money, and any attempts to get lots of money make you evil. In addition, animals are mentioned as having value, as with the sparrows or balaam's ass. I doubt Jesus would eat factory farm food.

[Zhangliqun]

I wonder why this question is never asked about plants. Does PETA also make films about how plants are abused? I'm seriously thinking of getting a T-shirt that says "If Meat Is Murder, Then So Is Salad".

Plants are no less living things than animals, and in the case of animals, at least they can try to run away or fight back. Plants just have to sit there and accept whatever happens. They can't even run for shelter in a hailstorm.

How is a "non-factory" farm any better? Is there a way to slaughter an animal that wouldn't trigger all these emotions? No, not really. In the old days you had to choke a chicken with your bare hands and cut a hog's throat with a big knife. Is that somehow better than a factory farm? And why do we have no emotions at all about killing plants?

All day long with every breath, your body kills germs and viruses, also animals, albeit microscopic. And when that's not enough, we get vaccines that will train our antibodies to do a better job of killing them.

And when the Orkin man comes to take out those termites or you have to spray a bee or wasp hive, or light up a fire ant mound, or shooting a rattlesnake to keep your kids from getting stung, bit and possibly killed, why do we have no emotions over the death of microbes, insects and reptiles? Do they not also feel agony?

I think it has to do with the fact that mammals with big eyes that can look at us remind us of people while reptiles and insects don't.

In heaven there won't be any of this, and thank God for it -- but here on earth, we shouldn't let ourselves get carried away with our emotions and instead think things all the way through.

[Piebald]

Is there a way to slaughter an animal that wouldn't trigger all these emotions?


All forms of slaughter are not the same. If the cow had been physically tortured for days and days and days, would that be the same thing as a swift kill? Of course not.



And when the Orkin man comes to take out those termites or you have to spray a bee or wasp hive, or light up a fire ant mound, or shooting a rattlesnake to keep your kids from getting stung, bit and possibly killed, why do we have no emotions over the death of microbes, insects and reptiles? Do they not also feel agony?


All animals are not the same. If someone cut up a fish and left it flopping on the floor of a pier I might think it was a little gross. But it's just not the same as a cow or a pig. Cows and pigs have greater capacity for suffering than a fish or cricket do. We should recognize that and minimize their suffering. Even if it is okay to kill them, it doesn't follow that it's okay to kill them any way we want to.

It's true that anthrpomorphism goes a long way in some people, but that aside, cows and pigs still have the capacity to suffer. We should minimalize their pain and suffering as much as we can. We're not barbarians.

[NeilUnreal]

Factory farms are one of the reasons I'm trying to become more of a vegetarian. Sustainability is the other reason. I have a lot of relatives in the farming business, and my parents were both raised on farms. The way livestock is treated on small family farms is a far cry from how livestock is treated in a factory farm.* Yet, creative use of co-oping, etc., can mean the meat is very cost effective. Also, small farms promote sustainability, because by the growing of hay, etc., live stock can actually increase the productivity of land which is marginal for higher-value crops.

-Neil

*Quiz: The farmer and one of his cows are both sick. Which one has to stay up all night taking care of the other? :lol:

[Ryokan]

Factory farms are one of the reasons I'm trying to become more of a vegetarian. Sustainability is the other reason. I have a lot of relatives in the farming business, and my parents were both raised on farms. The way livestock is treated on small family farms is a far cry from how livestock is treated in a factory farm.* Yet, creative use of co-oping, etc., can mean the meat is very cost effective. Also, small farms promote sustainability, because by the growing of hay, etc., live stock can actually increase the productivity of land which is marginal for higher-value crops.

-Neil

*Quiz: The farmer and one of his cows are both sick. Which one has to stay up all night taking care of the other? :lol:I agree with the suffering part. I am in full support of traditional meat farming. Factory plant farming is a necessity, though.

[Zhangliqun]

All forms of slaughter are not the same. If the cow had been physically tortured for days and days and days, would that be the same thing as a swift kill? Of course not.

