Sort of missed the point regarding morality. Your right to free-choice ends where oppression begins. Morality has yet to catch up to the advanced level of thinking from vegans and vegetarians, but seeing as slave abolitionists were on the losing side for thousands of years, perspective is called for. It typically takes a long time for oppressors to be defeated. People, societies, are locked into the mindset of the superior race/species/gender/religion etc and they become locked into the mindset that others exist to serve them.

This author has not said anything that defenders of slavery didn't say better.

So you're a plant hater, Suicidal?

Suicidal Writer: Morality has yet to catch up to the advanced level of thinking from vegans and vegetarians

Dumbest thing I've ever heard. Morals are fluid, differ from society to society and age to age. Vegans and vegetarians are not "advanced" in their thinking because no one knows the future.

Plus, humans are omnivores. Changing from this is altering nature's plan.

Sgygus: So you're a plant hater, Suicidal?

Do plants have a CNS and can they feel pain?

CNS, no. There is evidence that plants react to traumatic damage done to them in a way that living things with a CNS would call pain.

You are avoiding the issue. You kill (or have killed for you) living things. You think you are morally superior because you draw the line at a different point than most humans, a distinction that nature itself does not make.

Are tigers immoral?

Sgygus: Are tigers immoral?

No, they are amoral.

Sgygus: CNS, no. There is evidence that plants react to traumatic damage done to them in a way that living things with a CNS would call pain.


There is no evidence that plants feel pain. There are certain chemicals released but without a CNS to process them, it's like saying atoms feel pain when forming covalent bonds. Feel free to cite the scientific evidence though. This argument is pretty common, no matter how often it's debunked, but I'll be waiting.



Are tigers immoral?

Tigers don't have a concept of morality anymore than a human infant does. I'd be willing to excuse human immorality if the human is willing to admit that such things as standards, morality, and the law are meaningless and each human should be allowed to do what it wants, when it wants, in accordance with instinct. Non-human animals will often rape and murder in order to reproduce, for some reason, this seems to be a criminal offense in human society.

I'm not a plant, I don't know what they feel when they are torn from the ground.

You do kill plants, don't you Suicidal? But it's ok to do that because they don't feel pain. Then it's ok to kill animals as long as we render them unconscious first? Slaughter houses are required to keep the pain animals suffer to a minimum, in duration at any rate.

Rape and murder are offenses in human society because they disrupts the fabric of society. Eating animals does not.

What make you think it is moral to kill certain types of living things and not others?

Let's do it your way, Suicidal Writer. Let's all become strict vegetarians and not cause any pain to animals by killing them.

What do you think is going to happen? All those animals are going to suffer slow painful deaths like any animal does, even if they die from old age and not from some tiger chewing on their intestines first.

You live, you die, and you usually suffer doing it. Your distinction of 'feeling pain' is arbitrary way to decide that being a vegetarian is more moral.

Suicidal Writer: Sort of missed the point regarding morality. Your right to free-choice ends where oppression begins. Morality has yet to catch up to the advanced level of thinking from vegans and vegetarians, but seeing as slave abolitionists were on the losing side for thousands of years, perspective is called for. It typically takes a long time for oppressors to be defeated. People, societies, are locked into the mindset of the superior race/species/gender/religion etc and they become locked into the mindset that others exist to serve them.

This author has not said anything that defenders of slavery didn't say better.


By sepuku2 at 2007-12-27

SW is a troll and is probably munching a big mac while it types with it's greasy appendages.

I've been a vegetarian for 20 years. I don't care what people eat but I would prefer not to be subsidizing the meat industry with my tax dollars.

I have killed animals personally and then fed those animals to my family. We are stronger for it.

It isn't moral or amoral. It is just a fact of life that in order to survive you must eat life. Doesn't matter if that life is plant or animal, you must consume life to survive.

Eating a plant isn't justifiable homicide simply because it can't cry out or run away. Eating meat doesn't turn you into a murderer because it can try to run/fly/swim away. :)

/ate more than one kind of animal yesterday
//will eat more today

I eat meat because evolution designed me that way. You have a problem with that, talk to Darwin, not me.

Doing what you're naturally built to do has nothing to do with morals. Humans are naturally designed to eat meat---that's the whole point of your incisor teeth. It's entirely biology and not at all ethics.

Now, it's one thing to disagree with the way animals are treated before they are killed/eaten---the process of raising and killing animals has ethical/moral aspects. However, the actual act of consuming meat does not.

"The man who eats broccoli is the moral equivalent of the gardener."

I am breathlessly awaiting the advent of meat created in a tank so I can have a bacon sandwich without it being a "moral issue".

If one chooses not to eat meat for moral or health related reasons; that is a choice one is entitled to make, not a moral imperative. When I die of clogged arteries from all the bacon, millions of tiny bacteria will eat me returning my structure into matter to be consumed by plants. Those plants will be consumed by animals, who will be consumed by other animals only to die and be consumed by bacteria repeat ad infinitum.

"..but I don't care for proselytizing or people telling me that my decisions about my diet are ethically inferior."

