official Covenant Forum

Zitat

Originally posted by Evolutz
Well, I am an agnostic.

And all I wanted to epress is that people to me are more important than animals.

And yeah, I do know about all the stuff you mentioned.
(Franz von Assisi the great friend of birds, the ecological/economic advantages of vegetarian nutrition)...

But can you agree with this sentence of Kurt Bayertz :
"Moral in determinated biologically." ???

Moral has evolved and still keeps on evolving just like everything else.

And all I wanted to say is that animals deserve respect as much as ppl (some ppl).

Morality is based on pure compassion, when you can identify yourself with another person (animal) without any egoistic reasons, it's sth that cannot be calculated, cause every calculation is egoistic (and what is egoistic is not moral). That kind of morality works as and is an instinct. And instinct is sth that all animals have including human race (tho the indication of it is rare, maternity is the most common).

Because ppl have reason and speach (a bit more complicated than other animals on different stages), they started to name everything what happen around and within them. So when they started to try describe morality by notions, they've created sth that is called Ethics (and this is sth that evolves)... for the years it has evolved into lots of rules (human rights, animal rights, religious rules etc). Tho, most of the religious ethics are far away from morality, simply because they are overcalculated till that degree that to make ppl act right they need to prise or punish them... - so they put you in a situation as you were not able to act right without an egoistic reason (that's why they see all non believers as devils!) - and we all know how bad this can end (Inquisitions... etc). However Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism... are doing fine treating ppl and other animals equally with no problem (I'd call it the best emotionally civilised religion, I wish the ethics was more common for the western way of thinking). But even in the Bible there are a few suggestions/predictions that: the time of an ideal world will come, the world where nobody will kill anyone and all become vegetarians; eating meat is an indication of weakness (it's somewhere in the Book of Isaiah).

Human is the most complicated animal and so his reason is more complicated but the only fuction it really has is the possibility to create stronger motivations (in mind) to act. The difference of the degree of complication between creatures cannot be valued, cause being more complicated organism does not directly mean "being better".

"We owe respect to the Nature in general, without Her gifts we'd be nothing... (...) respect every drop of water."

- Caldera



(the heat is like a murderer, and if I didn't drink dozen bottles of water I'd be dead by now indeed..., I'm longing for thunderstorm...)

PS. Christians, Muslims and also Jews have their visions of ideal world (Eden) where all leaving creatures're eating only plants, and don't kill eachother. So somehow they are aware that killing in general is not good. Shame that ppl have problems with practicing it, most theologists see it as a weakness (as I said before). The general similarities seem to have their roots in morality, the way of interpretation belongs to Ethics. I gave the sample of Buddhism (+) cause there the practice is more visible, tho, some of the buddhists eat meat and wear skins, but only of the animals that died accidentally or naturally.

As I said I'm an atheist. I'm listen to my own conscience. As a little girl I spent a lot of time in a country side, and I saw how bad animals were treated. E.g.: as a 10 year old child I'd seen how men were killing a little cow in front of her mothers eyes (enough to say that for the next few weeks the mother was not able to eat anything, didn't give milk, and was screaming loud... the scream that I will never forget, like I'll never forget the little cow's head cut off lying on the dirty ground looking at me...). And I know that what I saw was not right (even tho, for all the others it wasn't a big deal). Since then I've seen lots of worse things that man can do, and frankly speaking sometimes I'm ashamed of being part of the race. I don't want to be blind for animals' suffering (ppl's as well). I've lived with animals for my whole life, I think I know them, (and I want to learn more about them). And I know that there is one thing that for sure differs ppl from other animals: viciousness. Animals are free from the defect.

We are different ppl, we see things in a different way. For me more important is to let the animals live (watch them, learn from them) than to feed my stomach with their bodies, especially that there is so many other things I can eat. I'm not judging anyone (tho it's very hard sometimes); it's a matter of a particular conscience. Sth we were born with, sth we may want or be able to discover in ourselves or not.

“Sometimes apparent resemblance of character will bring two people together and for a certain time unite them. But their mistake gradually becomes evident, and they are astonished to find themselves not only far apart, but even repelled, in some sort, at all their points of contact.”

- Chamfort

“Where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on...”

- Samuel Beckett

“I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.”

- Lord Byron

Talking about animal rights in Germany...:

"Germany has become the first European nation to vote to guarantee animal rights in its constitution.

A majority of lawmakers in the Bundestag voted on Friday to add "and animals" to a clause that obliges the state to respect and protect the dignity of humans.

The main impact of the measure will be to restrict the use of animals in experiments.

In the end 543 lawmakers in Germany's lower house of parliament voted in favour of giving animals constitutional rights. Nineteen voted against it and 15 abstained.

The vote is expected to be approved by the Bundesrat upper house this summer.

Article 20a of the German Basic Law will then read: "The state takes responsibility for protecting the natural foundations of life and animals in the interest of future generations."

The issue had been keenly debated among German politicians for almost 10 years.

Animals in Germany already are protected through legislation defining the conditions in which they can be held in captivity, but activists claimed it did not go far enough to control the use of animals in research.

With the new measure, the federal constitutional court will have to weigh animals' rights against other entrenched rights, like those to conduct research or practice religion. This could translate bring tighter restrictions on the use of animals for testing cosmetics or nonprescription drugs.

Consumer Affairs Minister Renate Kunast, a member of the environmentalist Greens party that has lobbied for many years to bring animal rights into the constitution, welcomed the change as groundbreaking, but emphasised it would not diminish human rights.

Conservative parliament members had previously opposed the constitutional changes, arguing that it could put the interests of animals before those of humans and be particularly damaging to Germany's research industry.

Animal rights activists say they will use the constitutional changes to try and end to what they say are unduly long transport routes for animals.

Lawmakers said the government will also look at targeting more research funding to projects that seek alternatives to using animals for conducting experiments."

(it took place im May 2002)

(this report is from CNN/BBC)

You underestimate your country, Evolutz....

Zitat

Originally posted by covenant_girl
@evolutz & atma
please stay on topic! the name of the thread is "thought of the day" not "animal rights"!

Sure... But some thoughts are inspiring...

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them.”

- David Hume

Zitat

Originally posted by Evolutz
Some animals are more equal than others.

destructive ...

Zitat

Originally posted by Evolutz

The same goes for humans : "Some people are more equal than others."

(Especially if they can afford a real good lawyer or if they´ re politicians)

... lol

“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.”

- Edgar Allan Poe

“It took me years to understand that words are often as important as experience, because words make experience last.”

“'The past is not dead, it is living in us, and will be alive in the future which we are now helping to make.”

- William Morris

"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right."

- Arthur Schopenhauer (a cosmopolitan)