Why do some vegetarians/Vegans think...

[Hades]

animals are delicious. zucchini franciase? No thanks.

[Phi for All]

I think people need to remember that everyone's metabolism is different, their culture, their preferences, their access to certain foods, it's all different. I think vegetarians are great! More meat for me....

hey, don't get techy... in case you haven't noticed, humour often gets lost on text-based forums.

You're gorram right about that!

[ecoli]

"I'm not a vegetarian because I like animals... I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants"

 

....You're gorram right about that!

 

you don't happen to be a Firefly fan, do you?

[sunspot]

I am not the biggest plant eater primarily because I am too lazy. But the best plants to eat are still live when we eat them. For example, we can eat half a potato and plant the other half. Many plants like brocolli can be cut and kept alive in water.

 

What is interesting about humans evolving from primates is that primates are not big meat eaters, although they will eat small things, bugs. In a relatively short period of time, less than 1M years, humans were able to alter their genetics to make meat eating a more natural part of their lifestyle. The ice age could have created the necessity with the DNA following suit in a relatively short time. This is behavior altering genetics.

 

If the change within genetics occurred first than it would almost impy a meaningful coocindence, since the ice age was about to approach implying the genetic change sort of anticipated the change in the environment and made the adjustments ahead of time. This would almost indicate an earth potential causing the genetic change.

[SkepticLance]

Sunspot.

Our closest relatives, the chimps, are hunters. They attack, kill and eat monkeys, apparently with great relish. We are not that different.

[deltanova]

save a cow...........

 

 

 

 

 

 

eat a vegetarian.

[Severian]

There is scientfic and[/i'] anecdotal evidence to show that animals feel pain and are affected by pain. The same is not true for plants.

 

I don't see what pain has to do with it. Does that mean if I kill an animal painlessly vegitarians will eat it?

[Phi for All]

I have two friends, one a vegan (and a complete stick) and one who wanted to try Veganja to lose some weight. It was horrible for her! Her complexion was always pale, she had no energy, it just didn't work for her. Her doctor? told her she was the wrong blood type to be a vegetarian (she is type O). Anyone heard of matching diet to blood type or is this junk medicine?

you don't happen to be a Firefly fan, do you?

You told someone not to get "techy" and I pictured Mal immediately. I have all the episodes + Serenity. I hate Fox a whole bunch!

[reor]

Humans are omnivores. We can eat almost everything to survive. BUT! We are not specialized and have the ability to invent things like a perfect diet.

[SkepticLance]

Phi for All.

I do not believe blood type has anything to do with being a vegetarian, but gender and age certainly do.

 

Women in their reproductive years (meaning they lose blood during menstruation) need substantial iron in easily assimilatable form in their diet.

The best is red meat. If they are totally vegetarian, they have to either take enormous pains selecting their food to get enough iron, or else take supplements.

[Steph]

c'mon... we are all vegetarians... I just prefer some of my vegetables already assimilated in rather tasty matter.

[alt_f13]

I am an omnivore. I eat plants, animals and artificial things created in factories. I prefer my plants live, my animals dead and the artificial things before the expiration date. If evolution is based on selective advantage, than being an omnivore would give me that advantage because I could more easily survive anywhere.

As long as there's a McDonalds or Kin's Farm Market handy...

[tartanpaint]

I don't see what pain has to do with it. Does that mean if I kill an animal painlessly vegitarians will eat it?

 

I just had the strangest image of a random guy painlessly killing a cow and a swarm of vegtarians run up to it and start to take little pieces of it away with them:-p sorry if I offended any vegetarians

 

Anyway I am vegetarian and it is because I do not wish to eat anything I am not willing to kill. For example, I will quite happily pull a carrot out of the ground to eat but I will not kill a cow in order to eat it (in theory or in practise). However I do not feel angry when I see people eating meat just as long as they know that the meat came from a living thing.

[In My Memory]

Teri,

that they are not doing the same as meat eaters and killing a life?

