Hi Peter,

Thanks for your thoughtful and intelligent points.

When I eat an alfalfa sprout, a living being, I am a killer.  If I feel
remorse or guilt about being a sprout killer, I might choose to tell myself
that I performed the act with kindness, compassion and mercy.  Telling
myself this allows me to cover up my guilt feelings and to feel better
about my sprout-killing.  But I contend this is self-deception.  It may be
troubling to face contradictions in ourselves, but face them we must if we
are to emerge from the trance of everyday life.  (A trance common to all of
humanity, not just meat eaters.)

For most of us this is a hypothetical situation.  How many of us give any
thought to the feelings of plants?  The real contradictions face us when we
are confronted with the decision whether or not to continue killing
(usually by proxy) and eating animals.  Most of us feel genuine positive
feelings for animals, at least some animals.  Though many would deny it, I
suggest that it is a rare person who, at some level of their being, has
been completely untroubled by feelings of guilt, sadness, remorse, etc. in
connection with killing animals for food.  I suggested in my original post
on this topic that to talk of killing animals for food "mercifully" was a
way of dealing with these feelings.

I don't say that a meat eater has no kindness or compassion.  That would be
an absolutely ludicrous position.  I am not even saying that they are less
kind or compassionate than vegans.  Few people want animals to suffer.  But
it certainly is possible to cover up guilt feelings by saying we want the
killing done "mercifully."  After all, how many people really investigate
whether the animals they eat were killed "mercifully"?

Responding to a few of your points:

Mark said:
> >The animal, given a choice, would rather live, just as you or I would.

Peter said:
> The animals that we kill and eat have no concept of being treated
unfairly  or not given a choice/chance, neither do they understand the concept of
> death or mourn over the prospect of having to finish life prematurely.
Like  all creatures animals have a strong instinct for survival and should be
> treated without cruelty but it ends here. Any speculations beyond that I
> think are just projections; extensions and reflections of our own fears
and  nightmares.

Why bother treating them without cruelty if they have "no concept of being
treated unfairly"?  The fact that you acknowledge it is better to avoid
cruelty proves that the animal knows the difference.  (Or is avoiding
cruelty only for show?)  If one wants to kill and eat the animal, so be it;
but let's not go to elaborate lengths to make the animal out to be lacking
any intelligence whatsoever.

Mark said:
> >Even people who go out and kill animals on their own are probably, for
>>the  most part,  inflicting as much if not more suffering than the  slaughterhouses.

Peter said:
> I disagree.  How do you reach this conclusion?

I haven't been in a slaughterhouse, but I would think that the
professionals are trained to kill the animals efficiently and quickly,
certainly more so than would be possible with a gun at a distance.  Of
course, this probably doesn't take into account the fact that in a
slaughterhouse, it may be that the animals next in line can smell the blood
and hear the cries and probably know what is coming.  (You may not think
they're that intelligent, but I do.)  So from a psychological standpoint,
maybe their suffering is greater in a slaughterhouse.

> Rather being an issue of hypocrisy is not the core of the matter that you
> believe that killing and eating another creature is an act of violence in
> which there is no place for compassion?

It certainly is an act of violence, and I do not see the compassion in this
specific act.  Why is this so hard for people to accept?  Are our egos so
weak that we must think of ourselves as kind and compassionate ALWAYS, even
when we are killing an animal?  I'm not saying the meat eater is despicable
scum, I'm just saying I don't see the compassion in this act.  Maybe we
should just acknowledge that we are hungry.  Justifying it with evidence
about humans being omnivores is one thing, but let's not throw compassion
into it.

> What you do seem to be saying is that the compassion that meat-eaters
feel  for animals is less real than that of plant-eaters.  I am reading you
> correctly?

If you and I are both petting a pig and saying warm and fuzzy things about
it, and then you proceed to kill and eat the pig, I will no doubt feel that
you didn't care for the pig as much as I did.  Maybe I will even suspect
that while I was thinking of how cute the pig looked, you were thinking of
how tasty it looked.  But since I have no way of feeling what you are
feeling, I would be only speculating.

Thanks, Peter!

Mark