Freedom, Religion and Moral Quandaries

In class today, we viewed the documentary: "To Love or to Kill: Man vs. Animals" and I'll admit that at times I could barely keep watching it.

Seeing cats be bashed over the head and boiled alive was very hard for me, as a cat-lover, but that wasn't the only part I had trouble with. The simple fact that humans don't seem to know quite how to deal with animals is more disturbing by far.

The documentary showed both extremes of the situation. Canned hunts and animal experimentation/ consumption practices, to extreme Vegans acting as part of their religion in such a way that it helps foster human starvation and the spread of virulent illnesses like the Bubonic plague because rats are held so sacred that killing them is believed to be an offense against the Gods.

The connection between religion and the treatment of animals was perhaps one of the most interesting, if hard accept, parts of the documentary. Being raised Catholic in America, I did not realize that other Catholic-dominated countries in the world resorted to what amounts to animal sacrifice, especially countries that are considered "modern", like Spain. Throwing goats out of tower windows and torturing bulls until they simply give up the fight (and are then shot on the steps of a church, no less) are sickening displays of ego. Somehow, I don't understand why torturing animals venerates the Catholic Patron saint of animals, Saint Francis of Assisi. It sounds more like an excuse in place of a justification.

The idea that brutalizing animals is somehow a holy and honorable thing makes me sick. It is no better than the Canned Hunts, where the entire idea is not for the challenge of a sport. The idea is an easy kill, skipping all the steps that predators in the wild have to go through, in order to obtain their prey. The animals used in these hunts are purchased beforehand, and given no chance of survival by the hunter. They are killed in such a way that it takes them a long time to die (the ram in the documentary took 45 minutes to bleed to death, suffering all the while), to prolong the "enjoyment" of the hunter for the killing experience, and to preserve the parts taken as trophies, such as the fur and head. The Pigeon Shooting was even less justifiable because the poor birds are not even needed for anything but as targets. The hunters do not make trophies of them, they are simply ground up and used as fertilizer afterwards. This "sport" involves disorienting and starving the birds, and then letting them loose for the few seconds it takes for them to be shot down. How is that a sport, again? And how the heck is it supposed to be a celebration of American Freedom?

Freedom?! How is caging other animals and letting them loose only to shoot them down in their mad attempt to escape a symbol of freedom? That's like starving a human criminal for a week, then letting him out of his cell to race towards a dinner plate, only to shoot him before he reaches it!

Maybe it's all the fault of religion, but I doubt it. Religion is the excuse. Just like it was "alright" for English Crusaders to invade Islamic Countries, it is acceptable to stab and shoot "lesser" animals because a book says so. Please. What kind of garbage is that? No, religion is just an excuse. Humans do these things for ego-trips. The whole "I'm king of the world" thing. They do it for the same reason that rape happens among humans. It's all about power, and the ones that have it lord it over, and force it down the throats of those that don't.