Sure, you might not care for it, but you should always be willing to listen. I'm no vegetarian, but it's important to at least have an open mind.

Of course vegetarianism is morally superior. I don't think I could argue that there isn't a tinge of immorality involved in killing sentient creatures for food unnecessarily. Humans can survive in good health without consuming meat.

But the real immorality is in the environmental devastation created by a carnivorous lifestyle. The higher up the foodchain you eat, the larger the carbon footprint and the more you encourage horrible practices like "slash and burn" land clearing.

I should make clear that I eat meat. However, I have great respect for vegetarians. Seems like the author realizes he can't win an argument on morality, so just whines about having to be reminded of the impact of his choices.

JerseyTim: "..but I don't care for proselytizing or people telling me that my decisions about my diet are ethically inferior."

Sure, you might not care for it, but you should always be willing to listen. I'm no vegetarian, but it's important to at least have an open mind.

I'll send the Jehovah's Witnesses to your house right away.

Ennuipoet: I am breathlessly awaiting the advent of meat created in a tank so I can have a bacon sandwich without it being a "moral issue".

Yeah - I haven't quite figured out how I feel about that yet. I think its a good idea I just don't know if I could bring myself to eat it. Maybe if it came in a little kit so I could grow my own. Like alfalfa sprouts.

gopher321: Plus, humans are omnivores. Changing from this is altering nature's plan.

Naturalistic fallacy. Because something occurs in nature that does not convey any sort of moral judgment (as either good or bad).


As for the headline; if you sincerely believe a moral ill is occurring it is your duty to try to stop it. If I see someone beating their child the statement "don't proselytize me about beating children; don't beat your children if you don't want to, but don't tell me how to raise mine" just doesn't satisfy me. Change "vegetarianism" and "beating children" to any other moral ill (murder, rape, lying, picking your nose, whatever) and you will see why "do what you want, but don't tell me how to live" is unsatisfactory when how you live causes harm to others.


Saying that, I'm not a vegetarian and I see nothing wrong with eating animals because animals are not moral agents and as such I see no need to afford them moral protections except in-so-far as doing so benefits humans and other moral agents.

Talon:
Saying that, I'm not a vegetarian and I see nothing wrong with eating animals because animals are not moral agents and as such I see no need to afford them moral protections except in-so-far as doing so benefits humans and other moral agents.

Infants and some mentally disabled persons are not moral agents, yet we afford them protections.

An avoidance of suffering in conscious beings is a better benchmark for moral protections, I think.

I'm going to get a bacon burger right now in honor of the headline.

hitchking: Infants and some mentally disabled persons are not moral agents, yet we afford them protections.

Species normality. Marginal cases are just that - marginal cases. We do not expect chickens to ever develop into moral agents. As a species chickens are not normally moral agents. The elderly, mentally disabled, and infants are "marginal" cases when compared to
"normal" humans and as such we afford them protections.

I agree that suffering should be avoided for animals; but because it is conducive to human compassion (studies have shown that animal abusers are more likely to abuse spouses and children). I do not see how "prevent animal suffering" leads to the conclusion "it is wrong to kill animals" if we both agree that animals are not moral agents.

Ennuipoet: I am breathlessly awaiting the advent of meat created in a tank so I can have a bacon sandwich without it being a "moral issue".

If one chooses not to eat meat for moral or health related reasons; that is a choice one is entitled to make, not a moral imperative. When I die of clogged arteries from all the bacon, millions of tiny bacteria will eat me returning my structure into matter to be consumed by plants. Those plants will be consumed by animals, who will be consumed by other animals only to die and be consumed by bacteria repeat ad infinitum.


approves.

/The CIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRCLE OF LIIIIIIIFE

Suicidal Writer: People, societies, are locked into the mindset of the superior race/species/gender/religion etc and they become locked into the mindset that others exist to serve them.

Postmodernism sucks, example #274675859859. Human beings are the dominant animal. Trying to argue tnat away from the perspective of bringing lesser animals into society is hilarious. Your "anti-speciesist" argument has no logical endpoint and I suggest you revert to eating sand, making sure to examine each grain with an electron microscope to avoid killing any bacteria.

Coming Soon: People For the Ethical Treatment of Dirt

Son of a...

I meant this:

Gotta start previewing.

I killed and ate a Poptart this morning. It went well with the stew I made of coffee bean gizzards.

Oh goody. After the rational and well-reasoned discussion in the "extreme foods" thread, now we have one set aside specifically for considered and considerate discourse between vegetarians and meat eaters.

/No, not really
//I'm just a vagitarian

AGH! I fail at posting. It's a friggin' picture of Mufasa, from the Lion King. *mutter*

I've been a vegetarian for 20m years, and have never given a shiat about what others eat. It's their business. Do not judge others for their choice of sustenance, unless they are cannibals and want to eat your family. That is all.

cheshirecatsmileyface: Now, it's one thing to disagree with the way animals are treated before they are killed/eaten---the process of raising and killing animals has ethical/moral aspects. However, the actual act of consuming meat does not.

