[JCEccles]

There is an animal behaviorist, I think her name is Tempel Grandin, who has been instrumental in helping slaughterhouses redesign their operations so that the killing is humane and done without causing the animals to experience terror. She has an interesting view on things, being high autistic herself. She believes animals are essentially autistic and that while they experience pain and terror, they don't really experience suffering and foreboding. The latter are subjective experiences that require prefrontal lobes which animals either lack or mostly lack.

Grandin also views the meat industry as an overall positive for the animals in that it is the reason these animals get to experience life at all. She also points out that most ranchers and farmers are careful to give their meat animals decent lives (compared to animals in the wild, most of which either starve or are brutally killed or eaten by predators) because healthy animals bring the best prices.

My personal view on on animal cruelty is that it is bad not so much because of what it does to the animal (although that must be given due weight), but because of what it does to the human who engages in it. Cruelty coarsens and brutalizes the soul that belongs to God. From men, God loves and seeks kindness, not cruelty. So, the slaughter of food animals should be done humanely and without terrorizing or inflicting unnecessary pain on the animal even if that is not the practice followed by carnivores in the wild.

[Savage Beast]

Most of what you say (post #72) makes sense, JC. However, when Tempel told you that animals "don't really experience suffering", I'm sure you told her that she's full of it. That's the most harebrained thing I heard since: "I think food animals voluntarily incarnate to be eaten." I'm sure you agree.