OT: beginner thinking about hunting

[Tohatchi NM]

Present college has a small-caliber range and you can get credit for shooting. Yay!

As far as killing something, I'm of the opinion that if you want to eat meat, you should be OK killing it, at least hypothetically. There is lots of suffering from people and animals for food that makes it to the supermarket. Just because it's already cut up on a little plastic tray doesn't make that less true. In fact, our system probably magnifies the suffering of food animals and the people responsible for processing them. (I hear that a good book about the modern food supply is "Fast Food Nation").

It is important to give thanks, whether you shoot it or a waiter brings it on a plate.

 

[cognitivefun]

As far as killing something, I'm of the opinion that if you want to eat meat, you should be OK killing it, at least hypothetically. There is lots of suffering from people and animals for food that makes it to the supermarket.

I agree with you on both counts. That's one of the reasons I am interested in possibly learning to hunt. And I eat a lot of grassfed beef for the other reason you mention.

 

[Howard Wallace]

As far as killing something, I'm of the opinion that if you want to eat meat, you should be OK killing it, at least hypothetically. There is lots of suffering from people and animals for food that makes it to the supermarket.

I agree with you on both counts. That's one of the reasons I am interested in possibly learning to hunt. And I eat a lot of grassfed beef for the other reason you mention.

It's not only true of the animal food. Agriculture also requires "pest control." Once I was staying at a Zen Buddist community, practicing zazen and enjoying the vegetarian food. One of the preists scandalized the community by going out in the early morning and killing the critters that were ravaging the community garden.

It was an interesting lesson.

Some people try to isolate themselves from the cycle of birth and death by unwrapping the plastic around the food, and trying hard not to think about anything that came before. Some try by becoming vegetarian.

 

[cognitivefun]

It's not only true of the animal food. Agriculture also requires "pest control." Once I was staying at a Zen Buddist community, practicing zazen and enjoying the vegetarian food. One of the preists scandalized the community by going out in the early morning and killing the critters that were ravaging the community garden.

It was an interesting lesson.

Some people try to isolate themselves from the cycle of birth and death by unwrapping the plastic around the food, and trying hard not to think about anything that came before. Some try by becoming vegetarian.

plants are alive when you eat them, if you eat them raw. There is no life without death of other life.

Also, I read that the quantity of rodents such as field mice that is killed from harvesting things like corn is staggering.

Vegans probably get their B12 from small quantities of insect tissue and animal pieces etc. that is harvested in vegetarian foods and contained in such things as grains.

But speaking on topic, that doesnt' mean that it is easy for someone like me to start killing and skinning an animal. I guess it's something that I'll just have to do and see what happens. I certainly have no moral feelings against it.

 

[Daniel Koster]

guys need to read this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6968620

 

[cognitivefun]

guys need to read this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6968620

When I next cook live lobsters, I'll put them in the freezer for a bit, then kill them by putting a Kumar Karda, a Bilton or perhaps a JKM-1 into their little brains to sever their tiny spinal cords. Better kumar karma that way

 

[neosporin]

riiight. check this video out- http://www.popandlock.com/video/peta1.mov

if you like what you see, add 2 or 3 to the end of peta to see the other episodes.

 

[Tohatchi NM]

I think the lobster thing is just rationalizing. Pain is a stimulus response, and no one in their right mind would argue that lobsters are incapable of responding to their environment. If you have a narrow definition of biological pain, perhaps they don't have any. If you broaden your definition, everything down to a bacterium shows some sort of aversion to things that will kill them. If you step back from a scientific definition and look to religion or philosophy. It seems like the Buddhist perspective would put everything on some karmic wheel of pain. Christianity might suggest that animals should be respected as parts of creation, or that eating them is OK because man was given dominion over animals.

Maybe I'm weird, but my operating principle is to empathize with the pain and eat anyway. No, I haven't worked out a consistent moral platform for both.