Why do some vegetarians/Vegans think...

[Donnie Darko]

It's because animals are sentient and plants are not.

[MrSandman]

When you use the word "some" in your question. You are right, actually it's a minority. I've came in contact with probably 2,000 vegetarians in my life, and the ones I've talked to, about 100 or so believe there's nothing wrong with eating meat. Ask different questions if you have any. I'm a veg. Lacto-oval-veg.

[Firefly]

Ok anybody saying that animals dont feel pain and such is complete crap! Are you completely stupid? Pigs have been found to have the same level of intelligence as a 3 year old child.They can even play video games. So its alright to kill a pig but not a 3 year old child?

 

Plants do not feel pain, they dont have nervous systems. Its completely different to killing a living animal who thinks and feels. Seriously read up on how they kill the animals and giving you have a heart you would give up meat too.

 

Also its not like you actually need meat either. The only vitamin you dont get from plants is B12 and most soy milks are enriched with that anyway and its in a easy form for your body to absord so its really better for you then eating that rotting peace of flesh to begin with.

[ParanoiA]

Ok anybody saying that animals dont feel pain and such is complete crap! Are you completely stupid? Pigs have been found to have the same level of intelligence as a 3 year old child.They can even play video games. So its alright to kill a pig but not a 3 year old child?

 

Yes. It's alright to kill a pig even if he was as smart as a 30 year old man. He's food. We're not food for ourselves, so eating children or any of our own kind goes against the propogation of the species, so I don't recommend it.

 

Plants do not feel pain, they dont have nervous systems. Its completely different to killing a living animal who thinks and feels. Seriously read up on how they kill the animals and giving you have a heart you would give up meat too.

 

So "pain" is your grand partition of morality? Seems a weird spot to plant a flag. Don't insects feel pain? Pain serves a function to the individual - whatever species. This function is just a mechanism - I don't understand why eating an animal is bad because the mechanism might operate at the time of death.

[Reaper]

Also its not like you actually need meat either. The only vitamin you dont get from plants is B12 and most soy milks are enriched with that anyway and its in a easy form for your body to absord so its really better for you then eating that rotting peace of flesh to begin with.

 

 

Nope. There is a lot more that you can get from meat other then vitamins. Meat is loaded with essential protiens that the body needs. Its actually much easier to be healthier by including meat in your diet.

 

In anycase, I would have to agree with ParanoiA here. Who's to say what they feel at the time of death? If your criteria is humaneness, they probably were not better off in the wild, with what being hunted by humans and other animals. I would have to say that nature is more cruel than humans are.

[ParanoiA]

Why do we see the wisdom in natural selection, or at least accept the superiority of evolution in nature, yet damn it's machinations?

 

We understand the necessity of animals to murder for food, and how that plays a role in natural selection, yet we're simultaneously rejecting that selection event by calling it immoral. Based on what? Violence? Pain? How arbitrary. These are just the mechanics that are necessary to those ends.

[Paralith]

I think the desire to not inflict violence or pain on animals is basically an extrapolation of the fact that we humans ourselves don't like experiencing pain. Through our intelligence and our empathy, two other evolved characteristics, when we see other animals experiencing what we would experience as painful, we can imagine the feeling, and we don't like it. And yet we also evolved to enjoy eating the meat of other animals - it's a richer, more efficient food source, so to have a taste for it is evolutionarily advantageous. By both eating meat and being as human as possible with our food animals, we can get the best of both worlds.

[iNow]

One might go so far as to suggest that even plants have some experience of pain. After all, when you damage them or prune a limb, it has to "know" to heal that wound somehow...

 

 

As for eating meat, I can appreciate how silly it seems to want to protect and respect life, but then take it for our own nutrition. However, damn a nice steak tastes good. What am I to do with all of these competing evolved tendencies?

[waitforufo]

It has been often argued that the ethical treatment of animals has little to do with the pain experienced by animals, but more to do with the pain experienced by humans. People make all kinds of animals their helpers and companions (e.g. dogs, horses, etc.) People experience mental aguish when they see animal species, to which they have affection, abused. This emotional pain should not be inflicted needlessly. Animals are also used for medical experiments and product testing. Countless human lives have been saved and great human suffering has been eliminated due to these efforts. Yet, those who perform medical experiments and product testing on animals often have negative physiological trauma caused by the experiments they perform. How we treat animals also impacts how we treat other humans. It his well know that psychopaths and serial killers start out by torturing animals. By criminalizing animal cruelty, such people can be monitored by or removed from society before they torture or kill humans.

