How should an Atheist world treat animals?

Goduznt Xzst

Lets say a country becomes entirely Atheist. How will that country treat animals and animal rights?

I mean up till now, under religious doctrine, animals where put on this planet, by God, for our food, clothes, enjoyment... etc. With the exception of a few animals being viewed as noble, honorable or holy (i.e. horses, cows... etc)

Under an Atheist view of the world, shouldn't we view ourselves more as Earthlings, sharing this planet with all other living creatures rather than abuse our evolutionary advantage over this planet.

How, as an Atheist, do you view living creatures that aren't human.

For myself I found it as a revelation accepting there is no God because I suddenly felt a commune with every other living creature on this planet, we are all just struggling to survive. My base needs are no different to those of a dog, a cat, an insect... etc

I really have no right to kill another living creature that poses no threat to me. Before I used to have a great disgust for spiders but now I find them fascinating, how their bodies have evolved and the engineering they employ to build their webs.

This realization however makes me think about the way animals are unaturally devided into human created categories. We don't really view animals by species, rather we have animals grouped by work, clothes, food, pets, disgusting and dangerous.

What are your thoughts?

Galvasean

Well viewing certain animals as dangerous if they bare dangerous is perfectly logical. Such animals should be avoided where possible.

Goduznt Xzst

Galvasean wrote: »

Well viewing certain animals as dangerous if they bare dangerous is perfectly logical. Such animals should be avoided where possible.

clearly. I'd be of the mind that if an animal aims to hurt or kill you or another human they can be killed or moved away from humans. So I'd have no issue with killing a mosquito or wasp. I also have no issue with killing all the micro organisms on my keyboard by typing this.

pH

One question I've never been able to answer is: "For an animal is some life better than none?". I've asked this before, take cows for example, we keep thousands of the things to be killed for beef. Let's say they have a nice life and are slaughtered humanely, is that better than never having existed?

The point being, if we no longer ate cows, the countryside would not be full of them roaming fields and being kept healthy by vets. Cows (for beef! - yes I know about dairy but let's treat them as a separate species) would cease to exist. I know that we can all point to some instances of abuse and inhumane treatment of domestic animals, but that's not my point. Is some years of life (when the treatment is humane) better than no life at all?

In a weird twist, it could be said that vegetarians (by definition) deprive beef cattle of life! If we were all veges then no beef cattle would be reared at all. Whilst I'm totally against animal cruelty, I think perhaps it's better for a cow to live a nice couple of years in a green Irish field and end up on my plate than for it never to have had any life at all.

Galvasean

If you look at it from an evolutionary POV cows, sheep and chickens are doing much better with our help than they would be normally. Their numbers have increased dramatically with our help.
However, their increased numbers has detrimentally effected the niches of other animals. Take for example the rain forest that gets cut down so cows can graze in order to make beef.

Goduznt Xzst

pH wrote: »

In a weird twist, it could be said that vegetarians (by definition) deprive beef cattle of life! If we were all veges then no beef cattle would be reared at all. Whilst I'm totally against animal cruelty, I think perhaps it's better for a cow to live a nice couple of years in a green Irish field and end up on my plate than for it never to have had any life at all.

Galvasean wrote: »

However, their increased numbers has detrimentally effected the niches of other animals. Take for example the rain forest that gets cut down so cows can graze in order to make beef.

Thanks Galvasean, I was going to make that point also, for one animal to thrive another usually needs to suffer.

Also, no life would be preferable to a life in captivity. Your idea reminds of the movie "The Island". Say everytime someone wished to abort a baby the government stepped in and said they would take that baby instead, as a life is better than death, they would raise it in isolation and give it all its needs and wants, then when someone required an organ it would be killed and the organ used to save the life of another. Would you agree in this instance that life for that human is better than if they had been aborted?

Mena

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

How, as an Atheist, do you view living creatures that aren't human.

I'd value an animals life over a lot of humans to be fair.

Galvasean

Mena wrote: »

I'd value an animals life over a lot of humans to be fair.

Usually I'd agree. But what about extreme cases, like a mass murderer or paedophile rapist. Would you value their life over say a very rare and cute baby turtle?

Goduznt Xzst

Galvasean wrote: »

Usually I'd agree. But what about extreme cases, like a mass murderer or paedophile rapist. Would you value their life over say a very rare and cute baby turtle?

I think you read Mena's post in reverse

Mena

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

I think you read Mena's post in reverse

Phew, thought I had lost it for a second there

Dades

How should an Atheist world treat animals?

As best they can, while still providing benefits such as the smashing bit of pork I just had for lunch.

Goduznt Xzst

Dades wrote: »

As best they can, while still providing benefits such as the smashing bit of pork I just had for lunch.

so an animals rights should hinge on how tasty we find them?

I still eat meat myself, but I accept that there is a lot about it that's wrong. It's like the way I wear clothes and drink coffee whilst also knowing some human somewhere has to pick that cotton or those beans and is getting barely enough money to survive on.

In a better world, I'd like to see equality amongst humans being improved alongside a deeper respect for every living creature on this planet.

If we don't need the meat of an animal to survive then we shouldn't take their life to merely fulfill our wants.

Dades

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

so an animals rights should hinge on how tasty we find them?

If we don't need the meat of an animal to survive then we shouldn't take their life to merely fulfill our wants.

Like pH, I'm drawn to the argument that if we ceased eating meat, the animals we so honourably save by doing so, would simply not exist, and their species would be relegated to petting zoos.

An atheist world where we would eat only the produce of the soil, doesn't leave much land for the current human menu to frolic about on.

That said, I'm fully aware that my attraction to this argument could be a side effect of my dislike of vegetables and annoying requirement for protein.

Dave!

Funny this thread should be started, because recently I've been having a bit of an internal struggle about how animals should be treated.......

There's alot of varience, but I think that most people (certainly in Europe) view hunting animals for sport/fun as deplorable. There's a degree of hostility shown towards people who wear animal fur as clothing. I think most people would oppose animals being used to test cosmetics.

Yet at the same time, most people have no trouble eating the flesh of an animal that was born and bred for just that purpose. Animals are exploited for various sorts of labour, carrying humans around, entertaining them, and so on. I don't think anyone's happy about cows being sent into a machine every day to be milked, nor chickens being kept in cages to produce eggs.

There's a certain duality with respect to animal treatment and you have to wonder why? Why are animals afforded some rights (the right not to be tortured), which are enshrined in legislation, whereas they're not afforded others (the right not to be killed and eaten)? It's as if they're considered "half human", or they qualify to be protected to some degree but not completely.

And then again you also have a spectrum of animal species, with some having NO protection (eg. mosquitos), and others having almost human protection (eg. domesticated dogs/cats). What entitles one to protection but not the other? Perhaps it's to do with the status of the animals within society and the role they played historically... cows, sheep, dogs, and horses serve various purposes so are protected... foxes and rats serve f*ck all purpose so are not. But then cats don't serve much purpose...

So what differentiates us from other animals to the point that humans are protected without question, whereas animals get a question mark over their head? Probably self-preservation tbh! We're looking after our own asses with human rights. But then what differentiates a dog from a more primitive life-form (eg. bacteria)? Complexity really. Maybe it's the ability to convey human-like emotions in a manner which humans understand.

I was also wondering about the whole idea of 'suffering' lately... If someone accidentally hit a dog with a car, and it was clearly f*cked, but still alive, they'd be inclined to drop a rock on its head to end its suffering. I imagine the same would be true of even a mouse/rat. What about a snail/slug? I remember pouring salt on a snail when I was younger and watching it go ape-sh*t (:(), and I still feel bad about it!!! And it's a f*cking snail!!!

None of these creatures (in so far as we can tell) have the same 'level of consciousness' as humans. They don't have self-awareness, can't ruminate on philosophical ideas, can't do maths. They do feel emotion, pain, suffering, etc. But is that enough to give them graded degrees of protection? Apparantly so!

