Is Having Compassion for Animals Considered a Weakness?

I posted a thread several days ago about chimpanzees and if they deserved the same rights as humans:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

My wife gets upset at me for freaking out over animal abuse stories but yet I can handle news stories about atrocities committed to humans. People can be burned, killed, raped and shot to death.....its bad, but I can handle it. However, a news story about animal abuse and I scream, bitch and cry. Is that considered being weak? I've noticed several threads headed towards this subject the past several days and I hope I don't interfere with anyone's thread.

I consider my fondness, empathy and compassion for animals a weakness. Its true. I can't count the number of abandoned and discarded dogs I've picked up that were abandoned on the side if the road. I despise zoos and circuses. The treatment of these animals i find disgusting. I will never go to SeaWorld. When I see a trainer get trampled or killed by an animal.....I feel no remorse. I see it as revenge.

Am I wrong?

I'm very much the same... I always catch spiders and put them outside instead of killing them. Even if I see a cockroach in my house I will put it outside instead of killing it. I try to see all life forms as equal and deserving of a life that doesn't end with my foot. Well... everything but mosquitoes, screw those blood sucking vampires!

No .. you are not wrong .. a true human being has compassion for all living beings ..

Expat888
No .. you are not wrong .. a true human being has compassion for all living beings ..

Thanks. Expat.......have I heard that name before??? Sounds familiar.

reply to post by catfishjoe


You are not wrong.

SnF for you and your kind heart.

ChaoticOrder
I'm very much the same... I always catch spiders and put them outside instead of killing them. Even if I see a cockroach in my house I will put it outside instead of killing it. I try to see all life forms as equal and deserving of a life that doesn't end with my foot. Well... everything but mosquitoes, screw those blood sucking vampires!

edit on 11/12/2013 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)

my sentiments exactly lol...

everything but mosquitos

reply to post by catfishjoe



perhaps you feel the same as I do... Animals are innocent creatures...

humans are the disgusting ones

S&F

reply to post by catfishjoe


Totally in agreement. I think it is a matter of respect.

There is a term I've heard talked about called pathological altruism. It's where people want to do as much good as possible to the point where you actually start causing more harm than you're doing good. Social policies like Obamacare can be explained somewhat by this impulse. Or you can look at the hysterical fixation on Affirmative Action, Global Warming, or even Animal Rights.

I don't like animal cruelty, either. But, there is also a point where it starts to get crazy. I think people anthropomorphize too much and forget that animals are animals. While they do feel pain and can suffer, they also don't experience the world the same way we do with exactly the same thought processes we do. So, I think it's hard to pin down exactly what is or is not cruel.

Also, consider how our ancestors hunted. They would herd animals over cliffs and break them. They could group them into corrals and slaughter them. They would hunt them with spears and injure them badly after chasing them and terrifying them. Wasn't that cruel? Weren't those animals tortured? Of course, because our ancestors had to kill or starve, they didn't have the luxury of agonizing over what the animals thought or felt about it all.

It's not a weakness , my thought is that it takes strength to care about, stand up for,take care of animals that can't do so on their own . A lot of people even think dogs and other animals have no soul, or think consciencely, anyone who has seen a dog dream and bark and even run in their dream will tell you otherwise. I don't like to see animals abused or abandoned .
I also believe that people are animal's, and we are the worst kind we are the biggest predators on the planet as well as the biggest predators OF the planet ....meaning that people think the earth is here for us to take what we want and never think of the consequences , people destroy everything that we come in contact with , killing the earth and all of its life for power and profit and it make me sick .

But am I a hypocrite? I fish non stop. I fill the freezer with fish for the winter. I eat beef. I eat rabbit. I eat frog legs. I only kill what I eat tho. I teach my boys only kill what you plan on eating.

reply to post by catfishjoe


No, I wouldn't say so.

I keep aquarium fish as a hobby. Some are fairly rare.

But I also love to go fishing and nothing is better than fresh fish.

Some consider it a weakness. But then again, most people consider the ability to murder another person "strength". Whether it be in the military, or just being "hard" in a situation, being able to kill somebody is seen as strong, where refusing to kill somebody is seen as weak.

This is not just stupid, and wrong, it is downright psychotic. And regarding treatment of animals: human potential is so high, we are capable of so much, that any act of petty destruction is shameful. We owe it not just to ourselves, but to the planet we live on, to become the best humans that we can be. That is in our power. We don't need to harm animals for any reason whatsoever. They all have some form of awareness, and therefore they should have at least the right to live without us impeding them. Nutritionally speaking, there's not a single nutrient found in animals that isn't found, in abundance, in plant based foods. There's literally no moral, ethical, or nutritional justification to ever harm an animal. The fact that we can even make this choice speaks to how special it is to be human. I, personally, don't want to waste that.

