2010-04-29, 23:49 | Link #701 | |
Juanita/Kiteless
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New England
Age: 40
|
Quote:
The more humane the process is for taking an animals life for the sake of meat, the better, but it'll never be as guilt free as eating something that is vegetation. Plants don't have complex central nervous systems, and they don't have minds that go frantic as they are being 'butchered' like say, cows and chickens. Scientists believe plants undergo some distress when parts of it are harvested, but that is the closest way they can describe it, and the plants distress is not at all anywhere near as bad as the distress animals feel when killed for meat. Eating vegetation is basically guilt-free, really. But eating meat is important. It is the best way for people, in general, to get sufficient protein intake. Some cultures really do eat more meat than they should, though (definitely America), and like I said about the American meat industry, most of how it operates is very cruel; it is terrible. I have some things in spoilers. Don't read if you are squeemish. Spoiler:
__________________
Last edited by Urzu 7; 2010-04-30 at 00:03. |
|
2010-04-30, 10:21 | Link #702 |
廉頗
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Massachusetts
Age: 35
|
But you're taking issue with a capitalist practice that requires high efficiency yields rather than high-quality. So instead of raising the livestock the traditional cultural methods that have been developed for thousands of years, (which, believe it or not, involve treating the animal with care in many cases) we get the product that is easiest to make for the highest profit margin. THAT is the issue, and no there is simply no way an animal is going to feel a lot of stress if it is killed so as not to emit a pain response.
Should we care about the horrid way this industry operates? Yes, of course, it even affects the taste of the meat so that is a no-brainer. Explain to me though, instead of fighting for industry reforms or buying high-quality meat that is reared the traditional way, why would one turn to vegetarianism? It simply seems illogical to me. And I've got to be honest with you, I don't really see the problem with raising animals just to kill and eat them. If you treat them with care and slaughter them humanely, it is no different from a natural life cycle (actually, livestock tended by nomads and other groups have a far more pampered existence than their wild cousins.) Also, I'm not buying the plants don't care about dying argument. Animals have all kinds of different nervous systems and brain setups that no doubt significantly alter their perception of reality. With this in mind, are we really justified in saying plants don't count? |
2010-04-30, 10:35 | Link #703 |
blinded by blood
Author
|
Don't spread FUD. You got the whole process backwards. In slaughtering beef, the bolt-gun is used first, before anything else is done, basically rendering the animal brain-dead. Then it's hung by the hind legs and the animal's throat is slit, allowing it to die from exsanguination and also drain much of the blood from the carcass.
I see no problem with raising animals for food. I don't even see much of a problem with the way they're treated in modern commercial farms unless those methods impact the quality and flavor of the end product. I know what goes on in slaughterhouses and packing plants and it's not pretty. But honestly I really don't give a shit. Humans have done far worse things to each other for far more illogical reasons. We've shot, stabbed, slashed, blown up, vaporized, infected with horrifying diseases, dissolved internal organs with corrosive gas and even dropped atomic bombs on other humans. And yet people get their panties in a wad over animals that we kill for an actual purpose--to eat them--yet suspiciously seem to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear, acting as if animals are more important than humans. This is why I loathe environmental extremists. They don't love the environment at all. They hate humanity.
__________________
|
2010-04-30, 10:51 | Link #704 | |
Shameless Fangirl
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 34
|
Quote:
However, my main concern is indeed suffering, and I can at least understand why many people do not have moral concerns when it comes to eating the meat of animals that had a fairly enjoyable live and a quick, painless death. The problem is that a lot of free range meat is not really "free range", and that it's incredibly hard to ascertain how the animal was killed. The way things are, it's also pretty much impossible to treat the animals used for meat production without cruelty and produce enough meat for everyone at the same time.
__________________
|
|
2010-04-30, 12:13 | Link #705 | |
Disabled By Request
Join Date: Jan 2010
|
Quote:
It sounds cruel, I'm aware - but killing an animal because it was born to die is fulfilling it's purpose. Life itself is precious, something humans nowaday fail to understand. I don't eat meat... even then, it's very little. I have a conscience in some aspect, but I firmly believe those animals are equally dead as their cut up and grinded as they simply live, completely uanware of everything but 'there'. Killing them is a occupation, killing them is mercy. It's better then them rotting away any further. Speaking on my personal opinion -- I still don't like eating emat, but that doesn't mean I don't think others don't like eating it... So that's it, I'm one of the people that hardly eat it. I don't condone or repudiate it in any manner. But... Well, you get the idea, don't you? |
|
2010-04-30, 12:33 | Link #707 | |||||
Shameless Fangirl
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 34
|
Quote:
Even if that wasn't the case and I thought I had the right to decide whose life is worth living and whose isn't, eating factory farmed meat leads to more animals being raised and treated that way. It's not a sign of "mercy" to torture something and then kill it. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
__________________
|
|||||
2010-04-30, 16:13 | Link #708 | |||
Senior Guest
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Athens (GMT+2)
Age: 35
|
First I'll make the distinction between animal and human. Humans are superior (yes, plainly because "I say so", they are arrogant beings) and can even kill without remorse. Taking emotions into account, we shouldn't kill anything, because all living things have a soul (at least according to the Bible, but I won't focus on that now). At any rate...