Life has no intrinsic value, only extrinsic value. We respect life only because its a prerequisite for respecting all the other morally relevant characteristics a being has, such as its continued happiness and pursuit of longterm goals. When you destroy a life, you harm all of its morally relevant characteristics which depended on its continued existence, and you harm those characteristics in the most absolute way, by reducing them down to nothingness.

 

A beings moral characteristics depend on its mental and feeling characteristics. Plants have no mental or feeling characterisics whatsoever, they have no wants of any kind, so they have no moral characteristics to take into consideration.

 

Animals, on the other hand, are feeling beings with an experiential welfare, they have all the same moral characteristics as their mentally similar human counterparts, making animals and mentally similar humans are moral equals.

 

Thats the difference between taking animal and plant life.

 

So in the end who really cares more about nature and loves plants/animals? neither of us carnivores or herbivores alike; we eat to survive

No you dont. Eating animals is absolutely gratuitous, not necessary for anyones survival. If you stopped eating animals, you wouldnt starve to death, you'd just live out the rest of your natural life as a vegan.

 

I appreciate all that I eat everyday whether from animal or plant life but I still have canines for a reason and one stomach not two.

Can you say "naturalistic fallacy"? Evolution is not a moral theory.

 

 

 

Edit to add: *sigh* I didnt realize this was a long dead thread resurrected, please ignore this post...

[ParanoiA]

A beings moral characteristics depend on its mental and feeling characteristics. Plants have no mental or feeling characterisics whatsoever, they have no wants of any kind, so they have no moral characteristics to take into consideration.

 

Animals, on the other hand, are feeling beings with an experiential welfare, they have all the same moral characteristics as their mentally similar human counterparts, making animals and mentally similar humans are moral equals.

 

Thats the difference between taking animal and plant life.

 

But how do you know plants don't have feelings? We didn't know there was such thing as wave-particle duality until recent. Who knows what we're likely to discover as we get to know what's going on further into the microscopic world - which you know operates much differently than our relevant world.

 

And why do living things have to have feelings to get your moral consideration? That seems an odd place to drive a wedge. If you have feelings, you're spared. Never mind what you contribute to the planet and the rest of the animal kingdom. That will earn you no merit. Just whether or not you have feelings - which are really just a practical application. Because fire hurts, we know to get away from it. Because it feels cold, we look for warmth.

 

So you've taken a pragmatic tool of physiological negotiation and decided to build it into your moral model as the dividing line between what is ok to kill and what isn't. Weird.

 

What if all the humans on the planet became vegans? Suddenly billions of people are decending on plant life, consuming quantities never before seen in this globe's history? Will there be enough to maintain oxygen levels? What about the other dozens of things that plants do for us that I have no idea about?

 

I'm just curious. You're the smartest vegan I know, so I figure you're the best to ask.

[Rhino]

but if you think about it, compare the stucture of a carnivore eg a dog to that of a human. dogs are fast, they can hunt much better, they can tollerate raw meat etc. but look at humans, were comparativly slow, our meat has to be cooked

 

No it doesn't. Cooking it just makes it safer for us to eat because it kills the parasites and bacteria the raw meat may contain. When a dog eats raw meat it can entertain parasites in it's body just as easily as we can.

 

A dog will eat plants(grass) to make itself throw up.

[In My Memory]

Paranoia,

But how do you know plants don't have feelings? We didn't know there was such thing as wave-particle duality until recent. Who knows what we're likely to discover as we get to know what's going on further into the microscopic world - which you know operates much differently than our relevant world.

Plants dont have brains, neocortexes, sense organs, nervous systems, or processing facilities. So they dont have any cognitive capacities whatsoever.

 

But why would they even evolve pain experiences in the first place? Pain experiences are a selective advantage for creatures because it helps them move away from the source of pain, but plants are anchored in the ground. Theres not much evolutionary incentive for them to evolve a capacity to feel pain in the first place.

 

We have every good reason to doubt that plants have any mental experiences whatsoever, and zero reasons to think that they do. If they do, then certainly their experience is so miniscule that (for all intents and purposes) its negligible.

 

What makes you think plants feel pain? Are the pain experiences on the same level as animal pain experiences?

