Recently a link was posted on Facebook condemning the scheduled sacrificial slaughtering of 20,000 buffaloes by Nepalese Hindus. It is as it is tragic that we slaughter animals for daily consumption and it becomes more grotesque when they’re tortured and killed in the name of god. In some religions, Islam and Christianity for instance, the more the animals suffer, the better it is, because the blood needs to be drawn out drop-by-drop. In Islam since every animal slaughtered is in the name of god, every single animal goes through an agonizing death: gives you goose pimples when you sit quietly and think about the practice that has been going on centuries.
I’m glad in Sikhism no animal sacrifices are encouraged or tolerated and there are no ambiguities.
Then someone posted this nice link that explains what different Vedas say about animal sacrifice. For example,
The Rig Veda, the most ancient book of the Hindus, says ‘One who partakes of human flesh, the flesh of a horse or another animal and deprives others of milk by slaughtering cows, O King, if such a fiend does not desist by other means, then you should not hesitate to cut off his head (Rig Veda, X. 87. 16).’
Contemporary Hindu ritual is based on the Manusmruti and it is interesting to see that Manu lashed out against all forms of sacrifice and meat-eating. The Manu Samhita (5.48-52) recommends that since ‘meat can never be obtained without injury to living creatures, and injury to sentient beings is detrimental to the attainment of heavenly bliss, let him therefore shun the use of meat. Having well considered the disgusting origin of flesh and the cruelty of fettering and slaying corporeal beings, let him entirely abstain from eating flesh.’
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
As a lifelong Christian, I was startled to read that it is a tenent of Christianity to wish to maximize the suffering of defenseless animals. You have in this article enlightened your readers about something I have never witnessed, experienced, or even heard mentioned in any Christian setting or by any Christian. I have, on the other hand, read and heard of psychological disorders for which this behavior is a symptom.
It is my suspicion that those who propagate imagined tales about the horrors perpetrated by members of other groups will not find their journey to a higher consciousness abetted.
” In some religions, Islam and Christianity for instance, the more the animals suffer, the better it is, because the blood needs to be drawn out drop-by-drop.” I’m surprised by your statement. I’m Catholic and have never seen or heard of such a statement. Could you please elaborate?
Zakkaytum is a verb derived from the root word Zakah (to purify). Its infinitive is Tazkiyah which means purification. The Islamic mode of slaughtering an animal requires the following conditions to be met:The animal has to be slaughtered with a sharp object (knife) and in a fast way so that the pain of slaughter is minimised. Zabiha is an Arabic word which means ‘slaughtered’. The ‘slaughtering’ is to be done by cutting the throat, windpipe and the blood vessels in the neck causing the animal’s death without cutting the spinal cord.The blood has to be drained completely before the head is removed. The purpose is to drain out most of the blood which would serve as a good culture medium for micro organisms. The spinal cord must not be cut because the nerve fibres to the heart could be damaged during the process causing cardiac arrest, stagnating the blood in the blood vessels.Blood is a good media of germs, bacteria, toxins, etc. Therefore the Muslim way of slaughtering is more hygienic as most of the blood containing germs, bacteria, toxins, etc. that are the cause of several diseases are eliminated.Meat slaughtered by Islamic way remains fresh for a longer time due to deficiency of blood in the meat as compared to other methods of slaughtering.The swift cutting of vessels of the neck disconnects the flow of blood to the nerve of the brain responsible for pain. Thus the animal does not feel pain. While dying, the animal struggles, writhers, shakes and kicks, not due to pain, but due to the contraction and relaxation of the muscles defecient in blood and due to the flow of blood out of the body.
Do some research on Islam Barkha it is the only scientific religion on the face of the Earth.
To be frank, nobody likes to see the ugly side of his or her religion. In Christianity, animals are not supposed to have a soul, and therefore they’re not supposed to feel pain. The reference (about how an animal is slaughtered) was taken from Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy.
And come on, this is really funny that the animal wryths but not with pain but due to “contraction and relaxation”
I welcome you all with an Islamic greeting AS-SALAAM-WA-ALEYKUM
I knew it it will be hard for you to digest, thats why Quran says that if anyone says something ask for proof you dont have a proof so I gave u a scientific reason by the doctors its not an explanation from idiots like you and me this was an explanation by the doctors fools like you and me will give some illogical thoughts like “contraction and relaxation” does happens with pain thats why Quran says if you want to know something get it from the experts it has to obtained from the fundamentalist, now you will say what a fundamentalist and islamic person my friend fundamentalist means one who practice his or her profession rigorously check out the dictionary. you are also a small fish which has been caught in the nets of MEDIA like many others
and u in the web of religion? how can a book, revealed to one alone, to be interpreted only by the ‘enlightened’, the only path to be followed, be a surefire remedy to all possible situations. what happens to the others, who by virtue of geography, never get to know its tenets?