: I think it's well scientifically accepted that it's less humane to kill an animal without prior stunning than if an animal is stunned. I don't really see how you can argue against this.The argument is very simple. It runs as follows. With stunning systems, the animal may not actually be stunned, and the lack of care that is subsequently taken with the way the animal is then killed can lead to extremely inhumane results in terms of the amount of pain and suffering inflicted on the animal.
On the other hand, both Kosher and Halal methods of ritual slaughter involve a highly detailed set of regulations with regard to the kind of the knife, the condition of the blade, and the nature of the blow that kills the animal. The blade has to be so sharp that it cuts as quickly as a shark's teeth - the blow must be clean and true. Just as people who have survived clean bites by sharks report that they felt nothing, so do the animals slaughtered in this way feel nothing. If they did, the meat would not be saleable, so the slaughterers make very sure to get it right every time. Pain and suffering is minimised, and this is as humane a method of killing animals as any.
: I also don't see how you can call it a racist statement, particularly as somebody's religion is their choice, it's a set of beliefs, it's different to your race which you are born with and you can't choose.
In dealing properly with why claims of the inhumanity of ritual slaughter are racist, it is necessary to move beyond outmoded nineteenth-century notions of racism and races, and look instead at communities and minorities. I am no expert in Islam, but I do know a thing or two about Judaism, and I think it safe to say that both communities are in a similiar boat in the West, in terms of their minority status, and both have suffered and continue to suffer from discrimination in various spheres and on various levels.
The specific experiences of individual Jews and Muslims tend to vary depending on whether or not they happen to be white-skinned, but all Jews and Muslims in the West are subject to what is in effect racism in various forms. In the case of ritual slaughter methods, this racism tends to come, unusually, from the animal rights lobby, which is placing its own dogmatic ideology above the need to understand the implications of a just multi-cultural society. Sadly, misunderstanding and underestimating the value of cultural practices of minorities is a last vestige of colonialist thinking that has yet to die, even on the left of British politics.
I think it is very clear that ritual slaughter methods are in fact more humane than those used in secular abbatoirs. If a non-racist was to believe that no animals should ever be slaughtered for food, they would oppose all methods of slaughter equally, without singling out specific methods of this or that group for particular opprobrium. As a Jew, my feeling about anti-ritual slaughter claims is one of mild panic. I suspect that the real problem people have with it is the fact that these ritual slaughter methods are traditions rooted in a different culture, where the language is different, the motivations are different and where the people are either not white skinned, or worse, seemingly white skinned but nevertheless totally alien culturally. In fact, ritual slaughter provides a highly sophisticated solution to the deep spiritual / social problem posed by the fact that enough people like to eat meat for it to be inevitable that some animals will die to satisfy them. I cannot understand why this is so hard to grasp, which is what leads me to cry racism.
:That doesn't mean it's ok to persecute people for their religious beliefs, but if those religious beliefs encourage oppression of other people or animals then I'm sorry, but to me the rights of those other people and animals come first.
You'd better get it right when you make your judgements about other cultures and religious beliefs, and whether or not they are oppressing people or animals. Some cases, it is true, are quite clear, and both Judaism and Islam suffer from a great deal of entrenched sexism, for example, to say nothing of our little local difficulty in the Middle East. However, the solutions to these problems will not be provided by utopianist do-gooders who wish to oppose oppression in all forms and in all cultures, but from progressive movements within those cultures that understand them and are themselves part of them. Pressure from the outside is in fact likely to be counter-productive, since it weakens rather than strengthens the voice of the progressive movements within.
: For centuries far too many people in the world have used religion as an excuse for killing, torture, dispossession and other forms of oppression. Be they Christian missionaries stealing aboriginal children from their mothers, Muslim men forcing women to cover themselves up and be treated as property of the men, Jewish groups brutally evicting Palestinians, whatever, the list is endless. It's all wrong and no amount of religious tract can justify it.
I agree with you. Much evil has been done in the name of religion, it is true. Does this make the entirety of religious culture and tradition valueless? Only a fool would think so.
The greatest ideal ever conceived of by humanity, that of universal love, with whatever specific philosophical shading it may take in each case, is a universal strand of all religions. Each religion is a whole treasure house of centuries of accumulated human wisdom, much of which is highly relevant to today. You do not have to buy the whole package to appreciate this, you only have to be prepared to open your mind to the concept that religion has had some good ideas as well as some bad ones.
: Everyone, of whatever religion (or none), has to stop and think, 'would I like to be treated in the same way?' and if the answer is 'no' then you shouldn't do it to someone or something else and use religion as an excuse.
Out of interest, this is very close to a saying from the Talmud, 'Do
not do unto others as you would not wish to be done by.'
: Wayne, please don't think that hatred or intolerance were my motives in writing this, I have no hatred of you or anyone else with different beliefs to my own. My motives are solely wanting to see the end of suffering of all people and animals. It's very easy if you have been brought up with a specific set of beliefs (a religion) to accept them as unquestionable truths. But at the end of the day they are just a set of beliefs, nothing more nothing less.
I am sure that neither hatred nor intolerance is consciously motivating you. However, I am interested by your assumption that I am myself accepting the beliefs of Judaism as unquestionable truths, since you are making the same mistake there as you are by attempting to claim that ritual slaughter is less humane than secular methods. This assumption is that you know enough about the situation to make a judgement.
I am defending Kashrut, therefore I wear a black hat, have a big beard and am extremely observant. Well, no actually, I am extremely irreligious and see my relationship to Judaism as one far more of community, ethnicity and nationhood than I do religiously. However, I have made it my business to learn about and understand my own background and culture, which has led me to conclude that while I don't have a great deal of time for a lot of what goes on in the name of Judaism, I will nevertheless defend ritual slaughter since it seems clearly more humane than other slaughter methods, as indeed was its intention from the outset.
I refuse to be ashamed of my cultural background, and I will be insulted by attacks on Judaism by non-Jews whether or not those attacks are intentionally motivated by hatred, just as Muslims are insulted by attacks on Islam. Ignorance is no excuse for racism, just as religion is no excuse for murder.
: Why is it that around the world different countries and regions have different gods, but all of them believe that theirs is the only true god? That the god we believe in will almost certainly be the one our parents believed in and the one our school believed in. Don't you think this smacks just a bit of indoctrination? perhaps even brainwashing?
What on earth makes you think that anyone gets out of being brain-washed and indoctrinated, no matter what background they come from and what specific experiences they have. I tend to assume I have been brain-washed and indoctrinated and proceed from there. What do you do? Oh, and not all gods are religious, or even easily recognisable as such. Ideologies too are notoriously slippery creatures, godlike to the extent that they can take over the human mind.
: Wouldn't it be nice if we all threw off the shackles, and just got on together with creating a better world here and now, without killing, violence, greed, division and exploitation?
I'm with you all the way on this one, I just suspect that I tend to err more towards a practical approach of damage limitations, whereas you are arguing for the Utopia that I too dream about. I believe very strongly that it is important for both views to co-exist and continue arguing with one another, for such is the tension that fuels all the debates that will eventually lead, I hope, to you proving me wrong a few times.
In the case of ritual slaughter, however, I think it will be a long time before meat eating is eradicated, and that therefore a more humane method of slaughter should be applauded rather than derided.
