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Emergence of Lab-Grown Meat Poses New Questions for Religious Leaders (wsj.com)
Lab-grown meat is becoming closer to a reality. But this new technology poses new questions for people who typically avoid meat for religious or ethical reasons. An anonymous reader shares a report: Lab-grown meat has sparked a debate among rabbis in Israel about whether cell-cultured is the same as conventional meat and should fall under the same guidelines for keeping kosher. "There is a disagreement about it and there is a conversation. Also, definitely, there are new questions about lab-meat," says Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, an expert on kosher tradition and bioethics. WSJ has posted a video in which you can hear more from Rabbi Cherlow.
Someone somewhere will start a religious campaign or social media protest over it in one way or another.
Why not discuss real problems instead of spending time discussing how the invisible master in the sky may think about artificial meat?
As far as ethics goes, I see growing a cell culture for food as entirely ethically positive. I see killing an animal for food as ethically dubious on its very best day. I have zero problem with cultured meat; no ethical dithering arises there at all. Make it practical, reasonably edible, and bring it on. The follow-on economic consequences, such as fewer farms where animals are packed like sardines in order to maximize production, look to me to be broadly positive. That the operators of such enterprises will suffer when they fail seems to me to be entirely appropriate.
As to the other, I'm not religious. I have no idea how this will play out in that area.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
My wife is Jewish (while I'm agnostic -- former Roman Catholic).
One thing I've come to realize about Judaism is, they have a lot of rabbis and "fervently religious" who seem to believe a big part of the faith involves a lot of poring over scriptures and making philosophical declarations about what they do or don't mean for fellow Jews.
IMO, some of it borders on the ridiculous, with all the rituals they put themselves through to make sure they're not violating them.... But I suppose that's easy for me to say as an "outsider"? (I'm also convinced that part of the attraction to Judaism is the feeling that they're part of a closer-knit community BECAUSE they have so many strange customs. You know how HAM radio geeks seem to take a strange pride in knowing all sorts of esoteric stuff about radio waves and antenna design? Yeah ... kinda like that.)
But frankly, the different factions of Jews (Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, etc.) appear to me to have come about because there were various levels of commitment people were willing to give to all of these rules, too. People still felt an identity as a Jew but didn't always agree on how much ritual they had to go through as part of it .....
So I'm sure this debate on "lab grown meat" will rage on and on for them, with no conclusive answer that all Jews accept.
Seriously, if lab grown "meat" is able to replace the majority of animal meat in terms of safety, taste and nutritional needs, then what's the fucking issue?
No...we better keep cutting huge swaths of forest to graze cattle so I feel a little better about what I'm eating. Better to keep risking those Chicken and Pork viruses which pass to humans because Jesus told you in the bible that you cannot eat lab grown meat... Hint, it doesn't say that.
It's only going to get worse. If we ever discover life off the earth, there's going to have to be a ridiculous amount theological retrofitting and reinterpretation that goes on. At some point, when your tool doesn't work anymore, most sane people start looking for another tool, rather than continuing to bash away ineffectively with their current one while making excuses.
If your god didn't have the foresight to see this shit coming and provide some guidance, perhaps it's time to let go. In the last several hundred years, we've come up with a number of more modern, functional systems of understanding and ethics. We're well past the dusty myths of goat herders, as stories like these clearly illustrate. Time to let go, and catch up with modern times.
It will be better for everyone.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
This is the mindset that has taken over conversation on the internet. "My thoughts on the matter are correct, therefore there can be no discussion. Furthermore, anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot!"
Maybe someone else has a differing view. Maybe they even have some good points. Of course, you'll never know because you don't want a discussion. You just want to be right.
PETA has had a nasty schism over it that may well turn into a full civil war. The members that primarily care about ethical treatment of animals welcome it. They are apparently a minority, however. Most seem VERY strongly opposed. The arguments I heard were that without cruelty being involved in the process, it weakens the arguments for the elimination of meat from society. Yes, that means much of PETA is not actually interested in animal suffering other than as another tool to eventually legislate mandatory veganism. Nutty as that sounds, that is where they see society going, and eliminating cruelty to animals removes what they see as a powerful tool for their agenda to bring society to more 'enlightened' age where meat consumption is a criminal act.
As someone who cares about animals being treated ethically and humanely, I hate PETA. Their extremist actions paint everyone who cares about animals in a bad light. If lab grown meat tears PETA to bits, I'll welcome lab grown meat for multiple reasons.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I'd think that artificial meat would be less contaminated with antibiotics and growth hormones
Why? They have to get it to grow somehow and I don't see why, if growth hormones are legal in your country, they would not also help grow artificial meat just as much as natural meat. You might be right with the antibiotics since presumably the meat can be grown under sterile conditions but, equally, there will be no immune system to fight infections so if sterile conditions are hard to maintain for some reason I could easily see some company bathing the meat in antibiotics or worse since anti-bacterial chemicals that might kill an animal could be used e.g. the US already chlorinates its "natural-grown" chicken.
There will always be a company willing to cut corners to reduce costs and increase profits. Apart from the above lab-grown meat will offer all sorts of potential for exposure to new chemicals in the food chain with only minimal testing on the long-term effects to human health simply because this is extremely hard to do and will never be as good as the real-life test of selling it to millions of consumers. Lab-grown meat may well be the way of the future for a lot of reasons but, personally, I would hold off buying it for a few years until the long-term and large-scale health effects have been well tested by the early adopters/guinea pigs.
Thanks for being willing to listen to my opinions on why pedophilia is good for children.
Listening to your opinions can enhance our understanding of the pedophile mind, which can lead to better approaches to prevention and treatment.