Animal Cruelity!

[accessdenied]

but what i am saying is that many people who are cruel to animals are not found later in life to be a killer of any sort besides of animals. just because a person kills animals does not directly point to that person becoming a killer of people later in life. besides that point, and as i was saying before, why should an animal, who has much lesser potential and intellegence than most humans, be cared for by people when the same care and attention will not be returned by the animal. most animals in this world are useless other than food for larger animals which humans eat for sustinence.

[AJE]

I wrote this in the Forum "Share your Pet Stories" I feel this is a good time to give one excellent reasoning why we should have pets in our everyday life.

“Pet Therapy”

I’ve had a horrible day…what more could possibly go wrong? The estimates on damage from the hailstorm are starting to be determined; the windows still haven’t been repaired, and to top it off I’m starving. Worries about the unknown future are flying through my head. Things like is my Cockatiel Angel or Sun Conure Sunshine going to fly out the window if they escape from their cages. Is my 45-gallon saltwater tank going to stay warm enough? But my biggest concern is a cat going to invade my home and kill my beloved bunnies Ash and Dusty. I should be more focused on that mid-term essay which is due in a few days, but my mind is on my babies. I understand that to some these critters would have been considered pets; but for my mom and myself they are family.

I’ve just gotten home from a difficult college course. I no more than shut my car door and head towards my parent’s front door when I hear the calls from the birds. “Moms here, Mom’s here” is probably what they’re saying to rejoice in my arrival home. Within seconds after I open the door I’m greeted not by my mother, but my bunny Ash. You can just tell she’s happy; she runs over not hops to me and starts doing loops around my legs. Then she’ll stop if not picked up and will stand on her hind legs and just stare with begging eyes. “Please mom, pick me up” So I did what any animal lover would do, I put down my backpack and up into my arms she came. By now my mother has come to greet my arrival with the typical conversation all parents will do with their children. We plop down on the family room recliners to talk about our day. As I’m sitting there holding Ash in my arms, she begins to give me kisses…well I’m hooked because all the worries I had are melting away.

Ahh, the joys of pets! There is no doubt that pets serve us as companions, friends and protectors. They give a great deal to us and ask little in return — just the love of a caring master who will shelter and protect them, just as we do our children. If you’re a pet lover like myself, you may in fact treat your pets like children. But maybe the benefits of pets go beyond this emotional bond. A growing amount of evidence suggests that those who keep pets are likely to benefit from a variety of improvements in their health. Thus the relationship between pets and humans appears to be symbiotic.

·Companionship and pleasurable activity
·Facilitate exercise, play, and laughter
·Give something to care for and a source of consistency
·Allow feeling of security
·Are a comfort to touch and a pleasure to watch thus lessen ones anxiety
·Provide a link with reality to enhance emotional stability
·Become a receptive partner in a relationship of mutual trust that promotes self awareness
·Provide non-judgmental acceptance and love
·They are an outlet for one’s ancient primate grooming urges
ie: Dusty: “mom you groom me, I’ll groom you”
·We feel a sense of improved well being

www.therapydogs.com

[accessdenied]

did i specify PETS? no, i said ANIMALS! would you like to have a grizzly bear as a pet to help improve your health? probably not. maybe you guys should actually read thoroughly instead of skimming over the parts you think you can counter.

[talleyJudy]

Ok, let's stick with "animals".

I noticed that in the instances of cruelty in this thread that most of the perpitrators are 'young' and none cared to try tormenting/wantenly killing any animal that had a chance of defence or escape. For instance I wonder why the nighttime stalkers did not go looking for a bear to try to beat to death.....perhaps the odds would have been a bit too even.

Common sence/observation will demonstrate that those who practice wanton cruelty to animals find it all too natural to tend to be that way with people who are physically weaker than themselves, like girlfriends, wives, children, the elderly. I think that in a human the ability to be wantonly cruel is a definate core personality DEFECT. The person who as a youth can stomp a 'useless critter' can very easily in a fit of anger shake his own or someone elses infant to death. A person who will perposefully be mean to his own "pet" or wild critter is not going to be the epitome of compassion toward his own wife and children.

