I disagree. I think that would be unfair to newer members who wish to discuss this topic. If it derails we'll just move the off-topic stuff to the Off Topic Thread in the lounge.

I don't want to read all 89 pages, but all I'll say is it is no doubt murder, but it is for the benefit of some pretty tasty meals. Don't hate me vegans, but if there were am even more dominate species than us, they'd kill and eat us with some gravy too.

No is the simple answer, eating meat is not murder. It is merely us (us being the human species in general) maintaining our place on top of the food chain.

However, our treatment of animals that we use for food is at times disgusting quite frankly. We are no longer hunting for food, we are breeding for food which is highly unethical in reality. We would never force a woman to get pregnant and give birth to a child just so that we could harvest its organs for treatment of other people, but we do force animals to give birth to children that we then mistreat, just for our own wants (not needs, you can get nutrients that meat offers from other sources).

I am however a massive hypocrite on this subject. I am one of the people who loves eating meat, and despite knowing about what some animals go through before they become what is on my plate, I dont check for details on whether they were raised well or whether they lived a terrible existence.

If I am completely honest, if it wasnt for the fact that meat products are so readily available and I had to hunt myself, I'd most likely be a vegetarian.

Agreed!
I am the same.
But really, the treatment those animals get is beyond disgusting. Force fed hormones, bad food, tiny and crowded living spaces, then a probably slow and extremely painful death.

If it's human meat, then yes. With any other animal it would be survival of the fittest.

1
: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought
2
a : something very difficult or dangerous <the traffic was murder>
b : something outrageous or blameworthy <getting away with murder>

Thank you Merriam & Webster! ;)

We don't eat grass and obviously, if we didn't keep animals to eat grass, then we wouldn't be growing grass for them to eat. We'd use those fields to grow something we could eat instead.

As for the waste products that we wouldn't eat anyways that pigs eat, we could use that as compost and thus, the nutrition from that would enter the plants we eat.

If you think of it as a simple energy equation where you try to maximize the energy through food, you'll see that a lot of it is wasted if you want to keep animals as a trophic level in there. An animal takes most of the energy from a pound of corn (example) and spends that just living - walking around, breathing, thinking, cellular metabolism and so on. Cutting animals from the equation would mean we'd get that energy instead. Believe me, you could feed the world a lot more efficiently if everyone were vegetarians.

The counter-argument to this is in areas that are unsuitable for agriculture (f.ex grassy, but rocky slopes with boulders). There it might make sense to keep animals, even if you follow this maximize-food ideal. ;)

The ignorance running rampant in this thread is sheer hysteria.

Enlighten us then.

I believe that all of the worthwhile points have been made. Whether or not they are observed has nothing to do with me.