[Edit] Since I'm already getting downvoted for this comment. Go look up some videos if you don't believe.
There is often room for improvements, including reducing pre-slaughter stress, but when done right kosher slaughter is among the most humane forms of killing an animal. For example, with a skilled _shochet_ a cow can collapse within 10 seconds and not react at all to the cut itself. The requirements for even the sharpness of the knife are paramount, such that the animal feel no/a minimum of pain. Contrast this with the overwhelming majority of slaughterhouses, both today and over human history, and I hope you’ll see that kosher animal killing is far different from what you described above.
Also tangential to this entire conversation is the merit/morality of animal consumption whatsoever, and whether it can be morally defended in the modern context, but I think that’s also best left for another day.
And, as you touch upon, religious rites do not (solely) search for the solution that is most humane for the animal; they also take into consideration the religious value of the experience for third parties. But that means that, all else being equal, secular slaughtering processes, as they do not seek ritual values, should be more free to converge to the most humane solution.
The point was that most people see torture plus murder worse than a quick murder, and that should be clearly analogous to your ironic cite, that I read as pointing out the supposed hypocrisy of making a slauthering “ethical”. Different ways to kill, be it human or animal, even if we agree they are unethical, are not unethical in the same degree.
> secular slaughtering processes, as they do not seek ritual values, should be more free to converge to the most humane solution.
Ok, but is there any reason it would converge to a humane solution at all? How strong is the market pressure in that direction? Jewish people are willing to pay a price premium to get a specific type of slaughter. Are secular people willing to pay a similarly-large price premium to get humane slaughter?
I agree, but politically shortcutting through religious blocs tends to be impossible. If it wasn't we would have been rid of those roadblocks when we killed god. 240 years later, those roadblocks are still in place, what tools of reason can we use to circumvent them as well as possible?
This is absolute nonsense.
> even far before the concept of treating animals humanely became widespread in human societies.
There you go. The idea of "humanity" of animals doesn't exist in christianity, judaism or islam. It's really a modern concept that animals should even be treated humanely at all.
> There is often room for improvements, including reducing pre-slaughter stress, but when done right kosher slaughter is among the most humane forms of killing an animal.
A shot to the skull is. It is instantaneous. Not 10 seconds of gasping for blood as the cow bleeds out.
If you've ever read the bible, there is nothing there about the ethical treatment of animals. The concept simply didn't exist back then. Kosher is simply about what a group of people thought was "icky" animals/food and draining blood out of the animal.
I am still waiting for time when humanity starts treating animals equally. It doesn't make sense how your race/gender/creed descrimation is different than animal. Only because they can't talk your language, it doesn't mean they don't have feelings or dosnt suffer.
When that generation will come, they will look down us the way we look at slavery in previous centuries.
Problem I have with all of it is the black-white thinking. You are either vegetarian, or you are not. You are either vegan, or you are not. Whereas you simply aren't, depending on how far you stretch the definition. If it comes to giving up and alienating people for being imperfect, I believe that is harmful. Hence I applaud reducetarianism. Either way, however far you take it, the direct connection between eating meat and animal suffering is easier and easier for an individual to work around. Because society is getting more and more vegetarian and vegan friendly.
Why not? Imagine we are murdering thousands of people every day. We're able to reduce this by say 50%. How is that not an achievement?
Compare it to slavery. What if we are able to have slaves live with more freedom than the status quo? What if we are able to liberate 50% of all slaves? Isn't that commendable?
Again, you step right into the bifurcation (black and white thinking) trap.
It is quite sad, because I don't think making animals suffer is a good way to go :(
There is misconception among non-Muslims that halal doesn’t support modern slaughter methods, but it actually adapts to work with it. ~60% of all halal meat in the UK is stunned, whilst 0% of kosher meat is. Please do not conflate the two to push an agenda. The only source used throughout this thread is Grandin and not actually looking at the industry itself.
Islam also favors vegetarianism due to the sunnah of the prophet eating only what is required and not have elaborate meals of extravagance and food wastage but we aren’t ready for that conversation in a capitalist society (Less consumption = lower profits)
I’m an Indian Muslim (born and raised in KSA), and while the source is from a PETA website it’s what we’ve practiced. You can independently look up the Hadith (narrations) and see if they are valid.
