Love the cow , the pig, all animals, and they will love you in return. We are here to love, not kill each other because we possess different bodies"

"Where love exists, speciesm, fear and prejudices vanish like the ghouls in the darkness that they are.  I enjoy a loving exchange with animals. I talk to them; they talk to me.  Love breaks the barriers of differences in language and specie. The capacity to feel, to communicate, being non-selective to one specie but a commonality shared by all living sentient beings sharing this planet.  As we feel; so do they. "

"A simple measure to measure every action is simply if it causes pain or not.  Anything that causes needless pain goes against nature. Nature promotes life, liveliness,growth, and love. Fear goes against nature, prejudice is brought by fear, both bring about violence and stunted emotional and spiritual growth.  In the end, all that living beings need is love, unconditional love and acceptance" 

Centuries of meat-eating culture, through no fault of our own, we were brought up in such cultural religious norms.  And yet it is high time, instead of years of blindly conforming, we stopped to think beyond the basics of survival, and think of how our existence, our life in this planet, could be made use to ease the suffering of others, who are incapable of speaking out, and fighting for their right to live peacefully their natural lifespan..   Life is an essential birthright. Do we merely exist to survive? Or do we live to make a difference? To ease and care for beings other than our own skins, to help make this society a more compassionate one, for all creatures and species.

Should by some cruel twist of imagination or fate, we found ourselves born in the shoes of farm animals cruelly culled for food, would we want to be met with the same bitter indifference and nonchalance, or rather compassion?

The essence of life is love, to love unique individuality and to love life, not to kill life.  Fear , fear grips all people, everyone is afraid to be different to speak out, everyone is so insecure , apologizing for being different, always wanting to belong to a safe populace, majority.  This is the real crime: fear to be you, a thinking unique individual, capable of creatively and freely expressing your views, sans no apology, fear, or regrets.  Nobody should be made to apologize for speaking out his mind, and speaking out his truth.  Fearless guts and courage.  We are made to be creative souls, not mass assembled robots blindly performing tasks. Speak up and speak out loud. Part of the speciesm that exists comes out of the mob mentality where some people like to laugh and patronize others to feel good and superior about themselves. Labelling others as different , inferior, for their appearance likewise or body forms. The ISMs of prejudice, is that which kills life unique life and liveliness, gripping everyone with fear, instead of supporting and appreciating unique individuality. 

We do not choose the bodies we are born in.  Just as pigs and cows did not choose to be born in bodies doomed to a lifetime of suffering and ending a violent bloodbath.  We who love our dogs and cats, yet see it fit to kill other animals who belong to the same mammalia kingdom as our pets and to which we belong to ourselves.  We cannot say a pig feels less pain, or a dog feels greater pain when we slaughter it.  Both animals possess the same nervous systems as our. In fact, scientific researches have shown pigs are more highly intelligent than dogs.  Is our compassion random and selective?  It is truly brought about by cultural norms.   Everyone is afraid to think for himself and stand out or face persecution for thinking differently.  Movies depicting animals, pigs, chickens in childish cartoons, and we gawk in glee over them, yet daily we continue consuming, murdering the said animals.  We thinks these animals are insignificant, in our urbanized concrete jungle, we see them as mere objects to satiate our palates.  When we see a slab of meat, we see merely a slab of delicious meat, not what went through behind it,  an infant pig crying in the night in the slaughterhouse, violently killed, a hoard of its companions similarly crated and butchered.  And yet we fathom why our society is turbulent and chaotic with murders, and each person driven by his own unsatiated material lusts,  it is because each act of sensitivity counts, and when we desensitize ourselves to the pain of a seemingly insignificant creature, we become so calloused and create for ourself a violent callous unfeeling society.  Every creature counts, we belong to an ecosystem, where when we negate the pain of another, it will eventually reverberate on us in the bigger picture.  We neglect nature, we suffer natural calamities, depletion of resources.  We kill animals, we suffer animal borne diseases.  We justify killing for our taste pleasures, therefore, we live in a violent society and we complain where is sensitivity, justice, compassion? If we cannot feel empathy for a small pig crying out for its life, how can we expect others to be just as compassionate to our needs. Animals were not born to be killed.  They were created to be loved.  We call ourselves 'thinking rational' humans, yet we see it fit to behave like carnivores who are yet quite justified in doing so as they do not have a choice for survival. Unlike carnivores, we humans, do have a choice. Our survival does not have to depend on the deaths of others.  God is love, not a violent deity.  We fail to see God in every innocent creature who asks nothing but to live peacefully and die naturally on this planet.  We worship the wind on Sunday masses.  God would not create certain beings knowing the violent extremely bloody death they would have to face, condemned to a life of eternal suffering, simply because God represents love, compassion, which should be the essence of our existence on this planet. Our life should be dedicated to a loving exchange with all creatures on this planet.  

