No meat today

No meat for me today. Will be having fish and chips for dinner, and a nice lamb shank on Easter Sunday :)
 
dirtychinchilla said:
At some point, though, different groups of people would have been completely isolated, and therefore any morality developed which is similar to that of another community on the other side of the world, for example, would surely require something that we all share, perhaps some sort of inherent morality or conscience which is present in all human beings. I think you're right though, there must have been a general development of morality, but this can#'t always be ascribed to religion.
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Or some form of racial memory, or simply an evolution and expansion of earlier ideals.......whether it can always be ascribed to religion or not is beside the point, you cannot categorically state that religion had not influence on human morality, the evidence simply doesn't support that.....

Can you point to one example where an inherent morality has developed where there is no religion or influence from any form of spiritual belief system to back up your claim?
 
My personal belief is that religion was a necessary step in our societal evolution, now however it is time to cast it off and embrace modern morality which will be influenced strongly by the humanisation of all people by our conscience due mainly to the rise of global communications. 50 years ago, your conscience would not have rebelled strongly against invading a foreign country if it was presented in a positive way by the government. Now however because it's possible to talk to and get to know people in every country in the world whether it be by online gaming or Internet forums your conscience has turned the faceless foreigner into a human being in your mind.

Religions primary achievement was to bring a respect for humanity, life and consideration for others. I'm not trying to defend the brutalities that have occurred because of religion, just stating the eventual final product. Now though we have other more efficient methods of achieving these same morals as I outlined above. Religion is redundant and merely a succour for those which require faith in a higher being looking out for our safety and often the belief in an afterlife so as to dampen the fear of death.
 
Although I'm Christian, I try and uphold my faith but whilst I try and live a good life I do falter. I must admit I don't follow everything religiously (excuse the pun).

I wish people would just let people observe their beliefs without having to go into such a nasty/vitriolic attack towards them.
 
Castiel said:
Aside from the concept of animal morality being controversial, who is to say that if they do have morality that they do not have some form of religion, or at least an innate spirituality that in Hummanity and it's inherent social constructs manifests as religion?

Also if we accept that animals are moral creatures, where does that leave pur own morality in how be both treat them and as the thread topic implies eat them?
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I'm not arguing about the whether morals/religion go hand in hand, animals may also be religious. What I'm suggesting is that it's a bit rich IMO to suggest that only humans have morals.

As for the second point I'd argue that eating other animals is a fact of life, it is prevalent throughout the animal (and sometimes plant) kingdoms. My own morals say they should be treated well and their lives should not be wasted, eat them fine, kill them for fun and leave them to rot, not fine. There should be little difference in the way we treat humans.
 
Castiel said:
Or some form of racial memory, or simply an evolution and expansion of earlier ideals.......whether it can always be ascribed to religion or not is beside the point, you cannot categorically state that religion had not influence on human morality, the evidence simply doesn't support that.....

Can you point to one example where an inherent morality has developed where there is no religion or influence from any form of spiritual belief system to back up your claim?
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Castiel, I didn't say that religion hasn't effected morality, I in fact stated that it has had a great effect on morality. I'm not denying this. My point remains that morality can develop without religion.

Unfortunately it's difficult to give an example of morality developing without religion because it would be consistently argued that any encounters with religion, whether they be long or short, could have effected your morality, therefore making all the results invalid. I think it's fair to say that very very very few people in the world have never encountered religion.
 
Amp34 said:
I'm not arguing about the whether morals/religion go hand in hand, animals may also be religious. What I'm suggesting is that it's a bit rich IMO to suggest that only humans have morals.

As for the second point I'd argue that eating other animals is a fact of life, it is prevalent throughout the animal (and sometimes plant) kingdoms. My own morals say they should be treated well and their lives should not be wasted, eat them fine, kill them for fun and leave them to rot, not fine. There should be little difference in the way we treat humans.
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So it would be moral to kill humans for food.....:p

I don't think animals are religious, religion is a manifestation of our spirituality and I feel is a human social construct, but whether animals are spiritual or not is something else......given that many religions and belief systems attribute spiritual forms to animals it is worth consideration.
 
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