Well, none of the vegetarians here are remotely pushy, unless challenged.

Concentrating on the particular aspect of cruelty, now I'd like to mention other historical and present "culprits": religions (well, at least some of them), superstitions, false social beliefs, ignorance, lies, lack of education, etc...

Unfortunately, atrocities like the one mentioned in the first post are very old:

Cat-burning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



And then and now, one of the causes is the lack of education and culture. For instance, what about wolves? Due to all those traditional and stupid beliefs and lies about wolves, many idiots have inflicted a terrible damage on them for centuries, with an unusual sadism. And many other idiots have minimized its importance because they share the same false beliefs. And even now, in the "age of Internet", it is very difficult to eradicate certain absurd myths, in order to spread the truth and knowledge. Let's say this once and for all: wolves NEVER attack humans. That's a myth. In fact, wild wolves AVOID humans. They fear us. And in captivity... well... just look at this:

Some people here act like vegetarians are similar to believing in God with the respect of how against it you are. If they don't want to eat meat for moral (and other) reasons then let them. I've certainly contemplated becoming one.

Yeah I usually don't do this. Mostly because I don't really care what people eat. My think lately is how rude people are is getting to me. And I think it's rude to challenge someone's views if they don't give a **** about what your views are. My view is, I don't care if people eat meat, so leave me the **** alone.
The other day someone was challenging my vegetarianism and I got frustrated because I don't feel any reason to explain it. Curiosity is one thing, but questioning my views is something else entirely.

I don't CARE if it makes a difference. I just don't want to ****ing eat meat.
I don't want to do it. If your view is that everyone's going to die anyway, then eat meat. I don't CARE. I feel like I keep saying one thing and you're arguing something else entirely.

word.

This is a really interesting statement, but I don't understand it, do you think you could explain? I think that you're saying people compare vegetarians to super religious peole but I don't know what "how against it you are" means. I completely agree with you on the rest.



And trust me guys, I'm sure we've all met some annoying people who push their views upon others. I'm not one of those people. I definitely know that Paloma isn't one of those people either. I don't see any reason to argue with vegetarianism with people who don't give a **** what the other side of the argument is. You're not going to make me eat meat by telling me I'm not making a difference. I'm not a vegetarian because I think I'm making a difference. Whether or not the animal is dead isn't the deal for me, I just don't want to be the one consuming it.
You're NOT going to change my mind by showing me how good a burger is. I've had a burger. I know what I'm missing. I know how good it tastes. Guess what. I've not had one for 5 years and I'LL BE OKAY.
You're DEFINITELY not going to change my mind by telling me the reasons why YOU eat meat. I don't give a ****.
Vegetarians who care about these things and vegetarians who get in your face are obnoxious, even to me. So going around thinking that you can group me in with the rest of them is like me grouping you meat eaters in with the people who slaughter the animals and keep them in those disgusting conditions.
I chose to be a vegetarian for my own reasons and I will stick with that until I personally change my mind, if I ever do. And if I do? You won't be able to change my mind either. So I suggest you keep your thoughts to yourself if you're going to try and convince me otherwise. I've probably heard them all before. And most of the reasons, I've heard in 8th grade when I became a vegetarian. You're not creative.

Now if you're curious or something, that's a different story entirely, and I'd love to have a conversation about your reasons for eating or not eating meat for the sake of having an intelligent conversation.

I decided to become a vegetarian three weeks ago, in a few months I will make the transition to veganism when I know my body can adjust.

Humans and nonhuman animals are of equal worth. Knowing this, there must be equal rights for both.

If we can test hair products on nonhuman animals, we should also be able to test hair products on infants.

Likewise, if we can put down cats because of expensive medical treatment, we can put down humans for the same reason.

If we can create an industry for raising and murdering cows for food, we can create a similar industry to raise children in tight quarters, to use them for slave labor, and then to kill them when they are in the best condition so others can eat them.

That's why I plan to transition to veganism. It is logically inconsistent to support the meat industry and the rights of humans.

Maybe you feel that way because of this :

"Knowing this", really? The above quote about equal worth doesn't seem logical to me. Humans are closely related genetically, are capable of detailed communication and cooperation with eachother and my well being depends on the well being of/social interactions with other people. I don't feel that the same applies to the pigs we slaughter and really, I've only poked at the tip of the iceberg here. Take into account our an evolutionary history where we have evolved as social animals working together to bring down animals like pigs for food and the whole difference thing becomes even more fundamental.

Why do you think animals and people automatically have the same worth? What kind of moral argument do you base that on?

Humans and nonhuman animals have the same worth because there is no inherent difference between us. We are both life. What separates apart from intelligence?