In conclusion: I have no f*cking idea

Goduznt Xzst

Dave! wrote: »

So what differentiates us from other animals to the point that humans are protected without question, whereas animals get a question mark over their head? Probably self-preservation tbh! We're looking after our own asses with human rights.

This is exactly it, the current system works to make humans as comfortable as possible, for the majority, things like cosmetic testing, fur or hunting sports are minority interests and there eradication won't really affect the way the majority lives their lives and this is how the categorization of animals happens, they are not categorized as to their value to the planet rather as to their value to humans and making our lives easier and more enjoyable.

I'd probably be ok with a system where you can buy all food products that aren't meat or from animals, but if you chose to eat meat you would have to hunt it, kill it and prepare it yourself. You could not sell this meat of give it away to anyone but your immediate family.

I've been with people as they hunted quite large game before in America, and something that is missing from the movies about hunting is the gutting, bleeding and quartering or an animal after it has been shot. I'd dare say if everyone had to do that there would be a lot more vegetarians in the world because I couldn't even stand the smell of meat for a good few weeks after that.

cavedave

I'd dare say if everyone had to do that there would be a lot more vegetarians in the world because I couldn't even stand the smell of meat for a good few weeks after that.

There does seem to be something hypocritical about meat eaters who have never killed and eaten an animal.

brianthebard

OP there is a contradiction in your first post, you say that we are no better than any other animal, and therefore have no right to kill an animal that doesn't pose a thread, but surely it is perfectly ethical to kill other animals for sustenance, the same way they do?

Galvasean

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

I think you read Mena's post in reverse

Indeed I did

cavedave wrote: »

There does seem to be something hypocritical about meat eaters who have never killed and eaten an animal.

Scavenging is a perfectly legitimate way of finding food. Always has been.

Soul Winner

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

Lets say a country becomes entirely Atheist. How will that country treat animals and animal rights?

I mean up till now, under religious doctrine, animals where put on this planet, by God, for our food, clothes, enjoyment... etc. With the exception of a few animals being viewed as noble, honorable or holy (i.e. horses, cows... etc)

What about animal testing? Where does it say that we are to do that?

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

Under an Atheist view of the world, shouldn't we view ourselves more as Earthlings, sharing this planet with all other living creatures rather than abuse our evolutionary advantage over this planet.

Yeah, stop making guns and weapons and live close to lions and bears and elephants and see how far we get.

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

For myself I found it as a revelation accepting there is no God because I suddenly felt a commune with every other living creature on this planet, we are all just struggling to survive. My base needs are no different to those of a dog, a cat, an insect... etc

They are actually. Animals don't ponder their base needs, they just go out there and eat whatever's handiest, don't give it a second thought, unless they have ranks like lions or wolves, and have to wait for their share with droopy eyes. But we have guilt about what we do. If eating animals was outlawed worldwide then the focus would eventfully turn to vegetables. Especially vegetables that the now protected animals need. If we eat all of them then we would be inadvertently killing animals by invading their food supply. We’ll have plant rights activist eventually, to protect the animals that need the plants that we soley rely on now. Talk about giving up our evolutionary advantage, we’ll eventually evolve back into bacteria if we're not careful

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

This realization however makes me think about the way animals are unaturally devided into human created categories. We don't really view animals by species, rather we have animals grouped by work, clothes, food, pets, disgusting and dangerous.

I think animals are much more interesting than humans, well most humans anyway. That's why I watch more nature documentaries than I do soap operas. I even like Deadliest Catch. Those poor crabs though :mad: Joking aside, I really hate seeing animals being abused whether they be domesticated or wild. We need certain types of animals in order to survive and I think the planet needs us to make sure that we keep it like that, this will benefit everyone in the long run including animals.

cavedave

Scavenging is a perfectly legitimate way of finding food. Always has been.

