(July 25, 2009 at 5:55 am)padraic Wrote:Quote:Oh come on now! There isn't much more pleasure in life than sitting by the fire, body wrapped in fresh baby seal fur, roasting some freshly beaten baby seal meat.
I mean really, the beating is necessary to tenderize the meat.
It's cruel to kill baby seals,when there are so many surplus human babies.
About 40 years ago I actually touched some seal pelts in a furrier's.It remains the softest material I have ever felt, it was amazing. So, I understand on one level.
BUT-----
I abhor gratuitous cruelty to any living thing,for any reason. I also reject the killing of animals soley for their fur or hide as immoral,including reptiles. I have no problem with the idea of hide as a by product of animals killed humanely for food.. I despise the killing of animals for pleasure.
I think this is the morally dubious part of eating meat (which I do, by the way).
You're quite right in an earlier post that we are animals at the top of the food chain, however morally I can't justify deliberately causing the suffering of another animal. The meat that we get in the supermarkets, has generally come from factory farmed animals which have often lived in less than humane conditions. By eating meat that comes from these sources, we give implicit and tacit consent to the suffering of other animals, which in my view is a lapse in morality.
By the way, I'm an avid meat eater, but also clearly a hypocrite.