A retarded infant is technically dumber than a dolphin. But we would never euthanize a baby, but I'm sure many people wouldn't mind the murder of a dolphin. Intelligence cannot be used to elevate humans about nonhuman animals.

So is a lion the same worth as a human also? What about the gazzelle he hunts?
Would you kill a tree to make your shelter? Would you step on a spider crawling to your leg? Being equals as regards the gift of life doesn't have to mean we stop the cycle of life and death.

I agree with what you said about the meat industry, but for different reasons as I can't follow the logic of yours. If man of equal worth to the
Lion, then man's method of "hunting" is equal to the lions. So that means the meat industry us "natural"?

Sorry I will delete my other post, I think you edited.

The difference in our 'hunting' methods is that lions don't have the capacity or the options in abstaining from meat. The majority of humans, on the other hand, have the capacity to distinguish what is right and the option to abstain from meat and live a healthy life.

My apologies on using the word 'life' so broadly. I believe nonhuman animals should have an equal moral status to that of humans. Assuming this, I feel it is immoral to cause any animal, human or nonhuman, pain.

Okay, I understand what you're saying now.

Yes, the universe moves along toward its unflinching fate...but not killing and eating an animal NOW makes a difference to that animal NOW.

Imagine you are a hunter. You are about to shoot a deer through her vital organs. If you *don't* do this to her, then she will live on another day, perhaps another week, month, year, five years. Your decision not to kill and eat her makes a difference to HER.

Similarly, when you don't support eating meat, you reduce the demand for meat, so fewer animals are raised in often unpleasant conditions and slaughtered at a young age. You have PREVENTED unnecessary cruelty to animals.

Another example: If people raised cows for milk and didn't slaughter these cows at a young age (as occurs now), then this would make a difference to the COWS who could then live out their 20 years or so in relative peace.

I'm a vegan because it makes a difference that I feel is positive. It isn't a large difference, per person, but it is still a difference.

I'm a vegan much in the same way as I am an opponent of capital punishment of humans. My opposition by itself doesn't make a huge difference, but combined with all the other opponents we can and do sometimes get capital punishment to be against the law. Iowa still has no capital punishment. I always vote for people who oppose capital punishment. And that makes a difference to the humans who aren't slaughtered.

Welcome back to MB, Double X! :) As a vegan, I understand your reasoning, of course. Like you say:

No being has inherent worth, I feel. Our human judgement is what "gives" others worth.

I agree with you that intelligence alone should not be used to determine a being's worth. A computer could be more intelligent than I am in many ways, but I will still care more if a human, or dog, or pig has her throat slit and her body destroyed, because I know humans, dogs, and pigs *feel*.

Double X, if you ever have any questions about veganism and nutrition, feel free to ask me. I had to learn a lot about vegan nutrition from books and the internet back in 1997 when I dropped dairy and eggs from my vegetarian diet, since I knew no vegans with whom I could talk. So, I am knowledgeable about vegan nutrition and am more than happy to answer any questions you may have, since I love trying to make it easier for people to reduce cruelty toward animals.

I didn't use the word intelligence, but I did mention a number of reasons why one could consider humans and other species to have different worth. Did you read my post?

This is just a very few things. You could mention sexual compatibility or that some physical and behavioural traits common in babies of some species may stimulate human parental instincts while these traits lack in other species. You can try and deny/ignore all that by some kind of misguided rationality, but you'd only be kidding yourself. If you are a healthy human being, faced with having to decide between killing a human baby and a fish, your feelings would tell you to spare the human baby and kill the fish. As a social mammal, cooperating with/caring for/empathizing with/etc other humans are traits that have evolved and so the choice is already programmed into you.

So you are claiming that we value humans over nonhumans because they are a simply different species?

Thanks :) I'll be sure to

To vegans who consider their lifestyle an effort to make change, would you consider it helpful if someone were to decrease the amount of meat in their diet (though not eliminate it), or hypocritical?

I hope not. Because that's me.

See, I'm not even like that.
Eating animals makes me sad.
So I don't eat them.
It's literally that simple.

I don't really think having meat or not having meat really changes anything for cruelty to animals. There are better measures that can be taken through improved legislation and pressure on the people carrying out the cruelty.

I feel it is *very* helpful when people reduce the amount of meat in their diet, Pedestrian.

Reducing cruelty toward animals is my goal, because I feel eliminating it would be very difficult right away. Baby steps. I haven't been able to eliminate all harm that I do to animals and doubt it is possible to do so thoroughly.

