Veganism: Is it morally wrong to eat/kill animals?

[streetwaves]

I know this is a hotly debated subject, but it's one I'm interested in. What are your thoughts?

What is the difference morally between killing a person or an animal? Given that animals feel pain, does that make a difference?

For the record, I am not a vegan/vegetarian. But I think it's a difficult question to answer definitively to say the least.

[Vedubin01]

only in California

[slammin.e28]

Circle of life.

[herbivor]

I think you know my answer.

[iamsam]

No it is not wrong to eat animals. That is how we were designed. Is it wrong for a lion to kill and eat a Zebra?

[streetwaves]

No it is not wrong to eat animals. That is how we were designed. Is it wrong for a lion to kill and eat a Zebra?

Herbivor: yes, but why?

As to this, the difference that decides whether it's moral could be that humans are capable of considering whether their action in killing an animal was moral or not. An animal not only can't appreciate that, but they also have fewer choices anyway.

[slammin.e28]

The real question: Is it moral for vegans to feel obligated to let everyone they come in contact with know that they are a vegan?

No, sir, it is not.

[iamsam]

As to this, the difference that decides whether it's moral could be that humans are capable of considering whether their action in killing an animal was moral or not. An animal not only can't appreciate that, but they also have fewer choices anyway.

nah, nature has been designed this way from its very beginning. Food chain, circle of life, whatever you want to call it. It's how nature behaves down to the microscopic level.

It's preposterous to begin tacking morality issues on things that have been in play far longer than we've been here for. To bring up the argument of human knowledge of morality vs animals, then you open a whole new can o' worms with religion, knowledge of good and evil, etc.

[iamsam]

The real question: Is it moral for vegans to feel obligated to let everyone they come in contact with know that they are a vegan?

No, sir, it is not.

and going with this, what IS morally wrong is when vegans/vegetarians/whateveryoucallthem look down on you for evil meat-eating ways.

[streetwaves]

nah, nature has been designed this way from its very beginning. Food chain, circle of life, whatever you want to call it. It's how nature behaves down to the microscopic level.

It's preposterous to begin tacking morality issues on things that have been in play far longer than we've been here for. To bring up the argument of human knowledge of morality vs animals, then you open a whole new can o' worms with religion, knowledge of good and evil, etc.

If you argue, though, that killing animals is okay because animals kill animals, couldn't that logic be used to justify really any animal behavior in humans? There are plenty of wild animal things humans generally don't do or that we consider immoral. This is part of what we feel makes us an obvious step above such species.

Keep in mind I'm just playing devil's advocate here.

[Q5Quint]

Morals aside, remember that people are animals. Would you eat another person? Why not? I hear pork is the closest thing and damn I love me some bacon.

But seriously~ people are animals and different cultures have evolved to eat more meaty or less meaty diets depending on the area they lived in for thousands of years. Think cavemen with nuts and berries and spears and wooly mammoths. Not everywhere on earth actually had wooly mammoths, or nuts and berries.... but people, as a cockroach like omnivore, can survive with varying diets either way.

meaty Ex: mofo inuit/eskimo bros eat a super heavy meat diet. They literally have a bigger liver to help process more meat.

veggie Ex: indians. dots not feathers. almost 2500 years ago beef became pretty taboo there with the whole hinduism thing. even before that they ate a mostly plant diet. They are all healthy and shit doing yoga and weird tantric sex stuff.

Is it morally wrong to kill animals (for food)?
No~ but it is morally wrong to raise them in stinky disease factories for food.

I have lived with several vegan/vegetarians etc and get all kinds of odd reasons why they do it. I usually end up convincing them to eat meat at some point. If you look at the food people have traditionally eaten for the last 5000-10,000 years you will notice that most-if-not-all cultures do not eat meat at every meal. Only recently have we created meat factories large enough for you to eat a steak or doublecheeseburger every day. Hence why we have fatties and heart problems~ our bodies haven't evolved to eat that much meat yet.

I feel pretty lame if I try to play vegetarian more than a week or so. If you take a typical scotch-irish genotype you end up with gaelic and anglo-european influences (ie 'white people') with some anglo-norman/norse (vikings) influences later on. This website describes it pretty good: http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data...iet/versions/1

‘Wild Irish were ‘filthy and barbarous’ in their diet which included boiling large amounts of meat in Fulacht Fiadhs. A Gaelic method of cooking and eating fat unsalted swine meat were considered particularly uncultured and depicted in woodcuts to caricature the gaelic people in Ireland, building on an sphere of existing prejudice. Even those from the Spanish Armada gaining sanctuary in west Gaelicised areas saw the Irish as ‘savages’ eating ‘flesh half cooked’.

Soooo.... thats why I like meat so much. its science.
However, if I eat it constantly I feel extremely shitty. If I eat fast food I feel shitty. But once or twice a week some kind of fancy meaty sausage and bacon~ and every 2 weeks a big red bloody steak.... damn I feel good. Veggies and taters between the sweet meats.

Fun note- more meat eating history means you get (a better chance) at getting the bigger liver. Liver also processes booze. Those yoga rabbit food eaters cant hang at all with us drunk ‘filthy and barbarous’ white people.

[evandael]

the industrial meat industry is, in my lax vegetarian (but not vegan) opinion, morally wrong.


if you can hunt down an animal, trap it, and kill it with your bare hands or an improvised weapon (not a gun, not a compound bow), then you are morally clear and can claim your place in the 'circle of life', an argument made previously. if you raise a hog or a cow or a chicken from its birth, care for it, and you are the one to slit its throat, drain the blood, and butcher it, then by all means, chow down.


going to Mickey D's or the supermarket ground beef aisle does not constitute a morally justified or natural means of consuming another life form. it is too far removed from the eat-or-be-eaten circle of life.

[iamsam]

if you can hunt down an animal, trap it, and kill it with your bare hands or an improvised weapon (not a gun, not a compound bow), then you are morally clear and can claim your place in the 'circle of life', an argument made previously. if you raise a hog or a cow or a chicken from its birth, care for it, and you are the one to slit its throat, drain the blood, and butcher it, then by all means, chow down.


going to Mickey D's or the supermarket ground beef aisle does not constitute a morally justified or natural means of consuming another life form. it is too far removed from the eat-or-be-eaten circle of life.

See the problem with your method of morally eating meat isn't very easily or conveniently done in everyday life these days. If I want to go have lunch with some co-workers, I am not going to go into the bush with a hatchet and a net and go catch me a moose.

Distance of removal has nothing to do with it. we either eat meat or we don't, it doesn't matter how we get it. (that said, the meat industry sickens me)

curious- a recurve bow is morally right, but a compound is not? I dunno man...

anyway, this is a ridiculous argument for me to be part of. I like eating meat (burgers, steak, pizza with all the toppings, etc) and that will never change, and I have never and will never even entertain the question of its morality, because it is an easy answer for me.

[streetwaves]

I don't buy into the argument that we would need to either kill an animal with our hands or some rudimentary weapon to be considered natural. We have the brains capable of thinking up more effective weapons, so we use them.

That said, the meat industry is grotesque. I think basically anyone would agree with that.

[slammin.e28]

See the problem with your method of morally eating meat isn't very easily or conveniently done in everyday life these days. If I want to go have lunch with some co-workers, I am not going to go into the bush with a hatchet and a net and go catch me a moose.

I only get an hour lunch break every day.