 

On the contrary, killing animals for food, promotes humanity. It should be done in a way to minimize animal suffering so that the person doing the killing is not negatively affected. A good example of this can be found at county and state fairs. Children raise animals from birth for competition. At the end of judging, these animals, at least the winners, are killed for further inspection. This is often an emotional time for these children. Farmers and ranchers consider this to be a teaching moment about the sacrifices made to promote humanity.

[DrDNA]

Are you completely stupid? Pigs have been found to have the same level of intelligence as a 3 year old child.They can even play video games. So its alright to kill a pig but not a 3 year old child?

 

Please, I beg you; do NOT have any children. If you already have one/some, then please, let somebody else raise them.

 

BTW: To be honest, in addition to avoiding meat, you should not use any medications or cosmetics, have any medical procedure of any sort performed, or wear shoes or belts, etc.

[MrSandman]

Agreed DrDNA he shouldn't have kids, but he can have pigs.

 

I want you to remember this discusion is over a minority of vegeterians.

[Firefly]

Please, I beg you; do NOT have any children. If you already have one/some, then please, let somebody else raise them.

 

 

Why just because i believe animals have the same right to live, as we do.

 

Thats actually a good quality which points towards that i am a caring and loving person. I feel sorry for your kids, and the kind of morals you will teach them.

 

I have no objection to eating animals, its natural. Its just the manner in which they do kill them which I object too. Like if they did it in a painless way that would be alright, but to have animals boiled alive is just plain nasty and uncalled for.

[Paralith]

Why just because i believe animals have the same right to live, as we do.

 

Thats actually a good quality which points towards that i am a caring and loving person. I feel sorry for your kids, and the kind of morals you will teach them.

 

I have no objection to eating animals, its natural. Its just the manner in which they do kill them which I object too. Like if they did it in a painless way that would be alright, but to have animals boiled alive is just plain nasty and uncalled for.

 

Boil alive? I'm pretty sure the only animals that get boiled alive are lobsters and crabs. And I think we can all agree that their level of consciousness is far below that of a pig's. Besides, it sounds awfully hard to boil a pig alive. They're big animals and they would kind of object to being thrown in a giant pot, you know? It's in the interest of the meat industry to kill their animals as quickly and stress-free as possible, because the stress hormones can cause the meat to taste badly. This was mentioned many times in a different thread.

[Royston]

I think by going from some of the responses on here (not yours Paralith) that it needs to be made abundantly clear that reflex, isn't pain. Pain is something processed afterwards, which IIRC is processed within a 'neuro matrix' which is distributed around the cerebal cortex (somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this.)

 

So, insects certainly do not feel pain, neither do plants, or lobsters...the most they have is a reflex action due to stimulus, just as we have, but the difference with animals with a cerebal cortex from guinea pigs to pigs to humans, is that they do have the requirements for pain processing.

 

iNow, the healing process (your plant example) would still take place whether pain is processed or not. Somebody suffering from 'congenital insensitivity' could burn their hand, and not feel pain...but it would have no influence on the healing process itself.

 

As said before, life in the wild is cruel, so providing farmed animals have a good quality of life, I don't think eating meat is such a moral dilemma that it can be viewed as just, 'plain wrong.' There are definitely pros and cons for both arguments, however I'm pro-burger personally, and I can't see that changing.

[DrDNA]

Why just because i believe animals have the same right to live, as we do.

 

Thats actually a good quality which points towards that i am a caring and loving person. I feel sorry for your kids, and the kind of morals you will teach them.

 

Yes. And because you stated that and this.

 

""Are you completely stupid? Pigs have been found to have the same level of intelligence as a 3 year old child.They can even play video games. So its alright to kill a pig but not a 3 year old child?""

 

And anyone that might consider a pig's interest anywhere near the level of a 3 year old child's has no business being in a resposible position for that child's welfare.

 

Pigs do not have the same rights as we do.

They have the right to live as pain free and stress free an existence as possible on a farm, to die as painless a death as possible and with as much dignity as possible, to be processed, cooked and consumed as food on my plate, chewed and digested, broken down and converted into glucose to give me energy.