Man has isolated himself from the rest of the species.  Out of pride and narcissism, instead of seeing himself as a part of a beautiful symbiosis between nature and other living creatures, as an equal member. He sees nature and animals as entities, objectified entities, meant to serve him, this thinking fueled by the creation of various narcissistic organizations 'justifyinlgy' called 'religion' so as to make man's abuse of sentient beings on this planet 'legitimate'.  To make a clean legitimate breast of his plunder of the planet, a body called 'religion' was created by the crafty man who knows very well how to legitimize his abuse, so that it should appear good in his eyes, never mind if animals are suffering and dying at his expense.  True compassion is born out of leaving others' in peace, never mind if you have the power or you were granted the power to annihilate their existence.  Man becomes extremely bitter performing his mundane daily tasks, daily drudgery called work, if instead of isolating animals and placing them patronizingly in zoos as 'deviant beasts' put on for display showcasing therefore again, man's superiority at having 'tamed these beasts'.  The real beast is in man's heart, the beast of arrogance and cruelty. 

Instead of secluding himself from nature and animals and isolating himself in his urban concrete jungle, where man predates on fellowman, each a predatorial beast seeing his survival in another's eyes in a sophisticated manner albeit.  Man needs to stop thinking that his purpose in this planet, is predating and taking advantage of others' at their own expense, be it man, animal or nature.  Instead of buildling barriers and secluding himself in his  steel asphalt cage, it would do man a lot of good to bring animals into his daily life, incorporate them into the mundane drudgery he sees as work.  Instead of eating animals, man should realize, his real purpose is LOVING THEM.  Only then will he find a real peace and meaning in his otherwise materialistically fulfilled but love empyty existence.

Human relationships with the best of intentions usually end in bitter separations, man with his individual quirks cannot find himself compatible with a seemingly perceived soulmate,  and yet man does not realize after all these years, therefore, that animals do serve a purpose , to be loved and love, these sentient beings, humbly serving us, ask for unconditional love, bearing all our idiosyncrasies and individual quirks.  It is high time man realized that animals are not created for food, they are here to teach man to LOVE and be loved in return UNCONDITIONALLY.

Just because a brother speaks a different language we do not understand, we must not see it fit to use him for our purpose.  Just because he occupies a less intelligent body, we do not kill imbeciles.  Just because he speaks a different tongue which we cannot fathom, it does no right to discriminate him and see him as a mere object.  Racism springs forth because of this. Just because we do not understand the native tongue of Arabs, or Hindus,  we do not have a right to feel superior towards them, or feel justified in saying they are 'this' or 'that'  objectifying them.  Do we feel superior towards 'autistic' people or 'intellectually incapacitated people? Neither should we be patronizing towards them.  The problem with people and society is prejudice, bias, and a preoccupation with labels, labelling certain races, sects, groups of people , species of animals as this or that.  Labels are products of bigotry.  It limits the growth of an individual.  Every creature is multi-faceted.  Narcissists , out of their pride, want to label others in a "box", so that that creature/specie/person's growth will be limited to such and as so, not become or cease to be a perceived 'threat' to his ego.  Yet there is no need for jealousy, insecurities or bitterness in the world, we are each unique with our own unique talents and abilities.  Yet man and society is preoccupied with labelling this and that as superior and inferior, blatanly with speciesm, but more subtly with racism and other ISMS within the human society.

Underneath the eye of every creature lies a soul, capable of feeling pain just as we do.  If we respect the rights of every individual to have a different religion, and if we are to respect the diversity of every person on this planet, we must first respect the right of creatures of a different face from us to live.  Only when we are truly free from speciesism can we say we are not truly racists, homophobic, chauvinistic, only then can we rid ourselves of the ISMS, the prejudice which is the very ill and the root of all the chaos existing on this planet.  The failure to accept the differences of another creature, when precisely everyone of us is TOTALLY UNIQUE, totally DIFFERENT,and still yet with a COMPLETE RIGHT to live in peace his natural lifespan on this planet.