So the concept that a living creature must die, however painlessly, in order to feed another creature that can probably find other ways to receive nutrition, has absolutely no ethical or moral aspects?

Wow.

And for the record, I eat meat. Lots of it.

So, the article talks about vegetarians being wrong for proselytizing. But, isn't that what his book is doing? I've been a vegetarian since 1990 and I couldn't care less what other people eat. I'll actually go as far as saying that omnivores are more likely to proselytize than any vegetarians I know.

Suicidal Writer: Sort of missed the point regarding morality. Your right to free-choice ends where oppression begins. Morality has yet to catch up to the advanced level of thinking from vegans and vegetarians, but seeing as slave abolitionists were on the losing side for thousands of years, perspective is called for. It typically takes a long time for oppressors to be defeated. People, societies, are locked into the mindset of the superior race/species/gender/religion etc and they become locked into the mindset that others exist to serve them.

This author has not said anything that defenders of slavery didn't say better.


Very nice. 10/10

Oops, I meant 20 years, not 20m years. Not that old yet, but still plenty capable of typos apparently.

I know anecdote does not equal data, but I have known several vegetarians, none of whom have ever asked anyone else to put down the steak or object in the slightest to another person eating meat in their presence.

Of course, half of those eat seafood, yet still call themselves vegetarian. I believe they have deluded themselves into believing that fish are a sort of swimming vegetable. They never give anyone else any grief, so I leave them alone.

I have also known a few vegans who never leave the house without pictures of battery chickens and downer cows to share in between rants about how milk is poison, and veal is concentrated evil doused in a bath of cruelty.

It is astonishing what a bit of milk, eggs, and honey will do.

Suicidal Writer
Morality has yet to catch up to the advanced level of thinking from vegans and vegetarians, but seeing as slave abolitionists were on the losing side for thousands of years, perspective is called for.

6/10.

Points for subtlety, deductions for total absence of humor. As usual.

Suicidal Writer I wish neanderthals like you would keep your vertebrate-centric bigotry to yourselves. So now a "CNS" makes one life more valuable than another?

Clearly, we breatharians are vastly morally superior, but I understand you are a victim of the twisted environment where you were raised.

My dad's a mere vegetarian. Or, as I often remind him, an acidophilus mass murderer.

I used to know a woman who wouldn't eat honey because it was stolen from the bees.

Suicidal Writer: Morality has yet to catch up to the advanced level of thinking from vegans and vegetarians, but seeing as slave abolitionists were on the losing side for thousands of years, perspective is called for.

Anyone who fell for this should probably stay far away from any serious debates, as you're just not smart enough.

Fapinator
That cracked me up, inexplicably!

hitchking: Of course vegetarianism is morally superior. I don't think I could argue that there isn't a tinge of immorality involved in killing sentient creatures for food unnecessarily. Humans can survive in good health without consuming meat.

But the real immorality is in the environmental devastation created by a carnivorous lifestyle. The higher up the foodchain you eat, the larger the carbon footprint and the more you encourage horrible practices like "slash and burn" land clearing.

I should make clear that I eat meat. However, I have great respect for vegetarians. Seems like the author realizes he can't win an argument on morality, so just whines about having to be reminded of the impact of his choices.

I agree, and think the obvious morally superior choice is for you to kill yourself in an environmentally neutral way to end your part in the cycle of consumption and waste. You might want to walk to the beach and swim out as far from shore as you are able, or alternately ride your bicycle to a forest, climb the talles t tree there, and jump off. We'll all be very proud of you.

FTA: "I'll go to the mat on that one."

I love the way some guys think of themselves as all badass and make comments like "I'll go to the mat on that one" but as soon you accept their challenge and suggest classical style Greco Roman wrestling, they always back down.

Look, either I eat a Double-Double every day or my kids get fed to the calves. When it comes to livestock, it's either us or them and vegetarians are putting humanity on the losing end. Eat a bacon sandwich... if not for yourselves, for the good of the children!

cerberus9: So the concept that a living creature must die, however painlessly, in order to feed another creature that can probably find other ways to receive nutrition, has absolutely no ethical or moral aspects?

In the grad scheme of moral and ethical choices in the world today, whether or no to kill an animal that exists in adundance and was raise for the purpose of consumption ranks so far down on the list, it is not worth mentioning. I certainly have no moral dilemma. Pass the butter, please.

I have no problem with people eating meat but I am tired of hearing about it.

What can't you just eat whatever you want in silence?

I knew a different person who basically ate only vegetables, but claimed that he imagined vegetables screaming when he bit into them.

He might have been joking or crazy. I'm still not sure, because he said it with a completely straight face.

Man, buncha spelling mistakes. :\

I hear FAR more "proselytizing" from meat eaters than I do vegetarians. On a daily basis I see those gay "for every animal you don't eat etc..." pictures, and fark threads on the matter are usually an entire herd of ITG's talking about how they love STEAK.

The odd vegetarian that does speak up, more often than not for the purpose of plain discussion, or to say they don't give a shiat what you eat, is given the internet equivalent of a tar and feathering. farking groupthink.

Stay classy, Fark.