That is the best life a pig can hope for.

[Mr Skeptic]

One must not forget that the pig cannot live forever anyhow, and after it dies it will get eaten regardless, be it by animals or bacteria.

[ParanoiA]

Why just because i believe animals have the same right to live' date=' as we do.

Thats actually a good quality which points towards that i am a caring and loving person. I feel sorry for your kids, and the kind of morals you will teach them.[/quote']

 

It's not a quality that "points towards that i am a caring and loving person" when you ignore your food source and the health of your children for a misguided arbitrary notion of rights of life.

 

What makes you think they have a right to live? What makes you think you have a right to live? Where do we get those rights?

 

We earn those rights. Natural selection depends on killing for food - not rights. If you don't kill them and eat them then you are directly undermining natural selection. So now you're smarter than the processes that created you?

 

Nothing has a right to live. We fight for our rights to live, otherwise WE would be food. And we have been.

 

I have no objection to eating animals, its natural. Its just the manner in which they do kill them which I object too. Like if they did it in a painless way that would be alright, but to have animals boiled alive is just plain nasty and uncalled for.

 

I completely agree with this. The ethical treatment of animals is morally necessary, in my opinion. I think Snail's post is the most enlightening and directly relevant to your statement here.

[waitforufo]

Animal rights. Let’s see if we can list them.

 

Right to life? No. We kill them when we choose for many reasons, food being but one of them.

 

Right to Liberty? No. Even pets that have our great affection for do not have this right.

 

Right to property? No. They have little need for property with the exception of habitat. Even in the case of habitat we don’t ever say that a particular animal has a right to this particular habitat. If they have the right to property therefore it is not an individual right. Also, if you ask someone why we should be concerned about animal extinction rarely do you here an argument that the endangered species has a collective right to life. The argument you here is that we humans benefit from biological diversity. We preserve species for our own good.

 

A right to pursue happiness? See right to life, liberty, and property above.

 

A right to justice? See right to life, liberty, and property.

 

A right not to suffer? No. We use animals for medical experiments and product testing all the time. We induce animal suffering to prolong human life and reduce human suffering and discomfort. We are even willing to induce birth defects in animals through genetic manipulation for this purpose. The Nobel Prize in medicine was just given to three men for their successful efforts in genetically manipulating life forms, in particular laboratory animals.

 

So why do we condemn people that poke animals with a sharp stick for their own pleasure? Because they are inducing needless suffering. Such people have a flaw in there character. Societies have always shunned people with such character flaws.

[MrSandman]

Hey don't you love being at the top of the food chain?

 

Firefly, you should shut-up while most of us don't hate your guts. It's people like you who think that flipper should be president. Because, why not? Animals have the same right to live as us. Just remember this: Man is hungry. Man sees beast. Man conquers beast. Man eats the beast. It's the way of superiority. Of course by the sounds of it you have a 50/100 chance of killing the pig, because you obiviously stated that you only have as much right to live as the pig. I could just imagine...You kill a pig then you eat it Since you believe that humans have the same rights to live as the pigs you let your three year-old son alone by the pig. You come back later and see that the pig has indeed killed your son, and you don't think much of it. After all he had just as much right to live as the pig. I think most of the other posters will agree with my view on your beliefs.

 

My brother wants to kill a squirrel now just because of your posts.

[the tree]

MrSandman, keep the straw-men and ad hom's to yourself, yeah? Making assumptions about what other people are going to say is pretty rude as well.

 

Firefly, out of interest, do you go to a Halāl butchers based on your ideas of pain free deaths being o.k., or just avoid meat altogether?

[creato]

I'm vegetarian beccause of the health benifets gained from being one.

[lovejunkie02]

if you don't absolutely have to cause the pain or suffering of another animal in order to survive, why would you? we don't need meat, so why eat it?

[iNow]

Because it's delicious. Simple really. Also, they'd eat me if they could.

[lovejunkie02]

Because it's delicious. Simple really. Also, they'd eat me if they could.

 

you would willingly cause the suffering of another being just to gratify yourself for, what, a couple of minutes at the most?

wow.

[Mr Skeptic]

you would willingly cause the suffering of another being just to gratify yourself for, what, a couple of minutes at the most?

wow.

 

Yup. Bonus points if it pisses off silly people

 

PS: I eat less meat than a lion does.