OT: meat is Murder

[Kodama]

Tapper, just make your sig "I don't care" and be done with it.

Then you can peacefully go back to join the ranks of the Judaen People's Suicide Front Elite Scholarly Nihilist Mental Mastabatorium unit.

[Salty P]

What, just that you have to hear it at all?

I have no problem listening to any argument, I'd just like to have an open-minded discussion rather than being preached to.

I think your ONLY issue is that my argument is offensive to you. The points I make are not argued on the facts, rather they are "too preachy" "too emotional", etc.. when others can skate by posting "I like steak" comments unscathed.

Your argument isn't offensive at all, in fact I think the whole moral question about what we eat is a fascinating one.
What's the point in biting when someone writes 'I really fancy a burger' in a thread like this? It's just a cheap throw away comment, you on the other hand are laying judgement on everyone's ethics.

When did you decide that you could dictate when and how people can discuss differences of ethics?

I'm not dictating anything, a discussion about ethics would be interesting but that would entail you 'discuss' ethics rather than 'tell' everyone what they are.

seriously, if you can't deal, if I piss you off too bad just by being here and stating my case, then move along.

Anyone that doesn't think like you shouldn't voice an opinion?

I didn't start this thread. Look at the first post and then tell me about being an adult.

The original post was just silly, and the thread was reasonably light hearted until your 'Pop nihilism Vs ethical thought' bullshit.


I have no issue with passionate argument, but what's the point of having any discussions if you don't care about anyone else's point of view?

[stringtapper]

Tapper, just make your sig "I don't care" and be done with it.

Then you can peacefully go back to join the ranks of the Judaen People's Suicide Front Elite Scholarly Nihilist Mental Mastabatorium unit.

Ah insult. The last bastion of a man with no argument.

No hard feelings. I'm glad you're happy with your lifestyle, if it works for you then perhaps we can both agree that it is a "good" thing.

[bagginz]

Ah, but if I were trying to justify it to myself that would imply that I thought something "wrong" was going on. It's not that I feel something morally "wrong" is happening, it's that in the context of my cultural upbringing, thinking about animals being hurt causes a particular reaction within me that is uncomfortable. So in choosing not think about it I am not "justifying" but merely "regulating" my own physiology so as to not be uncomfortable.

Interesting discussion...

Stringtapper, have you considered the possibility that your "uncomfortable reaction" might be something worth listening to? Rather than "regulating" away?

Personally speaking, I would call that feedback mechanism "conscience" with all that it implies.

Cheers,
bagginz

[ThrowAway]

Im ok with feeding and sheltering a animal until they are plump and ripe, humanely killing them and then eating them.I could raise a cow myself, come to love it, they are quit charming animals, and then kill it and eat it when the time is right. My code of ethics does not conflict with killing animals for food. This is not morally objectionable to vast majority of humans on this planet, you guys are big minority on this for a reason. All arguments presented here for not eating animals are giant masses of fail. That video could have been put together by Michael Moore or the bush administration. This is nothing like the holocaust. Joaquin is an ASSHOLE.

[stringtapper]

Ah, but if I were trying to justify it to myself that would imply that I thought something "wrong" was going on. It's not that I feel something morally "wrong" is happening, it's that in the context of my cultural upbringing, thinking about animals being hurt causes a particular reaction within me that is uncomfortable. So in choosing not think about it I am not "justifying" but merely "regulating" my own physiology so as to not be uncomfortable.

Interesting discussion...

Stringtapper, have you considered the possibility that your "uncomfortable reaction" might be something worth listening to? Rather than "regulating" away?

Personally speaking, I would call that feedback mechanism "conscience" with all that it implies.

Cheers,
bagginz

Of course. I consider and reconsider it on a daily basis. I have both listened to it and suppressed it on multitudes of occasions. For me personally, it's much more interesting trying to figure out exactly what's causing it, rather than simply listening to it or not listening to it. Does this so-called "conscience" originate purely from learned experience? Instinct? Cultural influence? Some confluence of all of the above?

Then there's the problem of trying to figure out why the same reaction occurs when I myself have taken no action (e.g. seeing the dead kitten in the road), the definition of "conscience" being "an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior."

Interesting indeed, but I guess we're a bit far afield at this point, and the natives seem restless.

[hurlingdervish]

i cant believe this thread is still going

eat all the meat you want, or don't. but don't act like you are entitled to eat meat just because you're human, or act like everyone has to be a vegetarian.

[jsg4z]

we are entitled to eat meat because we have teeth
we are entitled to walk because we have legs
we are entitled to be vegan because we have brains

[glamourboy]

Aside from the ethical/compassionate reasons (which are important to me) and the huge ecological benefits the argument for the health benefits is overwhelmingly positive.

see, that's what got me interested in this thread: longer life!

[bosonHavoc]

but nofx is better then the smiths

[loquat]

Medium rare please!

[jsg4z]

13 pages and no picts of megan fox

they shoulda cast her in the animal movie, there would be a lot more vegans

[Machinesworking]

If you eat meat every day for the rest of your life chances are hundreds if not thousands of the animals lives you have eaten were lived in total abject misery, with a brutal and scary death. Deal with it.

Nature is brutal and scary. It's just that standards of living have risen for enough humans that we have now compartmentalized the brutality and the scariness on a scale not known in human history. Before it was the royalty who could have it done for them. Now anyone who isn't already in the business of butchering can have it done for them (I'm talking about first and second world here).

If we fuck it up and don't get to "Star Trek," then things may go "Mad Max" instead, and then the brutality and scariness will return, front and center, for all species to enjoy once again.

I don't think nature is brutal and scary, it's just honestly savage, no garbage violence. Very few animals have survived evolution that kill with no reason behind it. Even predatory animals that kill 'for no reason' are practicing. It's efficient and sane.

