So does this mean if you kill someone out in the middle of nowhere in Antarctica it's not murder?

I'm just going by what the definition of it is.

I'm just trying to plan my summer.

Haha - glad to hear it. Yea, I'm not even sure what making a difference means. I have always lived in a semi-depraved society rife with cruelty and probably always will. I'm fine with that.

As for my reasons - it's really just a combo of the two you picked up. 1) I don't want to fund meat manufacuring as a matter of principle (and I do eat eggs and milk so I don't even fully refrain from funding animal farming) and 2) Another feature of my (our) society is that I have access to whatever food I want from just about anywhere in the world. So I can have plenty of other protein sources. Also, I dislike meat more than a lot of them.
I don't see how I'm rejecting my omnivorous nature. That means I have the natural capability to live without meat.

Consider the following:

A human born severely retarded - that would, without sustained care by other humans, be nowhere close to functioning well enough to reach reproductive age - is granted the rights to live, be free of torture, etc.

An animal with all their cognitive faculties intact that would in another environment (i.e., not an industrial farm) live a (comparatively) long life is denied not only the right to live, but is made to exist in despondently poor conditions that definitely amount to torture. This applies to the majority of animals that become/produce the meat, eggs, etc., that we consume.

So, why does the deficient human get to live over the capable animal? Because he/she was born into our species? Does that justify giving them the lifelong right to exist, while the animal is born without any chance at having a life that doesn't end in being consumed by a human?

To answer the first post: I am not a vegetarian. I do believe that it is completey natural for human beings to eat meat.

Understandable.
:)

Eating meat creates the demand for meat that is responsible for the slaughter of millions of animals. Without the demand there is no reason to kill the animals--so in eating meat you are a necessary part of the equation resulting in the deaths of these animals and the success of the meat industry. That is just a fact. Now whether or not one has a problem with this scenario is a different question--if you have a moral opposition to killing in general then I think ideological consistency necessitates that you be vegetarian. It is also true that meat-eating is ingrained in our culture and in me as well--I am not a vegetarian--and I am being inconsistent ideologically. For my part I try to eat meat infrequently--much more infrequently, recently, than I did in the past. I'll still devour a nice ribeye though, oh well.

I think it's more a matter of survival that has escalated into something far more in the face of demand and efficiency. Realistically, we could all still live our lives hunting on our own terms, or even choosing to eat vegetables... but mass farming and manufacturing applies to both meat and fruit/vegetables and it's undeniably necessary in context with our nation's needs. The entire nation (whichever you belong to) can't support itself independently because we'd all be spilling over into eachother's land and decimating any animal/crop population that found itself in our sights.
While not agreeable of the state in which we employ animal farming, it's rather unrealistic to think that we could just replace meat farming with vegetable farming and live happily ever after.
The push for change needs to happen with the methods at which we farm meat and the treatment we give in those scenarios.

I just don't think we should all give up meat as a society and start living on vegetables just because we don't think it's "nice" to be on the top of a food chain. Yea, maybe we could lessen the extent of our influence, but just moving aside is only going to give the position to something else.

Tell that to every meat-eating animal that lives in the wild.
I don't think you'll get them to change their habits, and even if you could, I don't think they should. Nature made it this way, this is the way it should be. But we definitely have to be careful of taking it too far. And we are taking it too far. But that's what we have to change...
We don't have to stop being who we are all together. We just have to tone down the whole mass market thing.



Edit:
Which I now realize is basically what you just said.

;)

The difference between humans and all other meat eating animals is that we have developed morality and the idea that all life is intrinsically valuable. That notion does not exist in the natural/animal world and it is obvious absurdity that 'animals' would adhere to it. Because of our intelligence, humans should be held to a higher standard.