And GP's example shows that seeing the animals being killed doesn't mean people will stop eating meat.
"the more devout muslims practice ceremonial animal sacrifice which often happens on the streets with kids around, so they tend to have different relationship with the animal killing(no, they are cruelty or anything like that, it's just different)"
In the same vein, my grandparents' village was still very rural when I spent my holidays there as a kid, and the other local children would grow up surrounded by cows, sheep, chickens, and other farm animals. They'd see them be slaughtered and cooked. I can't remember a single one of them turning vegetarian. And it should be noted that the adults wouldn't tolerate any kind of cruelty or abuse towards the animals. Hell, you could even get into trouble for being too loud at night next to a barn where cattle were sleeping.
I’m not a vegan or vegetarian but I’m looking forward for lab produced meet where no cows are involved.
Plus, the children used to play with the goats and sheep while they were still small. I'm not very familiar with the cows (my grandparents didn't have any), but I know that goats also tend to be fairly smart, curious and quite playful. As a kid it's fairly easy to develop some attachment to them, especially since there isn't that big of a size difference (a cow can be intimidating to a child because of its size).
Why does animal welfare matter if at the end they will end up as food anyway? Not trolling, I legitimately want to understand.
From my point of view, livestock is just food, that happens to be in a temporary living state, before being ultimately eaten. As an end consumer, I don't see how this would change anything – besides potentially pushing up the price. I just want to pick up the meat at the store for the best possible price.
Nothing temporary ever matters. Human life can only matter if there's something permanent about it. If there isn't, nothing ever matters. None. Nil.
Yes, I'm talking about religion. That pesky thing which folks on HN tend to look down in disgust. The idea of accountability with permanent, eternal consequences. Acts carrying on to another life which won't ever end.
(Not talking about the dumb Christian idea "You are already forgiven no matter what because someone is killed 2 millenia ago!" here.)
Who said so? Your gut feelings?
Even though I'm an atheist, this is quite an ignorant take on Christian beliefs. In Christianity, Jesus' death only cleansed people of Original Sin. That is, people who died before Jesus were already doomed, regardless of how they lived their life, because they were all tainted by their forefather Adam's sin.
Jesus is supposed to have forgiven humanity for this sin, and allowed each person to be judged for their own actions in life, not be condemned a priori because of the actions of their ancestor.
Separately from this singular event, God forgives anyone who commits even the most heinous acts as long as they later come to truly regret those acts and spend the rest of their lives atoning for them. This is obviously a necessary component to any moral system as, without such a belief, the rational thing to do after committing a sin that condemns you to hell would be to continue sinning even more, since nothing worse can happen to you.
Of course, none of these religious inventions are necessary for leading and believing in a moral life. Most people are moral simply because that is the right thing to do, not because they fear some big bad punishing them if they are not.
Two more points of consideration:
> people who died before Jesus were already doomed, regardless of how they lived their life
This is actually not the Christian belief, but only that those who died before Jesus could not enter into heaven until Jesus' death and resurrection (because even they were saved by Jesus sanctifying passion). The term you're unaware of is "The Harrowing Of Hell".
> people are moral ... because that is the right thing to do
That's actually the point of Christian belief too - imperfect contrition (fear of punishment) is a _starting_ point. The goal is perfect contrition, desire to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do (for love of God).
Heavily stressing animal's makes the meat taste worse ends up all gamey.
I think more people would be pushing for animal welfare and proper slaughtering/raising conditions if this was done, even if they still ate meat.