Examples: My house's window wells sometimes bring about the demise of field mice. (I need to buy covers.) I'm sure vaccines from which I benefit were tested on animals. I work in a lab and some ingredients in solutions are derived from animals whom people slaughtered. I buy substitutes when possible, such as a genetically engineered enzyme rather than one purified from pigs directly. Sometimes it isn't possible, so I weigh the benefits of the research with the harm caused to animals (usually animals slaughtered for meat, but pharmaceuticals are made from byproducts).

Eating animals and foods made from them also makes me sad, AwwSugar. That's the reason I became vegetarian and then later vegan. That's the reason I *care* that being vegan makes a difference.

When I know an animal has been hurt, I feel this as a painful emotion. When I see eggs, I know about the piles of dead male baby chicks people kill (suffocate) because they will never lay eggs, and I am sad. When I see someone bringing home a dead pheasant from hunting, I've burst into tears before. When I sit in a lobster house and people around me are eating lobsters whom chefs just boiled alive (though research suggests this is painful to lobsters) I've similarly burst into tears Blow for fans of boiled lobster: crustaceans feel pain, study says | Science | The Guardian).

At my in-laws recently, when they were watching a rodeo video of one of their children running to a staked goat, grabbing her, smashing her down on the ground, and tying her up, I started to sob, right there in the room, surrounded by 20 suddenly very uncomfortable in-law relatives. And I didn't sob quietly. My mother-in-law told me a little angrily, "Just go," and I replied, very adamantly, through my sobs, "No!!! I *won't* go."

When other in-laws over-handled a scared goat they'd purchased for their 4-year-old to practice roping on, and I heard the goat bleating...I could feel her or his fear...I got very agitated and started to say very loudly, "You're scaring her! Stop scaring her!"

Watching people mistreat and then eat animals makes me serious and sad. The former lives and the deaths of those animals are so close, I can't push them away. I can't stay unmoved, Sugar. I can't ignore their fear and pain any more than I could ignore yours, if we were in a room and someone were hurting you. I would try to rescue you.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/sle...610/story.html

100 sled dogs slaughtered - the grisly details should serve as a wake-up call about the sled dog industry - Puppy Love

100 Huskies were shot and killed in Whistler, because the sled-dog season was slow.

100 dogs were culled over the course of two days in April 2010, shot while tethered in front of one another, and buried in a mass-grave, some surviving initial wounds and being left to die.

that made me vomit.....

I'd like to spread some awareness of the subject, because right now it's barely being covered in BC news, lost in the sea of Egyptian riot news, and this needs to be made more public.

I didn't view the images. I can't bring myself to do it.

the only good thing about that article is that someone posted the a$$holes number and email

And I hope that everyone who reads it takes advantage of that.

I realize that the story has really only broken today, but there needs to be more outrage over this. People need to know, and then respond.

It's sick but you can't honestly expect it to take precedent in the news over the problems in egypt.

Well I can.
People are sick. Whether it's the problems in Egypt or the killing of dogs, people are part of the problem. The dogs never were. So yeah, I feel most sorry for the dogs.

@ Pedestrian: Thanks for explaining so I didn't have to click the link.

oh, you're one of those people.

Ehh... Well you can't blame the dogs for being shot, can you?
You can blame people for ****ing up, though.
Not every single one, but at least there's someone to blame.

I didn't say that. Being a local story, I'd have expected to actually see it covered today, but instead, CBC went directly from Egypt to Justin Bieber's press conference. It deserves more attention.

The killings are very sad. Outdoor Adventures claims to have had no knowledge...this was done before they took full possession. but who know...butt covering?
There's a number of locals calling for boycott, but the majority of client are tourists who will know nothing about this. Really, of all the fb users on the boycott site, how many actually go up to whistler regularly? A local boycott wont do anything.
But I am glad his name is out. He'd be safest to leave BC. But in a way, I hope he doesn't.

I agree with that.

and SK... I assume you're a very lonely person who has about 12 cats?

What's wrong with having cats? hahaha.

I assume you're one of those insecure people who makes a lot of assumptions about other people?

what!? have you not read any of his posts about how touchy feely to the point of being creepy he is with his female friends? I would hardly call that being lonely but w/e

One cat.

And I really have to tell my friends to stay away now and then so I can get busy doing my own stuff.
You couldn't be more wrong.
And you could definitely be a lot nicer to me ;).

Get'em S k!!

Oh, wait.
Here goes:
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...mzooi/grom.jpg

:laughing: Thats gold man..good to laugh this early in the morning.

Think that scares him off?

Oh he is definatley running the other way..he probally wont log on for 3 months just in hopes youve calmed down since then.