Halal and Kosher

Replies: 25 - Last Post: 29-Jun-2009 03:16 Last Post By: tonya001

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tonya001

21-Jun-2009 10:20
Posts: 6,664

Halal and Kosher

I write them alphabetically (A-Z) and wonder what the differences are in relation to the slaughter of animals; if any.

Also, in relation to whether or not the animal feels pain it seems that the more religious the person the less likelihood the animal feels pain. Or am I missing something beyond the human capacity for self-deception?

I eat animal flesh; halal and kosher and otherwise.

"the interest quotient is on par with sweeping a runway with a toothbrush" DD

Myanmarbound

21-Jun-2009 11:42
Posts: 6,552

For both Halal and Kosher the animal can only be killed by slitting the throat and draining the blood. In modern abattoirs the animal is stunned first and a Halal inspector makes sure that the stunning blow hasn't killed the animal. Obviously different prayers are said for each religion.

I wonder if for Abrahamic religions the idea that animals don't have souls and were created by God for human purposes predisposes believers to be unwilling to accept that animals could feel pain. However, as a believer in science I don't think animals experience pain in any meaningful way. I'm not sure what Buddhists think about animals and pain. I've been told by a Thai chef that Thai Buddhists don't like eating bigger animals because they have more important souls. I may have misunderstood what he was saying though.

you prurient foul-mouthed shit-stirrer

Cocodrilo

21-Jun-2009 12:21
Posts: 11,655

A friend of mine who is a monk in Laos said that he will not kill any living creature, but he will gladly eat it...

Cambo by Moto

yaofeng

21-Jun-2009 20:22
Posts: 1,656

Confucius says a gentleman stays away from the kitchen. And this is not one of many butchered sayings of Confucius.

VinnyD

21-Jun-2009 21:08
Posts: 22,680

Kosher is much more restrictive than halal. No horsemeat, camel, rabbit, etc (not just no pork), no fish without fins or discernible scales (no crustaceans, molluscs, catfish, shark, etc), no mixing meat and dairy, parts of even properly slaughtered animals that are forbidden, all the rules around Passover, etc. I think Islam forbids pork, blood, things strangled (or otherwise improperly killed), and things offered to idols, and that's pretty much it. Also the Quran says that Muslims can eat the food of Jews or Christians. (Muhammad may not have been aware how latitudinarian the Christians were when it came to meat.)

It's always struck me as interesting that in Chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter is persuaded agree with Paul that Gentile converts to Christianity don't need to be circumcised or to keep kosher, everyone agrees that all Christians should abstain from "pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from blood and from things strangled." I suppose pollutions of idols is things offered to idols. I don't know when the church abandoned all that. Well, not all that, they still frown on fornication.

I've known a few kosher-keeping vegetarians (if you don't eat meat or fish, there's nothing much to keeping kosher except during Passover), and I think all were vegetarian primarily for humanitarian reasons. ("For the health of the chickens," as Isaac Bashevis Singer, another example, put it.)

Meet VinnyD.

tribolite

22-Jun-2009 00:41
Posts: 2,540

#3."Confucius says a gentleman stays away from the kitchen"......
Because wife won't let him in the kitchen!

nutraxfornerves

22-Jun-2009 02:42
Posts: 11,072

Wikipedia, fount of all knowledge, has Islamic and Jewish dietary laws compared. There is a section on slaughtering methods.

Nutrax
The plural of anecdote is not data

tonieja

22-Jun-2009 10:12
Posts: 446

The Arabs and Jews have very much in common, although they wouldn't agree.

Myanmarbound

22-Jun-2009 10:16
Posts: 6,552

That depends on who you are talking to! I spent an hour last week talking to an Israeli Arab (Christian) who told me that he felt far more Israeli than Arab.

you prurient foul-mouthed shit-stirrer

tonya001

23-Jun-2009 23:33
Posts: 6,664

Thanks for all replies - and jokes and wiki links.

Special thanks to Vinny for the more restrictive clarification. (And I regard (St.) Paul as an extreme, intolerant nutter, fwiw.)

"the interest quotient is on par with sweeping a runway with a toothbrush" DD

VinnyD

23-Jun-2009 23:37
Posts: 22,680

He was on the more latitudinarian side in this debate. The other side wanted gentile Christians to be circumcised and keep kosher.

Meet VinnyD.

HenningWessel

24-Jun-2009 21:01
Posts: 12,951

I used to know a Thai who owned the cantine in a primary school in the south of Thailand. She was Buddhist. Every night she killed 20 chicken by slitting there throats then letting them run. Her son had to collect them all over the garden. Buddhists are bullshitters and master-pullers-of-wool-over-the-eyes...

Here in Cambodia they love to eat beef. All the beef available is halal. Because a Buddhist will not slaughter the animal. So Musliom Cham do it.

Cocodrilo

24-Jun-2009 22:29
Posts: 11,655

Buddhists are bullshitters and master-pullers-of-wool-over-the-eyes...

Ha! So true, Henning! A buddy of mine in Laos claims he is a vegetarian yet when we go visit his folks in the countryside he eagerly woofs down everything from squirrel to chicken...Sheesh...

Cambo by Moto

Shuffaluff

26-Jun-2009 03:13
Posts: 1,987

However, as a believer in science I don't think animals experience pain in any meaningful way.

Nobody can know whether that is true. Nobody can know whether the kosher method of slaughtering, which does not permit stunning, is more or less painful to the animal than any other modern method of animal slaughter. However, one thing is certain: the kosher method is certainly more humane than many methods that were used by non-Jews throughout history, such as beating to death with iron bars.

#7, I agree.

Personally I am a religiously observant Jew who does not eat meat, two- or four-legged. Dead animals are dead animals. There is too much emphasis placed on the killing of them than on the lives they lead before they are killed. An animal that is diseased is not kosher according to Jewish law. So I fail to see how anyone can accept that geese force-fed till their livers erupt, or calves penned into tiny spaces so their muscles are not "toughened", can be considered kosher. Provided they have been killed in the prescribed manner, they are officially considered kosher (by people who like that sort of thing).

VinnyD

26-Jun-2009 03:37
Posts: 22,680

shuffaluff, there was recently a scandal involving a kosher meat-packing plant in Iowa that was hiring, and mistreating, illegal aliens. When that came to light, some Jews argued that the concept of kashrut ought to be expanded to include treatment of employees.

I'm on the outside looking in here, but I'll throw this out anyway. If I had any authority, I wouldn't try to include "morally objectionable" within the definition of "not kosher." The rules of kashrut include a lot that has nothing to do with morals (or health, or any other factor from outside). They're arbitrary. It just feels like a category error to me to mix that up with moral objections. The more you do that, the harder you make it to defend kosher methods of slaughter if other methods can be shown to be more humane.

But having said that, I think it certainly makes moral sense to avoid food produced in a morally objectionable way, and for people with teaching authority to teach people to avoid such food. I just wouldn't mix it up with kashrut. In lots of circumstances it's possible to say "That's kosher, but it would be wrong to eat it." And it seems that you accept that idea, since you seem to accept that some bird or animal meat is kosher but refuse to eat any of it.

I'm not Jewish and if this makes no sense, just say so and please excuse my ignorance.

Meet VinnyD.

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