Although modern Muslims have become a lot more meat dependent due to modern agriculture practices (as have most societies regardless of faith), I would argue that for Muslims vegetarianism or moderation in meat consumption isn’t a repugnant idea as it is for most folks in the west.
In my anecdotal experience, if I had to be a cow or a chicken, I would MUCH rather be in a kosher slaughterhouse. Better terms before, and what appears to me (the observer) as a much less painful death - in one case I wasn't sure if the cow knew he was slaughtered.
Videos are generally posted by people with an axe to ground, and can never be taken in context. The process takes too long to make a good video.
Am I subjective? Well, yeah probably. So are you. But I suspect you would agree if you checked it out. (Note - slaughterhouses are dangerous places, and cameras are not welcome. If you do go, don't be an idiot.)
So is circumcision (genital mutilation)
Is it really so bad that it is worth persecuting the adherents of two major world religions over?
The difference here is between beliefs on one side and physical pain and abuse on the other.
You only let the beliefs take precedence when you consider humans to be above animals. This is a vicious cycle of religious dogma.
We can then decide if the argument is sound and we agree with it, or disagree with it.
There are plenty of such customs and norms I disagree with myself, for example the catholic ban on divorce (at least they do not excommunicate divorcees anymore; banned in the Philippines for anybody except Muslims), their ban on contraceptives in particular condoms (see: HIV), their ban of abortions ([1]) or their stance on gay rights. I think I have good reasons to disagree and that every example I listed has real world implications negatively affecting people and not just because they chose to follow Catholic norms.
Do I feel I am persecuting the Catholic Church? No.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar
In general most religions are not static in their practices.
I saw an amish buggy with LED tail lights that swept back and forth.
Yes.
A shot through both lungs and heart is not a particularly difficult feat to a patient and practiced hunter, and quickly kills an animal. Maybe it's even more humane than the methods used on cattle, especially when you consider the feedlot conditions leading up to the slaughter.
What? How is this discussion persecution?
In other words, ritual slaughter may be more gory, but it isn't necessarily more painful for the animal.
Your comment is 100% off topic to the article. It's as on topic as bringing up Palestine. It's just divisive.
I’ll add that nowadays the problem of kosher and hallal meat price is "solved" this way: most animals are killed using one of those rites, and the meat surplus is sold as non-kosher and non-hallal to unsuspecting users. This is something some people advocate to change (speaking of France here) since hallal meat is funding mosquees and other for the safety/animal wellbeing point of view, but entrenched religious lobbying made it fail so far.
https://www.grandin.com/ritual/kosher.meat.uruguay.html
While it can be a much less painful process than it usually is, in practice it is not.
To explain further; in shechita, the animal needs to be restrained when it is cut. Some kosher slaughterhouses did this with a "shackle and hoist" method. This is not a classical shechita technique, but one added for "production line" purposes. It scares the animal, and should be discouraged. In fact, it is banned in Israel.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-instructs-kosher-sl....
Here is the excerpt you misinterpreted.
"For over twenty years I have been actively involved in improving animal welfare during kosher slaughter. When animal welfare is being evaluated, one must carefully separate the variable of how the animal is restrained from the variable of throat cutting without stunning. These are two separate issues. My work has focused on replacing the cruel shackling and hoisting procedure with a more comfortable method of holding the animals prior to shehita. When a stressful method of restraint is used, it is impossible to evaluate the animal's reaction to the shehita cut because the animal is kicking and bellowing from the stress of the restraint methods.
After I had designed and operated a better restraining device to hold the cattle in a comfortable upright position, I was amazed to observe that the animal did not appear to feel the cut. My work has focused on improving the methods used to hold the animals. I have never attacked shehita. In fact many of my articles support shehita.
Over the years I have worked with many wonderful shochets and rabbis. I totally respect these very sincere people. Rabbi Abe Rine had been a great supporter of my work and when he died it was a great loss to animal welfare and religious slaughter. I have worked with many shochets who were grateful to have the new systems. Eliminating shackling and hoisting of conscious live cattle improves both animal welfare and personal safety for the rabbis and shochets."