Animal Rights and Why They Matter

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We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.Immanuel Kant

...the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony and man--allbelong to the same family... The White Man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.Chief Seattle (c.1786-1866)

Why do animals rights matter. Why should we treat animals differently, withrespect and with the recognition that they too have the right to life? Why is itimportant to review the way we think about the creatures with whom we sharethis world, particularly the animals which we use and abuse for food, clothing,

labour and entertainment.

The human animal is a very inconsistent creature in many ways and none moreso than his attitude to his fellow creatures. Animals do appear to matter toman but sadly only certain animals, pets such as cats and dogs and to a lesserdegree rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, caged birds and fish in tanks. Man's mostfavoured animal, at least here in the west is his dog, a creature less highlyfavoured and even consumed in other parts of the world. Why is a dog or a catso well favoured as opposed to a pig, a creature of equal intelligence and inmany ways more like us than your dog or cat. In fact if handled affectionately

a adult pig will become just as friendly as your pet dog who has always beenwith the family.

So why is one animal, the dog, a much loved pet while another animal, the pig,a much despised, abused and exploited creature? Why is one animal, the mostfavoured of all pets, treated with compassion, invited into our homes, fed andsheltered, cared for and much loved while the other is confined to a cage(which in reality is how most pigs spend their lives on factory farms in penswith no room to turn round) force fed with antibiotics, the sow treated as a

al Rights and Why they Matter http://www.think-differently-about-sheep.com/Animal_Rghts_and_why_t...

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do Not all Look the Same

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breeding machine, her offspring slaughtered at two to four months of age asshe herself will be when she has outlived her usefulness, used in experimentsand as a source of spare parts.

Both animals are like us, mammals, both are intelligent sentient beings capableof feeling pain and pleasure, both are friendly social animals. And as alreadymentioned pigs are very much like us in so many ways, if this where not sothey would not be used as spare parts in heart surgery procedures. So why dowe love and respect our dog more than a pig? Why is it cruel to mistreat a dogyet okay to mistreat a pig? Both feel pain in the same way as each other asindeed do we. If its cruel to inflict pain or confine your dog in a cage where hecannot turn round and slaughter him for food, why is it not considered cruel todo so to a pig? Can you imagine what the RSPCA would do if you treated yourdog in the same way as a pig or other farm animal is treated? You would not beallowed to confine your dog in a dark shed where he would never see the lightof day, in a cage where he could not turn round until he became infected andbleed from sores caused by rubbing against the bars, cried in pain and wentmad due to lack of stimulation, and finally herded into a lorry taken manymiles in extremes of temperature to be slaughtered quite often fully conscious.Yet this kind of treatment, and even worse, happens to pigs and other farmanimals day in and day out.

Sheep, cows and poultry are also similar to dogs and cats in many ways and inthe right circumstances can be as social and interactive as your cat or dog asyou will see from the story below

Piggy, a pig of course, Audrey and Sybil who where lambs all became close

friends, although there was a more close friendship between Audrey and Piggy.However this story concerns Audrey and Sybil. In her book , The secret life ofCows Rosamond Young tells this story of how Audrey rescues Sybil fromdrowning.

While in the kitchen one day I heard a very loud banging noise at the backdoor; a really fierce, repeated relentless rapping. As I rushed to open the door Irealised that the banging was accompanied by a strident and persistent baaing.It was Audrey knocking with her foot. When she saw me she baaed even louderand ran to the lawn, stopped, looked at me, ran towards me, calling, ran away

agitated, trying Lassie-like to make me follow. We ran down the lawn,jumped the stream, scrambled up the back and I found myself standing on theedge of the swimming pool where Sybil was swimming round and round, totallyunable to do anything but swim. I jumped straight in to rescue her, put myarms round her and realised that the dry lamb that I could carry now had asodden fleece and was much too heavy for me to lift up the steep sides of thehalf full pool.

Rosamond did successfully rescue Sybil but they needed assistance so both she


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and Audrey cried out both together and in turn. Thanks to the actions of Sybil,Audrey was saved. Doesn't this rather remind you of many similar stories ofrescues involving dogs, in the extract above the author compares Audrey'sbehaviour to that of Lassie.

You would not eat your dog or cat yet few people see any incongruity abouteating a pig or a lamb. Yet both pigs and sheep make good pets. In a village inSussex where we once lived some years ago there was a lady who had a petsheep and she interacted with this sheep in the way more conventional petowners interact with their cat or dog. As is the case of the lamb who wasrescued from abandonment in a field and thereafter raised as a pet. Rescuedsheep raised as pet My husband and I often feed local sheep in a nearby fieldwho are clearly pets, much loved as the owner once explained. These sheeprecognise you, they interact with you.

Chickens are great companions.If only more people knew how smart and lovable they can be.

Celeste Albritton

Many people have birds as pets. What is the difference between a parrot and aturkey or chicken? You would not dream of roasting your pet budgie would you,so why sit down at Christmas time and eat a roast turkey? Did you know that achicken can be just as friendly as your cat or dog if given the chance? Manypeople keep chickens as pets, turkeys also.

As I sit at my desk this morning, a large white rooster and two sturdy brownhens are traipsing through the grass outside my window. Watching them I agree

with chicken keeper Dorothy English of Illinois who says that "People who justhave lawn ornaments are really missing out."

People who know chickens would agree. Some grew up with chickens on farms,others got to know them in suburban settings. New York attorney, BarbaraMonroe, had never really seen a chicken till her daughter bought a baby whiteleghorn rooster from a peddler. To her, "The most amazing thing about Lucie isthe way he's adapted to suburban life," sitting in a car like a person or on thesofa watching TV with the family. Merry Caplan of Louisiana got a chicken by surprise one day when a neighbor brought her a fuzzy black baby bird who

made a beautiful trilling sound. For a while Merry didn't know if she had arooster or a hen. She carried "Charlie" in her pocket, tucking her into a shoebox at night where "She continued her beautiful song and chirped herself tosleep."

How did Celeste Albritton of Texas meet Cluck Cluck? "I never dreamed of having a companion chicken till one day a dog drug this chicken home. She washurt, so Mom and I took care of her till she was well. Now she's part of our


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family." Celeste and Merry both got roosters for their hens. Cluck Cluck hasChick Chick and Charlie has Chuck, who Merry says, "Sits next to her while shelays her egg and announces the event with a series of cock-a-doodle- doos!"

Extract: Chicken Companions by Karen Davis, Ph.D. Please read the completearticle: United Poultry Concerns Chicken Companions

It is possible to think lambs the cutest things ever and then go and eat a lovely lamb dinner overlooking a field of themJo Homer: Observations on the United Kingdom

In spring there are lamb feeding open days in farms where visitors are invitedto feed the lambs, and afterwards often the same people will in all probably sitdown to a meal lured by the promotional slogan of fresh local lamb in a nearbypub or cafe and think nothing of it. Children, and adults too, love animated TVshows about farm animals for instance Wallace and Grommet and the spin offShaun the sheep yet sit down to a meal of lamb. Enter sheep or any other farmanimal in the search field in Amazon or other on line book retailer and you willnotice many cute books for children where the character is a sheep or cow orchicken. Animated films and cartoons such as Bugs Bunny, Donald duck and inmore recent years the ever popular animated films about chickens: Chickenlittle and Chicken run. The later is a humorous story about a group of farmchickens who escape thier coop before their owners Mr and Mrs Tweedy plan toturn them into pies because they are not making enough money from the saleof their eggs. I can well imagine that after taking the kids to a showing at thelocal cinema the whole family stops off at Kentucky Fried Chicken whoseestablishments are often close by cinemas without any qualms whatsoever asthough the incongruity does not exist.

