Technology, while it has resulted in the suffering of untold millions of living beings, has also freed us from the necessity to "consume other living things" to survive. We can use our position as the most advanced species on the planet to find ways of living that minimize our horrendous impact on the world around us. You say we are just another living creature, and I agree -- we're no more important than the birds or the fish. So, why do we continue to rape the planet as if we were the ONLY things here?

I'm not saying that the predator/prey relationship is wrong or unnatural. Certain leaders of my group have stated in the past that they would eventually like to see all predators find alternate ways of feeding themselves, but that's not immediately feasible.

What is immediately feasible is for each of us to make the decision that we are not going to contribute to the suffering of other animals for our own pleasure. You might like hamburgers, but Dahmer liked cutting off boy's heads. It's an exact parallel. Your addiction to meat and leather causes mass murder every day, and it's about time someone stopped it. As long as the government is run by special interest murder groups like the beef industry, it won't happen on a large scale. But it can happen on an individual level, and I reserve the right to point out your complicity in murder in whatever form I see fit.

Finding all predators other means of feeding themselves beside consuming other animals, would mean to completely alter our ecosystem and create a planet of over populated herbivores with no natural enemies to keep the population levels in balance. This kind of thing happens a fair amount here in Ohio, there are few natural predators for the deer around here, so the population explodes and alot of them end up starving to death, etc.

Like I said, my body was designed to live off a diet of meat AND plants, so I do not see what is wrong with that since that is how God intended me to be, or I evolved through nature. If PETA is so concerned with the well being of all animals and protecting their habitats, etc. why would they endorse the drastic change of animals' way of life? It makes no sense.

That being said, I do agree that the suffering of animals for our pleasure, or research (cosmetics, etc.) is outright wrong. Hunting in the form of Native Americans is fine, that's how they survived, but hunting for a 12 point buck just so you can mount its head on your wall is not right. Nor are the horrible conditions under which many farm animals live before slaughter. I think that if any drastic change needs to be made, it is to our current agriculture system which puts food supply first, animals' pain second. Not a change in our natural eating habits.

Don't try to change life, change how we affect it.

Noodle, I think the time has come to stop your little thought excercise. You're scaring me.

* note to self ... if ever in need of Devil's Advocate, call mrnoodle.

You don't need a damn burger any more than you need the head of your conquest on your wall. Or the latest hairspray. Our desires are counterproductive to our survival, and that of fellow species.

You're not hunting for your own sustenance. You're blithely driving to the grocer's and buying the flesh of an animal that died under horrible circumstances. They keep killing, because you keep buying. On your way to the display of edible body parts reaped from the innocent, you probably passed 100 items that would've equally filled your belly without causing death. Well, not directly, anyway.

wolf -- don't worry, as soon as I close this window I'm going to get a burger. It's easy to argue from a completely emotional standpoint. Five uses of terms like "murder" and "innocent" to put the reader on the defensive, bolstered by one logical point (there are alternatives to meat), all based on the sacred cow of "good intentions". It's easy to be a lib. :P

phew.

And, incidentally, I want the head on my wall as well as the burger. Nice skin on the floor would work with my decor too.

I intend to have a lovely mountain lion skin on my floor soon.

I still just don't get why people think eating meat is wrong. It is how we are designed. Get over the fact that something has to suffer for any animal to live. It's part of life. I already said that I don't agree with the way livestock is treated, that needs to be changed no doubt. The problem is not what we eat, it is how we get it.
And even if the entire human race went vegan, animals would still get killed through pesticide runoff, combines harvesting grain, and extermination because of threat to crops.

I'm no vegetarian, but "It is how we are designed" doesn't hold much moral weight. There are any number of things in our animal nature that are looked down on in civilized society.

And it is possible to get by without eating meat.

But I don't want to.

The only real moral issue is how animals are treated on the farm. The moral issue of just killing something for food is rediculous. It's called the circle of life/food chain, get used to it cause that's its always been and always will be.

And of course it is possible to get by without eating meat, its healthier for people with high cholesterol problems for example. But to use the justification for veganism that it is morally wrong to eat another living thing just doesn't fly.

It should also be pointed out (although I'm not exactly sure why) that virtually all of the cattle that we consume are conceived and raised specifically for that purpose. In other words, left to their own devices, there wouldn't be nearly as many cows in the world. The unchecked mountain lion population would see to that.

I am also no vegetarian, but to be fair, vegetarianism is the logical choice.

Meat is an inefficient nutritional delivery device compared to grains and vegetables. Meat is wasteful. If you eat meat, YOU are wasteful. (Incidentally, so am I.)

