I'm a vegan and I come in peace...

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I love animals but if I stopped eating meat I would become anaemic fast. I have a weird iron allergy thing.

 

[RoBi3.0]

The only fallacious thing is your interpretation of the argument. The argument of vegetarians and vegans is that eating meat is wrong. The argument of people like myself is that it's natural. It's neither inherently evil or good. It's a fact of life.

Humans are capable of eating meat, ergo we eat meat. The only morally questionable ground is how we treat animals that we eat. Farming is not a natural fact of life, it's something that we've created and it has effected various species of animals. The pigs and cows we know today wouldn't even exist if not for the selective breeding of farmers.

But, if we treat the animals with respect and allow them to live as good a life as we can provide, I have no issue with them then being killed in a humane manner for our food.

That is my argument.

You appear to be missing the point of my post. I was not disputing meat-eating being natural, and i was not suggesting that meat-eating is inherently unethical. In fact i mentioned a specific circumstance where eating meat is justifiable. The point i was trying to make was; that if something is natural or not is not relevant to it's moral value. Eating meat is not justifiable simply because it is natural. In the same way as it would not be unethical if we were herbivores, simply because it would be unnatural. I hope my post was not poorly written/unclear.

Your post wasn't poorly written. I think the problem lies the fact that you appear to think there is a concrete morality structure that all humans adhere to. That simply isn't the case. Morality is something constructed by humans to raise us above our animal instincts. Morality can be shared by groups of people on a basic level, but is extremely complex and is not exactly the same from individual to individual.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, considering animal rights activists are involved in vandalism, assault, arson, bombings and assasination attempts, I take a pretty dim view on them.

That's like saying, "well, considering white people were slave-owners...."

You do know PETA is not the end-all of "animal rights activists," right?

Or do you believe all Muslims are terrorists, all asians are samurai, and all christians kill gays? Because what you said is tantamount to those.

I love animals but if I stopped eating meat I would become anaemic fast. I have a weird iron allergy thing.

Odd, I have a reaction to red meat (and pork, screw you "other white meat") that is quite the problem for me. It's more like lactose intolerance than an allergy, to my understanding, but....

I still have to get protein from fish and poultry, though. Alternatives, as I said earlier in the thread, landed me in the hospital with malnutrition.

It's funny being 3.5 metric tons and still malnourished.

 

[Wise_Smiling_Panda]

I'd say this sums up quite a lot:

Spoiler

 

[Henkie36]

I'm not a vegan, because I just like meat. I can get my head around people not eating meat because they believe in animal rights, or a few people who don't eat meat because they think it's too expensive, but I don't get veganists. You know, the people who don't even drink milk or eat eggs because they come from animals and should be for animals.
I do agree with you that we are moral beings and therefor we should act like moral beings (when in Rome, act like Romans) like in for instance the whaling industry. But stuff like ''I don't eat chicken because they deserve a good life too'', I'm not buying that. Imagine it from the chickens point of view. If we'd stop keeping chickens as farmanimals ad just leave them to mercy of nature, they will be extinct in decades. So just keep in mind: there are always two sides to a story...

 

[Istri]

People people... You are obviously not being pessimistic enough. If EVERYONE was vegan, two things would happen: 1) Animal count would drop huge amounts, yet to rise to ridiculous amounts, causing a threat to human dominion. 2) World hunger would EVENTUALLY stop. I'm saying eventually, because even though there would be food for everyone, it would not be given to everyone. But eventually, it probably would. BUT WAIT, if there was food for everyone, the overpopulation would overpopulate, and eventually everyone would die. And I mean before sun burns us to a crisp.

Isn't it nice when you think too much of things? I'm keeping my pizz... Wait, that's a vegetable. My burgers...

BTW, this is by no means a joke.

 

[thahat]

OT: human beings are by nature violent vindictive beings. if something scares us we kill it eat it and wear its hide to show we werent all scare at all haha!

so we killed lots of beasties, had a taste and by george! some of em were tastey!

scroll forward lots years and suddenly you find that we as the human race, simply put, have nothing to do. so why not eat the stuff that is tasty?.

and yes its mean to the animals etc. but most around here ( netherlands ) have a nice life before they are inconvenianced for maybe 10 minuts before having their brains blown out with a hydraulic piston going so fast their brains are scrabled before they can even say mooo-PLOK

human beings are violent bu nature?!?!? that's the most untrue statement i've ever heard :| it's in the nature of human beings to REASON. we can use REASON to determine whether we should or should not be violent. our nature is one of being able to LEARN. OH! there are people that use our weakness of listening to all the crap they have to feed us and believing in it? That's totally different. A human kept in a hostile environment will become hostile to the environment. And that's where the big trick comes in. We're led to believe our natural environment is the city. But our natural environment is the EARTH, innit? We're taught to confuse the Earth for this heap of nonsense we're living in thus we become violent towards the Earth.

well we are. have you noticed that most things with big teeth able to eat or hurt a human are on the extinct list? we hunted most of it down out of fear or later for sport.
we need nukes just to keep us all from each other on a daily basis, we need police, the military just to keep us from killing each other 'for the lolz' as the internet would say.
you see a bug it anoys you, what do you do kill it ofcourse. same with spiders and other creatures of miniscule and neglectable worth to human kind.

and learning! oh the learning! do you know what we do with this glorius ability?
learn how to kill each other more effectively. and in these periods of great violence, suddenly humanites advancements SKYROCKET.

humans have no natural enviroment, is my opinion. we live in the cold harsh reaches of the earth, but also in the hottest most unforgiving of places. and all the nice moderate spots inbetween. we live underground, we live on mountains miles high. hell, we are even living in space. ( ish, but give it say 30 years and we'l see )

 

[Xanadu84]

I am not willing to say that certain beings are sentient enough to merit partial moral consideration. Something cannot be a little bit conscious, and if it is conscious, it deserves full moral consideration.