Every year at Easter time Asda sell a cute cuddly soft toy lamb while in theadjacent isle you may buy dead lamb in the form of chops, legs, stew. Yetanother incongruity that few appear to notice

Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?? I'm halfway through my fishburger and I realize, Oh my God....I could be eating a slow learner.

Lynda Montgomery

Shops are crammed with toy sheep such as those below.


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In one shop in the Yorkshire dales you can buy soft cuddly toys of sheep rightalong side decorated lamp shades made from the skins of sheep or cattle as areshoes, handbags, belts, and purses all of which are on sale here. In the dalesand similar areas of intensive sheep farming you will find post cards, greetingscards, clothes with sheep designs, cute little cartoon sheep, photos of lambsand calves, all sorts of paraphernalia you can image. You can collect a wholeseries of ornamental sheep of many different breeds, along with a sheep dog, aborder collie, even a sheep dog feeding a baby lamb holding the bottle in hismouth. Oh how cute! you can see it in the faces of people who admire, buy andcollect these items.

Yet behind this idyllic and incongruous facade is the grim reality of much abuseexploitation and suffering. Sheep live wretched lives, many die of exposure andpneumonia in fields or worse on the hills and mountains in the north withoutshelter, ram lambs are slaughtered within a couple of weeks after birth, ewelambs not needed for reproduction are taken from their mothers at four monthsold, sometimes after only a few weeks to provide lamb for Easter, herded intoa lorry and taken to the slaughter house. Of the millions of sheep slaughtered(16 million in 2003 in the UK alone) 4 million stunned before slaughter willregain consciousness. "Viva! estimates that 4 million may regain consciousness each year before they die and we have video footage showing sheep regaining consciousness as they bleed to death. If only one carotid artery is cut, sheep may not be dead after the required 20 second bleed out time and they will therefore be skinned alive."

Viva! - Vegetarians International Voice for Animals


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Concerning sheep farming of course a great inconsistency exists evenconcerning man's best friend the dog. Here even man exploits his most favouredcompanion. Border collies often also kept as pets are used as labour to roundup sheep. Many may be treated well, but many are not. Entering a farm someyears ago to follow a footpath we came across several very bedraggled anddepressed looking border collie dogs in a wretched and filthy condition. On

another occasion we came upon a collie dog who was tethered outside the gateleading to a farm on a very short leash, his only shelter against the severity ofthe inclement climate was a tiny lean-too not even as large as a kennel filledwith a sparse amount of dirty straw, his drinking bowel was empty and equallyfilthy. Each time we passed by there was this dog in all weathers and any naiveideas that he was taken in at night, tied here only temporary where soondispelled. We reported this to the RSPCA who said that they had had othercomplaints but who nevertheless took no real action other than to get theowner to construct a slightly bigger "kennel" which had a corrugated roof,imagine when it is raining and when it is hot what this must be like for his

unfortunate animal. I could not understand why this dog was not allowed toroam freely during the daytime as there were no busy roads or any otherproblem that would necessitate him being tethered. He was a gentle creature,so timid, retreating back into his make shift kennel when approached. Ipersisted with my request that they take some action to improve this dog's lotbut was told that he was a working dog and I got the distinct impression as suchwould not be considered in quite the same way as if he was someone's pet.What is the difference between a pet collie and a collie who is exploited toround up sheep, both are collies are they not. Does this not strike you asabsurd, certainly inconsistent.

Hope you see here what I am getting at. Isn't it bizarre. How can we have suchfound feeling towards creatures we abuse and or use even those of the samespecies and breed. Why is it okay to treat a collie dog badly if he is used forlabour, exploit him and in my opinion mistreat him, but not okay to treat asimilar animal of the same breed in a neglectful manner if he is a pet ? What doyou imagine would happen if your neighbour kept a collie dog in plain viewoutside his home in all weathers only unleashing him when his services whererequired. I doubt very much if there RSPCA would refuse to take action. TheRSPCA are an excellent charity for the protection and welfare of animals but

still they are only human and like any other human, they may fail to see suchincongruities. In the above incident I got the distinct impression that theperson I spoke to agreed with me on the matter, but of course was restrictedby law from taking further action. The RSPCA can only act within the remit ofthe law. You will find that there are many antiquated laws concerning animalwelfare here in the UK. It is only recently that here fox hunting has beenbanned, yet other types of hunting still take place. Millions of peasants arereared each year simply as targets for those warped individuals who think it is


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entertaining to kill another creature.

If you love animals called pets, why do you eat animals called dinner? As seen on a shirt at veganstore.com

Why is one animal more important than another ? Why do we love our cats,dogs and our budgie in some cases as much or even more than another human

being but care nothing for other animals, eating their flesh, using them as acommodity, as entertainment or labour or to conduct experiments upon ? Iwould imagine that many RSPCA and other members of animal rescueorganisations, vets and others involved in animal welfare go home at the end ofthe day to eat a meal comprised of meat, possibly a pig, an animal moreintelligent than most of the animals that they have tried to rescue, and willnot see any incongruity. Likewise many scientists who experiment on animals,and yes here dogs are included in such cruel painful experiments, have a petdog who they consider as sentient, a friend, a family member. Yet when itcomes to their work they mistreat a similar creature and cause him extremesuffering.

I do not see why we should not be as just to an ant as to a human being.Charles Kingsley

To my mind all animals are equal, all creatures are important, all have a rightto life and to be treated with respect as thinking feeling sentient beings.

Those who wish to pet and baby wild animals "love" them. But those whorespect their natures and wish to let them live normal lives, love them more.Edwin Way Teale, Circle of the Seasons,

So why is animal rights important for all animals not simply those that mantakes into his home as pets for reasons mostly of a selfish nature. Certainly thelot of a pet is better than that of a farm animal but often his or her life is notwithout difficulty. Many dogs are trapped indoors all day unable to performnatural bodily functions while owners go to work. Still others suffer roughhanding from young and even older children, some may be deliberatelyneglected. It's getting increasingly common to hear the term house cat inmuch the same way as one would say house plant. I know two people who haveso called house cats, the animal is provided with a litter, his entire existenceconsists of confinement in the house, he is never allowed out of doors, neverfeels the warmth of the sun or enjoys any other activity that is natural to thebehaviours of a cat, even a domesticated cat who was once allowed to freelyroam. People confine their cat fearing harm coming to their so called belovedpets such as traffic accidents, animal cruelty, or even capture forexperimentation. But consider would we do this to our children because weloved them and do not want harm to come to them, of course not.


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One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals.[Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild ... they would have fulllives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and petthem and then sit there and watch TV.Ingrid Newkirk

Why are there so many inconsistencies in our attitudes and behaviours towardsour fellow creatures? The main problem is that plain and simply we do notthink, few people analyse the situation. By force of habit the same atrocitiestowards our fellow creatures continue questioned only by the relative few, whosee past cultural upbringing. Adherence to the force of habit withoutquestioning it, let alone breaking it is the greatest impediment to change, toleaving behind barbarous behaviours which we cannot condone or allow tocontinue if we wish to really be described as a humane and civilised society.Indeed there are many independent thinkers, who, rather like I, began to feelunease and began to question beliefs that have been drummed into us forgenerations and which are promoted by the meat and dairy industry whose onlymotivation of course is profit, the rearing of animals for meat and otherproducts has nothing to do with providing food to the worlds vast populations.

