Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Burning Zeppelin on November 29, 2006, 03:29:05 am
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I was having a forum discussion with a vegan on the unofficial school message board. It went from rights of animals to not be tortured to whether or not people should eat meat or not. Points brought up are as followed.
Modification of Animals: Cows are milked until three months before birth, leaving their bones brittle and calcium deprived. Also, some cows are genetically modified so that they can produce up to 40% more milk, with their udders often swollen to 10 times their original size. And because of their small hips caused by lack of calcium, all their births must be performed with cesarians, with no anaethesia.
Intelligence of Animals: Animals are smart too. Animals know if they are locked up or not, and therefore many farmers break off some of their body parts to stop the stress symptons.
Torture of Animals: The usual. Animals are beaten, kept in small cages, stuff like that. And it has been almost certainly prove that animals can feel pain.
But the most important point brought up is that there is no need to eat animals, and that really we are meant to be herbivores..
(http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/3388/pictureac3.jpg)
That image basically explains the whole thing. Of course, even if we weren't meant to eat meat before, our body has evolved into needing the protein and vitamins present in meat. Of course, vegetarians counter this with saying that things that you are present in meat are also present in milk, eggs and walnuts. Vegans have it a lot harder though, because even if the American Dietic Association says that vegetarianism is a healthy way of living and can even reduce diseases, they said nothing about veganism.
So what are your thoughts on this arguments? Any vegos/vegans out there?
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I still think being an omnivore is healthiest. That said, I don't eat too much meat, and that which I do is primarially chicken. Some pork. Rarely beef. I suppose if I HAD to go vegetarian, I'd just eat lentil salad and whole grain bread all that time. That'd work. The thing is, it's way harder, costlier, and just inefficiant to 'grow' meat. As such, it's prudent, even if one is an omnivore (like me) to limit it.
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I sincerely see no moral at all involved in the act of feeding.
Hell, humanity shamelessly fucks things up to every species on earth (including humanity itself), that it actually seems a complete foolishness for one to be worrying about such thing as what one gets fed of.
Take off your clothes, go live in the jungle and stay there. Otherwise you're a fucking hypocrite. (By you I mean people who morally question the act of eating whatever)
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Omnivore here, because IMO the Body needs both, plants and meat stuff. Oh, and it tastes both good if made well.
Yet I am against any kind of torturing, mass holding or whatever is done to the animals just for more profitable purpose. I don't say stop eating them, they should just be treated well. But what human does care about if the meat he eats was treated well or not? Some do, and even pay for it, yet most just don't.
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I'm a major meat-eater, and I know for a fact that vegos/vegans are not getting the full ammount of amino acids they need in their diets. There are a few certain types found in tofu, nuts, etc. but meat has much more that need to be grown inside a living animal, not a plant. Besides, if you buy smart (as in organic, free-range, etc), you'll still be doing the animals no harm.
Being a health freak myself, I can't help but laugh when a veggo eats starch and sugar based meals all day and complains about gaining weight. xD
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my thoughts: who the hell cares. you're made to eat meat, stop being a bitch.
sad part is, I've actually said that to a couple of vegan protester types.
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. Besides, if you buy smart (as in organic, free-range, etc), you'll still be doing the animals no harm.
outside the, ya know, complete and utter slaughter of the fucking animal.
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Well, there are certain problems with certain meats, but before anyone even dares go into that for nutritional reasons, citizens need to stop eating junk food first or start exercising. You can eat as much junk food as you want (with...certain limits) as long as you burn it off, even. But meat's pretty down on the pecking order for food threats. Soda is probably at the top with mega-consumption of sugar and calories. If you want to be diabetic, drink soda regularly for most of your life and don't exercise. It will happen. I am not even kidding. So if you say "whoa, I might be in that demographic," then act. A third of all Americans born after 2000 will have diabetes unless lifestyle changes are made.
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This isn't about soda, ZeaLitY...
Anyhow, with regard to the topic itself, I seriously doubt the veracity of that chart. I'd want to see some proof that: A) the chart's claims are true; and B) the chart is not selective in its facts so as only to present facts that support its argument. Human beings are well adapted for eating meat and reclaiming its nutritional value, and animal hunting outdates recorded history.
As for all of the pathetically defensive pro-meat people who have posted in this thread, they are guilty of a blatantly unintellectual approach to the discussion on grounds of having established their opinion prior to considering the facts. Their disregard for animals' rights and for human health both should be disregarded by the rest of us. They aren't saying anything that is necessarily truthful; they're just editorializing.
Next, Cup of Noodles, for his part, makes an interested if misguided claim: We're hypocrites to worry about eating meat when we're already screwing up everything. However, that argument is a logical fallacy and doesn't count, because whether or not we are messing things up elsewhere has no bearing on the wisdom of a particular, unrelated behavior. If eating meat were imprudent, we would not be wrong to stop doing it simply because we're still messing up the world in other ways. On the contrary, that would be a good move...if eating meat were imprudent.