Because of this, if I were to believe that Animals were more then a resource, and worth moral consideration, then I would have to think that eating meat was Murder. There is no middle ground. Morally, I should kill someone who eats chicken. Pets would be slaves. A leather jacket would be equally abhorrent as a lamp from the holocaust made from the skin of Jews. I would be morally obligated to grab a rifle, climb a clocktower, and start shooting. Each human I kill will save hundreds of animals, most likely. Clearly, this would be the only behavior and thought morally consistent with my philosophy. And this would be absurd.

As such, I view animals as a resource, not a conscious being. However, animals do represent both our resources on this planet, and a respect for life. Indiscriminate killing is a waste of finite resources. Do not needlessly torture animals because that reflects poorly on your outlook on human suffering. Killing animals for sport is wrong, but killing them for resources is acceptable.

 

[Zarmi]

Foodchain. /thread

 

[Denamic]

I can't find anyone here in this thread making that statement, so you're just making a preemptive argument?

Just look at your own first response to this thread! You're implying that we're making these animals a favor by having them to suit our needs so they do not deserve any kind of liberty. Am I wrong?

Pretty much, yeah.
Today's domesticated farm animals are a product of mankind's meddling.
They have no place in nature any more, and releasing them into it would either kill them or destroy the eco-system.

Farm animals have more than quadruple the life expectancy of their natural counterparts.
In nature, they would constantly be driven by hunger, often starving to death.
Fall prey to predators that starts eating them before they're even dead.
If they get sick, they'll almost certainly starve to death, slowly and painfully, because they're too weak to feed themselves.
Even if it's just a small infection and a fever.
They are more likely to die than they are to survive during their childhood.
Animals almost never die out of old age in nature.

The ethics of domesticating and exploiting animals are very questionable, definitely.
But taking them away from nature is absolutely doing them a favour.

 

[royohz]

Last time I checked, animals aren't intelligent. There's no reason why we shouldn't eat them.

Do you think a dog is intelligent? Would you eat your dog anyday? Now what would you say if I told you that pigs are at least as smart, and some even more intelligent than the most intelligent dog?

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Hello, and Welcome to the Escapist! Just watch out for the trolls.

It's nice to know that not ALL vegans are well, pushy. I for one can't really give up eating meat, but hey, if it works for you, go right ahead.

And I DO care for animal welfare, I just want people to act SANE about it...

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Do you think a dog is intelligent? Would you eat your dog anyday?

I've never tried dog meat but I'm open minded about food so sure, why not. Also, I own a cat. Wrong animal to make an appeal to emotion there, buddy.

 

[Dwarfman]

I like putting meats in my salads. Can I be approved by both sides on this argument?

Bacon makes everything taste great. Especially salads. Don't know about them herbivores but your welcome to hang with us on the top of the food chain ;-)>

 

[andeve3]

I'd love it if you could actually "rephrase" what you said because I did reread your post and I found nothing. I'm guessing claiming to have made an argument is easier than actually making one .

I thought i had adequately summed up what is commonly referred to as the moral argument for vegetarianism, apparently not. Since you insist, i will clarify.

The moral argument for vegetarianism as formulated by me: "Murder is considered morally wrong because it causes physical pain to the victim, and more importantly it is theft of the victims sentience. This is relevant both to humans and other sentient species capable of feeling pain, it is ideal to avoid causing pain whenever possible. Causing vast amounts of suffering, simply because we enjoy the way meat tastes, is not morally justifiable when there are alternative diets available."

The premises are:
1. It is ideal to avoid causing pain, or to minimize inevitable pain.
2. Murder is wrong because of the pain it causes (among other things).
3. A variety of animals commonly harvested for food, are capable of experiencing physical pain.
4. We don not need to kill these animals for food.
Conclusion: Killing animals capable of feeling pain for food, when there are other sources of food available, is not justifiable.

It's interesting how your first response only straw-mans my views on morality and animal rights, and your second response claims i made no arguments. I guess claiming there is no argument is easier than responding to it

 

[orangeban]

I do eat meat, because I don't see it as animal cruelty. Provided the animal lives a nice life on the farm (so I object to battery farms etc.) I don't see what the issue is with killing and eating it. It's not as if the animal is freaking out about it, it doesn't know that it's going to die or anything. I'm going to have my organs donated when I die, I don't object, if I've had a nice life, who cares what happens to me when I'm gone. I see it as a similar thing.

 

[Mailman]

I respect that you do not eat meat. Please respect that I do eat meat. If and/or when the time comes when we can clone perfect copies of meat (Within reason, of course. No one I know wants to eat human flesh, cloned or otherwise.) and save cows, ckickens, turkeys, pigs and cetera a vist to the slaugtherhouse, I'll be the first one with a knife and fork at the ready. That's really all I have to say about that.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Hi forum!

After watching MovieBob's recent Big Picture episode on the PeTA/Super Mario controversy, I'm curious about people's stance on animal rights here. What I found curious is that Bob asserted he supports animal rights, in that he abstains from products like fur and boycotts companies that test on animals. On the other hand though, eating animals does not seem to be problematic for him.

I'd just like to point out, you misquoted him there. He said he disapproves of unnecessary animal testing (by which I assume he means for products such as cosmetics). Animal testing is an unfortunate, necessary evil, and I assume Bob realises that. Anyway, good luck with your thread.