We need to question question question both our habits and our thinking.

Reasons to treat animals differently - more humanely

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can weexpect any ideal conditions on this earth? George Bernard Shaw

Why do all animals matter without discrimination as all humans matter withoutdiscrimination? Why should we treat all animals with whom we share this worlddifferently than we do at the present time, in a more respectful humanemanner allowing them to live out the natural duration of their lives withoutdetrimental interference? I believe that we should provide medical care andother aid to animals in much the same was as we do, or should do, with ourfellow human beings, although sadly in the case of our own species this is notalways so. Having the capabilities and resources, we have a moral and ethicalduty to do so.

What needs to be done to improve the way we see animals and the way webehave towards them? How can we begin to treat animals better than we donow, in a more compassionate way allowing them to live out the natural extentof their lives? Why should we stop eating the flesh of other sentient beings orexploiting them in other ways for labour, entertainment and for use inexperimentation? Why is it unethical? Ask yourself why you eat meat, drinkmilk, consume eggs.


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Here I will tempt to focus on the reasons why we need to treat animals morehumanly and what may be done to bring this about.

Animal rights, why?

Animals are sentient in a similar way to humans: animals fear death, like youor I they wish to live, and animals experience pain; both emotional andphysical. Furthermore we should treat animals more humanely because it isethical to do so, for instance harming animals encourages violence and crueltytowards humans also.

Lets look at these issues in turn

Sentience

People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dareto advance that animals are but animated machines.... It appears to me,besides, that [such people] can never have observed with attention thecharacter of animals, not to have distinguished among them the differentvoices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel. Voltaire, Trait sur la tolerance

Firstly and most importantly in our consideration of why we should treatanimals more humanely is that animals are sentient.

So what exactly is sentience and how do we know that a creature is sentient,why does this matter and how does this effect how we think about animals andwhy we should think about them differently. Basically sentience meansawareness, consciousness, the ability to feel pain and suffering or converselypleasure and so on, for a full explanation of sentience and how it presents infarm animals please refer to Sentience in Farm Animals

When challenged those in favour of farming and other exploitative practicesoften justify such by saying that animals have no feelings and that they are notaware. We as human beings experience the world through feelings andsensations, we are aware of these feelings and perceptions, we are aware of

the existence of ourselves and others. Sentience is defined as the ability toexperience such sensations and perceptions. A sentient being is aware of hissurroundings and is capable of both pain and pleasure. It is becomingincreasingly apparent that animals have more complex and emotional livesthan people have previously realised, there is now much research into thecognitive abilities of animals including farm animals, fish, crustaceans andinsects. Research shows that farm animals have a whole range of emotions anda keen in intelligence far beyond that which was previously thought.


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An awareness concerning farm animal sentence is becoming more recognisedgenerally, though surely the fact that farm animals are sentient should reallybe a matter of observation and plain simple common sense. Anyone who hasany association with farm animals most certainly know that these creatures aresentient, thinking and feeling beings. Yet despite such observations manyhuman beings often treat animals as though they where simply things,

inanimate, unfeeling, impervious to the range of emotions that we experience.Often considered nothing more than resources for our use they are oftentreated in much the same as way as people treat a lump of wood or a stone orother imamate object

The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each isdifferent.Hippocrates

We need to treat animals more humanely simply because they are living beings.

I and many others including scientists believe that animals are sentient beings,they are conscious, aware of themselves, others and their environment. Andthis as already stated applies also to farm animals. As already mentioned mostpeople will agree that their pet dog or cat is sentient. Consider that both a dogand a pig are mammals, if a dog is sentient it is likely a pig is also. So why dowe feel its okay to eat a pig but not our dog. Pigs are so like dogs to the extentthey can be house trained just like your dog. Often you hear of a dog rescuingsomeone or getting help.

Well here is a story about a pig who saved a boy from drowning.

A young pig in the UK was being taken for a walk by her caregiver. During thewalk the voice of a small boy was heard screaming for help in a nearby river.Immediately the pig pulled free from her guardian, leash trailing, and doveinto the river. She swam out to the boy and continued to circle him until he

grabbed the leash. The boys weight dragged both him and the pig under water,and the crowd on shore gasped with horror. But sure enough a few secondslater both their heads popped above the surface as the little pig swam

furiously towards shore towing the boy behind her. Exhausted, both the boy and the pig made it safely to shore where waiting onlookers wept with joy.

And to think that this little pig was slated for the slaughter house.Extract from Canada Earth Saver article: Farm Animals not so differenthttp://www.earthsave.ca/archives/2006_0304.pdf

Many people have observed that their dog or cat has different moods and thathe or she may be depressed as the dog described in the section on AnimalSentience . Pigs, like your cat or dog, have similar moods and are indeed very


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susceptible to depression

Pigs feel depressed, Owners concerned over mourning pig

(UK) Owners of an animal centre in Hertfordshire are worried about amourning pig. Poddington the Peruvian Pygmy stopped eating and started

picking fights with other animals after her sister died. Wendy and JohnScudamore have even tried a herbal remedy similar to Prozac without success.The herbal remedy Aconite, which is similar to Prozac, has failed to make her

feel better. Mrs Scudamore, who runs the centre in Kentchurch, said:Poddington was devastated when her sister died. We left the body with her

for a day so she could mourn then took it away. But she never moved fromthe spot. I even put a bed in her shed and slept with her for comfort.Dr Nick Neave, an animal psychologist at the University of Northumbria, told the Sunday People: It sounds like she is severely depressed. He says pigs areintelligent and have the same emotions as humans but cannot communicate

them as well.Extract From sentient beings orgSentientBeings.org - Promoting Compassion for Americas Most Abused Animals

Sheep also are similar to humans. When one of their family goes missing sheepwill actively seek him or her out just as we do. Sheep bleat in distress whenthey cannot find a friend or when a ewe loses a lamb other members of theflock come to give comfort. The same behaviour is common in cattle and pigs.And indeed poultry, a goose who loses a partner will pine for days and becomedepressed just like a human being.

Animals wish to live.

We need to behave humanly to animals because they like us wish to live.

In all animals including ourselves of course the instinct for survival is strong.Abraham Lincoln once said concerning the killing of ants that the life of an antis as precious to the ant as the life of a human being is to him or her.

Buddha said and he refers to all animals including man

All beings tremble before violence. All fear death. All love life.See yourself in others.Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do? Shakyamuni Buddha Dhammapada 129-130

Now the wisdom of this statement or others like it has nothing to do with


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religion so please do not be put off if you are not religiously inclined, with orwithout a religious context such observations are reasonable and most relevantconcerning our attitude towards animals . We should treat animals with respectand not harm them in any way because they are like us, and like us they simplywish to live.

All animals fear death, if they did not they would not survive for long, allcreatures fear pain and avoid contact with situations and things in theirenvironment that bring about pain. The avoidance of both death and pain areinstinctive in all animals including man. All animals feel pain, all experiencethe flight or fight response, a survival mechanism triggered by fear.

