Beasts - small and large

For the record of this post, humans are also beasts, as in beings

I watched "Humanity" yesterday - a Ricky Gervais comedy stand up show.

And I laughed, but at the end he spoke about a dog "festival" in China where they eat a lot of dogs.

Westerners eat cows and pigs and chickens who also have feelings, so right.

But he mentioned that in this event, they torture the dogs. Beat them, burn them, strip their skin alive while the dogs scream.

I feel quite uncomfortable, sad.

And you know, because this is a spiritual forum, I guess I could ask "Why"

And my own answer is - because it's up to humanity to sort things out. It's up to you and me and each person to step up and play a role - whatever we wish it to be.

Some people just want to be stuck in their own holes, others are just waiting for salvation, maybe some God or alien to come and save them and tell them what to do.

But I recall and recount there are many people out there - maybe many who are not even "Spiritual" who live lives of responsibility towards this Earth and its inhabitants, care for others outside of their own personal well-being and who are interested in this plate we have in front of us: Earth and all its living creatures, beasts large and small, human and otherwise.

JL

[running]

in my view a lot of things dont need to be thought as spiritual but as simply being human. as a result in most places things like that don't go on. maybe and i don't know the person is exaggerating or ill informed on the festival. i hope so. but dont know.

i have personally found people thinking themselves as spiritual and doing spiritual don't see things clearly. or i should say there is a fantasy preventing to see big pictures of things. ideas that would cause significiently more harm than good. or everything involves conspiracys. this is a fairly level headed group of people on this forum. so i like it. but generaly i hang out with every day folks. i digress. my apologies.

[NoOne]

In the case of China, there are historical reasons for this. It is grossly overpopulated and went through a major famine within living memory. They sold human meat on the markets during that time, so, really, dogs and cats are the least of it. Everything that moves and crawls is eaten in China, even the birds on the trees in city parks for instance. It was quite similar during the famine in Ukraine btw, during Stalin's time. First, people ate the cats and dogs, then started eating each other. It is just how survival works, it is easy to condemn such actions on a full stomach, but I wonder if your children were starving to death, would you still be so high and mighty about it? That said, countries where dog and cat meat used to be eaten for reasons of poverty are now banning it, such as in Korea or Vietnam, because people can now afford better meat. I guess that is progress?

[Altair]

Abuse is abuse.. to a human or an animal. Cultural/moral relativism doesn't make abuse right, nor does history or poverty. If torturing dogs is okay, then we may as well argue that female circumcision is okay ''because culture'' or that rape is okay ''because culture''. Anything can get pardoned in the name of not wanting to offend some cultural sensitivities..

The Chinese also have a high demand for ivory and rhino horn, and other body parts of endangered species. It's mostly the upper classes demanding these body parts.. having Buddha statues of ivory, made of animal abuse and slaughter, but now they can pretend to be oh so zen like, and pretend to follow Buddhic teachings, I suppose..

[Shivani Devi]

My thoughts turn to Thailand and the vegetarian festival...
People who torture themselves, just as other human beings torture animals..
https://youtu.be/elRv181r3uQ

All I can say is that it takes all kinds to make the world go round...and for anything...any group of people that somebody may isolate, point them out for doing a "bad thing", there is always a group of people doing exactly the opposite thing...I guess that this is what balances it all out in the end.

It also boils down to "personal responsibility". For as long as YOU are doing the "right thing" who cares what anybody ELSE does? You may not like it...you may hate it...but what can you do about it? a big, fat, NOTHING! You can only lead by example, but if the rest of the world doesn't want to follow your lead, tough justice. It is why religions invented the philosophy of "eternal damnation" to try and instil some morality...an ethical code into humankind...but if playing on their fear of mortality doesn't work to stop them from killing animals, killing each other and polluting the planet, what will?

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

It also boils down to "personal responsibility". For as long as YOU are doing the "right thing" who cares what anybody ELSE does?

Because it's not about the self, it's about empathy and care for others. If there's a lot of rape and murder and you're the only one not participating, will that make you feel the issue is solved?

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

You may not like it...you may hate it...but what can you do about it? a big, fat, NOTHING!

Societies can change, thankfully. They're not fixed. For example, in many countries homosexuals are now allowed to exist. But if it's up to the cultural relativists we should enjoy that some countries stone them to death.. cultural sensitivities and all that..

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Altair

Because it's not about the self, it's about empathy and care for others. If there's a lot of rape and murder and you're the only one not participating, will that make you feel the issue is solved?


