Halal and other religions

Hi,

Recently, the presidential candidate for our equivalent of the Tea Party started a ****storm about "all meat in Paris is Halal (that means the cattle was slaughtered by bleeding them according to some Muslim ritual) and nobody told you". Lacking religious background, i have trouble understanding what is supposed to be wrong with that.

Does Halal prevent some hygiene practices, or does any mainstream religion have a "thou shalt not eat Halal" clause?

edited 20th Feb '12 11:10:02 AM by Medinoc

While I have many issues with Islam, Halal is something I and Muhammed agree with. Animals killed that way are better off than those killed secularly.

Wikipedia tells me there is nothing inherently non-hygienically in halal food. There is another possible problem in all food being halal (or kosher or whatever) as they extra ritualistic concerns may make the food more expensive, which is bad for who don't give a shit about it (not I do not know if the halal ritual do make food more expensive in France).

To me, however, it seems this dude is trying to instigate panic with conspiracy bullshit. As if the "enemy" is infiltrating in the society and dictating what you guys eat.

The problem with halal meat is that it has to be killed by having its throat slit and bleeding to death.

Some people find this ethically questionable, for obvious reasons.

The main problem is, as usual, Values Dissonance. This guy seems to care about how they're killing cattle (regardless of the truthness of his words), but he still eats them (unless he's vegetarian). Apparently, he doesn't seem to mind the fact that the Hindus must think bad of him for eating cows at all (and most of us, along the same lines). So, if he doesn't care about that, why should "they" (whoever "they" may be in his mind) care about what he thinks?
We still have to learn that different people has different ways and none of them are inherently wrong.

Cultural relativism eh. I would be interested how you can support the intellectual incoherence there - either you collapse into nihilism, or you hold to moral absolutes. Which is it?

Actually, people are upset with Halal and Kosher slaughter practices because its animal abuse thats exempt because of religious reasons

That's not the issue. The issue is that in some places all meat is halal, and that is depriving people of the ability to choose whether they want to eat halal meat or not.

edited 20th Feb '12 1:03:36 PM by pagad

Of course the free market solution would be to offer competition to that, exploit the niche, instead of pushing for anti-halal legislation or whatever.

>Free Market>Promotes Competition

Really Octo, really?

I thought that Halal was an issue (in America) because certain right-wing nutbars think that its mere availability is part of a secret Muslim plot to take over the United States of America. Or at least make being Muslim more acceptable (which is of course, unacceptable as it is not Christian). Same difference, really.

Also, I wasn't aware that anyone (in America) had an issue with Kosher food, and if that's not a problem, I can't see why they'd be pissy abouy Halal food.

edited 20th Feb '12 1:08:33 PM by Balmung

Replace "United States of America" with "France", "Britain", or "Germany", and you get the same issues.

Halal is fairly identical to kosher as far as I'm aware, but the Republicans objecting to it ignore that because they're aware of how obvious the Unfortunate Implications would be if they started demagoguing against kosher food.

I don't see a big issue with it as there's no particular reason not to eat halal/kosher, and it's probably a lot less nasty than many other things we do to food animals. And I highly doubt that all meat is halal or kosher, given that you can find things in grocery stores that are specifically labelled as being such, which would not be necessary if all meat followed those restrictions.

edited 20th Feb '12 1:42:04 PM by WarriorEowyn

It's okay for Muslims to eat Kosher, but not for Jews to eat Halal. It's an old trend. Jews wouldn't drink from sources Muslims drink from, but Muslims would drink from sources Jews drank from, etc. etc. There's a few ritualistic details that are different.

As for sacrifice by bleeding being less ethical than other methods, I suggest a cursory browsing of said methods. Neck breaking, air pistol, done by machines... at least bleeding treats the animal as such, rather than as a walking slab of meat. Also, it makes the meat last longer, and makes it more tender. Argentina uses this method constantly, and its beef is world-famous. Sure, it looks worse, but I thought our concern was ethics, not aestethics.

Finally, it is simply impossible that all meat in Paris be Halal, by virtue of pork being utterly unhalalable. Horse meat isn't Halal either (though many Muslims are unaware of this fact).

Halal is to Muslims what kosher is to the Jewish. I'd also like some sort of citation as to "all meat in Paris is halal", because that sounds kinda retarded. I'm sure that a lot of the meat over there would be considered halal, but I highly doubt that it was all specifically made to fit within the Qu'ran's specifications.

Animals don't particularly care about the dignity or lack thereof of their death. The bolt is quick and comparatively painless, it is the more humane option.

Then why aren't those same people even more upset with secular livestock farming practices that are animal abuse exempt because of money reasons and render the animal's entire life miserable instead of the few seconds when it's slaughtered?

edited 20th Feb '12 2:08:21 PM by Pykrete

Aaactually, that's not part of halal. The way in which it's slaughtered is dhabihah. Halal and dhabihah are linked, because blood is non-halal, but they're not the same thing.

edited 20th Feb '12 2:10:41 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

@Pyk

For the most part they are?

However, people tend to pick the battles they can win.

And so they pick a battle against a minority religion?

As for the "animals don't care" argument, it's obviously us that care. Valuing painlessness over dignity or vice versa is a metaethical choice. One that is purely a matter of sensitivities, and where no-one can pretend to hold the right answer.

The preferred secular method, as I understand, is electrocution. I frankly care more about how an animal is raised than how they are killed, and factory farming procedures disgust me. Free range meat, people.

Also, while slitting throats isn't painless, it certainly isn't a slow death by any means.

Blood pressure drops so fast consciousness is lost very quickly. It's the same reason you gray out when you stand up too fast, except without re-establishing equilibrium.

edited 20th Feb '12 3:10:06 PM by Pykrete

I myself don't have a problem with meat being Halal or Kosher. In fact I highly prefer Kosher meats and would gladly trade my bacon rights for living off Israeli food for the rest of my life. Kosher hot dogs are the best thing ever.

Given that he's a tea partier I'm going to assume it's a scare tactic. "LOOK THE ENEMY ALREADY HAS PARIS. YOU CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN HERE." It certainly sounds like that regardless.

The only two reasonable issues I can see with it are it raising the price of meat and people not wanting to eat Halal meat for whatever reason. As is I'd like to see proof that all Paris' meat is prepared this way.

I guess what I'm trying to say is yeah there's a lot of blood involved and it takes a few seconds, but compare that to the "humane" way of shuttling an animal for several minutes through a large terrifying building straight out of a horror movie that smells like death and has loud stabby machines all over the place. Fuck, it's almost like the process is abstracted for our sake instead of theirs.

To say nothing of when they go so fast the animals don't actually die until they're long past the kill line. Which happens regularly.

edited 20th Feb '12 3:22:06 PM by Pykrete

Almost?