Am I My Brother's Keeper? "I am a stronger follower of veganism by principle, not just because of the moral and aesthetic reasons. I truly believe in a vegetarian lifestyle, and I have my faith and hopes in a change of human destiny, thanks to the physical effects and benefits of a healthier diet and its influence on the character of the people. It will bring about some benefit and improvement to human society." —Albert Einstein "The time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men." —Leonardo Da Vinci   Now we'll take a look at the opprobrious atrocities that are practiced toward the animals in today's factory farms. Unfortunately, because of the conditioned training of evolution, and the meat and dairy industries' propaganda, most of us sub-consciously believe that the animals we eat have no feelings, or that they are incapable of feeling pain, either physical or emotional.   Evolution has demoralized humans and animals to merely over-developed amoebas, which supposedly got zealous one day, crawled up on land and stayed there. They then slowly developed into you and me, the cows, sheep, chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, oh, and the science professor at the university downtown. Talk about a self-esteem boost! With that kind of a self-image, is it any wonder kids are committing suicide at ever increasing rates, crimes are becoming more violent, and animals are treated like disposable machines! Life in general has become cheap, a mere commodity.   The meat industry inundates us via the media and our school classrooms, among other things, with the idea that animals like to be eaten, but they do not tell us that the animals are crammed into already packed feedlots, fed some amalgamated synthetic "food,"and kept in abnormal daylight hours.     Instead, we are told that the cows happily graze in luscious fields, with their calves happily romping at their sides, and that chickens are comfortably pecking around a quiet barnyard. Pigs are lazily keeping cool in large mud puddles. Horses are giving fun rides. The sheep are peacefully nibbling grass on the gentle hills. But what they don't say is that these pictures are from long ago, and have, for the most part, disappeared.   Do animals have the ability to feel both physically and emotionally? Most who have had the privilege of caring for a pet would not deny the ability of dogs, cats and other pets to give and receive love. Nor would they deny their acts of heroism. But we seem to forget that the animals raised for "food" are living, breathing, feeling, loving creatures! Let me share this story.   I was amazed recently by the results of a recent scientific study on spiders. To be honest, I have come to rather like spiders. They have occasionally taken up close residence, and I have fun watching, talking to and naming them Alcatraz, Charlotte and Deleastadese for the littler ones. But until recently, I had no idea how sensitive they really are.   These despised yet amazing and colorful creatures have a unique way of self-preservation: the ability to drop a leg when attacked. One of their enemies is the poisonous ambush beetle. Usually he catches the spider by a leg, which the spider promptly drops. It had always been believed that the spider was responding to the poison and was preserving his life by dropping the leg, but by separating the various components of the beetle's bite and trying them on the spider, it was discovered that the spider was responding to the properties that caused pain, not to the poison. Interestingly, the very same entities that cause pain to humans also cause pain to the spider. 1 Certainly, if the lowly spider can feel pain, so can the "higher" creation. All rights reserved Copyright © 2006 By J. Lee