Animals do feel

I am so sick of hearing people say that animals don't feel pain or emotions and therefore aren't hurting when thier young/family are taken away or when they are skinned or boiled alive. Most people say things like this when talking about farm animals; trying to justify blatant torture because farm animals are dumber than dogs.

Pigs are smarter than dogs, they scream when they are hurt or scared, they are playful when they are happy, and nuzzle you when they crave affection. Sounds like a dog to me. Why are they treated so different?

Chickens have intelligence compatible to a small child, a primate, and other mammals. They have social bonds.

People everyhwere tell me they don't feel. They do. And that's reason enough for me to abstain. It doesn't matter that they don't have the ability to reason. They have the ability to feel and suffer and they want to be free.


Sorry I know most people on this forum agree with me but today is just a venting day for me.

 

amen to that!

 

Yeah, people think pigs and chickens are stupid. Which they ain't

And animals have souls aswell! So they have a will, emotion, and mind...

 

Totally agree
Anyone who has spent just a moment with an animal knows that to be true.

One of my fave quotes, and kind of relevant.

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons. ~Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

(sarcasm ahead)

Well, US state legislators are making great progress. Two years ago, Ohio passed a law that recognizes pigs as "sentient beings". And all this time I thought they were just furniture...

 

when I hear people say stuff like that I am just so blown away by their sheer ignorance and stupidity that I don't even know what to say.............:$

to me, it doesn't even matter that they feel......even if they didn't feel pain (which of course they DO) they are here on this earth with us and that alone is reason enough to respect them and love them and treat them kindly and gentley.........

 

your preaching to the choir here lady... regardless of intelligence (which is basically the only thing divided us from animals) and reason, ALL LIFE HOLDS VALUE.

 

Oh I know, which is why I left a little P.S. at the bottom of my post: "Sorry I know most people on this forum agree with me but today is just a venting day for me."

Its exhausting having to constantly defend your beilefs to people who just don't get it and sometimes you just gotta let it out to the ones who do.....(yes that's you).

 

Couldn't agree more. Sometimes I wonder too if animals are smarter then us. But there's no way of telling since they can't speak our languages and most animals bodies don't allow them to write or anything like ours. But people think cause they can't speak thier not as smart as us. You never know.

 

The whole point for animals to have feelings is to feel pain, otherwise those feelings are meaningless

 

I wouldn't deny for a second that animals feel pain - it's an essential of life. Even plants could be said to feel pain, in the sense that it's a response to a stimulus. But I don't agree with what you say about having young taken away &c.. To an animal, having young taken just means fewer mouths to feed - thinking that they have familial bonds is wooly anthopomorphizing. Of course we ought not to hurt animals - anyone who thinks they can torture an animal because it "doesn't feel pain" or "is stupid" ought to be shot.

 

I think it depends on the animal. I know elephants form close bonds with their family and will remember them if they are ever seperated. Pigs are also very social animals and are happier with other pigs. I also always hear that when calves are taken from thier mothers they cry and look around for the baby.

I don't think saying animals have familial bonds is "woolly anthropomorphizing" I just think it's already in thier nature. I don't think family bonds are specific to only humans.

 

amen!

 

And I am sick of animal rights activists parading around preaching of the "evils of eating meat." What makes me sick is when "open-minded" people, liberals and you hippies, criticize other on what they believe. Hypocrisy, pure hypocrisy.

If you want to be open-minded, you should never criticize someone for their beliefs.

About the animals. I don't know anyone who claimed they don't feel pain. To use one of your arguments against you, how does this affect you? When it comes to Gay Marriage, you people are all for it because... it doesn't affect anyone else! Now tell me, how does killing animals for food harm you?

 

It's not us that are affected by it. The animals, however, are. That's pretty much the whole point...

 

It doesn't affect ME, but that doesn't make it OK. For example, if a father rapes his 5 year-old daughter it doesn't affect me, but anyway it is wrong, and I should do whatever I can to stop him.
Please, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that those who eat meat should be sent to jail or something like that, I am just trying to explain why eventhough killing animals doesn't affect me directly, it is wrong and should be prevented.

 

ROTFLMAO @ 'Fuck the trees'


Pot, kettle, black

PS Don't feed the trolls.

 

My response to this is...
if anything humans feel less [emotionally] than any animal i've ever encountered. the fact that we can sit there and treat animals and other humans,our own species, horribly, and not be disturbed shows lack of emotion in the human nature[in my opinion]
[and im not saying all humans, obviously the majority of us on this board have more than enough sensitivity to be able to see this...] What I'm saying is if you look at the world of humans as a whole... with all the war and chaos, it's obvious we are the lesser in that category.

Anyway, I agree with you.

I also tend to always have this incling that the majority of animals ARE more intelligent than us... heres one reason: animals in the wild, can communicate with one another, even if it's a different species. It's obvious that humans or most of them anyway, can NOT do this... the fact that the majority of people CANT see when an animal is hurting, just shows how unintelligent we can really be.

to sum it up, the people that think we are the only species with sensitivity to pain or emotions, are obviously ignorant and arrogant.

 

first of all, lol. one of the people who obviously love to get a rise out of others... as if your name doesnt say it all. fuck the trees, LMAO well... here's food for thought:

Would saying that slavery or child labor is wrong, be pushing beliefs on another? Because, for certain, most people wouldn't think of it that way. It's the same with animals when you think about it; Animals are suffering, just the way the slaves have, and the way the children have.... and back when slavery and child labor were popular and socially accepted... I'm sure the people who were against it were criticized the same way we "liberal hippies" are on views such as this. So say what you will, because I will never walk away from an issue that I think is morally wrong.

beyond that.... what person, what HUMAN hasn't ever pushed their beliefs on someone? I think we all have. We may be against it, and try with our might not to do it, but we all have, and there's no shame in it, because a good debate is how we learn about each other and solve things. I have no problem with hearing another persons' argument. I will only preach with the same amount of effort as the other person does....

More so, this is a forum LABELED "vegetarian" so I dont think most of us feel that we're pushing our beliefs upon anyone, considering most of the people who visit this forum share our views....*shrugs* Im sorry, maybe I'm wrong considering I'm just a "open minded liberal hippie"

I love the labels and stereotypes, it really proves how ignorant you really are.

 

Amen to that!