Not one of those individuals can speak to the suffering of animals. They can only observe the reaction of the animals and pontificate.

Do these individuals also consider themselves lower than wolves?

would you think a lion is immoral for eating the wildebeest?

i think nature has always maintained a balance with omnivores herbivores and carnivores... i think balance is key... especially if overpopulation of certain animals has a negative impact on the environment... but to eat a species of crab thats going extinct simply because its delicious and craved... thats where the line is...

i agree the treatment of animals should be improved... i think animals deserve rights...

i certainly disagree with hunting for fun or making trophies out of dead animals... thats certainly a sick thing to do...

if reincarnation is how it works... would nobody choose to come back as an animal meant to be food? I certainly wouldnt want to be a chicken or cow in the american meat industry... i would choose a land in more need of food... but just like if my family was deserted and about to resort to cannibalism... i truly believe i would offer myself...

as humans were granted with a specialized empathy it certainly feels wrong sometimes... but it doesnt mean its cruel and wrong to survive... but lately its not survival... its cravings... comfort foods...

its certainly a good thing to practice healthy morals and eat in a healthy way... but its unhealthy to take it to an extreme and say no meat never ever, especially if our teeth and digestive system were designed to consume meat. and kinda silly from my perspective when they even go so far as to say milk is for baby cows and not humans...

what about chicken noodle soup when your sick?

remember that part in hitchhikers guide.... the cow feels its purpose is to be dinner... to deny him the ability upset him...

YO!

Life lives upon life as the snake consuming its own tail. This harsh reality is not one you can escape from, becoming a vegetarian does not mean you escape this, vegetables are life forms. Have you never heard the horrific screams emanating from a tomato being sliced. It might be said that the vegetable is the most innocent of life forms and the least able to defend itself--------shame on you, it simply disgusts me!! Did you know Hitler was a vegetarian? One could become to sensitive to survive, the killing and the consumption of other life forms is the way of nature, granted nature is horrific, but that is the way it is.

"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite." - Leo Tolstoy.

I'm seriously thinking about vegetarianism for myself, as I hope to be an advocate of nonviolence in the future... and this would appear to contradict with any meat eating.

The great question is though, where IS the line drawn? If my blood is being sucked by a mosquito, must I let it be? What if ants were to get into my vegetables? In my opinion, if one becomes a vegetarian for ethical reasons, they must draw a line somewhere. And the tiniest insect suffers as much as the cow, the chicken, and the human being.

Before I even begin to consider this argument, can anyone please explain to me how we observe and measure suffering?

yeah... good question...

plus wheres the line in the right to life argument too... trees? flowers? herbs and medicines? bacteria? parasites? nothing should be harmed? flowers cant be picked... trees cant be chopped down... a parasite has the right to live in you if it got in... even though it feels pain and would suffer the most slow and painful starvation ever if removed...

see... i just think there is a line... and different personalities will put it in a different place... we should just respect the choice thats made... all too many vegetarians are so actively hateful over meat eaters... and many omnivores i know tease the peta people... thats an even more unhealthy mentality yknow...

Where precisely lies the line? Is it okay to eat clams since they have no central nervous system, self-awareness, etc?

I would not bring up PETA as a good example of people trying to end the suffering of animals - PETA has killed thousands of animals at their headquarters.

MFTP: how can we observe and measure suffering? I'm not sure that suffering can be measure in any objective way, however, observing suffering is easy.
For example: go hit your dog, hard. Tomorrow, raise your fist at the dog as though you are going to strike and see if the dog cowers. Well, no, do not strike your dog: but you get the point. We can witness these animals avoid suffering and abuse.

Ever mistreat a cat? Afterwards, she doesn't purr and rub against your leg anymore, does she?

The lion is not immoral for eating a gazelle; the lion has no moral faculty. Humans, however, do have a moral faculty. We have a conscience. This conscience is a gift as well as a responsibility. I am a carnivore, but I accept the fact that being so is immoral.

The question is: is causing suffering morally acceptable or morally reprehensible? If causing suffering is the latter, we have a moral duty to try our best not to cause any undue suffering.

"Violence does not and cannot exist by itself; it is invariably intertwined with the lie." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

True in many ways but why should that discuss you? What does Hitler have to do with it? Just thought I'd toss those out there boagie.

Who knows where to draw the line in suffering and who really cares what the other guy does anyway. If one wants to eat meat and one does not, that's a personal choice and often times a spiritual one as well.



I love a nice Ribeye or Filet Mignon. However as of recent and certainly unexpectedly my tastes started to change. It could be because I'm around 3 months since quitting smoking. Needless to say, I've been having similar thoughts on becoming a vegetarian. Not necessarily because I want to but because meat doesn't taste good to me anymore. It's funny how these types of things come up in the forums... timing and the thought.

Back to the topic though. I'm leaning towards vegetables and learing to appreciate them and all they have to offer towards health and vibrant mind. I believe becoming a vegetarian would be a personal choice in the direction of the, sharpening of one's stone, per se.

Vegetarianism is certainly a personal choice: just as my carnivorous tendencies, despite the fact that I theoretically find meat eating to be morally reprehensible in most circumstances, is a personal choice.

But, even if we admit that the decision is ultimately a personal one, the question of the morality of eating meat remains.