Lastly, I would finish by saying that few if any of us in this thread are qualified to talk about the costs and benefits of a normalized level of meat consumption in the human diet with regards to human health. With regards to animal rights, perhaps a couple of us are aware of the magnitude of animal abuse that goes into the production of human meat, but only a couple.
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I too am against animal abuse, and I wish there was more regulation, but a lot of money from meat goes to the government apparently, and therefore farmers try to find the fastest way to make more money.
Many sites agree with the table...
http://www.celestialhealing.net/physicalveg3.htm
http://www.vegsource.com/jo/qa/qaphys.htm
http://www.vegetarianteen.com/questions/question34.shtml
And then there is this...
http://www.eatveg.com/argument.htm
But in counter attack mode...
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_087.html
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This isn't about soda, ZeaLitY...
Regardless of whether or not this topic has anything to do with soda, it does take on a "health conscious" approach and as such it isn't so off-topic to mention the hazards of massive sugar consumption.
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But when do I get to contradict ZeaLitY, if not now? And if not now, when?!
=P
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I can imagine Lord J sitting at home at night reading every single one of Zeality's posts trying to find a flaw, and for some reason, in that thought, there is a typewriter and a large roll of tape.
Snap out of it, this isn't about typewriters and rolls of tape!
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Maddox's "Guiltless Grill? Is There Another Kind?" Article (http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=grill)
But personally, I don't care. I have to eat meat because I can't afford to lose another source of food. I'm so skinny that I would certainly die were I to somehow restrict my already piss-poor diet.
I eat doom like magnum bullets.
Pleased to meet you. Meat to please you.
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. Besides, if you buy smart (as in organic, free-range, etc), you'll still be doing the animals no harm.
outside the, ya know, complete and utter slaughter of the fucking animal.
There's a duh. xD
I think up untill that point, as long as the place is clean and the animals aren't contracting some mutant ebola-birdflu-hantavirus, we don't really care about animal cruelty when they'll be dead anyway. Morality aside, they do -try- to kill the animals painlessly.
I've recently found out one of my buds was a veggo, but he's not one because he is against eating animals. He just doesn't like the taste of it. I seem to hear this more often than animal cruelty sympathizers.
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Well, like it says in that fantastic Maddox article that I just put in that last post...Wheat is murder! Animals get FUCT UP when those huge combines comb the fields, eh?
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In the general case, I don't view predation as being within the scope of morality. Is it moral for a fox to eat a hen? The question is meaningless. So humans eating meat isn't moral or immoral; it's amoral. That said, one can take issue with the treatment of farm animals. Idealy, they should not be made to suffer unneccisarrily. That's the real moral issue on eating meat: Are you torturing or predating?
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Isn't the morality question raised more because of the necessity issue? To reuse your analogy, if the fox already had a perfectly good meal and wouldn't need to eat the hen, why would or should it?
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As said before, there is nothing wrong with eating meat. There truly is nothing immoral about a fox eating an hen. But, let me tell you something about vegetarians-I think they're filthy hypocrites who think they're in touch with nature, but have done nothing but missed the whole damn point.
So, I'm to blame for eating a cow? Well, why isn't that stag to blame for eating that leaf? Cuz the leaf doesn't have a brain? Cuz it doesn't have nerves? Cuz it can't feel pain? I say, no! To me, all life is equal. The act of feasting upon another's life to prolong your own is a natural, necessary act, which ENSURES THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. Despite the fact I do not believe anyone deserves death, this case is a special one, as one must always look after himself, at least in the most basic of ways, and take part in this struggle to life. As such, there are plants that defend themselves. There are plants who eat living animals. Saying 'I won't eat that lamb but I will tomato because the tomato won't tell the difference' is a horrible thing to say.
I eat both due to what I believe. My so called 'Law of Equality of Life' states a carrot and a chicken are worth the same, and therefore I should not hesitate to consume them, even if on the same plate. I'm on a race that's on the top of the food chain, I accept it and shut the hell up. So should the vegetarians.
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In the general case, I don't view predation as being within the scope of morality. Is it moral for a fox to eat a hen? The question is meaningless. So humans eating meat isn't moral or immoral; it's amoral. That said, one can take issue with the treatment of farm animals. Idealy, they should not be made to suffer unneccisarrily. That's the real moral issue on eating meat: Are you torturing or predating?
I don't like to dignify concepts like "morality" with my earnest discussion most of the time, but for the sake of making a point, let me play along with your phrasing. Many of these so-called moral judgments that people make only exist because we have sufficiently advanced minds to conceive of the desire for a judgment in the first place. You're right that a fox would be committing an amoral act by eating a hen. Indeed, if we had to pass judgment, I think a good one would be that the fox is doing what is natural for it.