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
|||
2010-04-30, 22:50 | Link #709 | |
Juanita/Kiteless
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New England
Age: 40
|
Quote:
And plants do matter, but comparing taking the life of a plant for food to taking the life of an animal for food is a stark comparison. You could be a vegan or someone who eats meat everyday and see that plucking some carrots out of the ground isn't as bad as slaughtering an animal for food. Synaesthetic, I didn't mean to spread misinformation, I was going on something I heard once five years ago. I just don't want some people thinking I'm some tree hugging hippie type. I eat meat, but I do think a lot of how the meat industry operates is pretty bad. The more humane this sort of process is for animals, the better. I just wish it was more wide spread than it is now. Just like I wish there was more organic foods grown, because there tends to be many positives to organic foods.
__________________
|
|
2010-04-30, 23:22 | Link #710 | |
sleepyhead
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
|
Quote:
If I call this vegetarian thing just a mass "masochism" movement in sheep's cloth (ie. cruelty to "stupid people"), what arguments do you have in your defense?
__________________
|
|
2010-05-01, 07:45 | Link #712 | |||
Shameless Fangirl
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 34
|
Quote:
Quote:
There are quite a few morally relevant differences between plants and many animals, but not so many between humans and many non-human animals. I wonder if you could even give me a single one when it comes to the latter. Quote:
Aside from that, I'v explained my stance very clearly in this thread already. Go take a look, google "animal rights plants" (or something), or just give me what you consider a morally relevant difference between humans and non-human animals possessing a central nervous system and we can go from there.
__________________
|
|||
2010-05-01, 19:23 | Link #716 |
Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
|
I like eating meat. Since, as a human, I'm an omnivore. I won't say "I'm proud of being an omnivore". That's just... trivial, I'd say. I just consider it what we are meant to be. Or at least what we can be.
No nutritionist will tell you to completely remove meat from your diet, unless you actually want to become a vegetarian. They don't live longer nor shorter lives, they will just have different problems from people who eat meat. Different diets mean different pros and cons. The thing is, I don't like hierarchising living beings through a measurement like 'feeling of pain'. Does an alarm mechanism like pain make one being superior, more dignified or more worthy of having its life spared than one who doesn't? My answer to that is, 'no'. Some people could consider me a monster here, but, thinking coldly, I don't see any difference between a farm and a vegetable garden. They're both places where living beings are bred to be transformed into food. A chicken is fed lots of chemicals to grow fast and big; we could say the same with special fertilizers that are given to plants, but since I'm no specialist and I don't really know about the real impact of those products on the plants' correct growth, I won't talk too much without knowing. The difference? Animals have qualities that plants don't, obviously, and vice versa. Of course, we humans have the ability of choice. If someone can live a healthy life being a vegetarian/vegan, on par with an omni, let them choose. It's not an abhorrent idea at all. I see it as something that 'limits' oneself since the spectrum of possible food is reduced, but that's outside of the matter and a personal opinion. They're not more free nor more charged with sin, they still get energy from other living beings. They die for the sake of their nutrition. My point still stands; I think every single human, animal or plant should have the same value as a living being, feeling pain or not. Lives are lives. And we must respect them equally. |
2010-05-01, 22:38 | Link #717 |
廉頗
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Massachusetts
Age: 35
|
I still don't see it, personally. Too many assumptions are being made based on similarities to humanity. I don't think we are in a position to definitively say there is some kind of greater moral weight in killing a plant than an animal.
|
2010-05-02, 00:18 | Link #718 |
blinded by blood
Author
|
This. It's a lot easier to anthropomorphize a mammal than it is, say, an ear of corn. When put this way, it appears to be more like a sense of misplaced guilt than an actual moral dilemma, especially when you consider the fact that the most hardcore animal-rights activists see absolutely no evil in murdering humans to "prevent" harm to animals.
__________________
|
2010-05-02, 01:17 | Link #719 | |
Juanita/Kiteless
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New England
Age: 40
|
Quote:
__________________
|
|
2010-05-02, 06:49 | Link #720 | |
Shameless Fangirl
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Germany
Age: 34
|
Quote:
This is not a valid argument. People who say the life of an animal is worth more than that of a human are most likely being morally inconsistent. Though this reminds me of the only vegetarian manga character I have ever encountered - yay for Jezebel. If only he stopped hating humanity now, he'd be an awesome guy... probably. It's interesting how many people reject the similarities between humans and non-human animals without giving a reason beyond, "plants are alive, too!". Yes, plants are alive, but there's a good chance they do not possess any relevant amount of self-awareness and therefore have no active interest in staying alive. Even if they had, and even if they were capable of feeling pain (which is not all that likely, considering their lack of nervous system and the fact that it wouldn't help them much as they can't flee anyway), the meat industry kills significant amounts of plants to feed the animals it raises. Many animals, on the other hand, are just as capable of experiencing suffering as humans are - we can be fairly sure of that. As far as I can tell, there is no morally relevant difference beween all animals and all humans, and if I didn't overlook anything, no one has even tried to point one out since this thread came back to life.
__________________
|
|
|
|