Rather than a smug holier than thou attitude, which is not at all the context of being a vegetarian. It is in fact the entire opposite of it, going straight head on against the 'holier than thou' religious establishment, self-righteous religious institutions, the hyper morally righteous, self-righteous religious sects, which condone and propagate 'insensitivity' 'callousness' and 'indifference' to the suffering and pain of creatures of a different specie and face.  It negates the fact that such creatures in fact, do experience bodily pain through their bodies made of same flesh and nervous system as ours. By objectifiying them, and by turning a hypocritical blind eye on the reality of their pain, and in exquisite irony , justifying their pain in the face or righteousness and holiness.  Refusing to partake of meatfare is none of the religious snobbery that religious sects engage in by espousing man's innate superiority and godliness. To be a vegetarian is neither to be superior nor inferior, as some defensive people may perceive but in fact, it is merely being enlightened against the religous cultural norms and humbled enough to choose to not inflict pain on powerless helpless creatures who have no power to fight back for their lives.

Where is the heart of man? Cows, horses, buffalos, they till the earth, for a lifetime enslaved to work for men, and when they are old and useless, they are not even allowed to rest, but are cruelly sent to the slaughterhouse.  Imagine the size of a huge cow, a huge animal, what brute force or violence must it take to kill such a huge innocent and helpless animal? Let us not pretend to worship a so-called Jesus Christ, who 'supossedly' died on the cross to save our sins and then go about killing God's innocent creatures.  We worship the wind on Sundays and are oblivious to the pain of innocent creatures whose only fault is they were born in an animal's body of  and cannot speak of the pain of being killed alive, and who have no choice even to their lives, but that of a lifetime of enslavery in human hands, which ends in a violent bloody forced death.  If we think Jesus or God as the most compassionate one, the act of killing an innocent cow or pig is an act totally devoid of compassion. How does one reconcile this? By word play, yes, but in reality not. Violence and cruelty happens, no matter how much you justify it with fancy words.The reality is these animals do suffer and they do immensely and silently."

Mothers, human mothers, oblivious to the pain of other mothers of a different specie of a different face, of a different body.  From my personal experience, mother buffalos are extremely protective.  On a visit to a nearby mountain on Holy Thursday in Patag, Silay on April of 2004, I was excited upon seeing an innocent 5 day old baby calf and rushed to pet it. It was shy and innocent and friendly and run towards me. Its huge mother, a large beast with horns, stopped it and fiercely huffed its nose.  It loomed over its baby and for hours even as they were grazing afar, stoping to staring at me  whenever I passed by within eyesight, very angrily.  Even as I stood to leave with my dog, Ana around 6 pm, the mother buffalo was extremely angry and still glaring at me.  Such overprotectiveness! such love for its infant.  And who can blame the mother, when we make roast calves of their babies and roast cows of the adult! Objectifying them, labelling them as irrational beasts, when man himself is irrational, and not at all the 'rationale' animal as he claims himself to be. If he is so rational, one just has to observe his chaotic society, to see the result in the fruits it bears, the result of his so-calle d'rationality'.  Man has distanced himself from nature and other species, puffed up in his own 'perceived superiority' which stands favor, fuelled and justified by so called religious congregations which are in reality, narcissistic organizations merely created to suit man's ego.  Creating cold urban jungles made of steel and concrete, distancing himself from other species, engagin in mind games with his fellow men, functioning as a technological robot devoid of real feelings except fake civilized pleasantries and fueled by nothing but obssession with technological gadgets and the further machinization of his essence, he has forgotten his real function in this world, which is to LOVE.  To exist in a loving exchange with creatures of a different face, race, and specie.  To be united with all species and nature.  Seeing himself as the ultimate superior one, he proceeds to use and destroy animals and nature, seeing them as means to suit his ends, objectifying them, instead of loving and uniting with them. Prejudice blinds man and he continues to be so, wanting to remain in the illusion of his own superiority."

Human mothers, can you not see the pain of other mothers' of a different specie and face?  The calf separated from its mother, to be slaughtered for your roast calf. You who would die for your children, use the death of the children, sons, mothers, fathers of others needlessly, for your own whims and pleasures, even when your own survival does not depend on it. Do not objectify them as unfeeling creatures, for the pig cries when you slash its nape to extinguish its life, so does the innocent sheep, and the cow does not voluntarily surrender itself to be slaughtered but moans a bellowing unearthly wail when you attempt to extinguish life out of its huge mammoth body.

