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

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 11:57:01AM +0000, kennethgmiller at juno.com wrote:
: ... [D]oing such an action (which has only a small amount of usefulness
: for us) can be justified because it "only" causes pain to the animal. But
: such a low threshold of utility could not be justified if it causes
: suffering to a self-aware being.

: I'm not sure I agree, because even if the animal does not experience
: "suffering", it still might be a great deal of "pain". From that
: perspective, this might be a mere exercise in semantics, not unlike
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman Still, the effort *is*
: worthwhile. Thanks.

I admitted my use of the word "suffering" was invented for my purpose.

The chiluq I'm using to make the point you accurately describe in the
first paragraph I quoted rests on a human being's being conscious of his
pain, whereas for an animal consciousness as we mean it is impossible --
whether of their pain or of anything else.

Does a human being whose hand recoils from pain while asleep without
them ever waking up enough to be conscious actually "suffer"? That's
a different state-of-awareness than that of an animal, but it's a
non-self-aware state that people can imagine about.

(That's not to say such pain would necessarily follow the same rules as
TBC. There is also kavod haadam and the One whose "tzelem" the person
embodies, as well as questions of dinei mamunus WRT the person's own
body to make the case more chamur.)

The definition of "suffering" was just to have a shorthand (which I did
define repeatedly) for the above chiluq, between "suffering" which only
humans can do, and "pain" which animals also have. You could disagree
with the validity of my using those terms (perhaps I'm using them in my
own technical way, but using your also hearing their usual connotations
to sway the emotions) without disagreeing with my basic thesis.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             In the days of our sages, man didn't sin unless
micha at aishdas.org        he was overcome with a spirit of foolishness.
http://www.aishdas.org   Today, we don't do a mitzvah unless we receive
Fax: (270) 514-1507      a spirit of purity.      - Rav Yisrael Salanter