Originally Posted by Trollheart

Agreed, with emphasis on the greed part. **** veg. I want my meat. Doesn't mean I don't feel bad when I eat meat (well actually it does; I don't, not usually - blind spot I guess. Maybe I've trained myself or been conditioned not to think about it. I - AM - A - RO-BOT!) but I would certainly advocate for better conditions for animals. I make little gestures. I buy free range eggs for instance. And now you're laughing.

But no matter what, that does not make me value animal life less than human. In a one-to-one, life-or-death struggle, yes, I'll take mine over that of a rapid gerbil or a dangerous spider, or even a psychotic slug. But killing an animal that's doing you no harm for no other reason than that it's there and you want to show what a big man/woman you are for being able to kill a defenceless animal? No.

I wonder, if stags and boars and so forth had built-in weapons, would people want to hunt them as much?