29 January 2023
correspondent Humjat Ticut assails both theists and carnivores in their indifference to the suffering of “lower orders,” and challenges those whom might have “realized their god is a lie” to justify their continued exploitation of helpless sentient beings, insofar as gods remain unavailable as excuses for atheist behavior.
I am not insensitive to the plight of farm animals, and I am no fan of gratuitous cruelty, but I still have a working metabolism, and I’ve learned that no single vegetable can replicate the nutrient density of animal flesh.
Humjat’s challenge feels a little empty. With no God to excuse my carnivorous appetite, there’s also no God to punish my barbarity. Millions of years of evolution have determined our dietary requirements, and we are informed thereof by the shape of our homegrown teeth: incisors for clipping carrots and biting apples, molars for grinding nuts and pulping roots, and canines for ripping flesh. I respect the rights of chickens to their lives as much as the chickens respect the rights of the bugs that they eat. And I am much more merciful in my kills (either personally or shopped out) than tigers or owls are in theirs. We usually cut a throat quickly or run an hydraulic ram into a brain. Cats often play with their food, seeming most to relish rodent brains that have been marinated in terror. (Quantum, rip, frequently left our back yard in Kawaihae littered with headless mice.)