Our treatment of animals will someday be considered barbarous. There cannotbe perfect civilisation until man realises that the rights of every livingcreature are as sacred as his own.Dr David Starr Jordan

Animals feel pain both physical and emotional

Thankfully it is recognised that animals experience pain and this is the reasonthat in most countries there are laws to protect animals from basic blatantcruelty. Sadly though these laws do no go far enough and often farm animalsare excluded. The recent EU protocol which recognises that animals aresentient may result in some modification concerning the treatment of farmanimals, improving conditions for them and treating them more humanely,however it does not go far enough. This is yet another example of ourinconsistency, while this recognition is of course a good beginning, it appearsincongruous that having recognised that farm animals are sentient to thancontinue to breed and slaughter them for food ! To my way of thinking breeding

animals for slaughter is cruel, inhumane, an atrocity; there is nothing humaneabout causing the death of another creature, it is the ultimate act of profoundcruelty to rob a creature of his existence however "humanely" this act is carriedout, moreover there is no way to kill any animal without causing him pain anddistress. Even if factory farming was abolished, and despite the EU protocolthere is no indication of this happening, it is still cruel to confine animals, stealtheir eggs or the milk that is meant for their calves, determine their lives,when the will conceive and when they will die or enslave them in a life oflabour for instance to round up sheep, or to provide us with entertainment suchas race horses and racing dogs or for use in experiments. No the only humanetreatment of animals is to allow them to live out their lives the way natureintended without detrimental interference.

It is at the very least accepted in scientific circles that all creatures man,dogs, pigs, sheep, cows, poultry, all feel pain both physical and emotional asdo fish and indeed invertebrates often not equated with sentience or even thecapacity to feel pain; crustaceans for example are capable of feeling pain,experience distress and fear.

Read about how animals experience stress and fear: Animal rights

We need to treat animals as we would treat each other because animals like usfeel pain


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Never believe that animals suffer less than humans. Pain is the same for them that it is for us. Even worse, because they cannot help themselves.Dr. Louis J. Camuti

Ethics

"The person who kills for fun is announcing that, could he get away with it,he'd kill you for fun. Your...life may be of no consequence to anyone else butis invaluable to you because it's the only one you've got. Exactly the same istrue of each individual deer, hare, rabbit, fox, fish, pheasant and butterfly.Humans should enjoy their own lives, not take others." Brigid Brophy

It is my personal belief independent of any religious consideration that harmingany creature brings you one step closer to harming another human being.

I recall during a discussion with a Buddhist I remarked that I did not kill even anant and that killing any creature was one step closer to killing a human being.This statement was met with complete agreement. However one does not haveto be religious to know this, it is common sense surely. Violence, killing,cruelty on any level all becomes easier the more it is practised; the more aperson kills another being whether man or animal the easier it is to kill anothertime. To kill thousands of animals day after day becomes a callous act whichbreeds other callous acts. How can we expect a peaceful harmonious worldwhile we kill other creatures who have as much right as do we to their lives.

Killing taints the soul for want of a better word. This is not a religiousdiscussion or consideration for indeed many religions advocate the killing andeating of other creatures, no this is an animal rights issue, a matter ofconscience which is independent of religious belief or otherwise, a simplematter of right and wrong which in my opinion is not dependent on religiousbelief. I am agnostic so this is not a religious issue for me although manyreligious ideas may be relevant as mentioned earlier. The word soul is usedhere for want of a more appropriate word, we could say instead the killing ofthousands of creatures everyday causes psychological damage for a lessreligious connotation. The point is violence breeds violence it taints you as aperson. I can't image associating with anyone who quite readily day after dayworks in a slaughter house, sees the innocent face of a tiny timid lamb forexample and goes on to take his or her life with out a tinge of guilt or regretand with callus disregard.

Animals should be treated differently than they are at present, treated withhumanity and compassion as one would treat another human being because it isethical to do so.

There cannot be peace in this world as long as we exploit animals. Toreiterate, killing a non human animal is one step closer to killing a humanbeing.

"Love of animals is a universal impulse, a common ground on which all of usmay meet. By loving and understanding animals, perhaps we humans shall


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come to understand each other." Louis J. Camuti, D.V.M.

Know that violence is the root cause of all miseries in the world.Violence, in fact, is the knot of bondage."Do not injure any living being." Jain Prayer

"I could not have slept tonight if I had left that helpless little creature to perish on the ground." (Reply to friends who chided him for delaying them by stopping to return a fledgling to its nest.)Abraham Lincoln.

Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is - whether itsvictim is human or animal - we cannot expect things to be much better in thisworld... We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronicdelight in killing we set back the progress of humanity.Rachel Carson

How can we bring about a more humane treatment of animals.

Here I will focus on farm animals, in time in a separate article I will discuss theplight of other types of animal abuse such as animals used for labour andentertainment and experimentation.

Concerning farm animals, we need to examine our behaviours and our thinking,we need to think differently about creatures we have designated as sources offood, food which we no longer need and which causes the destruction of therain forest and contributes to world hunger all to provide the richer countrieswith meat. We need to examine the idyllic imagine that many people have offarms and to see the reality.

Again question, question, question, educate yourself, find out how the food youeat at arrives on your table

For information on the atrocities of factory farming and animalslaughter please go to Animal Rights , where you will also find external links toother informative websites.

Ask yourself can a so called civilised country condone such cruelty to sentiencebeings, creatures who experience pain and fear.

All creature know when the are going to die.


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Please read this account, it is horrifying, shocking; but if you eat meat youshould know the extent of the suffering involved for these sentient, sensitiveand intelligent creatures:

"Whats that noise? asked John, the high-screech pitch too unimaginable toignore. We were on the offside of a slaughter plant wall. He cupped his handsover his ears to give himself an impossible reprieve.

Pigs! I yelled back.

I could tell he didnt understand. I hadnt understood the first time Id heard them, either.

We climbed on lidded barrels to peer over the wall: in every direction, as far as the eye could see, there were pigs: pigs on top of pigs, crammed into cross-

fenced pens by the thousands, like dead sardines in tin cans. The odor they emitted was almost unbearable, of feces and urine; from the dark-walled interior building, the pungent stench of blood invaded our nostrils.

And the pigs were screamingbloody murder...

...In a moment, I explained, theyll kill a pig. I pointed to where thewarehouse opened like the hull of a giant ship. When the pig screams, it willsend a shock wave through the pigs out here; theyll all scream.

Right on cue, from the depth of the buildings interior, a screaming pig could be heard and I could see the animal, the way I once had: pushed onto a movingconveyor belt that would take it to the stunning tongs. Once there, the plantman would grab the pigs head in the giant vice the way one would lift lettuce

from a salad bowl. A painful current of electricity would surge through theanimals body, stunning it just enough or so it is hoped to render itunconscious before the pig reaches the throat-cutting blade.."

Extract from In the Leaving by Laura Moretti

To finish reading the rest of this storyThe Animals Voice: Laura Moretti Found at The Animals Voice: Home

You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ask yourself why you eat meat, drink milk, and consume eggs.

There are many reasons why people consume meat and other animal products.