Even animal fathers possess such extreme protectiveness towards their children.  I used to frequent a countryside area where I walked my baby Bruno.  A young mother goat had just given birth to his 2 baby kids.  Bruno, being the playful naughty old boy that he is, would approach them, teasing them, but doing them no harm.  The father billy goat tied to a rope from afar, was besides himself.  He run and run, at the extent of almost choking his throat, when he perceived his family was under threat by us.  Although we definitely would not harm his kids, I was quite charmed by the day old babies so cute and innocent while Bruno was just playfully observing them .  But not the billy goat, visibly distressed, he would do anything to protect his children, at the risk of injuring himself. He huffed and puffed, extremely agitated and when we passed by him, attempted to lunge to charge at us both with his huge horns. 

Until we respect the rights of creatures different from us, with a different face and body, we can never say we are truly free from bias, racism, homophobia, chauvinism.  We were all created precisely different so we may learn to respect tthe differences of another. Instead of doing so, we treat those different from us as inferior, as flawed. Instead of simply silently appreciating their uniqueness and individuality. Some religious sects, claiming extreme piety and compassion,  do not much a fuss make on violent movies and daily bloodbath slaughtering of animals, and then cry in outrage and utter horror over the fact that their perceived 'deity' had sex with a woman.  Seeing nothing wrong with the bloody deaths of a billion animals crying in pain, yet ruffling their feathers over something as trivial as that! The essence of their piety and congregation can be summed up in that short analogy of a statement.  The idea of God as a man is even chauvinistic in approach, created by man made imaginations propagated as so called '100% historical truths'. Societies subtly favoring sons and treating women as second class citizens.  Mother earth, women.......are the only creature who can conquer by submitting. The essence can be seen in the entirely matriarchal society of Bonobos which is very peaceful in contrast to the aggressive patriarchal society of chimpanzees.  Violent patriarchal societies, that demand submission out of fear, that regard women as second class citizens.  The religious congregations that regard homosexuals as sinful deviants are the ones who commit sin, the 'sin' of utter total certainty of their virtue, believing themselves to be the only ones 'right' and their opinion so, as the only 'true' 'real' 'holy' and 'righteous' and dictating the sexual preference of others which is a personal matter for those people as long as it does not inflict pain on others, who are we to think we are in a position to dictate others what is 'right'.  What is right for one, may be wrong for another, each leaf each flower is entirely unique.  Mass blind conformity out of fear is what is wrong. Everyone is entitled to his own uniqueness and self expression, to live his own life, to his own belief his own thoughts as long as he does not incur pain unto another being. And yet in their utter holiness and piety, they feel not a shard of compassion, when the very foundation or essence of their sect is 'compassion', they see no wrong with the blood bathe and mass butchery of a million crying animals.  In the end, what can truly conquer is only love.  Violence to show power is sheer cowardice by insecure brutes who have no other outlet but hurting another to show they are worth something: bullies in short.  To instill fear and pain, just to show your power , is such a sick state, it mirrors the muddy state of the soul, that is has gone to the point of such insecurity that the only way it can feel important about itself is to incur pain and suffering, in order to feel it exists or feel big about itself. True power is in conquering by love.  Even should a compassionate God grant you the power to kill another being, would you rather reign in that power and let the animal live in peace and love, or would you rather use that power and make that animal suffer?  To love is true power. Compassion is the real power.  Violence and abuse of power is only used by insecure cowards.  When you are confident and sure about yourself, you do not need to impose control or any untoward signs of aggression. Instead of espousing false modesty/humility and creating neurotic passive aggressives out of the populace, religious sects would do good to create healthy confident people with a healthy sense of self appreciation. Fear and violence is an act of cowardice.  To instill blind obedience out of fear is meaningless.  It means you leave the other no choice, but fear and therefore out of fear, he submits.  What is the meaning of that, but sheer bully play, like in the wild, the aggressor wins over the weak.  In the end, would you rather be feared, than loved?  Love is the true sign of power, by submitting and humbling yourself, you do not even desire to conquer, and yet the other seeks you willingly.

"Ultimately, it is a personal choice.  And yet, just as one would not want to be born in the shoes of the suffering animals doomed to bloody and violent deaths with pervasive universal indifference and nobody to feel any empathy for their suffering, so, one must not keep silent on the reality of their sufferings. Once aware, one must speak up for the sufferings of the helpless creatures who are incapable of fighting for their right to live." 

