Quote: Original post by Pete Michaud
Chris, the answer is that humans are capable of rationalizing anything their group does. It feels normal to you to eat the flesh of dead animals just like it felt normal to the Aztecs to sacrifice people, for the Māoris to consume their enemies bodies, for the Nazis to make leather jackets out of Jews, and so on.

-facepalm- Putting the murder of animals for food (when most of the world doesn't have enough to eat anyway) into the same category as human genocide is insane.

People who make these kinds of statements are the reason why many Americans roll their eyes when someone says they are vegetarian. The whole "We are more evolved than you, but that is ok" thing gets old fast.

I think an important distinction not yet mentioned is that killing and consuming animals need not involve any animal cruelty (suffering), and thus they can be separate issues.

Death is natural -- and dead animals are delicious.

I look poorly on suffering, be it human or animal. But man is far crueler to his own kind, in general. Animals can't be whipped or waterboarded into revealing where they've hidden their families and children.

What to do about the problems on the world? I'm not sure. But it won't be figured out on an empty stomach -- our brains need nourishment to operate -- proper nourishment. Eat a cow today* -- for the greater good [lol].

* disclaimer: Eating entire cows within a single 24 hour span has been linked to the growing problem of obesity and is not actually recommended. Consult with your doctor today to find out just how much tasty cow you should be eating.

Do people consider it "cruelty" for a lion to chase down and kill a gaselle? I would say that being killed by a lion is a far more cruel way to die than to be slaughtered in an abattoir, but apparently it's OK for the lion.

I would say that the reason many people today would not like to see an animal slaughtered is more a result of conditioning than anything inherit in the killing of animals. It wasn't that long ago that people would have slaughtered their own animals for themselves and I'm pretty sure there weren't hoards of vegitarians around in those days, refusing to kill their own food...

Quote: Original post by Codeka
Do people consider it "cruelty" for a lion to chase down and kill a gaselle? I would say that being killed by a lion is a far more cruel way to die than to be slaughtered in an abattoir, but apparently it's OK for the lion.

Cats also violently rape each other... so by way of analogy...

No.

People have different morals to animals, what's ok for a lion to do is not ok for a person to do.

Quote: I would say that the reason many people today would not like to see an animal slaughtered is more a result of conditioning than anything inherit in the killing of animals. It wasn't that long ago that people would have slaughtered their own animals for themselves and I'm pretty sure there weren't hoards of vegitarians around in those days, refusing to kill their own food...

I know people that still kill animals for food. IMO this is much more humane than "factory farming", as the animal doesn't live a horrible caged life, doesn't have to see/hear it's peers being slaughtered as it waits in line to die, and gets a quick/humane death from a powerful bullet to the brain/spine.

Most of the "Vegies" I know aren't against people eating meat. They're against people eating meat from farms with cruel/unhealthy practices.

At the objective level, "suffering" is just a type of reaction to physical damage or stress which is exhibited by living things with nervous systems.

But you can still inflict physical damage or stress on plants, too. They just react differently. Is it any better (morally) to intentionally inflict damage/stress on plants if they cannot feel the same type of suffering we do?

- Cutting down entire fields of crops to let the soil recover?
- Mowing your lawn?
- Roto-tilling?
- Neglecting your lawn so that it turns that light brown color of death?


If you view it this way, you're pretty much screwed if you want to avoid harming something living.

In the end, I don't bother worrying about it, and I eat anything that tastes good. I avoid torturing things intentionally, though.

Quote: Original post by Hodgman
Most of the "Vegies" I know aren't against people eating meat. They're against people eating meat from farms with cruel/unhealthy practices.

Most of the vegies I know are militant, and lecture you about suffering and slaughter houses every time they see you eating meat. Honestly, it sours me towards their cause more than opens my mind. Of course, those are the animal rights vegetarians, which are very different than religious vegetarians. I have never met a religious vegetarian who gave a damn what I ate as long as I wasn't rubbing bologna on their food. And I have met a ton of religious vegetarians because I used to live in Collegedale, TN years ago, headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventists who had a very high vegetarian population.

Sometimes I wish that still living vegetables would scream, just to put things into perspective for some.

Did anyone see the episode of dirty jobs where mike went to the egg farm, I'm surprised they agreed to it since it makes industrialized farming seem kinda disgusting.

Quote: Original post by jackolantern1
-facepalm- Putting the murder of animals for food (when most of the world doesn't have enough to eat anyway) into the same category as human genocide is insane.

Where to begin...

First, animals aren't murdered for food because there is no choice in what people eat. I'm sure that is the case for a small percentage of the world, but certainly not the majority of it. No, for the vast majority of people that eat meat the choice isn't between eating meat and starvation it is between eating meat and eating something that isn't meat.

Second, way to equate murdering Jews with genocide! Jews aren't even really worthy of being called people so what does it matter to you if they were killed by the millions? You're just saying that because you've grown attached to them, emotionally or you were tricked into thinking that there is no real difference between Jews and normal humans.



Disclaimer: I'm not a vegetarian.