i understand your point tore, i really do. but think of it this way, let's assume yes, humans are not superior to animals. sure, they can have equal rank as with us. along with that, imagine if they'd get that right not to be killed cause of course, if you can't kill a human, certainly not to animals. what will we be eating then?

i can't imagine my life eating cucumber sandwhich or carrot soup every day. God knows we humans need to eat meat. He knows humans deserve somthing better than plain coleslaw for lunch.

But i do understand what you're trying to say. it's just not enough for us to justify that the meat-eaters are any more cruel because of their way of eating than the vegetarians.

Look. If you're going to use God to justify your argument, you've got to prove that he exists first. You can't use an unproven statement to prove another unproven statement.

The Virgin, the point I'm making is that nature is not a hierarchy with humans on top. If you die in the sewer, do you think rats wouldn't take a nibble out of your stinking corpse? If you meet a starving polar bear on a glacier in the arctic, do you think it would refrain from eating you because it regards you as superior?

Unless you can define what you are ranking, this superior/inferior way of thinking is completely artificial. When I say that animals are not inferior to us on a cosmic scale, what I mean is that they're not inferior to us in purpose - not that we shouldn't eat them. Basically, we're all here for the same reason.

ok. i respect ya'll but let me make myself clear, i'm still going to eat meat no matter what ya'll are eating.

You can be right or you can eat corpses.
You can't have both.

I eat meat. Our point is, you have to have an argument that makes sense if you're going to defend it.

Tell that to the Uruguayan rugby team that survived a plane crash in the Andes Mountains. They were forced to eat each other. They were right and ate corpses.

Human beings have evolved high intelligence and therefore an incredibly complex emotional and ethical awareness that I don't know if any other animal on the planet shares.

In my view, humans are conditioned by evolution to consume and digest meat as well as other foods. But because humans have happened upon being very special in our capacity for thought, and the ease at which we can live, I don't think that our nature can be an objective excuse for any behaviour.

I also don't see eating meat as being objectively right or wrong. But it has to be said that human beings have chosen a path of separation from normal food chains and we are constantly trying to separate ourselves from nature. If this is what we want, we can't use our instinct or our nature as a crutch for difficult decisions.

And if you are for removing meat consumption from the equation, or farther still removing dependency on animals for food and materials all together, than you do have to consider how humans have created various creatures in our history, that being domesticated, now depend on us for the survival of their species.

As far as cannibalism: when it comes to survival... you do what you have to. But eating another person would be the option after the last option.

I don't understand how vegetarianism could be considered cruel. Especially how do you address the point of "God says we need to eat meat" to atheists? Or what about such religions that forbid the consumption of animals? If this "God" knows we need to eat meat, how come you don't hear of vegetarians dropping dead every so often because they don't eat meat? If this God knows that we need meat, then why would this "God" make it so that one can sustain a vegetarian/vegan diet, subsiding on plants?

And I would love to eat a cucumber salad everyday

http://thumbs.ifood.tv/files/lebanese.food.fatoush.jpg

mmmmmmmmm. Nothing is so satisfying as a meal consisting of that. All the delicious flavours, the tangy lemon juice, the garlic, and the fresh vegetables.

One thing you are missing is that humans are animals!!!!!!!!

I think that's a little different from choosing to eat a processed, hormone filled corpse over something else but TOUCHE. YOU GOT ME.