"There is something terribly wrong with this world. This is a world where the strong survives by preying on the weak.  Weak of all species, human or otherwise, are trampled on or set aside as outcasts, in the quest for pillaging and survival of the strong.  Something is innately wrong and perverted with our world.  Where the survival of the strong depends on the annihilation of the weak's existence: a parasitic like existence.  Carnivores feed on innocent herbivores and the same goes for the human world: it is predator versus prey all over: a purely parasitic utilitarian world: each living off the death of the other: where nothing matters but the wretched survival of the strong. Instead of the strong assisting the weak, it is one where the strong predates and preys on the weak in all aspects.  By nature, some creatures are innately strong or weak, and instead of a compassionate coexistence, by virtue of some perversion, the strong take advantage of their power and use the weak in whatever form for their hedonistic pleasures or survival. Yet in the sweetest of all irony, nobody acknowledges the pain and suffering of the weak nor does anyone acknowledge ever the blatant parasitism which is the basic thread or system our world thrives on;  Instead people of even religious 'spiritual' inclination would say this is just the way of the world. What way? Similar to the way of the jungle, where we just prey on the weak turn a blind eye to their sufferings.  When precisely these religious people espouse : compassion: when has compassion been limited or selective? Is the pain of a creature insignificant merely because it is 'mentally' unendowed? Pain is pain and the suffering of one is same to the suffering of another: we all inhabit the same mammalian bodies: the same nervous system designed to feel pain.  Why don't humans consume lions for food? It is precisely because man, like the carnivore, is an opportunistic predator, who preys only on the weak.  Fear for the strong and powerful, and abuse towards the weak.  This is the shameful truth and abusive nature of all creatures on this planet." 

One cannot negate the pain of another creature just because it is an animal. Being "human" does not give us sole exclusivity to fear, terror, and bodily pain. Cut a pig’s throat open and tell me it is not feeling any pain. Why does it cry and give out unearthly wails amidst a futile struggle to escape its gory bloody death? Because it is suffering in its breathing body, while it is being slowly killed alive. Unlike plants who do not possess nervous systems animals do. And mammals most especially possess a highly sophisticated nervous system, ask any medically acreddited person. Therefore they feel pain exactly just as we do. This is precisely why doctors study animal corpses in medical school. Animals feel pain and fear. Just because they don't have the ability to speak, the philosophic ravings and rantings of humankind, just because they are powerless does not mean they do not feel pain and suffer. Although there are ethical means of slaughtering, mostly in the world it is still primitively done, and no matter which angle you look at it, there is a huge amount of suffering pain and terror involved: a dying animal goes through, through a forcedly unnatural way of death. If we can put ourselves in the animals' shoes, we would not want the same thing to be done to us, to forcedly prematurely annihilate our existence for a shallow purpose of the gastronomic pleasures of food. And one simple basis, we can base our judgment, is simply this.  Does the animal: pig, cow or chicken, voluntarily and happily surrender itself to being butchered? Therefore, one can conclude that it is being forced against its free will.  We have human rights where man cannot be coerced against his free will and animal rights for dogs and cats; but they belong to the same mammal kingdom, like pigs do, and as we humans do too.  Rights should not be selective to just a single specie. Another word for this is "double standard".  Unless a pig volunteers itself happily to be slaughtered, one can readily say that we are going against nature by butchering it against its will, resulting in a violent bloody act.

We, deep down in our subconscious, feel a false sense of superiority that we are born humans, so we think: we are God's privileged creatures but God is the most just Being he is absolutely fair, so he must not play favorites but love all his creatures equally.  But let me ask, does this give us an exclusive right or entitlement to cause suffering and death to a perceived ‘lower specie of animals’  to cater to the whims of our gastronomic palates and pleasures? And speaking of 'superiority' on what basis or criterion do we judge a specie to be superior or not. If shall we say intellect, then we may as well kill humans who are imbeciles or morons or idiots. But we can't because it's murder. Oh what a double standard. Why then, don't we kill lions or endangered species for food? One may say that a criterion could be based on 'utility purposes'. Creatures including humans serve an either ornamental decorative or utilitarian purpose/function in this world. In this case, if this is the basis of reasoning then we may as well kill all non-useful entities in these worlds, humans who are in vegetative state of brain, comatose, paraplegics or the endangered species .....but we don't. If we are to speak in terms of utilitarian purposes, we might as well kill all creatures human or otherwise who serve no useful purpose on this planet.  But we don't because it is murder or 'double standard'. And how on earth did we 'coin' the term 'endangered specie' , why are a few chosen to be endangered species....the only reason is because we have hunted and killed enough of these species of animals to run them down into extinction. Oh what a noble way of reasoning: one specie becomes 'special' merely because we have killed too much and there is so few of it left now, so it becomes very dear and precious.  What a symbol of our 'sophisticated rationale' which feeds on the double facade of barbarism. Lastly, on the argument of productiveness, we claim we humans know technology, can read, build buildings, but let us speak of productivity not just on ourselves because productivity for one's self is self-serving 'survival'.  Productivity on a larger scale means contribution to the planet, globally.  So let us rethink, are we better off than we are centuries ago? What has man really contributed? Now there is more hunger, starvation, more chaos, you have terrorism, etcetera.  Global warming, and the future of a depletion of our natural resources.  So, are we 'more' productive citizens? Compared to pigs and cows who quietly do their business  without adding waste and destruction to the planet. In this case, if we are to speak of the 'real bigger picture of productivity' then we are totally destructive, we cause destruction in this planet.  Then on the basis of superiority based on productivity, are we not most inferior and deserving to be slaughtered? 