Societies can change, thankfully. They're not fixed. For example, in many countries homosexuals are now allowed to exist. But if it's up to the cultural relativists we should enjoy that some countries stone them to death.. cultural sensitivities and all that..

You missed the whole point.

Can you FORCE another person to do something if they have the FREE WILL to choose and they are exercising that choice despite it being the "wrong thing?" can you FORCE a person in China not to torture and eat a dog? can you FORCE a psychopath not to rape and kill?

It doesn't matter how much empathy you have, how much care and consideration YOU have for others, like it or lump it, not everybody is going to be the SAME as you are when it comes to acting on their primitive, beastly urges...so, for example...if you are a vegan and think the whole WORLD should be vegan to be kind to animals..

So you may join "vegan groups"...you may educate people, join "animal rights" activist groups, but if your best friend likes to eat steak, what are you gonna DO about that?

Sure, you may educate them, show movies of the way cows are kept and killed inhumanely...but your friend will just say "so what?" as he munches on his McDonalds...and so you play your ultimate "trump card"....."unless you become a vegan, I will stop being your friend" and he will say "if our friendship is SO superficial to you as what I choose to eat, then f*** off and don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya". Did you achieve anything? of course not!

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

You missed the whole point.

Don't think I did. It's about recognizing that cultures and societies change, sometimes for worse and sometimes for the better. As I said, homosexuals are still stoned to death in some places, or put in prison. Thankfully parts of the international community raise pressures on this, and in many countries the situation has improved. If we were constantly telling ourselves ''nothing can change'' then yes, nothing will change indeed..

I don't think there should be a place for the fatalism that is presented here. If we are all fatalist about all these things nothing ever changes. Things change because people care. Just because the mountain looks steep and daunting doesn't mean you gotta give up climbing it..

Humans have great capacity to make a better tomorrow. We are human beings, take ownership of what you are.. It's a gift!

[JosephineB]

I think we can influence others by being the thing we want to see. But you can't make them.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Altair

Don't think I did. It's about recognizing that cultures and societies change, sometimes for worse and sometimes for the better. As I said, homosexuals are still stoned to death in some places, or put in prison. Thankfully parts of the international community raise pressures on this, and in many countries the situation has improved. If we were constantly telling ourselves ''nothing can change'' then yes, nothing will change indeed..

I don't think there should be a place for the fatalism that is presented here. If we are all fatalist about all these things nothing ever changes. Things change because people care. Just because the mountain looks steep and daunting doesn't mean you gotta give up climbing it..

Humans have great capacity to make a better tomorrow. We are human beings, take ownership of what you are.. It's a gift!

You are forgetting something.

There are no multi-billion dollar corporate interests involved when it comes to what gender people decide to sleep with.

The whole livestock industry on the other hand...

Granted, the western world doesn't stone gays to death, but can we stop Saudi Arabia from doing it? I mean, they have scoffed at all the world's trade sanctions for years, because it is one of the biggest oil producing nations on the planet...everybody has their price...despite what human rights violations may be involved.

Now, if we were to have this conversation exclusively in an Islamic country, stoning gays would be par for the course and the western world would all "have it wrong"...who made the USA and Europe the "policemen of the world"? and I am sure the dog-eating people in China would agree...I mean, they have almost 2 billion people who will agree with them and about another 3 billion who would not give a stuff...so "social change" is a LONG way off (if it will even happen at all).

You use the example of homosexuals...there still is no global unification in this regard either...so, what are you, Mr Trump, Mr Morrisson and the rest of the world going to DO about it? the question remains...I mean, saying it is the "wrong thing to do" and getting society to agree with and adopt certain practices STILL will not stop specific individuals from taking a "conscience vote" on the matter regardless! I personally am against homosexuality...I don't believe punishing them or stoning them is the right way to go, but what can I do about same sex marriage? absolutely NOTHING! It doesn't mean I have to agree with it because of that, or go out and find myself a lesbian partner tomorrow, does it?

I also have a right to be against "wishful thinking" just as you have a right to be for it.

You say that only positive and hopeful thoughts should be expressed here and not realistic ones.

You said, and I quote "I don't think there should be a place for the fatalism that is presented here".

...but no matter what you may "think", the reality of the situation is very different, isn't it?

Can you stop me from posting these thoughts? Can you forcibly change my mind? my attitude?

Nope, all you can ever hope to do is ignore me because you don't want to read what I have to say because you don't "think" I should be saying it..and yet, I am. What is this if not fatalistic?