But people aren't foxes. We have brains powerful enough to step above our instincts and behave rationally, if desired. And now that society provides us with more than enough food to satisfy our basic needs, all of a sudden this question of what to eat becomes more complicated. Is it really harmless for us to pick our oceans clean of fish? It may be harmless from the uncaring perspective of the universe, but it is something that we humans find upsetting because of the loss of these diverse creatures, the loss of a good food source, and the risk of unintended consequences in the biodiversity of the oceans. And it is certainly harmful for the fish.
Likewise with mammal meat: Every day it seems like the scientific community produces another study suggesting that higher animals are more capable of mind than we realized. Due to the spectacular rarity of cognitive sophistication in the course of biological evolution, these creatures are worth a lot more than we may be able to quantify economically. We certainly should think twice before consuming these animals to their extinction, and, moreover, we should even rethink the fate of those individual animals who are alive today: What life experiences are we depriving them of, by raising them as food stock? Even if their deaths are as painless as possible, what about their lives? If slaughtering live humans--after raising them in captivity for their entire lives--sounds even the least bit repugnant to you, then, at the very least, you have to consider the question again for animals.
It's all too much for a fox to wrap its craft little head around...but we humans are stewards of the entire planet. We need to think about this.
As said before, there is nothing wrong with eating meat. There truly is nothing immoral about a fox eating an hen. But, let me tell you something about vegetarians-I think they're filthy hypocrites who think they're in touch with nature, but have done nothing but missed the whole damn point.
So, I'm to blame for eating a cow? Well, why isn't that stag to blame for eating that leaf? Cuz the leaf doesn't have a brain? Cuz it doesn't have nerves? Cuz it can't feel pain? I say, no! To me, all life is equal. The act of feasting upon another's life to prolong your own is a natural, necessary act, which ENSURES THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. Despite the fact I do not believe anyone deserves death, this case is a special one, as one must always look after himself, at least in the most basic of ways, and take part in this struggle to life. As such, there are plants that defend themselves. There are plants who eat living animals. Saying 'I won't eat that lamb but I will tomato because the tomato won't tell the difference' is a horrible thing to say.
I eat both due to what I believe. My so called 'Law of Equality of Life' states a carrot and a chicken are worth the same, and therefore I should not hesitate to consume them, even if on the same plate. I'm on a race that's on the top of the food chain, I accept it and shut the hell up. So should the vegetarians.
Ouch, Legend. That's atypically angry of you! And I also find myself in disagreement.
Now, first let me disclaim my speech with this (chicken?) nugget of truth: I do eat meat. I notice that I hadn't said that in this thread yet, so I just wanted to make that clear in order that you can understand my argument to come from a more objective point of view. (It's the same reasoning by which I started that fat prejudice topic awhile back despite not being all that fat.)
Vegetarians are not "filthy hypocrites." Maybe some of them are individually, but so are other people. Neither filth nor hypocrisy is a common trait to the condition of vegetarianism. Indeed, those who refrain from meat are a very diverse group, ranging from nominal vegetarians who will still eat eggs, dairy, and fish, all the way to raw-food vegans who consume as prehistoric a diet as possible and would balk at the consumption of any food product (or purchase of any non-food product) that contains any trace of any animal or animal byproduct. Some people refrain from meat for health reasons; others for reasons of personal taste; still others for animal rights; others yet because of social or ideological reasons. So it is difficult to speak of vegetarians in generalized terms with much accuracy. "Filthy hypocrites" is not a good way to start.
You don't necessarily have to feel guilt for consuming meat. Your sense of propriety and the rationale by which you come to your judgments may indeed spare you from such an emotion. I don't want to lay a guilt trip on you, but I do want to feed this controversy back to you in a form that may compel you to reconsider your own point of view.
Your argument is at its worst when you claim that a carrot and a chicken are "worth the same" and that eating tomato rather than lamb because the tomato won't know the difference is "a horrible thing to say." I should think you spoke too zealously here; these claims were dead on arrival and I don't feel the need to address them.
Conversely, your argument is at its best when you speak of the integrity of the food chain ("continuity of life" as you put it), and of the historic precedent for eating meat. It is certainly true that many creatures out there have eaten meat, including humans. But are we hypocrites for reconsidering that practice now? No, we're not. What is happening is that the human species is coming into new forms of knowledge and awareness that are giving many of us a reason to doubt the prudence of eating meat. There is no shame in changing your mind after learning something new. The only shame, perhaps, was that you had made up your mind in the first place.