As far as animals being "useless", that is your own perspective. So surely if you think about it there must be certain 'classes' of humans with "lesser potential and intellegence" too. So do you consider them fair game for sport cruelty too?

I would suggest you, 'accessdenied', also sort out in your mind the different kinds of killing that go on in this world. Maybe start with two top catagories like 1) necessary & 2) wanton/malicious. Really try to think it through... and then look up the word "empathy" and think about that for awhile and how it might apply to your own life and those around you.

Being an Apathetic Agnostic myself, I am appaled at the picture you are painting here of atheists, even though I am not one myself.

[Crys]

AD - Law enforcement disagrees with you about the correlation, but if you don't want to believe that, that's not my problem.

However, it's a pretty chauvinistic idea to say that humans AREN'T animals or that we're somehow special in the animal kingdom. It's the same sort of ego that put us at the center of the universe for centuries, with the planets and the sun and stars revolving around earth, and that made it ok to enslave and dominate other cultures, because if we couldn't understand their language they must not have one and are therefore "useless animals."

It's a fact that several other species show higher intelligence and ability to learn, some with identifiable social structure, culture passed down through generations and complex communication. Many are more intelligent than human adolescents -- with the logical conclusion that if animals are "useless" and ok to torture and destroy, so are human children, or the mentally challenged, for the same reason, which I doubt anyone here would agree with. We're not even the only tool-using animals. Our only real advantage is the thumb. Without that, we wouldn't have cars and pollution and cubicles. Just as once other creatures were at the top of the food chain, so too will we be someday brought down below some other creature.

Here are a couple links with some food for thought on the intelligence of animals. I was particularly interested in the second link, which discusses that some biologists are calling for a new naming system because chickens' brains work in a very mammalian way.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...6-crows_2.html
http://www.goveg.com/f-hiddenliveschickens.asp

[accessdenied]

I agree with the idea of killing for sport and killing for sustinence or survival, but in either case, many animals have little or no purpose on this earth. By animal, I don't mean a species of animals, I mean a specific being. I also agree that humans are considered animals because there is no way around arguing that, but the difference is that most humans are much more intelligent than other animals and have other characteristics that make us much more worthy than animals of life. Other animals do not feel guilt or have free thinking minds, but they do feel sadness or lonliness and happiness. I am merely saying that animal cruelty is not such a big deal as people make it out to be. So a kid cuts off the wings of a mid-aged bird, big deal, how is that going to effect the rest of the world? It won't. Sure, the kid probably needs some sort of psychological help, and the chances aren't necissarily that he will become a killer in the future, but the point in case is that killing animals won't ultimately have any effect on the rest of the world, unless, of course, the killing is a massive deal to the point of extinction. At such a point, the ecosystem may become unstable. But everybody has killed an animal at one point or another, whether it be hitting a dog, rabbit, or possum on a road by accident or purposefully swatting a fly, mosquito or spider from your vicinity, do you feel guilty for swatting that bug? If you don't then you would probably reply something like, "it's just a bug, there are many bugs," or something along those lines. But it is an animal nonetheless, and killing it, in your minds, should be deemed as shameful, but you all know you do it. And as for some humans being much less capable or intelligent, yes, I do believe there is no purpose for them on this world either. I do not know why there is care for people with severe mental disabilities, or others who have nothing to truely give to society. We are wasting money caring for people who will have nothing to return, much like many animals. How is wasting ten peoples' day on restoring an injured bear's health going to help the society? It won't, it's just a waste of time, just put the thing to rest for good.

[accessdenied]

and my username is not AD, its accessdenied, there's not shortening it, because it is all one word, so abbreviation using AD would not be valid. If you have criticism, it may as well be put together better than what you have done instead of taking shortcuts there, mister crybaby

[accessdenied]

lol

[Crys]

accessdenied-

If you don't want us abbreviating your username in posts, then we won't. It's standard practice around here if the post is being directed to a particular person to use initials. I won't argue with you about the stupidity of claiming that "accessdenied" is a single word just because you couldn't put spaces in your username.