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Many people will argue that eating meat is natural and that we ourselves arean animal and therefore like any other animal we consume meat; this notion isa fallacy, I will discuss this issue in more detail later. Despite evidence thateating meat is not healthy the erroneous belief persists that without meat it isnot possible to be adequately nourished, yet another misconception. Manypeople eat meat because of religious belief that God created animals for us to

eat. Many people simply eat meat or consume dairy products and eggs becausethey have always done so simply without thinking from force of habit. Theconsumption of animals foods often continues because of ignorance concerninghow animals are treated.

Lets look more closely at some of these reasons why people eat animalproducts

As already stated we consume animal products from a force of habit andbecause the notion that it is healthy to do so has become so entrenched in ourthinking that we do not question it despite more information to the contrary.

Consider for instance why we drink milk, after weaning all mammals stopdrinking milk, that is with the exception of human beings who continue to drinkmilk and moreover the milk of another species. How many other animals exceptthe cat whom we give milk, drinks the milk of another species or drinks anykind of milk after weaning. Is it unnatural? Of course it is. Milk is meant to feeda baby animal until he or she is able to take solids. The milk of each animal hasevolved to meet the needs of that particular creature. Cows milk for instanceis meant to support the growth of a large muscular creature not a relativelyweak, and in comparison to cattle, frail animal, man. No wonder obesity

flourishes in the west, overweight is not the problem in Asian countries wheredairy products are not part of the diet.

The world's entire population could be adequately fed on vegetables. But weare told that meat, milk and eggs are essential to our diet, that we would benutritionally deficit without them. One mother I know of who is vegetarian butnevertheless due to cultural upbringing she continues to include milk and meatin her childrens diets. She believes that meat, eggs and milk are essential tomaintain health in growing children, so despite her concerns about animals,still trapped in the erroneous belief that her children will be nutritionallydeficient, she feeds them meat. She says if she feeds them a vegan diet theyhave had no choice. Surely she can see that the same applies to a meat diet,yet somehow she does not question this notion, never recognising the fallacynever mind the inconsistency in such a concept. There are many like her.Question the facts and you will see that far from anyone being nutritionallydeficient, a vegan diet will in fact prove more nutritional and healthy. Recentlyan insurance provider offered discounts on life insurance to vegans.


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They eat a diet high in wild hunted meats and have the worst life expectancy in the modern world. Life expectancy is 45 years for women and 42 years for men. African researchers report that historically Maasai rarely lived beyond age 60. Adult mortality figures on the Kenyan Maasai show that they have a50% chance of dying before the age of 59.2Joel Fuhrman MD Reffering to the high meat-consuming Maasa in Kenya.

We are told that man is an omnivore. I learnt this in "o" level biology andbelieved it! but consider, do we really have the anatomy of an omnivore,moreover an omnivore whose diet is predominately carnivorous, do we havesharp teeth or claws to shred meat. A carnivore such as a lion has sharp clawsand teeth to shred meat and she is equipped with such to catch and kill herown meat and needs no tool or implement to do so such as a gun or spear.Could you tear meat with your smooth even teeth, raw meat that is ? Could youkill an animal with your bear hands and shred his flesh to eat ? No of course notbecause evolution did not design our bodies to be either carnivores or

omnivores. Consider can you eat meat without cooking it? Most certainly not. Ifit was natural for us to eat meat would we need to cook it first? Man is the onlyanimal who cooks his meat. We have not evolved to eat meat. After all weevolved from herbivores did we not, more about this further down, it isdifficult to imagine that evolution would have developed our organism fromthat of an herbivore towards that of a carnivore.

Such obvious facts, at least in retrospect, are rarely considered, yet Plutarchthe first centaury Greek historian, biographer and essayist commenting on theargument that the eating of meat was not natural wrote:

...its is absurd for them to say that the practice of flesh eating is based onnature. For that man is not naturally carnivorous is, in the first place, obvious

from the structure of his body. A man's frame is in no way similar to thosecreatures who were made for flesh eating: he has no hooked beak or sharpnails or jagged teeth, no strong stomach or warmth of vital fluids able todigest and assimilate a heavy diet of flesh. It is from this very fact, theevenness of our teeth, the smallness of our mouths, the softness of our tongues, our possession of vital fluids too inert to digest meat that Naturedisavows our eating of flesh. If you declare that you are naturally designed for

such a diet, than first kill for yourself what you want to eat. Do it, however,only though your own resources, unaided by cleaver or cudgel of any kind or axe. Rather just as wolves and bears and lions themselves slay what they wantto eat, so you are to fell an ox with your fangs or a boar with your jaws, or tear a lamb or hare to bits. Fall upon it, and eat it still living as animals do.But if you wait for what you eat to be dead, if you have qualms about enjoyingthe flesh while life is still present, why do you continue, contrary to nature, toeat what possesses life? Even when it is lifeless and dead, however, no oneeats the flesh just as it is ; men boil it and roast it, altering it by fire and


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drugs, recasting and diverting and smothering with countless condiments thetaste of gore so that the palate may be deceived and accept what is foreign toit.

The extract above from Plutarch's essay On the Eating of Flesh was quoted in:Ethical Vegetarianism From Pythagoras to Peter Singer, Edited by Kerry. SWalker and Lisa Portmess.

So why did humans go from a herbivorous diet to an omnivorous diet, the maincomponent of which is carnivorous, the consumption of meat?

One theory which we may consider is that humans began to eat meat notthrough any natural impulse but because of a necessity. Famines may well havebeen responsible for man becoming omnivorous, which for example may wellhave been responsible for the varied diet of the Chinese. At periods throughoutthe history of China, including the 1950s, millions died of starvation. Treeswhere stripped bare of leaves and not a blade of grass could be seen so severe

was the shortage of food. From sheer necessity some of the varied, and to ourconcept, unusual food consumed in China may well have been introduced thisway, such as tiny birds similar to those you see in your garden, insects,including caterpillars and grasshoppers, and even dogs. I consider that scarcityof food was perhaps the most likely reason man went from an herbivore to anomnivore and in Palaeolithic times most likely during the winter months manbecame entirely carnivorous perhaps eating meat due to the absence ofanything else. It is now widely accepted that man evolved in Africa andmigrated to other regions. During the winter in cooler climes before man tookup cultivation and farming there would not have been the vegetation to sustain

them.

Another theory as to why man changed his natural diet may simply be fromchoice, observing that other creatures consumed meat man may have thoughtto do likewise much like we today introduce new foods into our diet. Here inthe UK in the last few decades our eating habits have changed due to culturalinfluences particularly from India and other places from where there has been asignificant number of immigrants.

Now this time has passed, and man is able to provide enough plant based food

to feed the entire world and the need to eat meat is no longer necessary, andit is a fact that doing so now actually results in other humans starving todeath. Again it is all a matter of thinking differently and considering that inbasic terms many people simply consume animal products from an habit ofextremely long standing, one most likely only undertaken in the very distantpast to stop starvation but which now helps to cause it.

Moreover the erroneous concept that man is a natural meat eater may wellhave become entrenched in our culture as a result of religious influences.


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Generally accepted in the theory of evolution is the concept of man the hunter,yet this idea may well have arisen from Judeo-Christian beliefs.

"It developed from a basic ideology of man being inherently evil, aggressiveand a natural killer. In fact, when you really examine the fossil and livingnon-human primate evidence, that is just not the case."

Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D Quoted in the article'Man the Hunter' theory is debunked in new book

You wouldn't know it by current world events, but humans actually evolved tobe peaceful, cooperative and social animals.In his latest book, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis goesagainst the prevailing view and argues that primates, including early humans,evolved not as hunters but as prey of many predators, including wild dogs and cats, hyenas, eagles and crocodiles...

It was not possible for early humans to consume a large amount of meat until fire was controlled and cooking was possible. Sussman points out that the firsttools didn't appear until two million years ago. And there wasn't good evidenceof fire until after 800,000 years ago. "In fact, some archaeologists and

palaeontologists don't think we had a modern, systematic method of huntinguntil as recently as 60,000 years ago," he says. The above is an extract from the aforementioned article by Neil Schoenherrand is an informative review of the book 'Man the Hunter' by Robert W. Sussmanand Donna L. Hart well worth reading.

It is often argued that other primates eat meat. But consider the diet of achimpanzee which is about 95-99 percent vegetables. No, the other small nonvegetable percentage is not meat, its termites. Yes a termite is an animal and Iam not implying that termites are not animals, or that they are not sentient orintelligent. I am simply saying that a termite is not meat in quite the same wayas a pig or a sheep and cannot therefore constitute an omnivorous diet initself.

Primates are intelligent creatures able to make choices much as we are and theaddition of termites in their diet rather like the addition of meat in ours maysimply have been included from necessity of food shortage or simply choice,but is not necessarily natural. It is in any case a great leap to say that becausechimpanzees eat termites that they are omnivorous.

The issue relating to why man is not naturally omnivorous is a huge subject andrequires an article of its own. It seems rather superfluous for me to write moreon this matter as you can read an excellent in-depth article about this subject.Here is an extract from the article: Eating meat isn't natural Why humans are


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primarily plant-eaters by design by Michael Bluejay.

Concerning the arguments that are often presented to justify the consumptionof meat as a natural food source for man:

"A fair look at the evidence shows that humans are optimized for eating plant foods, and not meat.

Consider:

Human anatomy: We're most similar to other herbivores, and drastically different from carnivores.

Longevity & health: The more meat we eat, the sicker we get. Meat is poison to us. It's the primary reason we get heart disease, cancer,diabetes, osteoporosis, and every other major degenerative disease. If eating meat were natural, it wouldn't destroy our health.

Physical performance: People have much better endurance when they don't eat meat -- whether they're professional athletes or not.

We'll look at these in more detail later, but for now here's a preview:

Our early ancestors from at least four million years ago were almostexclusively vegetarian.

The animals most similar to us, the other primates, eat an almostexclusively vegetarian diet (and their main non-plant food often isn'tmeat, it's termites).

Our teeth, saliva, stomach acid, and intestines are most similar to other plant-eaters, and dissimilar to carnivores.

Plant-eaters have the longest lifespans, and humans are in that category (and yes, this was true even before modern medicine).

We sleep about the same amount of time as other herbivores, and lessthan carnivores and true omnivores.

The most common cause of choking deaths is eating meat. Realcarnivores and omnivores don't have that problem."

Please read the complete article it will change your thinking about the commonmisconception concerning our assumed need to eat meat.

Eating meat isn't natural -- in-depth article

Also read : Veg.ca - Were early humans vegetarian?

Consider whenever you are advised about healthy eating that much of thedietary advice is published by those with an interest other than your health,this interest of course is mostly profit. Recall the advertising in the sixties, ifyou are the appropriate age you may recall here in the UK the slogan "Go towalk on an Egg" the implication that eggs are healthy. And also the promotionof milk and the advice to drink a pint a day. Can't imagine such an advertising


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campaign now can you with the connection between high cholesterol and eggs.But still the notion that diary and meat are important to an healthy dietcontinues, its has become so entrenched in our culture that still the majoritynever question it, particularly here in the Northeast UK, where still manypeople use lard to cook their meals and where obesity is the highest in thecountry.

Also consider that even if we had evolved to become omnivorous this does notmean we have to continue to be so nor does it give us license to factory farmsentient beings. People live healthy lives without eating meat. The promotionof health and its dependence up eating meat and other animal products is themost tired excuse of them all that people present to justify including meat intheir diet and one that really is no longer valid as all the proteins, minerals andother nutrients are so easily available in a variety of alternative food.

For more information about a vegetarian or vegan diet :Think Differently go Vegi/Vegan

It is mostly only people in the west and other affluent countries who consumemeat, the production of which is not only at the expense of the lives of othercreatures but also at the expense of other people in poorer countries. Read thethought provoking article: Meat = Death The insanity of the 'traditional' dietessay-meat=death

Ignorance is one of the root causes that perpetuate the inhumanetreatment of Animals: Educate yourself

The indifference, callousness and contempt that so many people exhibittoward animals is evil first because it results in great suffering in animals, and second because it results in an incalculably great impoverishment of thehuman spirit. All education should be directed toward the refinement of theindividual's sensibilities in relation not only to one's fellow humanseverywhere, but to all things whatsoever.Ashley Montague

One reason why the inhumane treatment of animals is allowed to continue isignorance. Although less prevalent today it is in my opinion a major factor in

the continuance of such abuse. As a child in the fifties and sixties I was taughtby my parents and also in school that cows needed to be milked otherwise theywould suffer pain. I did not question this of course and neither, or so it seems,did my parents whom I am sure where not promoting the dairy industry. Noindeed not, their information came from ignorance. As amazing as it nowseems it was not until my mid thirties that I realised of course the absurdity ofthis explanation. The same circumstance exist concerning the erroneous ideathat sheep need us to shear them and my sister in her forties had notquestioned this fallacy. Yes indeed sheep now mostly need to be sheared to


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remove their wool, but this is not a natural occurrence in the evolution ofsheep but rather the result of selective breeding as indeed is the existence ofwoolly sheep: before man's intervention sheep had mostly hair or kempintermixed with wool.

Failure to question general absence of cattle in fields, the odd proportion or

rams to ewes, bulls to cows. Rarely do you see pigs in fields or chickens orturkeys. Yet many people are genuinely surprised when they learn that pigs areconfined in tiny pens throughout their short wretched lives, as are most cows,chickens, turkeys and other poultry. And there is a growing trend in many partsof the world to confine sheep in a similar manner. Refer to Animal rights

Educate yourself concerning the attitude of the factory farming industry whichhas led to shocking abuse and cruelty, cruelty far beyond that which manypeople would imagine, not only here in the UK and in similar western countriesbut throughout the entire world. The industry does not consider these animalsas sentient feeling beings who experience pain both emotional and physical.

Here are statements made by those in the factory farming industry made aboutanimals:

Forget the pig is an animal. Treat him just like a machine in a factory.Schedule treatments like you would lubrication. Breeding season like the firststep in an assembly line. And marketing like the delivery of finished goods.

J. Byrnes, Raising Pigs by the Calendar at Maplewood Farm, Hog FarmManagement, 1976

pigsThe breeding sow should be thought of, and treated as, a valuable piece of machinery whose function is to pump out baby pigs like a sausage machine.

L. J. Taylor, export development manager for the Walls Meat Company, Ltd.,National Hog Farmer, 1978

Poultry

At higher egg prices, crowding always resulted in greater profits.