Humanity is now so far removed from the effects of natural selection on this planet that it would be silly to rationalize our dietary customs solely by the food chain. Our "role" in the food chain is like that of a centralized black hole into which all other living things vanish. If you defend the practice of eating meat simply because we have the skills to acquire meat and the anatomy to digest it, then you are selectively taking one piece of this issue and using it to make statements about the whole. The fact of our ability to eat meat cannot by itself account for the full ramifications of our actually doing it. We must also talk, as I said to Radical_Dreamer above, about the life experiences of which we are depriving the animals we consume, and also about the biodiversity of our world and the potential of its future.
Maddox is free to take potshots from his perch as a popular icon and stuff himself with as much meat as he likes. But people of good conscience must begin to wonder about the justifiability of consuming animals that are so similar to us. I wonder too, because I still eat meat. I eat it because it is tasty, plentiful, and inexpensive. It makes me feel good after I eat it. Growing fat by the flesh of animals is a pleasure that pulses in our very genes. But none of that makes it right, and I do wonder about my practices. Remember this, Legend: As highly sentient creatures, we now have the means to be aware of every life we take. Let us kill with good cause.
And remember this as well: Someday, humans will seldom if ever eat meat. Which side of history do you want to be on?
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Vegetarians are not "filthy hypocrites." Maybe some of them are individually, but so are other people. Neither filth nor hypocrisy is a common trait to the condition of vegetarianism...So it is difficult to speak of vegetarians in generalized terms with much accuracy. "Filthy hypocrites" is not a good way to start.
Quoted for emphasis...Legend, your generalization was borderline disgusting.
Anyways...everyone should just be forced to grow or raise whatever they want to eat and leave everyone else the fuck alone...what do I care for actually having enough space to do this? >_>
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Vegetarians are not "filthy hypocrites." Maybe some of them are individually, but so are other people. Neither filth nor hypocrisy is a common trait to the condition of vegetarianism...So it is difficult to speak of vegetarians in generalized terms with much accuracy. "Filthy hypocrites" is not a good way to start.
Quoted for emphasis...Legend, your generalization was borderline disgusting.
Anyways...everyone should just be forced to grow or raise whatever they want to eat and leave everyone else the fuck alone...what do I care for actually having enough space to do this? >_>
actually, considering you need mow down more area to make the huge stockpiles needed for vegetrians, one could say they kill off other species faster.
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actually, considering you need mow down more area to make the huge stockpiles needed for vegetrians, one could say they kill off other species faster.
Just the opposite: Raising livestock for food requires higher volumes of land than raising vegetation for food. That's how it always works when you move "up" the food chain. A very high acreage of vegetation produces only a small quantity of meat.
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Perhaps I was overgeneralizing. I might not of explained what I meant by Vegetarians.
If a forty year old man were to get a heart attack, and was told to not eat pork for a year, and perhaps try to refrain from eating too much meats in general, I find some conditions to be somewhat different. The filthy hypocrites I was talking about were the ones who refrain from eating meat because 'it's murder'. Right, it's murder. And don't get me wrong-I don't approve of stuffing animals or making them suffer horrible, horrible pain before they die. I'm all against that. But I don't really see why we cannot simply get all our dairy products, eggs and meat in the good old ways. Just because they need to be made in commercial amounts doesn't justify the means with which it's used. I'm certain there can be other solutions. But they would probably never eat meat, regardless of how it was taken, because they believe that just because the cow was alive and probably conscious at the time of her death it's wrong to eat her, and if the tomato, which is no less alive than the cow, wasn't, it's alright to eat THAT. Like I said, to me, all life is equal, and treating two living things different on the basis of if it has a brain or not seems to me like a terrible thing to do. Those sort of people may not all be hypocrites, but those who are aware, and say 'That orange doesn't feel pain', that is to me just as bad as killing a disabled, paralyzed person. He'll never feel the pain, he may not even be conscious to protest, but still, people would rise up for him. Or for even a paralyzed dog. And some people would rise up for a paralyzed rat.
Animal rights are a noble act, but I once saw a girl who was in my class, and my biology teacher asked her why she doesn't eat meat. She replied it's murder. The teacher asked her, 'Why, aren't vegetables alive?' and the girl replied 'no'. It's either ignorance or hypocrisy. While some can't be helped, I wish I could say I stand both.
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Perhaps I was overgeneralizing. I might not of explained what I meant by Vegetarians.