Fair point. If I get caught I am not shoplifting I am scavenging.

Doctor DooM

I can't for the life of me find the source of this, I read it somewhere, but I will mention it.


Apparently, on average, it seems animals with human like eyes tend to get a better deal than those that do not. It's a side effect of human evolution. We have feelings of empathy for other humans, and puppy eyes etc tug at that side of us.

So dogs and cats (which don't serve a function to the masses) get a certain amount of protection that, say, flies don't.

Now there's flaws to this argument, but I would say those flaws may be down to other reasons (cows get killed, but human hunger survival and greed come into that, and sure don't most people have empathic feelings for cows when they consider how they live anyway? An rats carry disease and so endanger humans, so they must be controlled).

brianthebard

That's fairly common knowledge at this stage I think sdoom, and I think you are right it accounts for the general treatment of animals. Maybe thats why people have a hard time connecting cows with meat-they have lovely eyes and lashes! :P

Awww, wuvly

Galvasean

Just look at the puppy.

OK-Cancel-Apply

All animals are worthless meat sacks who deserve to be eaten with BBQ sauce, except for kitties, because they're fuzzy and cute. :pac:

Seriously though, my position is that we should leave animals alone as much as we can, and our interaction with them should be peaceful. Suffering is not a good thing, and we should minimize it where possible.

We can't exactly hope to ever treat animals equally, as I think our prisons would be full within hours!

Zillah

cavedave wrote: »

There does seem to be something hypocritical about meat eaters who have never killed and eaten an animal.

Why? I like to eat meat. I do not like to kill things. So I eat meat, and I don't kill things. Its selfish perhaps, but not hypocritical.

studiorat

There's a documentary floating around the net at the moment called Earthlings, it accuses the human race of "species-ism" it's the usual internet documentary fare ie. one-sided cut with pictures of particularly gruesome animal slaughter, maltreatment and pictures of Hitler, atom bombs etc. You know the drill.

Well I was a veggy for 12 years at one stage, I didn't want to be involved with the bad treatment of animals, they way they were transported, treated etc.
I'm not anymore but I still have issues with it but I don't find it as easy not to eat meat as I used to for some reason.

This year though I followed two sheep from field to table in a day. We walked into the field the sheep came over thinking it was dinner time and had their throats slit, there was a bit of kicking around no noise they were hung, butchered and cooked. They meal was really enjoyable and we ate nearly everything I mean everything.

I didn't have the slightest problem with it and I found it almost respectful to enjoy the meal knowing that the sheep had been raised just across the road from where we ate them.

Anyway to the point, the people who kept and ate these sheep don't eat meat every day in fact it's a pretty big thing to do what they did, even chicken bought live from the market is a luxury. They use every part of the animal they can find a use for and the rest of the time meals are mainly fruit and veg.
So it got me to thinking that the problem is we just eat too much meat, nearly every meal we eat has meat. The fact that there are so many slaughter houses and processing factories is due to this. Not to mention the impact on carbon emissions, destroying forests to breed even more animals, the amount of energy used to process and transport this meat. It's just can't last.

So instead of not eating meat at all maybe everybody should just eat less and be a little more choosy about the meat we do eat, organic, free range and traceable. It's the production on the mass scale it is on is what leads to the bad treatment of animals if we didn't eat so much meat it would be a lot easier to treat the animals we did use for food a lot better then we do.

So in my Atheistic utopia yes we will eat animals but we won't eat as many and hopefully we'll be able to treat them a bit better then we do not.

brianthebard

There is more legislation on how much space must be given to animals in transport than there is with regards humans. I think people would be surprised at just how many "rights" animals have and how strict the government and EU are on them. I agree with studiorat, if you are saying people don't show animals enough respect. There are thousands, millions of cattle slaughtered every year solely for fillet steak. The rest is just not as desireable to a lot of people. I have absolutely no problem with raising animals for slaughter, but I think a lot of people need to wake up and smell the left overs.