Robert Brown, Toe-Clipping May Help Hens Improve Returns in CrowdedCages, Feedstuffs, 1985

Sheep

Sheep farming, like most agriculture, has become agribusiness and not just away of life. We must be concerned with the amount and quality of the saleable

product produced from our basic production units. In sheep farming, the basic production units are the ewes. . . . We dont need large beautiful fat happy


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ewes that only produce one lamb a year. We need ewes that will provide us anadequate gross income to cover all our costs and then some. D. E. Hogue, Animal Scientist

Cattle

I believe its completely feasible to specifically design an animal for hamburger. Bob Rust, Iowa State University meat specialist, quoted in HamburgerCattle, Successful Farming, 1977

Quotations are from SentientBeings.org - Industry's Attitude where you will finda selection of similar quotations concerning the industry's attitude to farmanimals.

One of the most ludicrous objections is the argument when considering animalsentience, which in turn leads to the consideration of animal rights, is thatanimals are all alike. Despite the fact that this is most certainly not true -similar statements when applied to humans is considered racism, and thisargument has been used also to justify the suppression of humans - this kind ofreasoning to my mind is utterly irrelevant. Even if animals or a race of humanswhere all alike what is the relevance to sentience or animal rights?

The argument that a group of individuals is all alike has been used throughout human history as a justification for the oppression of that group. If all the individuals are alike, then they become impersonal and killing themseems less wrong or horrendous. Chickens, whether intelligent or stupid,

individual or identical, are sentient beings. They feel pain and experience fear. This, in itself, is enough to make it wrong to cause them pain and suffering. Jennifer Raymond

Another argument that is often presented when the rights of animals areconsidered is connected with the religious concept of a soul. Religions includingthe Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam generally but notexclusively believe that animals have no souls.

Eastern religions however have a different concept of animals as beings withsouls who may progress throughout many incarnations to be born as humansand that humans where once animals. For example Hindus believe inreincarnation, with animals being part of the progression of the soul. Oftenfollowers will not step on an insect in fear of harming the reincarnation of apotential human. Many native American and other tribal people also believethat animals possess spirits.

The following quotations are extracts from Animal rights activist Edward Byron


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Nicholson's essay The Rights of an Animal: A New Essay In Ethics

Edward Byron Nicholson born 1849 was an English scholar and librarian, in 1873he became librarian of the London Institution. He published commentaries onthe Gospel according to the Hebrews (1879) and St. Matthew (1881) and paperson philology.

In the extracts below he addresses two common objections which are often putforward in the consideration of animal rights.

Animal-Reason

The time which they have for living and learning is but short: wild, their life isin some cases all fear and struggle; tame, they are under the rule of one whois often a bad master and seldom a good schoolmasterman. Even thus we aredriven to see in them, despite our contempt, and to acknowledge in them,despite our pride, numberless proofs of the same mental and moral faculties

to which we ourselves lay claim often (though not always) different in degree,but not so in kind. Nay, if we are pressed we must admit that many animalsare wiser and better than many men and some entire races, of men. And, sincewe cannot put down these faculties to instinct, ought we not rather to admireand cultivate than disparage and slight the animal-mind ? can we do less than

forbear henceforth to bring forward the supposed defects of that mind as a ground for refusing to the animal what would otherwise be its rights as a feeling creature?

The Animal-Soul

The other common objection to allowing animals rights is that they 'have nosoul,'This objection [is no more to the point than the former [that they haveno reason]. For put it thusAnimals will have no after life : that is a reasonwhy they should be denied what would otherwise be their rights in the presentone'and its absurdity is plain. Nay, if animals have no chance of happiness inanother life we should be the more careful to ensure their happiness inthis.But were the objection ever so much to the point it would still be a bad one. For in the first place it is not capable of proof and therefor cannot beused to bar a natural right. And in the second place, we allow souls to men, I

cannot see how we are to deny them to animals.Edward Nicholson,

The Rights of an Animal extract fromRights of an Animal | Edward Nicholson

Visit the home page of the above website for a wealth of informationconcerning the history of animal rights. Here you will find links to PrimarySource Historical Literature which provides a more in-depth insight into the


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ideologies of humanity against cruelty to animals and additional historicalperspective on the continuing struggle for animal rights, animal welfare andprotection of animals.

Animal Rights Quotes-Library | Timeline of Animal Rights History

Whether or not animals including man have a soul is irrelevant, animals

including ourselves suffer in the here and now and as the above quote suggests,if animals do not have souls then that is more reason to treat animals morehumanely and to allow them the enjoyment of whatever life they have.

Even amongst the religions that do not believe that animals have souls most ofthese religions advocate that animals should be treated humanely. I cannotimagine that the teaching of any religion that believes in a compassionatedeity could possibly condone factory farming and the general mistreatment ofanimals that prevails the world over. I think that it is unreasonable to use theexcuse, most prevalent amongst Christians, that God created animals for our

use in order to justify factory farming. I rather doubt that those who belong toreligions that believe that animals are here for our benefit can honestly thinkthis gives mankind the license to mistreat animals in factory farms, or to huntthem for sport, or use them for experimentation or for entertainment. All ofthese religions teach against animal cruelty

For example Judaism

"Although it is not well known, Judaism has very powerful teachings about the proper treatment of animals. If Jews took these teachings seriously, they would be among the strongest protesters of many current practices related toanimals."

Judaism and Animal Rights

Surely the methods used in factory farming, and the experimentation uponanimals for example, constitutes dreadful cruelty and therefore cannot becondoned by any religion that teaches against cruelty to animals.

Moreover members of the Abrahamic religions for the most part if asked thequestion do animals have souls will reply in the affirmative. Furthermoreaccording to my understanding there are no references in any of the literatureof these faiths that states in so many words that animals do not have souls.

Jainism is probably the only religion to consistently teach against harming anycreature including the tiniest of insects, you will find references admonishingagainst cruelty to animals in many ancient and modern religions including,Buddhism and Hinduism. Many of these religions adhere to a vegetarian orvegan diet even some sects of the Abrahamic religions. For example St Franciswas a vegetarian and in times passed Christian monks mostly adhered to a


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vegetarian diet.

Here is a selection of links to vegetarian associations established and supportedby members of the Abrahamic religions:

Vegetarian News - Islamic vegetarians

Judaism and Vegetarianism

Christian Vegetarian Association

Also of interest

The only diet for a peacemaker is a vegetarian diet

I do not wish to go too deeply into the religious view of animal rights here orcomment further on the issue of animal souls as in due course I hope to includean in-depth article on this subject. Personally I do not know if man or otheranimals have a soul. I rather think that if man does have a soul then so doanimals, conversely if animals do not have souls then neither does man, forman is an animal like any other. Moreover what is a soul? Is a soul the same asa spirit, the mind, or is this a concept that has come into being that actuallyrefers to sentience? The part of us that makes us who we are, an aspect of ourexistence that I strongly believe that other animals, including farm animals,fish and invertebrates, in fact all living things, possess. This is a huge subjectwhich I hope to tackle in an unbiased way in the near future. For now here is aselection of quotes from religion and philosophy stating that animals have soulsand that animals should be treated humanely, with kindness and compassion.

Wherever there is the evolution of living beings, let people cherish the thoughtof kinship with them, and, thinking that all beings are [to be loved as if they were] an only child, let them refrain from eating meat.Buddha, The Lankavatara Sutra, "On Meat Eating*

For profit sentient beings are destroyed, for flesh money is paid out, they areboth evil-doers.Buddha, The Lankavatara Sutra, "On Meat Eating*

Pythagoras taught that all animated beings were kin, and should be

considered as belonging to one great family.

O human race! Do not, I beg you, and concentrate your minds on my admonitions! When you place the flesh of slaughtered cattle in your mouths,know and feel, that you are devouring your fellow-creature. Pythagoras'sTeachings: Vegetarianism 8th c. BCE in Ovid's Metamorphoses

For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he whosows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.


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Pythagoras

Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but tostop there is not enough. We have a higher mission--to be of service to themwhenever they require it... If you have men who will exclude any of God'screatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who willdeal likewise with their fellow menSt. Francis of Assisi

Life is life - whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference therebetween a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage. Sri Aurobindo

A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast.Proverbs 12:10

There is not an animal that lives on the Earth, nor a being that flies on itswings, but forms part of communities like you. Nothing have we omitted fromthe Book, and they all shall be gathered to their Lord in the end.Al-Quran

Whoever is kind to the creatures of God is kind to himself.Prophet Muhammad

I just love this delightful quote from the Islamic tradition:

When you hear the crowing of cocks, ask for Allah's Blessings for (their crowing

indicates that) they have seen an angel...

Hadith 4:522

Maybe not the intent of this passage but it does imply sentience

There is not an animal on the earth, nor a flying creature on two wings, butthey are people like unto you.Qur'an

Ways to bring about a humane treatment of animals

Here I will discuss ways in which we may bring about changes in the way wethink about animals and how we treat them

Education

Challenge the habit. Find out how your food gets to your table. Learn about thecruelties of factory farming : Animal Rights

Also information concerning factory farming and other abuse may be found onthe following external websites:


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Viva! - Vegetarians International Voice for Animals

"Eating meat; fish and dairy causes environmental destruction, damages humanhealth, contributes to global hunger and inflicts immense suffering on billionsof animals across the world. Viva! believes that the solution to all theseproblems is in our own hands: the best way to stop the destruction and thecruelty is to stop eating animals now go vegetarian, or better still, vegan. "

Campaigns, information, recipesViva! USA

"Viva! is a dynamic organization campaigning on behalf of animals killed forfood. We do investigations of factory farms and then produce campaignmaterials for students and activists, helping people change to a veggie diet! Weare an international organization, registered in the USA as a 501(c)(3)non-profit."

Also VIVA PolandViva! Walczymy o konie i inne zwierzeta : .

PETA UK: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals UK

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): The animal rightsorganization USA

"PETA US formed in 1980 in the United States and has more than 2 millionmembers and supporters, making it the largest animal rights organisation in theworld.

PETA US and PETA Europe are dedicated to establishing and protecting therights of all animals. Like humans, animals are capable of suffering and haveinterests in leading their own lives; therefore, they are not ours to use for

food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation or any other reason.PETA-named affiliates around the world educate policymakers and the publicabout cruelty to animals and promote an understanding of the right of allanimals to be treated with respect."

I have no said much concerning other matters of animal abuse such asexperimentation. I hope to include a separate article in the near future aboutthis and other areas of animal abuse such as animals used in entertainment.

Please check out the website below for information about a number of issueconcerning animal cruelty .

Uncaged Campaigns: Against animal testing and experiments

An organisation campaign against animals experimentation.

Uncaged campaigns"We are a peaceful international animal protection organisation based inSheffield, England. Our main campaigns are against animal experiments(vivisection); against xenotransplantation (animal to human transplants); theglobal boycott of Procter & Gamble; for animal rights and for democratic


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action on animal issues through the political system."

Go Veggie /vegan

The most effective way to put an end to the atrocities of factory farming is togo vegetarian or preferably vegan.

For information about becoming a vegetarian or Vegan click the links below.

Information on this website:

Think Differently Go Veggi/Vegan and So you want to go Vegan/Vegi

More advice about changing your diet to vegetarian or vegan can be found onthe following external websites:

VIVA have advice on how to go veggi or vegan.

Viva! - Vegetarians International Voice for Animals Going Vegan

Viva! - Vegetarians International Voice for Animals Going Veggi

Includes recipes

GoVeg.com: Vegetarian and Vegan Information

Includes information, advice recipes and free vegetarian starter kit

PETA UK vegetarian Starter Kit

Help and advice to become vegetarian

includes link to international PETA websites

What Vegans Eat - Vegan Society

Campaigns

Another way to bring about change is to participate in campaigns such assigning or initiating petitions, writing letters to government officials and tofood producers and peaceful protests.

Viva! - Vegetarians International Voice for Animals campaigns

Campaigns

"Every year in Britain, more than 7 billion animals face the barbarity of slaughter - many fully conscious. Most spend their short, brutal lives inconfinement, pain and misery. Viva! launches regular, hard-hitting campaignsand has forced the vegetarian and vegan debate back on to the agenda - on TV,radio and in the press."


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VIVA have wide range of campaigns again animal cruelty for you to participatein and provides a supporter pack

PETA UK > Campaigns

PETA and PETA Europe are dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights

of all animals. Like us, animals are capable of suffering, and they have aninterest in leading their own lives; therefore, they are not ours to eat, wear,experiment on, use for entertainment or use in any other way. PETA and PETAEurope work through public education, research, legislation, special events,celebrity involvement and protest campaigns.

A wide range of campaigns in which you may become involved, plenty of helpand advice to help you take action against cruelty to animals

Action against vivisection

Campaigns and action in which you may become involved to help stopexperimentation and other forms of cruelty

"The UK Government annual statistics 2007 reveal that over 3.2 million animalssuffer and die in British laboratories in experiments that "may cause pain,suffering, distress and lasting harm" (experiments that are considered unlikelyto cause pain do not need to be licensed and are therefore not included in theannual statistics). An estimated additional 8 million animals are bred and thendestroyed as surplus to requirements. As well as mice, rats, hamsters, gerbilsand guinea pigs (the bulk of experiments involve rodents), other animals suchas rabbits, dogs, cats, monkeys, horses, cows, pigs, sheep, fish, amphibians,reptiles, birds and even insects are used - in fact there's hardly a species thatare not experimented on."

PETA UK > Campaigns : Cruel Science

On the above website you will find information about the shocking film belowand action you can take.


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Think Differently About sheep is a new website and went on-line in March2009. I hope to provide more information about the above topics including linksto information, campaigns and dietary advice as such becomes available.

The information on this webpage is on going and the content will be revised

and new additions included as more information becomes available.

Other links of interest

The declaration of animal rightsThe universal declaration of animal rights"Inasmuch as there is ample evidence that many animal species are capable offeeling, we condemn totally the infliction of suffering upon our fellowcreatures and the curtailment of their behavioural and other needs save wherethis is necessary for their own individual benefit.

We do not accept that a difference in species alone (any more than adifference in race) can justify wanton exploitation or oppression in the name ofscience or sport, or for use as food, for commercial profit or for other humangain.

We believe in the evolutionary and moral kinship of all animals and declare ourbelief that all sentient creatures have rights to life, liberty and naturalenjoyment."

IMPACT Press: Article: "Gestation Crates: No Way To Treat A Pig" -- Aug.-Sep.Truely man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured theuse of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on themurder of animals as they now look on the murder of men. Leonardo da Vinci

As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always


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had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men wereNazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might isright.

Isaac Bashevis Singer


Documents

Animal Rights and Why They Matter