Blinded by our superiority we see nothing wrong with inflicting suffering and violent deaths on creatures we deem as 'lower species' for our taste pleasures. This apparently seems to be a false sense of superiority that manifests itself also in racial pride, racial purity or at the worst case racism. In the extreme case of racism, we have racial genocides which have occured in the near history. Instead of being non-judgmental and humble as God wants us to be, we feel deep down in our hearts that as 'humans' we are a superior ‘specie’.  If one cannot feel empathy for an animal, how much more a human, so we see people using other people for self-serving purposes.  Small acts of cruelty add up and makes a person calloused until such that he is ready for bigger acts of cruelty. Thus as pigs are perceived to be a lower specie and have been butchered centuries throughout. A similar vein of thinking can be seen in genocides were a particular group of people are perceived to be an inferior race. This judgmental attitude of judging a creature/specie to be 'inferior' 'superior' is  the root of barbarism. True humanity is not the stuff of false superficial arrogance because of race, bodies, titles. True superiority is not an entitlement of birthright but is earned by a life of compassionate living. The false bodily identification causes people to be proud of their race,becomes the root cause of false pride prejudice bias and as an offshoot racism.  Although we claim to be so enlightened in our so-advanced age, there is no dearth of racists everywhere, it may be subtle but nobody can deny it exists very strongly. This false sense of pride may also sprout in the form of religious identification.  Religion, like race, becomes a ‘designer brand’ name which serves as a subconscious self-serving pride that one believes in the right correct and true religion. This is the root of all religious wars and bloody deaths in the name of fighting for one's God. In the end, it does not matter what  one's religion is. We all are  children of God, equally precious in his eyes and God just has different names as we have different languages. That’s just all there is to it.  All these  false bodily identifications, are a part of our false pride and desire to be " special" which causes us to be puffed up and arrogant like the high priests Jesus mentioned in the bible, who believed themselves to be of a ‘holy and special religiousity’ and as a product, we become more and more hard hearted believing in our superiority. The fact that we are born in ‘human bodies’ is not of our own merit, but just happened by our birth, so this is no real cause or achievement of ours to be proud of. In fact all these bodily acquirements are nothing of our own merit but by due of our birth parents, culture and genes.  This false sense of pride through false bodily identification is the root of endless chaos in the world, endless religious wars , racism and factions..... In the end, we are all creations of God, equal, whatever bodily forms we take, whatever race or religion.