Agonist

I'm an atheist and a vegetarian. I never saw a link between those categories until I saw this thread and gave it some thought. There is indeed a link, because when the idea of humans having a soul and special purpose is removed everything changes.
The simplest way for me to describe my feelings is through genetics and kinship. If only one person could be saved from a sinking boat I'd choose my brother over other humans. I'd choose any human over an animal. I'd choose any mammal over an invertebrate. I'm not sure if I'd choose a slug over an alien, but that's for a different forum.

What's more important is the ability to suffer. My belief is that suffering should be minimised where possible within reason in the world. I give creatures with nervous systems more status in the suffering hierarchy. I feel one of the values of being human, intelligent and having the power to choose is that I can make the world a less painful, more peaceful place.

Clearly, most people either disagree or choose not to think about it, or like the taste of flesh too much to change their habits either way. I feel better when I'm not harming another so it's really me making me suffer less.

pH

Goduznt Xzst wrote: »

Thanks Galvasean, I was going to make that point also, for one animal to thrive another usually needs to suffer.

That seems a lazy form of argument, the choice is practically between land being used for crops or land being used for livestock. It also doesn't directly address my point, we use land (to the loss to its original inhabitants) for many non essential things, golf courses, race tracks, stadiums etc. So I think it's unfair to dismiss the argument just by saying "if cows weren't on the land some other creatures would be", when clearly that's not the case.

Also, no life would be preferable to a life in captivity. Your idea reminds of the movie "The Island". Say everytime someone wished to abort a baby the government stepped in and said they would take that baby instead, as a life is better than death, they would raise it in isolation and give it all its needs and wants, then when someone required an organ it would be killed and the organ used to save the life of another. Would you agree in this instance that life for that human is better than if they had been aborted?

The animals we're talking about are not human, and to confuse the two is disingenuous in the extreme. But just to answer for a human (judging for example by prison suicide rates) life in captivity is preferable to having no life at all.

So let's move the argument on a little, is there anything wrong with eating the flesh of an animal that had died from natural causes?

Then let's say a breed of cattle that lived 3 years was developed, they drop dead and we then eat them, is there a problem with that?

studiorat

pH wrote: »

Then let's say a breed of cattle that lived 3 years was developed, they drop dead and we then eat them, is there a problem with that?

I don't think I'd be eating that particular genetic fwck up.:D

Goduznt Xzst

Soul Winner wrote: »

What about animal testing? Where does it say that we are to do that?

Yeah, stop making guns and weapons and live close to lions and bears and elephants and see how far we get.....

Talk about giving up our evolutionary advantage, we’ll eventually evolve back into bacteria if we're not careful ....

Your post made me smile, cheers

pH wrote: »

Then let's say a breed of cattle that lived 3 years was developed, they drop dead and we then eat them, is there a problem with that?

You are confusing the argument here, I do not care how long the animal lives rather I care how it lives and I have already said a life in captivity is worse than a life in the wild. It is better for an animal not to of existed then to of existed for the sole purpose of becoming a product for human consumption.

My point is in regards to humans upsetting the natural balance on this planet. If a species would die off naturally regardless of human interference then it should be allowed to. If a species can't adapt to its surroundings then it has failed in evolving. The forced protection of a species will always be to the detrement of another species that would adapt and take its place.

My comparison to humans is valid, I know you like to think of yourself as seperate from the animal kingdom, but in the end you are slower, weaker, have a lower life span and have none of the numerous abilities of a lot of the other creatures on this planet. Even in regards to some areas of cognition some species are better than humans.

My opinion would closely match that of studiorats, in that for people to eat meat they must kill it themselves. I accept there would be issues with this system in regards to keeping of animals for food as well as dairy and eggs. I guess its like studiorat said, rather than stopping the consumption of meat we should just lower our dependance of it.

studiorat

Sorry, I didn't literally mean kill it themselves. Oh man! What a blood-bath that would be. I kind of meant rear it yourself. Not even that just take some responsibility for insuring the best quality of the product at all levels in it's production...

pH

studiorat wrote: »

Sorry, I didn't literally mean kill it themselves. Oh man! What a blood-bath that would be. I kind of meant rear it yourself. Not even that just take some responsibility for insuring the best quality of the product at all levels in it's production...

