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I agree with the OP, and think it is very, very strange when people treat animals like humans. I love people, but I don't care much one way or the other about animals. Animals are just animals. I have been blessed with two children now (I am the husband and married to my wife )- have to say that with all the crazy things happening now like people saying my partner and significant other and all that ).
I will never treat any animal as a human. They are different order of creation. Animals (not all) were created for humans to eat. They are on a different level. I see some people acting like their pet is their child. This is real strange, I would tell them to have a baby!
Anway, I do try to love ALL people, but animals , to me, are not people, not in the same class, and cannot even compare to the created human being (an amazing creation).
I notice this especially with people who love dogs.
I love cats and dogs but I think it's ridiculous to consider your pet your "son" or "daughter" or even to value their life above a stranger's. It's almost like bestiality!
A dog is not a child, period. They might love you but their internal life isn't nearly as complex nor are their demands for care nearly as pressing as a kid's. I read that 46 percent of woman and nearly as many men would save Fido over a strange human's life if it came down to it.
I support animal welfare and hate cruelty of any sort but isn't there something telling and disturbing about the fact animal abuse makes people demand the death penalty yet the same folk are so calloused to human suffering? Ray Lewis probably killed a person and nobody cares, while Michael Vick is hated more than Hitler.
If my cat died I'd be sadder than if a random stranger died but that's only because people die every day. I'd easily save any person before my cat if I had to choose, no questions asked. Even if they were a murderer or something.
I think it's easy to love animals because they can't criticize you and you can project your own feelings and values onto them and imagine they agree with you on everything. I also think it's become popular to be a misanthrope and if something bad happens to a person the cynic speaks out and said "Ah, they must have had some skeleton in their closet to deserve it anyway". While if a pitbull rips apart a child to shreds, it's always blamed on the owner of the dog or worse yet the parent of the victim for not accommodating the dog's needs by constantly watching their kid.
I think there's also something decadent about loving animals more than people. We have plenty of food in grocery stores but honestly if sh*t really hit the fan I bet most people would eat their pets, as horrible as that sounds. Also rodents and other little creatures are cute until they start eating your food. I still get triggered from the time last year when I found three tiny little mice in my kitchen. I probably wouldn't bother trying to trap and release them if I found them due to disease fears, but luckily my cat is good at getting them.
I don't believe in any religion-based human exceptionalism being an atheist but I think science has shown that the only animals that even approach our level of sentience are the great apes.
Absolutely agree. It's a sad state of morality that this is true
This is a pretty big topic. I'll start with a generalization that taken as a whole, Americans are a compassionate people. But we're also a capitalist society.
When you take those two things into account, you end up with a consensus that pets and children have no choice in their fates and deserve our compassion.
Adults do have the capacity for rational thought and reason (excepting for those born with considerable handicaps), thus their situations are more often than not the result of whatever choices they made to end up on the path they took. Capitalist dogma insists that every adult has the capability to rise above their station and not doing so is a matter of choice. Thus, the poor in America are mostly not worthy of compassion. This can be extended to the world at large.
It's not just the US. This can be extended to most of Europe and pretty much anywhere else that was at one time under the domain of Western Imperialism.
Much of Asia has no qualms about eating any kind of animal because they never had the same dogmas.
So to bring this back to the OP's statement, Vick is simply a POS, period, taking advantage of animals who didn't know better. OTOH, it can easily be argued that the people who died in the Lewis incident had made a conscious choice to be where they were and had taken some deliberate action that put them at risk. Which is not to say they deserved to die, but they probably could've avoid that fate rather easily with a different choice.
It would no different if, on one of his hunting trips, some other hunter put a bullet through the back of Antsy's head because they mistook him for Bigfoot. Antsy would have been responsible for putting himself at risk instead of sitting home eating a bag of farm-raised Chick-Fil-A. I imagine he would agree with that (and that he likely takes precautions against that exact thing happening).
For pets and children, it's not a choice. But adults have the capacity to either get out of the line of fire or fire back.
For me personally, I've sponsored kids through Compassion. I've given to the ASPCA and animal shelters. I've volunteered for Habitat (as the people getting those homes have shown inclination to drag themselves out of the muck). But with few exceptions I don't give money for relief projects here or overseas. And those exceptions have to do with the accounting and accountability of where the funds go.
That said, if you're reading this and are one of the few who's actually escaped from North Korea, you've shown incredible drive and ingenuity. I would consider supporting your future endeavors.
I've notice that a certain group of people have an unnatural affinity for dogs. To me, a dog is just a dumb animal. I'll never understand how people create these strong emotional bonds with those things. There was some fool who actually got himself killed trying to pull his dog out of Lake Michigan not too long ago. I can count the number of people on one hand that I would try to help in that situation.
here is an example of the person that loves their dog more than their own family member
my sister refused to help a dying aged family member because she was too busy with her dog, and always used the excuse her dogs needs her and cant help , her dog needs to attend obedience class and she doesnt have the time, etc
she actually put her dog as a higher priority over her own elders
thats why I have no sympathy for a stupid dog or dog owner, if they run out on their own family because of a dam dog
a dog is a dog and can be easily replaced, you can not replace your own parents
Raw emotion often clouds thinking. You've lived with your pet for a number of years. loved it. nurtured it, and enjoyed the feedback and love from the animal. Lets say you're walking your dog in a public place and someone starts shooting. Do you look around to see who you can save or do you pick up your little dog and run? Those hypothetical situations often have knee jerk emotional answers. Lets say my shorties are spending the night and the house is on fire. My first reaction would be to get the kids out first, pets second. The loss of a pet is traumatic but the loss of a child, unimaginable. Lets say you stumble into a dog fighting ring with some low life gang bangers and you could shoot them all in the head and get away with it. I wouldn't hesitate to do it to rescue the dogs. To me they're lower then pond scum and good riddance. We lost our cat last week and it was a horribly traumatic experience for both of us, but I never saw my husband fall apart like that in nearly 29 years of marriage. Not even when I asked him for a divorce once upon a time. Hmmmmm.
here is an example of the person that loves their dog more than their own family member
my sister refused to help a dying aged family member because she was too busy with her dog, and always used the excuse her dogs needs her and cant help , her dog needs to attend obedience class and she doesnt have the time, etc
she actually put her dog as a higher priority over her own elders
thats why I have no sympathy for a stupid dog or dog owner, if they run out on their own family because of a dam dog
a dog is a dog and can be easily replaced, you can not replace your own parents
So you are blaming the dog for your sister's problem? Maybe she made up the excuse so she wouldn't have to deal with the family member for some reason. Maybe the family member wasn't very nice to her all these years. Ever thought of that? Moderator cut: against forum guidelines
Animals for the most part are at the mercy of humans and the decisions humans make. They don't have a voice in our society, we ARE their voice. Humans naturally advocate for other humans just by mere association, animals don't have that privilege that humans (generally) inherently do.
I am pretty sure that there is a rule in the bible about calling someone a name.
Another "good christian" making a bad name for them all, I see.
Sad that some people's morality is derived from a fairy tale book.
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