If a forty year old man were to get a heart attack, and was told to not eat pork for a year, and perhaps try to refrain from eating too much meats in general, I find some conditions to be somewhat different. The filthy hypocrites I was talking about were the ones who refrain from eating meat because 'it's murder'. Right, it's murder. And don't get me wrong-I don't approve of stuffing animals or making them suffer horrible, horrible pain before they die. I'm all against that. But I don't really see why we cannot simply get all our dairy products, eggs and meat in the good old ways. Just because they need to be made in commercial amounts doesn't justify the means with which it's used. I'm certain there can be other solutions. But they would probably never eat meat, regardless of how it was taken, because they believe that just because the cow was alive and probably conscious at the time of her death it's wrong to eat her, and if the tomato, which is no less alive than the cow, wasn't, it's alright to eat THAT. Like I said, to me, all life is equal, and treating two living things different on the basis of if it has a brain or not seems to me like a terrible thing to do. Those sort of people may not all be hypocrites, but those who are aware, and say 'That orange doesn't feel pain', that is to me just as bad as killing a disabled, paralyzed person. He'll never feel the pain, he may not even be conscious to protest, but still, people would rise up for him. Or for even a paralyzed dog. And some people would rise up for a paralyzed rat.
Animal rights are a noble act, but I once saw a girl who was in my class, and my biology teacher asked her why she doesn't eat meat. She replied it's murder. The teacher asked her, 'Why, aren't vegetables alive?' and the girl replied 'no'. It's either ignorance or hypocrisy. While some can't be helped, I wish I could say I stand both.
"Alive" or "not alive" is a straw man argument. It isn't that tomatoes aren't alive. They are. It's that the nature of high animals is much different from that of plants, and we might rightly say that these animals have, at some level, an awareness of the experience of life. Tomatoes don't have that.
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Plainly you've never seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
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Plainly you've never seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
Quiet! He must not be allowed to learn of the killer tomatoes!
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Plainly you've never seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
Quiet! He must not be allowed to learn of the killer tomatoes!
Oh, right. Me and my big mouth.
Well, secret's out now, so I guess it won't hurt to post this for Legend's sake:
Listen up, brothers and sisters
Come hear my desperate tale
I speak of our friends of nature
Trapped in the dirt like a jail
Vegetables live in oppression
Served on our tables each night
This killing of veggies is madness
I say we take up the fight
Salads are only for murderers
Cole slaw's a fascist regime
Don't think that they don't have feelings
Just 'cause a radish can't scream
{Refrain}
I've heard the screams of the vegetables, scream scream scream
Watching their skins being peeled, having their insides revealed
Grated and steamed with no mercy, burning off calories
How do you think that feels, bet it hurts really bad
Carrot juice constitutes murder, and that's a real crime
Greenhouses prisons for slaves, let my vegetables grow
It's time to stop all this gardening, it's dirty as hell
Let's call a spade a spade, it's a spade it's a spade it's a spade
I saw a man eating celery
So I beat him black and blue
If he ever touches a sprout again
I'll bite him clean in two
I'm a political prisoner
Trapped in a windowless cage
'Cause I stopped the slaughter of turnips
By killing five men in a rage
I told the judge when he sentenced me
"This is my finest hour
I'll kill those farmers again
Just to save one more cauliflower"
{Refrain}
How low as people do we dare to stoop
Making young broccolis bleed in the soup
Untie your beans, uncage your tomatoes
Set potted plants free, don't mash that potato, ah
I've heard the screams of the vegetables scream scream scream
Watching their skins being peeled fates in the stir fry are sealed
Grated and steamed with no mercy you fat gourmet scum
How do you think that feels leave them out in the fields
Carrot juice constitutes murder V8's genocide
Greenhouses prisons for slaves yes your compost's a grave
It's time to stop all this gardening take up macramé
Let's call a spade a spade it's a spade it's a spade it's a spade
Of course the song itself is way funnier.
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You don't make friends with salad!
The difference between a lion eating a deer is that a lion was obviously built for that sort of stuff, and that a lion doesn't go around mass producing genetically modified deers, only to have the stuffed in small cages and pumped full of hormones while waiting for the to grow plump and fat, and the slit their neck and electrocute them.
Unless Daniel has another movie we need to know about.
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Carrot juice is murder. I've got that song. Nice taste, Daniel.
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In the general case, I don't view predation as being within the scope of morality. Is it moral for a fox to eat a hen? The question is meaningless. So humans eating meat isn't moral or immoral; it's amoral. That said, one can take issue with the treatment of farm animals. Idealy, they should not be made to suffer unneccisarrily. That's the real moral issue on eating meat: Are you torturing or predating?
I don't like to dignify concepts like "morality" with my earnest discussion most of the time, but for the sake of making a point, let me play along with your phrasing. Many of these so-called moral judgments that people make only exist because we have sufficiently advanced minds to conceive of the desire for a judgment in the first place. You're right that a fox would be committing an amoral act by eating a hen. Indeed, if we had to pass judgment, I think a good one would be that the fox is doing what is natural for it.
Morality is a word for considering how the actions of concious entities affect other concious entities. That is a part of the topic at hand. If you don't like that word, you may suggest another.