Factory farming and farming animals for food in large numbers is insane to me. I grew up on a farm for a while and killed chickens dear etc. but it wasn't a slaughterhouse. Animals waiting to die on slaughter day, in the hundreds, this isn't natural. Even the sea turtle hatching, shown on TV over and over as an example of nature's brutality, even there some animals survive, the turtles race to the sea, some make it. Animals raised in the hundreds and thousands to be hamburger meat just isn't natural. See what I'm saying? Nature being brutal etc. is natural, mankind's version is fucked up. Ever pass by a chicken "farm"? It's essentially a huge warehouse, with no windows, and it stinks for at least a half mile around it. Yeah, that's natural. Now pass by a wheat field or an apple orchard....

I know that personally I have no physical disabilities at all at 40+ when most of the people I grew up with are in bad shape, diet related diseases/symptoms etc. No muscle aches, back problems, high blood pressure or cholesterol. Not out of shape compared to my early 20's, not really very affected by aging, except the grey hairs! That alone makes it worth it to me. Couple that with factory farming being a disgusting abnormal mess to me, and the fact that even if you did eat range grown most of the time, there are very few people who can and would ONLY eat range grown. Besides even then it's not natural to me.


This is essentially a waste of time thread though. Food is far more emotionally volatile of a subject for people than even politics IMO. You get into a situation where you have to tell someone you don't eat animal products and almost half the people want to argue with you about it. It gets old.

[stringtapper]

I don't think nature is brutal and scary, it's just honestly savage, no garbage violence. Very few animals have survived evolution that kill with no reason behind it. Even predatory animals that kill 'for no reason' are practicing. It's efficient and sane.

Believing that nature is brutal and scary does not preclude having a belief that it is also beautiful and soothing at the same time.

You believe that animal slaughter for the purposes of food harvesting is killing "for no reason?" Clearly there is a reason or it wouldn't be happening at all. Are you saying it's only being done because there are a few madmen who get off on mass murdering animals and the remains actually aren't being used for food? You're not saying that, right? Sounds like the the slaughterhouses are pretty efficient to me. As to how "sane" they are, well they do provide food for humans, and humans eating (whether they're eating what you think they should be or not) seems like a fairly "sane" course of action to me.

Factory farming and farming animals for food in large numbers is insane to me. I grew up on a farm for a while and killed chickens dear etc. but it wasn't a slaughterhouse. Animals waiting to die on slaughter day, in the hundreds, this isn't natural. Even the sea turtle hatching, shown on TV over and over as an example of nature's brutality, even there some animals survive, the turtles race to the sea, some make it. Animals raised in the hundreds and thousands to be hamburger meat just isn't natural. See what I'm saying? Nature being brutal etc. is natural, mankind's version is fucked up. Ever pass by a chicken "farm"? It's essentially a huge warehouse, with no windows, and it stinks for at least a half mile around it. Yeah, that's natural. Now pass by a wheat field or an apple orchard....

I have always had a problem with the conventional definition of the word "natural." If humans are doing it, then there is obviously something "natural" about it. That is to say that it is part of human nature to have developed to the point of taking such actions simply because... well, we did. I'm not speaking of what could have happened, and not what should happen, but what did happen. And history tells us that it was in some part of human nature to devise these methods of food harvesting.

[bagginz]

Aside from the ethical/compassionate reasons (which are important to me) and the huge ecological benefits the argument for the health benefits is overwhelmingly positive.

see, that's what got me interested in this thread: longer life!

Greetings glamourboy,
Some of the health benefits of a plant based diet are truly astonishing.

If you didn't already follow the links on my previous post, I'd recommend it.

At least this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNeWCvLZ ... re=related if you don't have a lot of time

"Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, chief of surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, discusses his 18-year study whereby he reversed severe heart disease in every patient in his program who had all been sent home to die by their cardiologists. Dr. Esselstyn shows you how by changing your diet you can prevent and reverse heart disease. A low-fat plant-based (vegetarian) diet is the key.«

Note, this isn't some pasty faced eco-freak we are talking about. Cleveland Clinic has been voted as one of the best hospitals for heart surgery in the U.S. and Caldwell Esselstyn, is chief of surgery.

Hard science, peer reviewed data.

The more I've researched this topic the more I've come to understand that our modern meat and dairy based western diet is essentially toxic to the human body.

Though that poisoning is slowly cumulative and used to occur over decades, changes to the modern diet over the last 4 or 5 decades have massively accelerated the process to epidemic proportions (shockingly now many are now being diagnosed with heart disease and type 2 diabetes in their teens )

The end result is that following our modern meat and dairy based western diet pretty much guarantees coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer in what used to be later years but is increasingly much earlier nowadays, depending on how much meat and dairy is consumed by that individual.

Yes, this does go against conventional thinking, much of which appears to be based upon a cross between 19th century nutritional discoveries (protein dicovered as a nutrient by Gerardus Mulder in 1838) and entrenched corporate food industry propoganda (nicely illustrated by the Lard advert earlier in this thread.)




Also see Dr T. Colin Campbell's "The China Study" (Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University)
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study

"the most comprehensive study of diet, lifestyle and disease ever done with humans in the history of
biomedical research. It was a massive undertaking jointly arranged through Cornell
University, Oxford University and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. The New York
Times called it the “Grand Prix of Epidemiology.” This project surveyed a vast range of
diseases and diet and lifestyle factors in rural China and, more recently, in Taiwan."

"The authors conclude that “the findings from the China Study indicate that the lower the percentage of animal-based foods that are consumed, the greater the health benefits—even when that percentage declines from 10% to 0% of calories. So it’s not unreasonable to assume that the optimum percentage of animal-based products is zero, at least for anyone with a predisposition for a degenerative disease.”


Cheers,
bagginz