From a veggie site:
I forget the exact numbers, but I think you can feed ten times the people with a vegetarian diet than you can with a meat based diet, given a certain amount of land or the crop harvest that comes from that land.

Growing all that animal feed requires a tremendous amount of fresh water. Fresh water that could be used for humans. It takes 100 times more water to grow a pound of beef than a pound of soybeans.

Growing all that feed wastes fossil fuels. We could significantly reduce our dependence of mideast oil if everyone in the US became a vegetarian.

Too much meat is not terribly healthy for you. Look at the food pyramid. You're not supposed to eat much meat at all, and don't actually need any.

I'm just listing a couple of reasons that come to mind. If you look at the logic behind the meat question. The answer is clearly to be a vegetarian.

The only reason to not become a vegetarian is if you like meat enough that you don't care about that other stuff. It's a purely selfish decision, something Americans are good at.

But again, to be clear, I eat meat as well. I'll be having pork chops for dinner tonight, with couscous and corn on the cob.

You are absolutely right. I'm just trying to show that the whole "moral dillema" of eating meat is a moot point. And apologies if I have come off aggressive or disrespectful, my short temper has kind of made a come back these days, don't know why, so I get irritated easily. So again I apologize.

There are many threads to follow in these arguments. We're about to put some goats on here. Goats can turn brush and other undigestible plant matter into food I can eat. We really should think about how our food is produced. It'd be good for us and for producers if we demanded as consumers a safer less centralized and unfortunately more expensive food supply. I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to cheap chicken and should really look into less intensive alternatives.

But it isn't. Plenty of moral issues involve overcoming instinct and not behaving like animals. The facts that we are omnivorous and other animals eat animals is essentially irrelevant to the question of the morality of eating meat.

Last I checked, we are animals.

So any behavior we witness in the animal kingdom is therefore moral?

I believe the statistic for the grain to meat ratio is that a cow is fed 3500 pounds of grain in its life to produce 500 pounds of meat. The average cow raised for food purposes produces 50 pounds of waste excrement (poop and urine) a day. And that excrement has been known to decimate stream and river populations due to runoff, as well as create a horribly unpleasent odor, and create land that is essentially bactarially infested, making it unlivable.

Morality is based on perspective. It is an entirely human concept. The issue is that being supposed moral beings, we should be ethical enough to at least take into consideration the conditions under which these animals die. It isn't only a moral issue, but it is a logical issue. Unsanitary slaughter conditions and unsafe workplaces are a breeding ground for disease and, with all the fear about terrorism, the easy access to, because of consolidation of the meatpacking companies, the ability to easily transmit a potentially lethal pathogen.

As for as using more fossil fuels, I don't think it is so much of that, but more that these animals produce an extreme amount of methane gas, which has been directly linked to Global Warming.

Meat is a very easily accessible source of protein, an essential nutrient in our diets. The carnivorous life style offered somewhat more security, as predators would be more unlikely to attack a creature that was adept at killing. However, this is no longer the case, as we have virtually wiped out the threat of predatory creatures within the safety of our concrete jungles. So, yes, the logical solution here is to move onto a vegetarian diet. Along with providing a much more nutrient rich diet, it has been shown to reduce the risks of colon cancer.

I'm not saying that people should move to a strictly vegetarian diet. I think people have the right to choose what they want to eat. The issue at hand isn't whether or not it is moral to kill another animal for its flesh; on the contrary, the issue is why have we, being such moral creatures, allowed this injustice in the slaughterhouses to continue? Why do we line these beasts up and process them with such speed and deliberance? The first thing that comes to mind here is Eric Schlosser's book, Fast Food Nation. But the other object is a film, an anime to be more precise, titled Mononoke Hime. It doesn't pertain entirely to the issue of eating meat, but more to the almost cancerous attitude we have taken towards the Earth. I think we are heading in entirely the wrong direction with our stance towards how we treat the Earth. We need to look at the long term consequences, instead of selfishly looking to the short term.

I think PETA is wrong in wanting people to stop eating meat. Meat is not murder, it is effeciency, in all reality. Depending on the viewpoint, meat and the byproducts from the animal, such as fur and fats, is survival of the fittest, in a rather cruel sense. The perfect example is the American Indians. They used everything; leaving something to waste would be a sin against Nature herself. I know this doesn't really pertain to people anymore, but the idea of not wasting should still stand. With such an overabundance, we have become lax and completely ignore the threat that a famine might affect the more developed countries.

Our actions of pollution, environment destruction, torture, and unnecessary killing aside yes. It is moral for a lioness to kill a gazell, it is moral for a shark to consume a tuna, and it is moral for a human to consume the flesh of another animal.

