The great moral question and dilemma... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, April 29, 2012, 11:37 (385 days ago) @ AnnieJ

Thanks Annie. The current and ongoing media discussion about animal cruelty* is, in a sense, the surface level discussion of a much deeper moral dilemma. The deeper moral dilemma is this: seemingly built into Creation is the reality that the higher life forms have to devour the lower life forms in order to survive. Even if we give up the eating of meat, in a sense and in order to survive, we have to devour a lower life form than the animals, plants, in order to survive and grow. Vegetarianism merely shifts the moral dilemma down a rung to a life form that is a little more different, or less developed than ourselves than the animals are. Even in the animal and plant kingdom there is enormous pain and suffering as the higher life forms devour the lower life forms for their survival. We continually ask ourselves: Why did that have to be built into the whole template of Creation?

The present debate, the existence of organisations like the RSPCA, is essentially a mechanism we use to try and resolve this deep moral dilemma. How can we engage in the wholesale destruction of the number of animals the world needs each day to feed itself, or the lower forms of plant life, in ways that inflict the least pain and which respect the dignity of all of Creation?

*See, for example, the recent Australian Story on ABCTV of the crusade of Lyn White to reduce animal cruelty in live cattle and livestock exports for slaughter in other parts of the world:
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/therazorsedge/default.htm

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]