Eating People - Right or Wrong?
Lawyers, theologians, philosphers, Homer, Lance and others - I would like to know your opinions…
Is cannibalism morally and ethically wrong - If everything is permissible between consenting adults, why not?
“According to the psychiatrist, Heinrich Wilmer, the German cannibal Armin Meiwes, who killed Bernd Brandes and then ate at least 44 pounds of his flesh, is suffering from “emotional problems.” We might say the same, I suppose, of Brandes, who answered Meiwes’s Internet advertisement for “a young, well-built man who wants to be eaten”—though his problems are now past curing. Brandes also had a slightly offbeat sense of humor. On discovering that both he and Meiwes were smokers, he reportedly said, “Good, smoked meat lasts longer.”
The case raises interesting questions of principle, even for those who take the thoroughly conventional view that eating people is wrong. According to the evidence, Meiwes and Brandes were consenting adults: by what right, therefore, has the state interfered in their slightly odd relationship?”
Source: http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_01_05_04td.html
July 1st, 2006 at 1:22 pm
I would think the only time it would be justified is when you only have a dead person’s body to eat otherwise you die.
In any other case surely you have to take into account that person is born in the image of God. Hence why murder is outlawed
July 1st, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Following on after Homer is great….because it always makes my views sound more reasoned and thought through.
Laws against killing in our societies are violated for various purposes…whether it be the ‘just war’ rationalisation or self-defence or euthenasia.
So we don’t have to get past the ‘killing people is always wrong’ thing.
The ‘anything done between two consenting adults’ thing doesn’t hold …because if two consenting adults had sex in the Bourke St. Mall/Rundle Mall/Hay St. Mall/Queen St. Mall/Elizabeth St. Mall/Pitt St. Mall then they’d be whisked away by Constable Plod.
Generally …the rule of thumb..is an illegal act (in the cannibal case…murder) remains illegal until a compelling case is presented to the community and to lawmakers..that said activity should be legalised.
I am yet to see evidence that the genuine (though psychotic) desire of the man to be eaten…justifies the over-riding of the law against murder or assisted suicide (depending on how and when he wanted to be eaten.)
I don’t believe in the slippery slope argument, that if we legalise this form of cannibalism..then we have to legalise the acting out of every psychotic man and woman’s desires (such as pentecostalism).
But after minutes and minutes of exhaustive deliberation and consultation with imaginery friends….I believe no compelling case has been made to justify the genuine desire of these two men to literally become one flesh.
In the same way…I have come to the conclusion that a compelling case has not (yet) been made for gay marriage.
So….Lionfish….what’s it like to be a media personality now?
July 1st, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Lance,
I actually wanted to test and and see if this topic would transcend into the ‘cannibalism’ boundary and move back into the realm of debate on ‘gay marriage’.
But Lance, one thing I really admire you for is your honesty, transparency and - even your faithfulness orthodoxy.
You state:
.
Your own understanding of Grace, God’s ideals, and the fact that noone can live up to the ideals (the Gospel message) is deeper and more accurate than most people I know.
July 1st, 2006 at 3:40 pm
IMHO, cannibalism raises too many questions: What marinade to use, roasting, frying, sushi style, BBQ, is it a red wine or white wine meat, what vegetables to serve …
July 1st, 2006 at 3:49 pm
it was interesting to stumble across the eucharistic promise of cannibalism the other day : how much deeper our insights would be if we did this…(sorry about the long cut and paste but it’s hard to link to the specific passage from McLaren’s blog comments)
yuk.
July 1st, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Stu. Interesting commentary. And thoughts about Christianity and communion flooded my mind when I did some additional reading on this case.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3286721.stm
It makes you think – especially of the Catholic interpretation ob Communion that we are literally binding ourselves to Jesus through the consumption of his body and blood. “This is My Body Take and Eat….”
It is little wonder that the early Christians were misunderstood by their persecutors – and derogatorily labelled as ‘Cannibals’.
Even the symbolism of binding ourselves to Christ through the consumption of his body and blood is intriguing ….
And possible links between consumption the forbidding of the consumption of blood as ‘the life of the creature is in the blood from the Old Testament’ and food sacrificed to idols….
July 1st, 2006 at 5:52 pm
On the core topic, I don’t see any good reason to outlaw canabilism. We don’t want people hunting crocs and kangaroos to extinction for sport, but we will let people farm them for meat. While I don’t advocate farming people for meat, I do feel that we can adequately legislate against the murder, or assistance to suicide, portion of most modern cases of canibilism and also against the unlawful eating of people who have naturaly died.
The eating of other parts of the human body while unusual isn’t forbidden by law (it might be but i think it isn’t, thinking of the eating of placentas). So the consensual eating of a whole body (or at least the vast majority) shouldn’t be illegal either assuming the body was created normaly.
July 1st, 2006 at 11:49 pm
Is cannibalism morally and ethically wrong?
Hmm… I certainly doesn’t SEEM right to me. If I was halfway through a corpse and I asked myself: “Is what I’m doing wrong?”, the answer would invariably be: “Yes. Now put down that bicep and brush your teeth.”
However, according to what those crazy Germans get up to, it clearly IS right for some people. Just as sex before marriage is right between two consenting adults, and wrong between two fundos.
I think agree with Tha Pye. Once you get past the whole murder issue, I can’t really see how eating someone else who wants to be eaten is all that bad. I’d personally prefer some chicken and maybe a potato, but whatever floats your boat, I suppose.
July 2nd, 2006 at 7:39 am
i think you should only eat them if they are free range and organic.
July 2nd, 2006 at 9:23 am
Cheryl - You are a nutter!
ROFL.
