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Originally Posted by ThePhanastasio
I'm a vegetarian. I have been for years. I do, however, think that it's somewhat bizarre for people to say that "Meat is murder". Always have.
My not eating meat is a personal decision, one which I recognize I must supplement with vitamins and such daily in order to remain healthy. (I also have iron deficiency anemia, which means it's particularly important that I take vitamins and eat the proper foods. If I go just a day without doing so, I get really sleepy and feel like crap.)
But meat isn't murder - not by a long stretch. I don't like the way that our meat is processed, nor do I like how the animals are treated. I find it extremely unfair that we breed animals for the sole purpose of eating them - they don't even get a chance.
If people actually hunted their food in the wild to eat, I'd have less of a problem with it, I suppose. I feel like at least then, the animals have a fighting chance and get to live their lives the way they were meant to live them...before the predators (us) ate them. That's just the way things work in the wild. It's natural.
I don't look at a cheetah eating an antelope and start crying foul, exclaiming that the cheetah is a murderer. It's a freaking cheetah. It eats meat.
As such, people are omnivores. We do have certain intelligence and moral codes which other animals don't have, which means we can choose to not eat meat in keeping with our personal set of ethics. It also means we can continue to eat meat if it strikes our fancy.
It's a matter of preference. Not murder.
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I agree with you on many of your views, Phanastasio, such as not blaming cheetahs for being obligatory carnivores, although I'm sorry for the antelope.
Also, I agree that people killing and eating an animal isn't murder in the legal sense. Murder means specifically the intentional killing of another human being (who does not want to be killed).
But is a human who kills and eats an animal still committing murder in the
ethical sense?
If I were to walk down a street and see a golden retriever on a lawn enjoying playing with a ball, and if I were to grab her by the scruff of her neck, take out my knife while she yelps, and slit her throat so I can eat her when I don't need to, is that ethically the equivalent of murder?
How different is that scenario from what people have sometimes done, which is kill little children to eat them (such as occurred in North Korea, according to reports, during the famines of 2002)? Both a 3-year-old human child and a young dog are enjoying their lives up until someone kills them. Both of them feel fear and pain. Both of them lack a clear understanding of life/death issues. Why is killing the golden retriever not also ethically murder like killing the little human child is?
Another way in which our views differ is that you feel eating meat is a "personal" choice. I feel that killing and eating an animal is *not* a personal choice, because you affect not just yourself but someone else...and you affect that individual very horribly, by taking her or his life. That isn't personal.
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Originally Posted by tore
Ah, when I think of free range, I usually think of how it's regulated by the European Union.
Of course, Norway is not part of the European Union so exactly what free range chicken means here, I don't know. They do exist here, but it's a relatively rare sight. The last time I went to find free range chicken in the store around the corner, they didn't have any. Poor chickorinos.
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The EU is much better than the U.S. in its humane farming standards, and I admire that about Europeans. They seem to have a stronger conscience in some ways. Americans seem more likely to do anything for money.
Iowa has the most egg-laying hens of any state in the U.S., and given the weather here you know almost all of them are indoors in unlit, sealed buildings in tiny cages for their whole lives. Poor chickorinos is right!!
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Originally Posted by Dirty
I am not a vegetarian, and I never will be. Gay pun aside, I just love meat. Steaks, pork chops, ribs, bacon, etc. Absolutely delicious.
I don't have any moral hold-up with killing animals and eating them.
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Even when I was a small child, I knew I loved animals more than I liked meat.
I'm always curious, Dirty, how it happens that certain people feel this empathy for other animals, while others apparently don't. I think one reason I may feel a strong protective sense about animals is that I've always had a feeling of wonder for them. I'm amazed they are alive and aware. I'd hate to be the one to end or contribute to the ending of their one chance to experience awareness.
I hope if I ever meet anyone bigger, stronger, and smarter than I, she will have mercy on me as well and not decide to kill and eat me because I am delicious. Because I probably am!