'Sexual depravity' of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal

Landmark polar research about the Adélie penguin's sex life by Captain Scott's expedition, deemed too shocking for the public 100 years ago, is unearthed at the Natural History Museum

Worse was to come, however. Levick spent the Antarctic summer of 1911-12 observing the colony of Adélies at Cape Adare, making him the only scientist to this day to have studied an entire breeding cycle there. During that time, he witnessed males having sex with other males and also with dead females, including several that had died the previous year. He also saw them sexually coerce females and chicks and occasionally kill them.

"The pamphlet, declined for publication with the official Scott expedition reports, commented on the frequency of sexual activity, auto-erotic behaviour, and seemingly aberrant behaviour of young unpaired males and females, including necrophilia, sexual coercion, sexual and physical abuse of chicks and homosexual behaviour," states the analysis written by Russell and colleagues William Sladen and David Ainley. "His observations were, however, accurate, valid and, with the benefit of hindsight, deserving of publication."

www.theguardian.com...

You sure animals deserve your empathy? Sounds like the more we learn the more similar to humans they become.

reply to post by catfishjoe


Wrong?

No. My reactions are the same so, no.

reply to post by Spookybelle


Dogs eat their puppies sometimes. As long as a penguin doesn't rape me or a family member I could care less.

I look at all the facts on animal abuse before getting upset about it. Lots of what is reported as abuse is not abuse, it is that the people do not know the animals are sick and can't afford to be bringing the animals in to the vet at the drop of the hat. I know a guy who had some horses that his daughter acquired that were taken away from some people for neglect. The horses gained a little weight but they soon started loosing weight again, they didn't know why, the hay was good hay in the garage, which was half full, and the grains were good. she got charged with neglect. When the horses were in starvation from the last case, they got used to eating things they should not have been eating. They were eating the choke cherry and pin cherry trees that hung over the coral he had made in his yard. The vet was there a week before checking what was wrong. The person who turned them in was the woman whom the horses were originally taken away from. They were proven innocent because they had the receipts but their name was dragged through the mud. Big articles in the paper of the abuse, but no article on the fact that they were found innocent of wrongdoings. The horses were taken away. They did not want any part of taking them back when it was all over.

Maybe the reason they were taken away from the first person was not abuse, maybe they were eating cherry trees there too. It makes you wonder. Maybe nobody was guilty, except the people who ruined the peoples lives.

Don't believe everything you read.

rickymouse
I look at all the facts on animal abuse before getting upset about it. Lots of what is reported as abuse is not abuse, it is that the people do not know the animals are sick and can't afford to be bringing the animals in to the vet at the drop of the hat. I know a guy who had some horses that his daughter acquired that were taken away from some people for neglect. The horses gained a little weight but they soon started loosing weight again, they didn't know why, the hay was good hay in the garage, which was half full, and the grains were good. she got charged with neglect. When the horses were in starvation from the last case, they got used to eating things they should not have been eating. They were eating the choke cherry and pin cherry trees that hung over the coral he had made in his yard. The vet was there a week before checking what was wrong. The person who turned them in was the woman whom the horses were originally taken away from. They were proven innocent because they had the receipts but their name was dragged through the mud. Big articles in the paper of the abuse, but no article on the fact that they were found innocent of wrongdoings. The horses were taken away. They did not want any part of taking them back when it was all over.

Maybe the reason they were taken away from the first person was not abuse, maybe they were eating cherry trees there too. It makes you wonder. Maybe nobody was guilty, except the people who ruined the peoples lives.

Don't believe everything you read.

edit on 11-12-2013 by rickymouse because: (no reason given)

I agree. I'm an avid deer hunter. Mind you nothing goes to waste. My wife's friend think I'm a barbarian!!! I try to explain about population control and blah blah blah. Can one be a animal lover and a hunter/fisherman?

I can't watch the news about people being hurt. And when I read atrocities on forums, I react and if there is a council overhead wishing you to be mild and peaceful and never react, since I was a teenager I've told that council that being like the few, some extraordinary being doesnt count, and is incredibly elitist. You stand with the crowd, human, like a human, and your emotions when they are on behalf of others are right.

Animals count very much, but humans come first. So I'd say both would be human, and the weakness is a poker man or woman, without a heart. Just the idea of a human, or cat, or dolpin or anything's feelings being hurt breaks my heart. It doesnt mean I can cry anymore though. I cried a river in this lifetime, and its very rare I can break down and cry now.

I hate the deliberate abuse of animals and put it down to my pagan tendencies. I do agree with animal care and control though - those damn rabbits won't use their durex and just love my venerable patch.

I don't think that feeling a deep compassion for animals is weak whatsoever.

You're not wrong. Thanks you and others expressing it for the compassion. Apparently to the general public, or what seems mainstream anyway, it is considered weakness. Many times I have been met with any or all of the following directed towards me during discussion of Animal Rights a.) must not care for people or especially children if they help animals b.)must be a bleeding heart liberal c.) welcome the NWO's plans for humans d.)could be a member of VHEMT e.)is probably not a vegetarian/vegan so has no right to be upset about animal abuses
BTW none of the above is true for me.