But people aren't foxes. We have brains powerful enough to step above our instincts and behave rationally, if desired. And now that society provides us with more than enough food to satisfy our basic needs, all of a sudden this question of what to eat becomes more complicated. Is it really harmless for us to pick our oceans clean of fish? It may be harmless from the uncaring perspective of the universe, but it is something that we humans find upsetting because of the loss of these diverse creatures, the loss of a good food source, and the risk of unintended consequences in the biodiversity of the oceans. And it is certainly harmful for the fish.
I'm all for sustainable growing in all food production industries, animal or vegitable. I think all activities should be sustainable, because it's the most rational course of action. Really, unsustainable practices are stupid and shortsighted. That said, my desire for fish to not be tortured is completely seperate. That has to do with my distaste for the needless suffering of other concious creatures.
Likewise with mammal meat: Every day it seems like the scientific community produces another study suggesting that higher animals are more capable of mind than we realized. Due to the spectacular rarity of cognitive sophistication in the course of biological evolution, these creatures are worth a lot more than we may be able to quantify economically. We certainly should think twice before consuming these animals to their extinction, and, moreover, we should even rethink the fate of those individual animals who are alive today: What life experiences are we depriving them of, by raising them as food stock? Even if their deaths are as painless as possible, what about their lives? If slaughtering live humans--after raising them in captivity for their entire lives--sounds even the least bit repugnant to you, then, at the very least, you have to consider the question again for animals.
I have never once advocated consumption to the point of extinction, or even near extinction. I'm all for sustainability. That's not the interesting bit, I don't think any rational person is for such a practice. The real meat as it were, is in regards to the treatment of the individual animals. Take a look at how the cows that become Kobe beef live. They get to run and play in pasteurs all day, recieve regular massages, and have comfortable barns to keep them dry and warm at night. As cows go, either ranched or free, those cows have it pretty good. Also, I have seen no evidence that cows (or other common feed stock) can imagine a better life than the one they have, nor are they likely to receive a better one than in my example. If we give them an above natural standard of life, and a mercieless death, we are doing them a greater kindness than uncaring nature. I'm not saying that all, or even most farm animals are raised in that fashion, but if they were, I think that it would be fair enough treatment that human predation of animals would disapear as a moral issue.
And remember this as well: Someday, humans will seldom if ever eat meat. Which side of history do you want to be on?
They currently have meat synthesizers. Not all the kinks are worked out, and they aren't large enough for commercial scale, or cheap enough for home use, but they're working on it. They still need cow blood, which is expensive, and doesn't end the dependence on animal product for meat. But we will live to see the day of home meat synthesizers, where you can combine the taste and texture profile with the nutrition profile of your favorite animals in the comfort of your own home. The day I bring one of those machines home, I'll be willing to stop eating animal derrived meat. Not out of some moral compulsion to protect the animals, but out of health, both mine and that of Life* itself. It's not the humans will stop eating meat, it's that they'll stop eating animal derrived meat. I pick the side of scientific progress.
*Capital L intentional, I'm refering to the system of life on Earth
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You... totally missed my point, Josh. My point is that awareness doesn't matter. If I see an adorable little chick a moment after her mother was well on the way to be next week's dinner, I would obviously feel an overwhelming amount of pity towards it. But that doesn't make the devouring of an apple or tomato more or less justified. YOU'RE the one who says to not allow emotions to take advantage of your better judgement, and I'm doing just that. Just because I can personally identify with a cow more than I can identify with a carrot doesn't mean it's death is less justified-death is death, and there isn't lesser degrees of death or higher degrees of death-if you got shot in the head or took one too many pills, it doesn't matter-you're still the same dead body, who's likely to be buried in the same grave, visited by the same people. I'm not saying we should put up tombstones in honor of the noble potatoes or make a national holiday for our friends the trees (Amusingly enough, us Juden actually have an holiday for trees, just goes to show how even the bible supports what I believe-at least to some level), but I'm just saying we shouldn't treat meat and vegetable differently-one's death isn't less important, because like I just said-it's so ignored people already don't know the difference, and if you really don't want to kill to eat-I'm sorry, you'll be dead in a couple of months, if you'll hold out that long-and if you will, you'll likely be maddened before you die.
Plainly you've never seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
No, but one of my best quotes, according to my friends, is 'Have you ever cut a tomato and heard screaming?'.
Though I must admit, the song does come to shed light on the matter, it's not like we don't do that with just about BLOODY EVERYTHING ELSE, ourselves included.
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Your awareness isn't the issue, Legend. The issue is the awareness of the creature being eaten. A tomato has no concious experience. It doesn't know it exists, it percieves nothing; it can not feel pain, or fear, or loss. It's death changes nothing from the perspective of the tomato. A cow, on the other hand, is capable of feeling those things; it is concious, it is aware. That is why the death of a cow is not analagous to the death of a tomato in this case.
