Snuff It #4

Ask Chrissy

A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to man, nor shall a man wear a woman's garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the lord.

-Deuteronomy 22:5

The CoE has as part of its guiding principles a fondness for this planet. If this is so, how can you not value humankind after having any kind of a life? [What a piece of work is man, etc.]

Unlike other "misanthropic" organizations (e.g. VHEMT, GLF), the CoE does not advocate complete Human extinction--except as a last resort, should efforts to restore balance between Humans and the remaining species fail. It was exceedingly difficult for nineteenth-century Indians to value the white man while he was systematically destroying their way of life. It's equally difficult for me to value Humans while they're turning the Earth into a giant sewer. Nonetheless, many Indians did--and still do--manage to feel sympathy for whites. I usually manage to feel sympathy for Humans, but don't push your luck by bragging about how great they are.

What does cannibalism have to do with the Church's mission, other than the shock value? Isn't it enough that a body be dead? What's the point of eating it?

-Steve

If you're a typical flesh-eating Human in a "civilized" industrial nation, you've probably never killed anything in your life. What do you think about as you bite into your cheeseburger? Do you feel any compassion for the animal that died so that you could live? Are you even aware that you're eating the flesh of an animal? How can you tell? Is there any blood? Where are the skin and bones and organs? Maybe they're not good enough for you, fit only for your pet. Are you aware that the animal you're eating lived its entire adult life in a tiny pen, force-fed, and unable to take a single step? Do you think the people who killed the animal spoke kindly to it, or prayed for it, or did anything to make its death less painful? Could it be that they smashed its head with a sledgehammer and threw it on a conveyor belt? Could it be that the meat industry is engineered to conceal these truths, to hide them from you with processing and marketing? Would you enjoy your cheeseburger as much if you had to watch the animal die first? Do you think that the animal feels pain less than you, or that its suffering is unimportant? Do you imagine that you are superior to the animal?

Maybe if a third of the people on earth weren't going to bed hungry every night, often because their land was taken away to grow food for livestock, and maybe if you knew how to hunt and kill an animal, as an equal, with weapons you made yourself with your bare hands, and maybe if you knew how to skin the animal, how to remove its flesh, how to cook what you could eat, preserve the rest, and utilize every piece of the animal, wasting nothing, and maybe if you were willing to get down on your knees and thank the animal for allowing you to live, then maybe you wouldn't have to eat Human flesh instead.

The US population is growing faster than that of eighteen other industrialized nations and, in terms of energy consumption, when an American couple stops spawning at two babies, it's the same as an average East Indian couple stopping at sixty-six, or an Ethiopian couple drawing the line at one thousand.

-Joy Williams, "The Case Against Babies"

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