On 25 Jul 2003 17:55:47 -0700, (Diederik)
wrote:
LP <whirl_pool@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<vgvghv0dvacfugimr5pdti6bco1pn9i3u6@4ax.com>...
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 22:20:12 GMT, "Robert Schneider"
<rss1174@SPAMMENOT.earthlink.net> wrote:
"Born Again Atheist" <michael@buffalo.com> wrote in message
news:a07bedeb.0307181211.5ea88279@posting.google.com...
Should homo sapien sapien be a vegetarian?
Currently I am a carnivore and seriously looking to the possibility of
becoming a herbivore.
----------clipped--------
Abstaining from red meat is one thing, abstaining from all animal proteins
is quite another.
You are quite right. No animals have to die if we use their milk,
non-fertile eggs, or honey.
- What's the difference between slaughtering a chicken for human
consumption and squashing a roach or setting up a trap for rodents?
Surely, rodents and roaches are our contenders, invaders of our
"habitat", and competitors! All mentioned animals possess nervous
system, therefore, physical discomfort and pain can be felt by any of
them.
I wonder how many vegetarians are hypocrites in that way.
If you use an animals intelligence as your guide, there is a big
difference. There is no reason to see the killing of animals as a
black and white issue. If we can justify that humans deserve special
privilege when deciding whether or not to use them as food source,
then why not also use more "human-like" as a criteria in the decision.
The more intelligent the animal, the less likely they will be killed
for our convenience.
Last I checked, we do use "more human-like" as a criteria. Do we eat
chimpanzees or gorillas? When was the last time you chowed down on a
nice juicy dolphin steak?
And that was my point.
Generally speaking, I do use that criteria as my basis for deciding
what animals I am willing to use for food.
The original posters suggest that there is little difference between
killing a chicken, and killing a roach. I believe that there is a big
difference.
- Many animals are kept in evident poor conditions, neglected,
genetically altered, injected with steroids, unnatural interbreeding,
overfed, underfed, over fattened, and end with physically
discomforting deaths.
Cattle are slaughtered starting with a .22 gauge knocking pin shot into
their brains before they are hung upside down and have their throats cut.
99.9% of the time they don't feel anything.
It is not unusual for the cow to still be alive when they are hung
upside down for their throat slitting. At least this is what was told
to me by someone who does that for a living.
1. Is it able to feel the pain? That's a critical question.
A critical question of which the answer is most reasonably a Yes.
I doubt that you could listen to the tormented bellows of a bull being
castrated for very long without concluding that the bull was feeling
pain.
2. Is this fate better or worse than being pulled down and torn limb
from limb by wolves or some other predator.
Do you base all of your moral guidelines on the behavior of wolves, or
just when it is convenient?
.