I don't favor pointless prolonging of suffering, both on a moral and practical level. Moral for obvious reasons, but practical because torturing a cow for days on end is not a very efficient way to get the meat to the market -- the sooner the animal is dead, the sooner you can cut it up and pack it and send it to the supermarket. Which is why we should be skeptical whenever PETA or other such organizations send out videos of people at slaughterhouses throwing chickens against the wall over and over or otherwise torturing animals for extended periods. Death needs to be quick and efficient because as with any other business, time is money to a factory farm.

Besides, you never answered the question -- is there a way to slaughter an animal that doesn't trigger these emotions? I wasn't talking about whether we should try to minimize the suffering because that's not a point of disagreement between us and therefore an irrelevant point.

[sc_q_jayce]

The only way is for you to become desensitized to it, or to make the incident insignificant (like squashing a bug - this is easy because the death is so small and minute it doesn't invade all your senses) :)

Kind of like war. Or any other death that comes your way.

[silasjones]

"The common Christian attitude to ‘Factory Farming’ is that it is wrong. Firstly the Genesis 1 principle of stewardship shows that it is wrong to abuse creatures by putting them in cages without ample sanitary care, space to move, or food to eat, as we are supposed to manage the world with care.
The teachings in Luke 12 on ‘treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted’ show that it is wrong to try to maximise earthly profit at the cost of heavenly goodness, so we should not use cruel practises on animals to gain a lot of money.
Mathew 10: 29 says that “And yet not one of them [pigeons] will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Meaning God values animals, so it is wrong to imprison them in tiny cages, as their deaths for your pleasure will be noted by God as a black mark on your morality, and each life lived in poor conditions will be noted for the same reason by God." An excerpt of an essay I wrote, slightly modified.

The reason for Factory farming is to gain a lot of money, and any attempts to get lots of money make you evil. In addition, animals are mentioned as having value, as with the sparrows or balaam's ass. I doubt Jesus would eat factory farm food.


These are all sort of good arguments, and the general consensus seems to be that causing suffering to animals is wrong. However, a better support for that, scripturally, is in Proverbs 12:10 - "A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel." Hence, we know that it is righteous men who treat their animals kindly (although it's more difficult to say that just because it says this that it's wrong to treat animals in a way that makes them suffer.)

Just thought I might add that to take us a little further away from prooftexting. :-)

[lao tzu]

Okay yeah maybe I am getting kinda weird. You were normal before.

Gotcha.

*shudders*

But I just saw this other PETA movie about factory farming. You can view it here, it is called "Meet Your Meat."
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/Prefs.asp?video=meet_your_meat

I don't wanna know if if it is a sin to eat meat in general, but is it wrong to buy meat & animal products that come from factory farms?

Have you visited The Meatrix (http://www.themeatrix.com/)?

I think the presentation is far more fair than this Baldwin Peta-ganda piece, and goes into a good deal more detail about the environmental effects of factory farming. There are sustainable alternatives to vegetarianism if you want to avoid contributing to the environmental assualt.

Don't just watch the flashfilms, look inside (http://www.themeatrix.com/inside/index.html).

Of course, I would never discourage anyone who chooses to go vegetarian, but I'd rather not see the issues conflated any more than is justified. I think PETA goes over the line.

As ever, Jesse

[Grover]

I wonder why this question is never asked about plants. Does PETA also make films about how plants are abused?
Considering that PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, I doubt PETA cares much about plants. And while it's true that plants are living things, they are significantly different from animals. For one thing, they don't have nervous systems or brains. Nobody claims that plants are self-aware.

I'm disagree with PETA about a lot of things, but I don't fault PETA for not standing up for plants' rights. That's just silly.

[Jedidiah]

Of course, I would never discourage anyone who chooses to go vegetarian, but I'd rather not see the issues conflated any more than is justified. I think PETA goes over the line.
Great observation here. Anything you get from PETA is way over the line. This means that they not only pick the worst examples they can find (and are probably not averse to staging) and then describe things in a dishonest way.

This does not take away from the wickedness of those extremes, but does reveal that not all animals are so treated. Your sensitivity is appreciated, Rubes.

Jed