Animal lovers

My favourite moral question with regards to animal cruelty is what to do about carnivores. Carnivores result in the painful death of their prey almost by their very existence. So by owning a cat, I am signing the death warrant of various small birds, mice, moles, mole-rats, insects etc. In some cases I even encourage it (as in the case of cockroaches).
So should we eliminate all carnivores?

Originally posted by twhitehead
My favourite moral question with regards to animal cruelty is what to do about carnivores. Carnivores result in the painful death of their prey almost by their very existence. So by owning a cat, I am signing the death warrant of various small birds, mice, moles, mole-rats, insects etc. In some cases I even encourage it (as in the case of cockroaches).
So should we eliminate all carnivores?

why dont you put a small bell around your cats neck to warn away any small mice,
birds, moles, shrews etc

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
why dont you put a small bell around your cats neck to warn away any small mice,
birds, moles, shrews etc

you could put one around your neck so people would know when to ignore the knocking on the door. 😉

Originally posted by stellspalfie
you could put one around your neck so people would know when to ignore the knocking on the door. 😉

very amusing, but believe it or not some people look forward to our visits, they actually
like discussing things with us. In fact i remember a women who simply wanted an
intelligent conversation, she asked my friend and I in, made us coffee, told us what
was on her mind and we tried to relate some practical wisdom from the Bible and she
was quite thankful. Its actually quite interesting, there has been a shift away from
purely doctrinal discussion, more towards the social aspect of helping people with their
problems.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
why dont you put a small bell around your cats neck to warn away any small mice,
birds, moles, shrews etc

I did try that twice and he lost it both times. However, that does not answer the question regarding other carnivores such as lions, hawks or snakes.

If vampires existed and they could not survive without killing humans for food, would we be morally justified in wiping them out?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I did try that twice and he lost it both times. However, that does not answer the question regarding other carnivores such as lions, hawks or snakes.

If vampires existed and they could not survive without killing humans for food, would we be morally justified in wiping them out?

Yes you would be morally justified if we fed them materialists and atheists 😛

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
I love all life, i once saved a wasp from a spiders web,

but by doing that, you probably condemned the spider to a slow, starving death.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
but by doing that, you probably condemned the spider to a slow, starving death.

hardly,

take a lesson from the birds of the heavens, does not the heavenly father feed them?
so to with spiders.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
but by doing that, you probably condemned the spider to a slow, starving death.

Which saved a little boy the spider would have bitten.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
No is not contradictory at all and your attempts to make it such are nothing short of
a scurrilous distortion of my words. I stated that humans are conscious of the fact
that others suffer pain, I have not stated that animals are conscious of the same
thing, to experience pain and to be conscious of suffering in others are not one and
the sa ...[text shortened]... o one and ripping it
apart and yet it does so, with what appears to me, to be without remorse.

I retract absolutely nothing. Your view, as you have espoused it, is in fact contradictory. You would recognize this and revise your position if you weren't too lazy to bother to educate yourself a bit on this topic.

I stated that humans are conscious of the fact
that others suffer pain, I have not stated that animals are conscious of the same
thing, to experience pain and to be conscious of suffering in others are not one and
the same thing are they, thus your assertions are erroneous and I will be pleased if
you would retract them as they represent a distortion of the reality.

I never claimed that to experience pain and to be conscious of suffering in others are the same thing; and I never claimed that you asserted as much. Learn to frickin read. What I claimed is that pain itself is a conscious state. If an entity is experiencing pain, then it holds conscious states. That's why it is simply blatantly contradictory of you to hold both (1) that consciousness is unique to humans only and (2) that there are non-human animals that experience pain. Do you understand why your position is contradictory now; or should I go it through it yet again for you? A little slower perhaps?

The problem here has nothing to do with conflating experience of pain and the recognition of suffering in another. Nobody here has done that. The problem, again, is that you are too ignorant to understand that pain itself is in fact a conscious state. Your view boils down to the contradictory nonsense that some non-human animals experience pain and yet are not conscious entities.

To be "conscious of" the suffering of another is a higher-order level of mental functioning than just consciousness at its base. An entity can completely lack such capacity and yet still be a conscious entity. Did you miss the part of my post where I mentioned that you would understand that there are different levels and orders of 'consciousness' if you bothered to do any research on this topic?

Again in the hope that you will understand, to experience pain and to be conscious of
suffering in others are not one and the same thing,

Again, in the hope that you will understand, that's not the point. The point is that pain itself is a conscious state. Do you understand this now?

Originally posted by LemonJello
I retract absolutely nothing. Your view, as you have espoused it, is in fact contradictory. You would recognize this and revise your position if you weren't too lazy to bother to educate yourself a bit on this topic.

I stated that humans are conscious of the fact
that others suffer pain, I have not stated that animals are conscious of the same
point. The point is that pain itself is a conscious state. Do you understand this now?

your text is wasted, if you cannot discuss a topic in a civil manner, then you should
remain silent, at least you will give the impression of wisdom.

Originally posted by divegeester
Are you an animal lover? No need to pretend to be a tough guy; come on you know you love kittens and string and dogs chasing sticks. Or do you see animals as brutal killers, selfishly persuing there own base instincts.

Do you have a pet in your house? Does it have a name? Why?

I love animals, especially cats. 🙂