: : Can you do more than from call me names and make wide assumptions?: If you would address the issue of whether or not I am unethical,
: immoral, or just plain bad for eating meat instead of dancing around it I might take this further.
I believe I addressed this question in my response up above (the "cop out" message).
:So far, I've heard a toned down argument suggesting that if "they (animals) lived relatively free and painless lives until the very end, when the farmer would take them aside and suddenly shoot them or chop their heads off - I'd be far less concerned than I am now." Is that really true? If it is, then your statement still indicates some concern with meat eating. What is that concern Mike? It is quite apparant that you have a moral or ethical reservation about it. I want to know why your morality exceeds mine.
Do you think my morality exceeds yours? Only you can answer that. However, yes, even if animals lived and died well, I'd still be ethically opposed to meat eating, and for this reason: animals think and feel and can enjoy life, and they can suffer as well. I'd like to see the human race truly practice what it preaches, i.e. The Golden Rule. In my opinion, it is better to be kind to animals than not to be kind to them. There is an inherent worth in showing mercy and compassion to others. Animals want to live, as evinced by their struggles when others come to kill them. Why not let them live, given the option of vegetarianism? The fact that vegetarianism is proven time after time to be a healthier diet is the frosting on the cake. Now you might ask, what about the plants vegetarians kill to survive?
The answer is, it is indisputable that in this world of ours, all life forms must destroy something else to live -- even plants wage war on other plants. If we humans must destroy another life, then I would argue that we should only destroy the simplest life forms we can, i.e. we should eat as far down the food chain as possible, so as to cause the least amount of suffering as possible. That's the basis of my vegan beliefs, Stuart. It is true, as Blake said, that Nature is red in tooth and claw, but it is also true that we can and, I believe, should transcend this most primitive existence.
I'll address your further points in a bit.
: I wouldn't keep harping on it but you did it again in one of your
: last posts with the statement; "Are you telling me that you will
: acknowledge the "excesses" of the meat industry (as you put it --
: that's like Clinton denouncing the "excesses" of the Chinese gov't in
: Tianneman Square) only if I withhold judgment of meat-eating?"
: No Mike, it's not like Tianneman Square. It's not even close
: to it. This nonsense equates the meat industry killing of animals
: with the Chinese communist government killing human beings. There
: could be no plainer moral judgement than this. Is this how you operate?
: I will not denounce any excess of the meat industry until you relegate
: rhetoric that links humans and animals in this way to the killing
: floor.
: Finally, When you say, "How much sin is needed before one is bad?
: Big, metaphysical question, which I don't think we need to resolve for
: the purposes of this debate. Suffice it to say that when I condemn
: meat-eating as wrong, it is the practice of eating meat, and not the
: practitioner, which I consider immoral.", all you do is reiterate our,
: as yet, unresolved differences.
: Find me a functional difference between what a person is and what he
: does Mike. Are you saying I might be a good guy except when I eat a
: burger? Or are you saying that a man is not defined by his actions?
: I don't want to go too far down this road but you are certainly
: suggesting in the last quote that I participate in immoral activity.
: Aren't you!?
:
: Be a vegetarian. Have a blast. If you critisize me for my choices
: be prepared to offer the basis for your moral code. So far, you have
: not unless you see your opinion to be superior to mine. I don't.
: Stuart Gort