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Homer has reminded me of a book I read ages ago about plane crash survivors in the Andes who ate the bodies of crash victims to stay alive (true story). Uggh… it’s a horrible thought. I think of the part of us that is made in the image of God is our spirits / souls, not our bodies, so I guess human flesh can be eaten in extreme circumstances. (The relatives of the half eaten corpses are likely to take offence, so I suppose that’s another moral factor to consider).
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:24 am
Janet, it happened in 1972 and was described in the book,”Alive”. A new book(”miracle in the andes”) written by one of the survivors has just been reviewed in the Weekend Australian (1/7).The reviewer notes that,taboos were breaking down,but the survivors kept a promise not to eat his(the authors) mother and sister -’it moved me to think that even at the brink of starvation,a promise still meant something to my friends;we were stil fighting together as a team.Our bodies were weakening but our humanity survived.We hadnt let the mountains steal away our souls”.
I heard the author,Nando Parrado being interviewed on radio,say that until confronted with starvation no one ever knows how they will respond to the issue of cannibalism.
July 3rd, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Yeah, that was the title… on reflection, I think I read the Readers’ Digest condensed version!!!!
I find the phrase itself… “not to eat his mother and sister”… interesting. Because it is more correctly “the body of his mother and sister”… the real them is separated from the collection of molecules that remain, is it not?
Don’t you think it still reflects a view of the body that is a little bit “magical”… albeit less bizarrely than Armin’s fantasy of eating a brother, or the Maori view of taking on the characteristics of a warrior through cannibalism?
July 3rd, 2006 at 4:04 pm
I have a feeling that I’d have to tick the “would eat people rather than die” tick box before starting a trek up a mountain, and might even pull out the butchers knife a day or two earlier than absolutly needed, but wouldn’t actualy start eating untill barely able to chew.
I mean its all well and good to do the nice thing and bury the bodies, but it does make it less convienant to actualy start eating.
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:15 pm
It’s only useful if the bodies are lying frozen in the snow… it takes a month or so to reach the point of starvation in normal climactic conditions, by which point other crash survivors would be thoroughly decomposed. I suppose you could consume a fellow lost traveller who had recently starved to death alongside you… ew, yuk, it’s such a gross topic.
July 5th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
so if everyone agrees that its ok … does that mean it is actually ok?
July 5th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
I’m not sure anyone thinks cannibalism is a great idea. However, didn’t Jesus mention David’s men eating consecrated bread as an example of something that’s usually not OK… being permissible in exceptional circumstances? (ie do you starve to death, or eat the body of someone who has already died?)
July 5th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
what if you and i were in a boat lost at sea janet… who would go first
July 5th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Women usually outlast men in these situations. Be very afraid.
July 5th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Does anyone know what human meat would taste most similar too? Maybe dog meat. That’s a red meat and dogs often eat a lot of the same things humans do. Cattle are vegetarian and pigs are white meat. I’m not sure whether or not I’ve ever eaten dog meat. I’ve certainly seen it on the menu a few times, but never intentionally ordered it!
July 5th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Incidentally, it’s interesting that the English language specifically distances words for meat from words for animals. For example, we eat pork and beef, not pig and cow. Most languages will just say ‘pig-meat’ or ‘cow-meat’, etc. We don’t seem to be so squeamish about ‘chicken’ and ‘fish’ though.
July 6th, 2006 at 7:41 am
I think this is a carry over from when the Anglo-Saxons/Britons were the serfs, and the French were the overlords after William the Conquerer. So the Anglo-Saxon word was “pig” the French word was “porc”… and the lords received it in the ready to eat form. So I’ve heard anyway. It’s all those conquests and invasions that mean there’s plenty of synonyms in a thesaurus.
I’ve just been pondering the question of who will outlast whom in the boat… I wonder whether Abtruth is particularly muscular, or a bit overweight? He might outlast me in the boat, despite the female lower basal metabolic rate, if he starts out in prime condition.
Maybe if we’re organised enough to have water, we’ll be organised enough to catch fish!
July 6th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
sorry but a little overweight janet .. i reckon id last
July 6th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
“Human - the other other white meat…”
Oh - is eating a placenta a form of cannabilism? The person isn’t dead, they (mother & baby) no longer need it, but it came from and sustained a person… Personally I’m all for it, but I’m just wondering
July 7th, 2006 at 7:50 am
Abtruth… you’re very welcome to have a chew if it comes to that. But I hope for your sake our mythical boat has a freezer. By the time I’d starved to death you’d be in no state to have a pig out, and my body would decompose fairly quickly in mild conditions.
I can’t see that eating a placenta is cannibalism… it is an organ with a temporary function, it does not have consciousness or an independent life.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:52 am
well there you go.. i’ll hope for a boat in the north sea.. ive eaten so much Mcdonalds over the years i think the preservatives will keep me fresh for ages not matter what the prevailing weather conditions
July 7th, 2006 at 11:58 am
McDonalds ‘all beef’ patties… they have a ‘unique’ flavour.
You know what I’m thinkin?
Yep - ‘you get a fillet o’ flesh - coke & fries!’
July 7th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
a me sandwich
July 7th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
Handburgers, vocal-chorder pounder, eyes cream sundays, fillet o flesh, bacon double wheeze burger, egg&bacon Rollsy (to keep it local!)
We’ve just solved the mystery of the missing homeless people’s of Australia - it’s not satanic ritual, it’s Maccas!! (ok - kinda the same thing, except at Maccas they tell you to have a nice day!)
July 10th, 2006 at 10:19 am
There was a Buffy episode where they implied that an (invented) fast food chain was putting humans in their hamburger patties. Apparently, out of seven seasons of the show, that was the only episode that caused advertisers to threaten to pull their support.