Why do you put those aside? Is it moral when a lion kills its cub? Would it be moral for a human to kill their child?

Because I'm not talking about how we lay waste to the environment, I'm talking about the simple fact that it is not immoral for one animal to consume another for the sole purpose of sustenance.

[edit] 400 posts.. go me :headshake

How about the lion?

If it is doing so simply to survive then yes. Just like the soccer team that had to resort to cannibalism after their jet crashed in the mountains. My point is, it is moral to consume whatever you need to survive and thrive, not to the point of excess or for sport.

No, it does it to reduce competition.

"If it is doing so simply to survive then yes."

It's doing it to eliminate the genes of the previous mate who apparently proved inferior. Thus it is a survival trait for the pride.

Or so they say...

So, if I think a child will grow up to compete with me, it is moral to kill it?

Male cats of all sizes do the "kill the kittens of the previous Tom and re-impregnante the Queens with my own seed" thing. You'll notice, it's the males who are murderous. The females will nurse any kitten--an orphan kitten, a kitten who belongs to another female, etc.; male cats seem determined that their genes are passed along and female cats seem determined that the species shall endure. :apaw:

Another way of wording that could be that the males are concerned that the best survive and the females aren't quite so discriminating. :stickpoke

Sort of the reverse of humanity...

Define "best".

The environment we live in is a tad different than that of lions in case you haven't noticed..

Except with lions, it's the older males that lose the fight to the younger invading males. It has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with age. The ironic bit is that the younger lions will be driven off before their cubs grow to maturity, and their cubs will be killed too. Lions only have a 20% chance of reaching maturity, and the number one killer is other lions.

One difference: We don't need meat to live. Does that make eating meat immoral?

If lions were "civilized" (and i use that term loosely) like humans, they could choose to eat soy beans to get their protein, etc. They don't "need" meat to live, but that's how they are designed. To go hunt down, kill their food, and consume it. We were designed to be able to get our nutrients from many different sources, plants and animals alike. So no, it is not immoral because that's the way life(nature) is.

That's the difference I am trying to get at. We can choose. The fact that we can choose is what defines morality. The lion has no moral choice to make; it just does what it does. The fact that lions do something does not mean it is the correct moral choice for a human to make. So again:

The claim that "we are designed that way" has no moral weight.

Ok, I'm tired of arguing about this, you win. HP: 1 Bullitt: 0

Guess this is what I get for coming out of semi-lurkerdom and having a discussion
:madhop: :flamer:

It's not whether you win or lose...

Bullitt, You could probably redeem yourself with the guys if you posted more pictures of young ladies in swimming attire, or something like that.

I was hoping I'd get to use this someday... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...litt/image.gif

I think that I am probably very, very grateful that is a very, very small image.

I can't, I'm not the lion.

I'm only positing that there may be a mechanism in place that may insure that the most suitably adapted DNA is passed on. That mechanism may be part of a long causal chain that results in that coming to pass.

It's just unlikely that any mechanism in nature, other than man current trends, exist without some form of reason. Unlikely, but not impossible.

Eventually, yes. But isn't it possible that the older, smarter, stronger ones will last longer and pass on an extra litter or two of better adapted generations.

Everything has to do with genetics, even age. A better adapted progenitor will pass on the better RNA to more generations.

Is it irony or causality?

Then you won't want to watch this.

You're right. I wouldn't have wanted to watch that.

I imagine you meant to quote wolf, and not Bullitt.

Is that woman just freaky anorexic, or does she have an actual physical deformity? I can't tell.

She's actually a transgendered polio victim.

That is in fact worse than I imagined. When she was a plucky survivor, struggling to reach beyond her disability (I assumed CP), there was merit there, a kind of hope, I suppose. A beacon of goodwill and fortitude for others.

But what jinx says, that's just fucked up.

Why does she have a clown doll on her head? And how does Jinx know that?

Google'd it.
IMDb

http://www.unpopart.org/films/goddessbunny.html

Ok...but, what about the clown-doll on her head? ;)

Oh come on, I'm not gonna spoon feed you the whole story! But man, when you find out... whooo-weee... who'da though a clown doll on the head meant you're into that! ::shudder::

Raging within me,
Fear and curiosity.
I lose either way.

Well, you're no Mystic Rythm...

Thank you.

Dude, thats a dolphin.

:biglaugha :lol2:

From Lookout's link: Both the dogs and sharks enjoy the sport and if it is banned thousands of dogs will have to be euthanated.

As opposed to the dogs being "gruesome-ated"?

Maybe they could do the "sport" using local and national politicians, instead. Of course THAT would be REALLY unkind to the sharks! :worried:

The sharks won't eat them.

Professional courtesy.