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Your awareness isn't the issue, Legend. The issue is the awareness of the creature being eaten. A tomato has no concious experience. It doesn't know it exists, it percieves nothing; it can not feel pain, or fear, or loss. It's death changes nothing from the perspective of the tomato. A cow, on the other hand, is capable of feeling those things; it is concious, it is aware. That is why the death of a cow is not analagous to the death of a tomato in this case.
You, too, missed my point, RD. When I said awareness isn't the issue, I talked about the creatures being eaten. If they're aware or not hints that creatures who can't feel pain or sorrow deserve to be eaten alive, and as Dan's song claimed, steamed, sliced, slashed, frozen and fried, while creatures who can't feel pain-don't. That's something I can't really approve of, I'm sorry-All life is equal, and if it's alright to eat veggies, you should meat without hesitation, as well. The opposite also applies, of course. This really has nothing to do with me being a vegetable worshiper or something (which I am not), this has to do with the fact that you can't separate two things on the basis of whether pain or not. The feeling of pain doesn't ultimately matter in the long run, because let's face it, we've all lived long enough with the knowledge that this cow we're eating probably suffered quite a bit prior to it's death, and I doubt you burst in tears and called your mom an insensitive monster who helps the evil food companies slaughter animals by paying them to do so. I'm not saying you should, and this isn't exactly my point. The point is that in this case, you shouldn't look at this particular case. It's like saying gunning down a comatose man and gunning down a living man isn't the same. So the comatose man didn't scream in pain, burst in tears and died in a dramatic manner-so what? A man still died. On the same note, just because we don't have little carrots crying for their mommies or tomatoes who actually do scream when cut with a knife doesn't mean it's any less a death or any less a murder.
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That all life may be equal from a biological stand point doesn't make it equal from a moral standpoint. By your logic, I am equally justified in cannibalizing a random passer-by as to pulling an orange from a tree, which will continue to live for another hundred years without ever knowing that I had taken the orange or that it had existed at all. Is that what you are willing to assert?
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It has nothing to do with morality. He's saying that all lives are equivalent when it comes to justifying whether to eat some of them. But he's wrong; there's nothing sacred or inviolable about the biological condition of life itself. A tomato loses nothing when it dies, because it has no means to possess. Only a conscious experience can possess the experience of life. Legend doesn't get that, which is why there is no point arguing: We've got different starting premises. No consensus will be reached.
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It has nothing to do with morality. He's saying that all lives are equivalent when it comes to justifying whether to eat some of them. But he's wrong; there's nothing sacred or inviolable about the biological condition of life itself. A tomato loses nothing when it dies, because it has no means to possess. Only a conscious experience can possess the experience of life. Legend doesn't get that, which is why there is no point arguing: We've got different starting premises. No consensus will be reached.
Partially biological. I just take 'The Sacredness of life' as literal. I don't view things in terms of possession or lack thereof. Also, RD, I'm sorry to inform you, but cannibalism is forbidden as a norm, as taboo. If I claim you can eat just about whatever you want, then humans fall into that section as well-but even if I say what I believe, it's not to say I eat everything I see. And, despite I recognize it's taboo, norms aren't that easy to escape from, because I can't just ignore the way I way I was raised. At the same time I'm not trying to define anyone's diet-they can eat what they want, and live with the results. All I'm saying is to me, the whole argument seems null-do you kill an orange when you eat it? Certainly. It's death, and if you're that much against death, why do you ignore the death of other living things? Why are the only things we see is Tiger pups and tranquil bears hibernating? If you go against the death of other living things, you gotta be a little more general in that approach-otherwise you're either ignorant or an hypocrite who does nothing but say half-truths.
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Okay, I think you're starting to become a bit of a sophist, Legend, in arguing it like this. The thing is, a tomato (as an example) is not the same as an animal. Why? Because the tomato is not the tomato plant. The tomato is the seed-carrier. Its purpose is to fall to the ground and die. Same goes for a lot of fruits and vegitables. Okay, sure, cutting down a tree might be considered 'bad' in your books, but what you are also saying then is picking off a pinecone is bad. But that's not the same thing.