Can you explain why that argument applies to eating animal flesh, but not the millions of other things that we get other people to do for us? I take it you wouldn't be in favour of "Only people who grow their own potatoes can eat them" or "Only people who can fab their own microprocessors can use a computer". If the animal's treatment is humane either way how does it matter who actually does the rearing and the killing?

I agree that the current agri-business model can leads to businesses valuing profits much higher than animal welfare, and buying steak in cellophane in Tesco insulates the consumer from that and allows us not to dwell on it. However that to me is an argument for strong legislation regarding the treatment of animals and rigorous enforcement of those laws, not some clever sounding sound-bite about "only those who rear/kill their own animals should be allowed eat them" which has no basis in logic or common sense.

mewso

I'm not sure how Atheism comes into this at all. Have rules been written saying Atheists must be Vegetarians, Meat eaters? I think to answer the actual question an Atheist world would probably treat animals exactly as they are treated now with just as much debate on their treatment from the same people on both sides.

getz

the koran says all dogs{except herding dogs}are devils and are to be killed--a muslim is not allowed to pray with one in his house --as the angles will not answer his prayer--allso he cannot pray with a jewish person present

Dades

musician wrote: »

I'm not sure how Atheism comes into this at all.

Atheists would often see humans as simply more intelligent animals, rather than envisage animals placed on earth to serve/feed them. But yes, I would imagine there not a not a huge distinction between religious/non-religious on this, but the question has been asked...

getz wrote: »

the koran says all dogs{except herding dogs}are devils and are to be killed--a muslim is not allowed to pray with one in his house --as the angles will not answer his prayer--allso he cannot pray with a jewish person present

Interesting in a kinda irrelevant way. :pac:

Goduznt Xzst

musician wrote: »

I'm not sure how Atheism comes into this at all. Have rules been written saying Atheists must be Vegetarians, Meat eaters? I think to answer the actual question an Atheist world would probably treat animals exactly as they are treated now with just as much debate on their treatment from the same people on both sides.

but in a religious world it is held that Humans are greater than animals because God created us separate. In an Atheist world this distinction no longer exists, we are no longer really human, rather we are the 5th ape and at the evolutionary peak of our genus.

An atheist should be more open to the idea of rights amongst all creatures to survive and live out their life as nature intended as long as it does not harm or endanger humans.

But I will agree that in all likelihood an Atheist world would be no different, at least for a very long time, to the current world in regards to animals. Humans are far to egotistical to suffer so that a cow, who won't even recognise their suffering, can roam free.

Galvasean

pH wrote: »

That seems a lazy form of argument, the choice is practically between land being used for crops or land being used for livestock. It also doesn't directly address my point, we use land (to the loss to its original inhabitants) for many non essential things, golf courses, race tracks, stadiums etc. So I think it's unfair to dismiss the argument just by saying "if cows weren't on the land some other creatures would be", when clearly that's not the case.

I was referring specifically to rain forests that have been converted to grazing lands for beef cows (as a side note really).
Well if we didn't use the land for cattle rearing (or anything else for that matter) the rain forest denizens would almost certainly still be there.

BTW: I wasn't trying to dismiss anything.

studiorat

pH wrote: »

Can you explain why that argument applies to eating animal flesh, but not the millions of other things that we get other people to do for us? I take it you wouldn't be in favour of "Only people who grow their own potatoes can eat them" or "Only people who can fab their own microprocessors can use a computer". If the animal's treatment is humane either way how does it matter who actually does the rearing and the killing?

It does apply to other things. Would be nice to know that you weren't supporting child labour for instance.

And you are right if an animals treatment is humane it doesn't matter. Like I said take some responsibility.