Posted by: Rajendra Adhikari May 21, 2016
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Is anyone morally justified in trying to stop the Gadhimai festival but remain indifferent to billions of slaughters in the slaughter houses in the rest of the (developed) world?
One argument that keeps surfacing is, what happens in the slaughter houses in the developed world is a lot more humane, is for food, and not for some idiotic belief that the God needs blood and thus shouldn't be compared to the barbaric act there.
The last point first: Its foolish and uneducated to believe that God needs blood.
Whether the God needs blood or not is just a matter of belief, since the concept of God is itself a belief. Unless the arguer is set to argue that nobody should believe anything (including religions) and should go only with hard scientific facts, I think its silly to try to justify that one belief is superior to the other.
The next point: Killing for Food is Okay, Killing for a belief is not Okay.
If its about feeling, then the people doing the sacrifices feel as much right in doing it as would people who do it for food. If the arguer believes killing animals is intrinsically wrong then killing it for food should be just as wrong. So, the only valid point would be to say that killing animals for whatever cause is wrong and the arguer must either be a vegetarian or should at least try to be one whenever possible, and he/she must want the slaughter houses to close.
The next point: The way they do it is not humane and hygienic.
There is no intentional torture in the festival. The sight of fellow animals being butchered and some sloppy butchering by novices do causes some torture though. So, I think they should still try their best to make the sacrifices as humane as possible. But you can only expect so much of hygiene, technology and management from people and places, where a lot of them don't even have toilets. In the part of the world where humans suffer a lot, there is only so much attention that will be given for the animals'. So, the devotees, a lot of whom come from very poor background, shouldn't be shamed, but the authorities who have power and means should be.
So, I believe, nobody is justified to argue to stop the festival altogether, unless they are also arguing that everybody should be vegetarian whenever possible, and slaughter houses should be closed. But people can call for improvements in hygiene and humane-ity.
When I think about it, everything just boils down to what you choose to believe. Even the feeling that suffering should be minimized is just a belief. I am sure there must be some tribe somewhere in the Amazon rain forest, who believe that more the animal suffers, the better for it (and them).
The only thing we can do is to show people how much self-contradictory and in-consistent their beliefs are, and hope that they change their beliefs and adjust to ours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality
One argument that keeps surfacing is, what happens in the slaughter houses in the developed world is a lot more humane, is for food, and not for some idiotic belief that the God needs blood and thus shouldn't be compared to the barbaric act there.
The last point first: Its foolish and uneducated to believe that God needs blood.
Whether the God needs blood or not is just a matter of belief, since the concept of God is itself a belief. Unless the arguer is set to argue that nobody should believe anything (including religions) and should go only with hard scientific facts, I think its silly to try to justify that one belief is superior to the other.
The next point: Killing for Food is Okay, Killing for a belief is not Okay.
If its about feeling, then the people doing the sacrifices feel as much right in doing it as would people who do it for food. If the arguer believes killing animals is intrinsically wrong then killing it for food should be just as wrong. So, the only valid point would be to say that killing animals for whatever cause is wrong and the arguer must either be a vegetarian or should at least try to be one whenever possible, and he/she must want the slaughter houses to close.
The next point: The way they do it is not humane and hygienic.
There is no intentional torture in the festival. The sight of fellow animals being butchered and some sloppy butchering by novices do causes some torture though. So, I think they should still try their best to make the sacrifices as humane as possible. But you can only expect so much of hygiene, technology and management from people and places, where a lot of them don't even have toilets. In the part of the world where humans suffer a lot, there is only so much attention that will be given for the animals'. So, the devotees, a lot of whom come from very poor background, shouldn't be shamed, but the authorities who have power and means should be.
So, I believe, nobody is justified to argue to stop the festival altogether, unless they are also arguing that everybody should be vegetarian whenever possible, and slaughter houses should be closed. But people can call for improvements in hygiene and humane-ity.
When I think about it, everything just boils down to what you choose to believe. Even the feeling that suffering should be minimized is just a belief. I am sure there must be some tribe somewhere in the Amazon rain forest, who believe that more the animal suffers, the better for it (and them).
The only thing we can do is to show people how much self-contradictory and in-consistent their beliefs are, and hope that they change their beliefs and adjust to ours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality