[hermit22]

I found this site a few months ago, and I check the IotD almost religiously, but never had a reason to post until now.

mulgorod, you are lumping any kind of death into the same category. That's really not how it works though. Dog fights are pretty damn awful for both the dogs and the people involved. I think it's obvious why they're bad for the dogs: the living conditions, the whole...dying thing.

As for the humans watching -- Jefferson said that slavery taints the owner's heart. His point was that cruelty hardens and corrupts a human being - and this cruelty, which is just shameless in its viciousness, is much the same thing as slavery. Of course, it's dogs that are enslaved, and not humans.

As for eating meat -- that's just the food chain at work. There is no direct corruption of the soul at play in a hamburger, even though some poor animal died for it. Instead of spiritual corruption, the body is enriched.

So both are bad, to an extent. Both involve the death of a living thing. The difference is that one is a part of nature (yes, I know, we were designed to be herbivores, but early man learned quickly to adapt to eating meat) while the other is nothing but simple brutality. I believe that's what jeni and dhamsaic were objecting to.

Just for reference, I'm one of those...I would be a vegetarian but beef and chicken taste too good... types.