 

And why do living things have to have feelings to get your moral consideration? That seems an odd place to drive a wedge. If you have feelings, you're spared. Never mind what you contribute to the planet and the rest of the animal kingdom. That will earn you no merit. Just whether or not you have feelings - which are really just a practical application. Because fire hurts, we know to get away from it. Because it feels cold, we look for warmth.

I'm pretty sure you kick rocks and tin cans without remorse, probably because they dont have feelings.

 

Basically, if a being doesnt have a capacity to feel suffering or satisfaction, its indifferent to whatever you do to it, it doesnt recognize any moral difference between its continued existence or its death. Its very difficult to pin down just how you harm a being by killing it, if it doesnt care (or even know that) whether its alive, and nothing we can possibly do to it will affect its welfare.

 

But we can affect the welfare of feeling beings, thats an important important moral difference.

 

What if all the humans on the planet became vegans? Suddenly billions of people are decending on plant life, consuming quantities never before seen in this globe's history? Will there be enough to maintain oxygen levels? What about the other dozens of things that plants do for us that I have no idea about?

Thats one I havent seen before Dont worry, it'll be alright, humanity hasnt totally destroyed the earth, and there will be plenty of air for everyone to breathe.

 

Also, remember, many vegans are strong environmentalists. How nice would it be if everyone became a vegan and an environmentalist, driving electric cars, minimizing use of pesticides and herbicides, and keeping the natural environment clean. I think it would be nice being able to breathe fresh air in L.A. again

[smartypant]

Then again you never know when plants can react to humans...Already plants are (by nature) pretty agressive so I would think. There are some deaths in Africa saying that carniverous plants are eating up humans. And I disagree tht people will be able to get through another decade at this rate... I mean COME ON. You have to say the Earth is dieing and we'll die with it. Plants are the most agressive things other than us. Well at least that's what they say...

[Mokele]

Already plants are (by nature) pretty agressive so I would think. There are some deaths in Africa saying that carniverous plants are eating up humans

 

No, there aren't. I grow carnivorous plants, including some of the largest species, and the only way they could eat a human is if they were fed through a meat grinder first.

 

Mokele

[reor]

Where are the buddhists when you need them...

 

- Cooked meat tastes way better than raw. (in my opinion)

- Cooked potatoes taste way better than raw. (in my opinion)

- Nothing should need to suffer prior to being digested. (in my opinion)

- In the end it's all just your choice.

 

Offtopic:

Can science measure ethics?

[Velocity517]

I can distinctly recall a project one of my friends did about plants. He built a maze and stood it up, so that the plant was at the bottom and the hole that led to the outside (and light, heat, the sun, etc.) was on top. By the end of a few weeks, the plant had grown in the maze's specific pattern in order to find and receive light. Clearly at least a semi-sentient action. As for whether killing something that doesn't feel matters or not, obviously it won't matter to it if it's dead. but it may matter to the animals that depend on the plant for food. Or the oxygen it can no longer produce. Besides, if we were all to top killing animals, they would overpopulate us rather quickly.

 

Just a thought.

[Jthesnake08]

If it's so wrong for humans to kill and eat animals, then why is it not wrong for animals to eat other animals. If it's so wrong then why aren't we stopping animals from eating other animals by separating them or whatnot. Some people might say "well that's just nature, that's how animals are." If that's so, then my eating a hamburger should be considered nature......Just an idea.

[ydoaPs]

I can distinctly recall a project one of my friends did about plants. He built a maze and stood it up, so that the plant was at the bottom and the hole that led to the outside (and light, heat, the sun, etc.) was on top. By the end of a few weeks, the plant had grown in the maze's specific pattern in order to find and receive light. Clearly at least a semi-sentient action[/qb].

Or maybe it was because it couldn't grow in any other direction due to the space constraints imposed by the walls of the maze.

[Mokele]

Yourdad is correct; I grow vining plants, and their aptitude is more to do with random flailing and seeking light/temperature gradients. Film the plant in time lapse and you're see the growing tip waving around randomly until it hits something it likes.

[Velocity517]

Yeah, but then so would you if you were in a maze and had no idea where you were going.