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Kathmandu (AFP) - Sword-wielding Hindu devotees will transform a remote corner of Nepal into the world's largest abattoir this weekend when they slaughter hundreds of thousands of animals in defiance of a growing chorus of protests.
Animal rights activists say the butchering of animals ranging from buffaloes to rats in the village of Bariyapur amounts to mass cruelty while local residents say the stench of death leaves them struggling to breathe.
But despite intervention from India's Supreme Court, which has ordered a ban on buffalo exports, big crowds are expected at the two-day Gadhimai Festival in southern Nepal, close to the border between the two countries.
The festival, which takes place every five years and begins Friday, sees hundreds of thousands of worshippers from both countries flock to Bariyapur's temple in the hope of appeasing the Hindu goddess of power.
An estimated 300,000 animals, including chickens, ducks, pigeons and pigs, had their heads chopped off or throats slit during the last festival in 2009, making it the world's biggest sacrifice of animals at any one site.
originally posted by: Dark Ghost
this is a "people actually believe they are earning favour from their God for cutting the head off an animal?" thread.
originally posted by: Aleister
The black mass of Hinduism. Give me that old time religion, Jainism, which treats even insects and microbes as neighbors. A middle-eastern fellow once said "Love thy neighbor as thyself", a statement which includes all life forms - something that people who participate in animal sacrifice (or animal eating for that matter) probably never consider let alone adhere to.
originally posted by: Britguy
While on the one hand these articles are always framed with outrage at such barbarity, a look into factory farming and slaughter of animals in the west doesn't paint a rosy picture either.
Does it matter that the animals are dispatched to appease some imaginary "God" more than for market demand, or more usually, market manipulation and price fixing? In which case the animals are being killed to satisfy the demand of the God known as "money", which also seems to have a pretty barbaric following!
Is it barbaric and unnecessary, in this instance? Well of course most civilized westerners would say yes, without a doubt, then head off to the fast food joint or restaurant for their meaty fix, without thinking for a moment about the life that the bit of meat they are consuming lived, or how it was dispatched. Because, well, We are not that barbaric and are so much more evolved! [/quote
We are all guilty, in my view, of species'ism. There is no excuse for it, especially if we hope to be accepted into some kind of Galactic Federation of diverse beings! And still no excuse, if we do not . . . no animals life is of less value to him-her than ours is to us.
originally posted by: IShotMyLastMuse
"What a beautiful and diverse culture!"
seriously though, can we just stop talking to them until they evolve a bit more and stop being stuck in 1400 B.C ?