[Avodah] anti-meat rhetoric "according to Judaism"

[Micha Berger]

Someone who wasn't sure enough of himself to post this to Avodah
sent me a link to <http://www.physorg.com/news200074899.html>. It
begins:

    Emotions help animals to make choices
    August 3, 2010

    To understand how animals experience the world and how they should
    be treated, people need to better understand their emotional lives. A
    new review of animal emotion suggests that, as in humans, emotions may
    tell animals about how dangerous or opportunity-laden their world is,
    and guide the choices that they make.

    The review by Bristol University's Professor Mike Mendl and Dr Liz
    Paul and Lincoln University's Dr Oliver Burman, is published online
    in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

    An animal living in a world where it is regularly threatened by
    predators will develop a negative emotion or 'mood', such as anxiety,
    whereas one in an environment with plenty of opportunities to acquire
    resources for survival will be in a more positive mood state.

I tried addressing the difference between having emotions and being
able to realize one is feeling that emotion when I invoked Skinner and
Radical Behaviorism.

Also, it is common for someone to react out of anger (just to pick one
emotion as an example at random) to another without ever admitting to
themselves on a conscious level that they are angry at that person. It's
that kind of thing Marriage Counselors and Family Therapists can make
a fortune off of.

But I think it's only fair to add this article to the conversation.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of
micha at aishdas.org        greater vanity in others; it makes us vain,
http://www.aishdas.org   in fact, of our modesty.
Fax: (270) 514-1507              -Louis Kronenberger, writer (1904-1980)