Why does the pig run and cry and wail? Surely it is not enjoying.  It is dying in pain. Even humans need to be anesthesized during surgery. So imagine how more it feels to know what it is like to be slowly killed and to feel every minute of it, the pain and terror of having one’s throat cut open and someone slowly hacking and breaking your neckbone, all the while you are alive, and feeling every bit of blood ooze out of your body.   Therefore, I ask, is this a ‘compassionate thing’ to do that ‘our compassionate’ God would smile upon? Just to serve the gastronomic craving of one’s palate, will a compassionate God wish upon such a bloody death to any of his creature be it the lowliest creature on this planet.  After all, no matter how lowly a creature, it is still a creation and child of God. No religion can deny this, that we are all sparks of God. The only fault of these animals is that they were born as such. Do they deserve to suffer such a ghastly death because of the bodies they posses, that they were born in a pig or cow body? I ask therefore, why don’t we people eat lions? Because cows and pigs are helpless and just like the carnivores in the wild, who prey on the weak, we humans have proven we are no better than them.  We also prey only on the weak and helpless the weaker animals who are easier to raise and slaughter. Otherwise we could raise lions for food.  We have only been civilized outwardly in our physical appearance, and sophisticated titles and way of talking but the world is still a survival of the fittest where society judges a person by title, wealth, looks, and power.  We live in a hypocritical 'civilized' jungle where countries build 'nuclear weapons'.  Which goes to show, that the brash and powerful and strong rules in our asphalt concrete-made 'civilized' jungle, no different from 'uncivilized wild jungle. Tell me, if we say God is most just and most kind, would he condone the cruel unnatural act of slaughtering in which an animal dies a premature and violently induced death ?Does this coincide with his essence as the most compassionate Supreme being? In an attempt to justify this we may claim there are things that only God can understand.  But surely, this is an "indisputable fact", no matter what religion or sect anyone belongs to, it is "without question" and a world-by fact that everyone accepts God to be the most merciful compassionate, fair and just.  This is a universal truth all religions attest to.  And as such, slaughtering, a most violent and bloody act, needs not much higher 'intellect' to understand. Even an imbecile can tell what is cruel or not.  As such, lame justifications such as 'there are things that God can only understand' are just but lame excuses to satiate the guilty conscience.  Empathy is the key word. Compassion comes from empathy which means being able to feel what the other creature is feeling, being able to put yourself in the shoes of another creature and feel whatever pain it is going through. The key to measure this is very simple, just put yourself in the animal(cow/pig's)'s shoes, and imagine how would you feel with a knife pointed aimed to jab down your throat. The cold steel butchering knife takes on an extremely unnatural form of killing so unlike nature's design for carnivores' way of killing animals for their food. One just has to observe how our teeth are so different from carnivore's teeth which are naturally designed by nature to eat flesh.  Our flattened out teeth, similar to herbivores pale in stark comparison to their  sharp fangs.  Compared to the carnivores' way of killing their prey which is swift, although not totally painless, but it is instantaneous and fast with a swift deadly bite at the neck, the dying animals meets its death abruptly in a not so harrowing manner as compared to man-made method of slaughtering which entails an altogether  bloody method of butchering: a cold steel butchering knife aimlessly zigzagging down an animals' throat to open it apart and blood gushing forth in violent amounts unnaturally.  If pain-scared man needs anesthesia even for surgery, how much more these animals who without anesthesia, their necks hacked alive, slowly unnaturally by cold sharp knives, blood gushing in rivulets to induce a slow harrowing and agonizing time conducing and extremely painful death.  Empathy and Compassion.  We cannot deny these animals feel pain.  It is a fact they do and that they do suffer greatly and silently and helplessly.  If we believe in a compassionate God, and if we believe to be true followers of him, it is without doubt we will understand from our heart what true empathy and compassion is, and it is limitless and encompassing to all creatures. When God gives us power, it is meant to be as guardians of other helpless creatures not the misuse of power for control and personal hedonistic pleasures at the cost of inflicting pain. This is an abuse and misuse of power.  True power is reigning in one's power in the sight of helpless powerless creatures and extending compassion towards all without any exclusivity.

