I think a lot of us are appalled at the way Michael Vick tortured dogs and executed them in horrific ways when they didn't fight well enough. Here's someone's comment I found that makes an important point:
Many people are outraged by the recent story about Michael Vick and the alleged grotesque and cruel treatment of dogs. Those same people will then sit down and eat a chicken or steak or ham dinner and never consider the suffering that is on their plate. Animals on factory farms are beaten, shocked, debeaked, imprisoned in cages or pens, artificially impregnated, milked dry, forced to lay eggs to exhaustion, denied any natural activity (including bonding with their offspring), and then executed.
When you eat meat, you become complicit in the torture.
If you believe the meat you eat comes from animals who are humanely raised and slaughtered, please read Animal Liberation by Peter Singer. What I learned there was a true eye-opener. I have no objection to eating meat if the animal is raised in such a way that it is able to live according to its natural instinct and is painlessly slaughtered and not subjected to psychological terror in the process. But that's not what happens in the meat industry. Even if the animal (like grazing cattled, perhaps) lived a largely "happy life", being transported to the slaughter house is a nightmare. And the assembly line slaughter houses are such that the animals see other animals being tortured and killed and hear their screams. Animals are supposed to be stunned before slaughter but the workers are under such time pressure that this often doesn't happen properly and the the terrified animals are skinned alive.
Here's a brief review of Animal Liberation on the Amazon site:
I read excerpts from this book flipping through it in a bookstore. I got so sick that I sat down in the floor and leaned up against the wall. I couldn't stand to read any more. Oh, what we do to animals in the name of...what reason is good enough?
I did much the same. Finally I forced myself to buy the book and read it all the way through.
Most people are completely ignorant of the way society actually treats animals. I beg everyone who reads this to inform himself or herself.
Peter Singer's book, "Practical Ethics" changed my life. I learned from it how to think from first principles and to ignore received wisdom. Through it I found the courage to ask any question. The irony is that although Singer is an atheist his writings have brought me closer to the mind of God than the writings of any Christian writer.
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