Anyway, part of the problem is genetic association. We are more loath to eat animals just because we are more loath to eat a person. A person is genetically almost identical, for all purposes, so to eat one is what we call cannibalism. It is something that could not be done with any sort of order, and would destroy our own species, thus there is a natual revulsion against it. Animals have the same thing with them. They are not nearly as related as a person, but they are still far, far nearer than any plant. Call them the distant relatives genetically. Though we're not quite like them, they're close enough in relation for there to be a bit of a feeling there. Plants... if you're an evolitionist, which I think you are, tell me, when did their development split off from animals. 2 billion years ago? That's two families two billion years removed. Likewise, we don't feel nearly the same sort of sympathy for lizards or insects as we do for mammals. But are these all the same? No. What we are looking at in judging if it's right or not is not some scale of a 'higher order of life' but how near they are to our own species. That's what's dictating this, I think. Thus plants, so very far removed, are a totally different sort of organism, so foreign that, well... they're as foreign as bacteria.
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You know you could ask that question for the fish, lizards and insects. I know you do. You're asking me why the primordial soup spit out life-forms that would develop into many different catagories. I don't pretend to know this, I never have. I also never talked about a biological stand point, it's something RD and Josh seemed to realize from my posts, which is only half true. My definition of alive is the biological one.
That same tomato which falls to the ground a seed carrier is, on the same line, deprived of it's purpose. Instead of allowing it to fulfill it's purpose of moving the genes of the plant to the next generation, it insteads gets picked off, cut up, steamed and put in a fish, which was also murdered, cut up, frozen and transported-only to be fried, emptied of it's bones and organs, and be stuffed with steamed tomatoes.
Again, I'm not trying to tell someone what to eat. I'm just saying-you hate seeing living creatures die in the cost of our nurturing? Fine, then eating plants is bad too. Don't eat those, either.
Thus plants, so very far removed, are a totally different sort of organism, so foreign that, well... they're as foreign as bacteria.
Bullshit. We have that much common with plants on some levels it's amazing. Plants actually make their own food for the most part, and are hence the most innocent in this entire argument.
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You ARE arguing this like a sophist, you know. All that means is you can use tricks of logic to make a weak case stronger - it doesn't make you right. It's like arguing that sons should be allowed to beat up their fathers. It can be argued to be the case (see Aristophanes), but that doesn't make the argument right. The thing is, your whole argument is based on a single concept that is a matter of your own opinion: that all life is equal, plant or animal. Without that, your entire argument becomes meaningless. And yet, I don't think you can justify that first, crucial, stance, more than by saying 'I believe', thus making your who argument rather opinion-based rather than reason. A tomato is not equal to an animal nor to human. Saying it does doesn't make it so. If I call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four. Calling it a leg doesn't make it one. In the same way, saying that a tomato is an equal life to an animal does not make it so.
The thing is, I'm not heartlessly cruel to animals or anything. I detest spiders, but I won't kill them if I find them. Usually I'll just have them moved, or ignore them. But on the same note... okay, here, I've got the clincher for you Legend. A hypothetical example.
A man with a gun is standing forward, and in front of him are a man, a dog, and a pear. He says he will shoot one of them. The choice is yours which one. In that situation, would you seriously say 'it doesn't matter, they're all equal'? Or will you say 'the pear'. If it is just the man and a dog, would you say it doesn't matter, or would you go for the human life over the animal? And don't just start making things up now in order to keep with your argument. Tell me how you'd actually act - don't deceive yourself or me. And I would be willing to bet that you would say the man on all accounts. And as soon as you've done that, you've stratified the value of life, and placed it human-animal-plant. And, in doing so, you have annulled your argument. You might be arguing for equality but, as I said, you are arguing as a mere sophist - playing the devil's advocate. You don't really believe that, or if you think you do you've fooled yourself as well. The case you are making is really weak.
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The issue is sentience. Humans are but animals with this self-emergent quality of consciousness, an amazing light which is greater than the sum of its neural parts. It is difficult to argue that the rest of the animal kingdom, having brains, does not enjoy the same quality -- though at a minuscule degree. A tomato lacks this, but when we kill an animal, somewhere in this universe there is a feeling of pain. The animal may not understand it; the pain may be but a vague whisper in a pitch black vacuum, but it exists.
Which makes the issue one of the ends justifying the means and one of human morality. How much pain do we justify to carry humanity to become masters of the universe? Do we hold back at all? Can consciousness be qualitatively analyzed?
But what makes this problem hard is that is that there is no objection from the victims. And once we learn how to synthesize food more pleasing to our palates than the real thing could ever be, the moral issue will permanently wither. So as a responsible human being, I would base my objections to extreme measures of abuse -- such as the stuffing of birds for foie gras or the treatment of sows who are stuck in cages without enough room to even roll over. The drawing of responsible lines and limits will require the participation and education of many, but at present the world has more pressing, societal issues to solve. And as long as overpopulation continues, the animal kingdom will be squeezed harder.
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I can't believe we're having this discussion...
*screams into communicator*
ZEPPELIN !!
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You called? :P
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It's your fault for making this topic!
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It's your fault for typing in huge bold italics!
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meat, meat the magical fruit the more you eat the more you toot...