A life form is a mystery and yet something so magnificent we can only stand in awe. Inspite of our acquired "intellect", we cannot create a "life".  Even the smallest insect, we can only stand in awe at the intricacy of its bodily structure.  Even the fly rushes across the room sensing we are trying to swat it.  And yet pigs, cows, and horses entities possessing the same mammalian bodies as we do, the same frail nervous system so prone to pain.  Slaving a lifetime for humans, toiling in the field in agricultural lands, cows and horses, and then ending their lives in a violent bloodbathe.....is that a just thing to do to animals who have served us so loyally?  Not even granting them the shelter of old age, they are carted off to a cruel dingy place to be barbarically stunned and slaughtered, the huge bodies they have, the sheer force it takes to exterminate their life.  After years of working silently for men, treated since birth as slaves, is this the way to repay such innocent loyal servants?The slaughterhouse is a barbaric sight of death and blood of wailing animals fighting to live and helpless against man's sheer power. It is a sight of brutality of the strong against the helpless, a bloodbathe in the nighttime, silent oblivious to everyone who is sleeping peacefully in their own homes.  These animals cry in terror with nobody to hear their pain.  The sheer mystery of  life and nature..........All man made creations pale in contrast to what is naturally made by nature.  All the tall buildings pale in sheer comparison to the majestic grandeur of the mountains. For what purpose do we feel 'entitled' to take away the life of a breathing creature? For our gastronomic pleasures? That which is breathing, feeling today, feeling pain, taking in the world in its own little way, living its own life silently, we take its life just to have its fried carcasses swimming inside our intestinal guts.  Instead of respecting that creature whatever creature it is, its right to "live".  Taking a life is murder whichever bodily form that creature takes. When you take a life forcibly it is murder, no excuses.  A life is a life. It is neither superior nor inferior.  If we judge based on superiority of intellect or etcetera, then it would be logical to say we could go about murdering toddlers, people in coma or vegetative state, elderly people in quasi-childlike condition, or autistic mentally challenged people as their intellectual quotient is similar to that of a 5 yr old dog or pig. Science has even shown pigs possess greater intellect than dogs.  There are so many things man does not know or understand and in his blinded pride and prejudice he feels he is superior and entitled to kill other species because of the "little knowledge" he possesses.  Dolphins and whales possess and extremely complicated language of communicating and even squids are found to be highly intelligent communicating by certain sounds.  Animals communicate in their own language just as people of different races communicate in their own native tongue. Just because we do not understand their language, we do not have the "right" to feel superior over them. Racism is another offshoot of this false sense of superiority.  We cannot just negate murder because we render a specie is perceived as inferior. This is fascism which is what Hitler did considering Jews to be a lower race.  Whatever life form it is, when it breathes, when it feels, when it can feel pain, when it struggles to live a peaceful life of its own, nobody can or has the entitlement to take away its "right" to live.  This is a basic right of all creatures, no ifs, buts, conditions, criteria. Life is simply life, there are no superior, lower life forms, these are all lame excuses to satiate the guilty conscience of hedonists who want to go on believing life is one big party for their own sensory pleasure, oblivious to the pain they are inflicting on others, totally absorbed in their narcissistic hedonism. Every creature, once born on this planet, has a just right to live out its lifespan in peace. It is as simple as that. Murder is murder whichever way you look at it, once a life is unnaturally taken, it is not exclusive or inclusive or based on criteria that it is ok to murder someone of "lower intellect" or "utilitarian reasons", that is is okay to murder those who do not contribute to society. Life is a birthright that no one has a right to take away from any creature whatever bodily form he takes.

One, we have concluded, animals suffer great pain and terror by violently induced deaths.  Second, the indisputable truth that God is the most compassionate Deity. Third, as non-carnivores and people of rationale, we have proven meat eating is detrimental to our health and as such our meat eating habits are a reason of a hedonistic desire for our taste pleasure.  Therefore I ask, is the taste pleasure we derive from the taste of meat commensurate to the suffering we unduly inflict on helpless animals?  It is paying too much for a whistle.   Would a most compassionate God condone such unnecessary violence and bloody killings? In the Bible, Jesus says he takes care of even the tiniest little wren. Would God not then prefer that we show compassion instead to another of his creation, even though we may perceive it to be a lower specie? It never hurts to show compassion to a creature trapped in an animal’s body.  He is still after all, a spark and creation of God. Nobody can deny this. Morever and Most Importantly  God's compassion is limitless and encompassing to all of his creations. It is an indisputable fact that he is the most compassionate one, and the act of killing an animal be it a lowly specie, is without doubt a most ruthless act devoid of single shred of compassion. It is an act of extreme suffering and violence not at all to be associated with our most compassionate Maker.

Aside from the misuse of our plant and energy resources resulting in starvation in some parts of the world, another way our actions rebound on us are through diseases. Science has proven that vegetarians lead healthier lives: a reason why more and more people are going vegetarian for health purposes. Which goes to show we are precisely going against nature when we consume flesh as proof of the pandemic of diseases SARs, Bird's flu, Mad cow's disease. These are nature’s way of reminding us of the consequences of our treatment of the animals. When we do not know how to respect a life, and we mass-produce and treat a living entity as mere livestock to be raised and killed at the fastest, costless methods for our taste pleasure, nature shows us the results of our actions. Diseases keep on kicking us in the face because of the way we raise and kill and eat animals. God allows man to do as he wishes having granted us freewill, but nature does not forgive and will show us the consequences of our actions. But we really never learn. We will stop at nothing for the bloody taste of meat even if it costs and has cost lives and many many lives of our own humankind. Providing cures to this diseases and vaccines are only like band-aids.  It is not going to the root of the problem and time to time, these diseases sprout out again.  Because we have not gone to the main root of the problem, our hedonism and lust for pleasure overwhelming the being and feelings of other creatures.

carolinewong@carolinewong.freeservers.com