Well, that's not necessarily true. It's wholly dependent on the development of the nervous system.

---

Let's delve further:

Many creatures have diets constructed upon organisms that live near their natural habitats. Suppose humans did not have the methods of transportation currently available and could only survive on the animals closest, would it be immoral for us to kill these animals for food? Mind you, this is the way it was throughout the known earth before the advent of anything but horseback. Many more suppositions could be offered, but it would just water this post down (Note: Many of these suppositions would have been prevalent in some form during humanity's existence; they wouldn't just be fantastical conjurations)

The question is: Would the critically thinking vegetarian consider that the very prospect of causing another life pain may not be the deciding factor, but rather particular circumstance?

When one decides to become a vegetarian, I usually see an elitist attitude develop. I witness a tendency to lecture, and also a disrespect for those that aren't advocates of a vegetarian diet. Sometimes, I even see vegetarians argue with more fervor than a fundamentalist Christian! Mind you, I'm not saying this applies to every vegetarian, and I understand my experience may not be that of everyone else. However, for one that takes the path of "Don't harm any creature", I tend to see much harm done, usually in the form of verbal abuse. But I digress, let me stay on track:

As others have asked, where is the line? One can honestly not see the line. Sure, you can refrain from eating animals (mind you, the animals are dead either way), but what does this really change? Unless one completely secludes themselves from society, they will be contributing no matter what to the death of various life-forms. Do these same "vegetarians" not drive cars (harmful emissions for many mammalian creatures), live in houses (destruction of natural habitat), wear clothes (destruction of habitat, in addition to killing of various forms of bacteria, insects), eat grain and vegetables (harvesting kills small rodents and various life-forms)*, or take walks (destruction of insects, insect habitats)?

* Many of these vegetarians buy from popular grocery stores that have contracts with various distributors which harvest grain and vegetables, in, what a vegetarian may judge, "An immoral manner". However, very view are away of our current harvesting procedures, so this is overlooked. If, however, vegetarians were aware of this, I believe a vast majority would become anaroxic [or a bit more flexible]

Either live in your little hut secluded from society, personally harvesting your own vegetables (hoping you don't kill a bee... also hoping that science doesn't reveal plants can *feel* on some level after all!), never abruptly stepping outside in fear you may bring death upon a creature, or, and I'm sorry to use this juvenile quote: "Stop acting like your **** don't stink".



Perhaps moral duty is completely subjective, based upon the society one lives in, among other factors/beliefs; It appears it's something that doesn't really have a definitive right or wrong answer, often times being a highly complex evaluation. If you made a thread concerning this, I'd surely chip in.

Hi Justin,

Actually the harsh reality of life living on life is not a pleasing realization to most people, Schopenhaur stated it is forever contary to any sense of morality. The comment about Hilter being a vegetarian was tongue in cheek, I guess that was not as obvious as I had hoped it would be. Nature is cruel that is just reality, in becoming a vegetarian one does not escape that reality, but perhaps there is less suffering on the part of living things due to a vegetarian diet.

Here's a thought I had that I couldn't figure out:

I eat meat. One reason is because It is provided. I do not have to kill the animal to eat it. The one exception being that I went hunting a couple of times with my pops and Ended up shooting a buck deer. He taught me too gut it and strip the meat. Stripping meat off a deer is tough work even with a fairly sharp knife. Anyways, This whole process to almost an entire 24 hours from the time I spent hunting my prey to the packaging of the meat. So I never went hunting again and its been eight years since I've killed an animal for food.

I feel that alot of meat consumption in the US is due to the easy access. I would venture a guess and say that alot of this is at the preference of taste and luxury more so then necessity.

My question is Where does necessity have a foot in whether the consumption of meat is productive and not a luxury?

and

Is the luxury of meat a good enough argument against the killing of an animal?

Most of the animals that PETA recovers they slaughter because they cannot find homes for them.

Joe,

Certainly if people had to do their own killing and slaughtering there would be more vegetarians, conveinance and luxury are twin aspects of our modern living are they not? I have known people who do not, or did not, consider that they were in this relation of life lives on life, they were so removed their food source that they actually lost this sense.

Hey Boagie,

Yeah, I think its an interesting point that abundance is a filter of how we might feel differently on certain subjects. They don't have to be "moral" reasons, but they qualify for honesty.

peace

The evolution of the brain over the thousands of years leading to us human beings can be attributed to eating bone marrow mainly, right? (we were once scavengers, how does that settle your stomach?) If it doesn't settle well, then you're a vegetarian for the wrong reasons. The carcass is already dead.

Vegetarianism is only a higher level of view insomuch as it is based on the level of awareness one wishes to have on how animals are treated. There is no should-be mentality in this decision that can be based on absolute paradigms. It is simply a matter of ignorance vs. awareness.

The morality branches off from the awareness in a linear proportion, so there is no real higher level of morality involved in being a vegetarian either.

In nature animals kill one another for food on a regular basis with presumably no ethical objections to doing so. Apparently with our higher intellect, we humans have developed the ability to question the morality of killing other living beings for food (though how we define living beings does matter - as was mentioned, plants might also be considered living beings). Most people, however, arrive at the conclusion that there is nothing inappropriate about eating meat.

While I am not a vegetarian, I do admire those willing to take on the lifestyle . If nothing else, it seems to result in better health on average.