As I said, I'll now address your further points.: 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.
This is why I called you obtuse, Stuart. For an intelligent guy, you're being frustratingly dense. I did NOT equate the killings in Tianneman with the meat industry. I am making an analogy, which can be diagrammed as: A is to B as C is to D. In this case, you have the murder of hundreds of Chinese dissidents being belittled as the Chinese government's mere "excess;" the seriousness of the action is vastly dimished by calling it an excess. Similarly, the systematic brutalization and butchery of animals in factory farms is vastly diminshed in seriousness by referring to it as simply the "excesses" of the meat industry. I hope you understand my analogy better now.
: 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.
No, I'm trying to get it into that head of yours that I am not calling you, Stuart Gort, an immoral person; I am calling the practice of eating meat, particularly factory farmed meat, immoral. Get it???
: 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!?
AAAUGH! No, you can still be a good guy even though you eat meat! On the other hand, you might be a pedophilic, flag-burning, wears-white-
after-Labor-Day fiend -- I don't know! All I'm saying, as I keep trying to point out to you, is that in my opinion, eating meat is an immoral act. As I said before, and as you acknowledged, the question of how many immoral acts a man must engage in before we can call him a "bad" man is a deep metaphysical question which I do not want to explore via the internet, and which I frankly doubt I can answer. Hitler and Stalin were bad guys, I know that. Mother Theresa and Mahatma Gandhi were good guys, I know that. The rest of us probably fall in between, but again, we need not answer that question for the purposes of this debate about the specific act of eating meat.
: 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.
I believe I've now offered my basis for my moral code. Now, please answer my questions, specifically, are you content to support the practices I outlined in my earlier message ("What are you defending, Stuart?), and how can you justify killing and eating animals when you have a vegetarian option?