I deleted your extraneous multiple postings of exactly the same text because they are in violation of our Terms of Service as regards spamming the site. If you continue to act like a troll, I will treat you like a troll and ban your account.

Resorting to name-calling betrays the weakness of your position, and your knowledge of the weakness of your position. "Crys" is short for "Crystal" not a misspelling of "cries". Is it that you can't spell or did you assume that I couldn't? And I am most certainly not a "mister" anything. I guess you must have just assumed I was a man because I am the site admin and gee, I guess women just can't do technical jobs like maintain or create websites. Or so your assumption denotes your thoughts.

As for your response, it shows a complete lack of empathy for any life outside of yourself. People like you are a big part of what's wrong with society. Other species of animal do have intelligence. Are you suggesting that it's ok, by analogy, to take the child in your example and cut their arms off and leave them to suffer? After all, kids aren't very smart yet and the bird was probably smarter than the child (certainly one that would cut the wings off a bird is a pretty stupid child). How does one dead child that suffered through its final hours alone and bleeding to death in the woods hurt society? Well the answer is that it doesn't. What it hurts is the people around the child, and the child itself. Animals have family groupings just like we do and are in many cases self-aware. The two are the same example. Just because it "doesn't affect society" doesn't mean it's right or good.

And no, I don't kill spiders. I only swat mosquitos when they attack me and I only remove insects as a means of securing my territory (which is my case is an apartment) or for defense -- and even then I try first to remove them without harming them and yes, I do feel guilty when I fail and accidentally kill them when I'm trying to capture them to take them outside. I generally live pretty well within my environment without having to kill every living creature that wants to come into the building (and I live next to a woods, so there's always something attracted to the warmth of the building). But I'm sure that this sort of regard for life outside myself is lost on any person so self-centered that they think it would just fine to cut the wings off a bird and leave it there to die in pain.

[Hobo]

I hope everyone posting here is a vegetarian. An animal has to be killed before you can eat it and most are live a torured horrble life before they are sent to market.

[Crys]

Plants have to be killed to eat them too. I have no problem with killing for sustenance.

But I don't buy meat from the standard companies for exactly the above reason. I don't eat much meat, because it's pretty hard to find a source of meat that hasn't been treated as detailed above. I mostly eat vegetarian, not because I'm a vegetarian, but because I don't want to contribute to the problems in the industry, and until it becomes profitable to change, there will be no change within the meat industry.

It's harder where I am now because I don't know any of the local farmers, but in more rural areas you can often find someone who will sell you parts of a cow that they're going to have slaughtered (for instance, milk cows that get too old). When they've sold all the pieces, off they go to a butcher. I think that's better because you can know the people that way, and see how they treat the animals.

But really, plants have to be killed too. They are also artificially forced to maturity early and just because it says organic doesn't mean it really is, not as we would think of it anyway. Food labelled organic can still have all kinds of terrible chemicals you wouldn't want to eat, as long as the chemicals are naturally derived.

If we could afford to buy a farm, I think I would grow mostly my own food. As it is, mostly I can only afford to buy ramen noodles, so it might be a bit of a moot point for me.

[j10asen]

Originally Posted by Crys

Plants have to be killed to eat them too. I have no problem with killing for sustenance.

If we could afford to buy a farm, I think I would grow mostly my own food. As it is, mostly I can only afford to buy ramen noodles, so it might be a bit of a moot point for me.

Crys
:idea:
Start small with a a few ramen plants, let it grow from that ! :roll:
I heard the ramen noodles can grow on you :wink:
I think I read some where that ramen noodles are considered the salt of the earth.

[Crys]

I don't know, I'm getting pretty tired of them, but they're better than not eating at all...

[Hobo]

I'm OK with eating ramen noodles as long as you don't torture them first.

[j10asen]

Originally Posted by Hobo

I'm OK with eating ramen noodles as long as you don't torture them first.

I hate to break it to you like this "Hobo", but the ramens are prepared by dropping them in boiling water.

How would you feel about being dropped into boiling water?
Would you call it torture? :roll: