GRILLED PINEAPPLE IS THE SHIT.
Forgot what? In NONE of those quotes was I “blaming meat eaters” for anything. You are arguing with a straw man, and you’ve explicitly proved you’re arguing with a straw man by attributing an argument I never made explicitly to me, and then posting examples of me not making the argument which your straw man is making.
If that’s what gets you through your day, mattemuse, I won’t argue with you further, but remember that you are talking about something that isn’t even relevant to the topic of the thread.
If eating people counts, then I consider myself a vegetarian.
I just wonder why humans don’t eat human babies instead of pigs and piglets. Would be less morally wrong, as babies and toddlers are less intelligent than pigs and have less self consciousness. Plus, the meat of a small child would be much easier to digest than that of a piglet. And, they are not only easy, but also FUN to produce!
And already come in ample numbers all across the planet. Would also be a fightback against overpopulation in itself. It can’t be morally wrong to eat children, if it is morally right to eat piglets. That would mean measuring with a double standard. Wouldn’t it? Just wondering.
Most mammals do not eat members of their own species and, unless I’m mistaken, no member of Primates does.
I believe the opposite is true; many creatures eat their own species, and chimpanzees in particular were found to kill each other for meat.
That is a): not entirely true and b): irrelevant, because humans in many cases have proven themselves to be cannibalistic. Wasn’t there a recent thread in the off-topic section of this forum about a 16year-old girl eaten by two guys just because they were hungry?
Cannibalism != Omnivore. False equivalence.
EDIT: Nice try on the cannibalism avenue. I can do the same if you want. Eating baby humans is functionally no different than eating a banana. Both are living beings and neither can consent. Therefore, if you eat a banana, you’re eating babies. Now, I’m SURE you’ll bring up some mitigating factor, but then again, the mere act of introducing that mitigating factor destroys your “eating pigs = cannibalism” argument. I’ll leave you to figure out what those mitigating factors are.
I did never imply that those two were equivalent to each other. I just stated that humans have, in many different societies and under many different circumstances resorted to cannibalism, even if other food was available. So this behavior is not entirely “inhuman”.
I also didn’t say “eating pigs = cannibalism”. Either you didn’t understand me, or you are deliberately trying to twist my words.
And I completely agree that plants are lifeforms just as much as animals and humans are, which is the reason why I brought up the whole “cannibalism = less immoral than pig-eating?” issue in the first place.
Whatever you do to nourish your body, you will absolutely HAVE TO hurt or kill other lifeforms for it. Which is exactly the reason why I don’t have anything against eating meat or fish in itself, only if it is mass-produced under circumstances that are damaging to our environment. Same goes for eating fruits and vegetables.
I am rather “pro-eco-farming” than “militant vegetarian”. Eating too much meat, however, is a waste of ressources, in my point of view. And I find that immoral because many other people have to starve just because of one white western carnivore douchebag who can’t get enough cheeseburgers.
I agree. My cum-swallowing ex-fiancé was a mass murderer, effectively. Couldn’t find anything immoral in it, though. 
It’s not the effects on the eaten lifeform that concern me. It’s the effects on other people that bother me more. I can’t go to McDonalds anymore, knowing that for every burger I buy there, a couple of African children will be doomed to die of starvation. It’s a bit oversimplified, of course - but that is what I feel whenever I pass by a fast food restaurant.
Of course the delicious smell makes my saliva flow - but I know that the food there is unhealthy not only for me, but also affects people in poorer countries when I buy it.
The whole “pigs vs babies” thing was merely intended to say: Why let another species of mammals suffer for us, when we could as easily be nourished by eating the flesh of our own? And where is the moral differentiation in there? And why is there one at all?
Are you being sarcastic? Perhaps for the same reason we find it morally abhorant to eat apes. We do not eat that which has a sense of self, a moral compass and the ability for abstract thought. Not to mentionn the evolutionary hard wired instinct to feel remorse and empathy for the young.
danielsangeo, I don’t see how the mass-production of meat is not relevant in a thread about vegetarianism and meat eating. It’s exactly what we’re discussing
No one is blaming meat eaters for how meat is produced in modern mass production. We’re explaining how mass-production affects meat quality, environment, the animals, etc., and that it is a reason not to contribute to mass-production of meat. It’s as simple as that.
It’s probably the best and most commonly used reason for choosing vegetarianism over a diet that includes meat, which, coupled with other reasons, makes a good case for vegetarianism.
No one is saying eating meat is bad. We’re putting forth reasons not to eat meat, or to eat meat from the right sources. Sure, other products than meat have been affected by mass-production, but there are more alternatives for those in most places, and the effects are usually smaller than with meat products.
:retard:
Burbinator, is the unethical and inhumane nature of factory farming the sole reason behind your vegitarian diet? Would you eat hunted venison? From an ecological standpoint, at least in my state, hunting deer is a humane and essential ecological activity. Aside from environmental concerns, venison is a very healthy red meat.
I’m not actually a vegetarian. I just try to limit my meat consumption.
Anyway, in my eyes, eating meat from hunted animals, or any animals, is perfectly fine to eat, as long as natural environments aren’t being destroyed, and there is no excessive suffering, and there is no excessive detrimental effect on the world’s population as a whole.
All three of those happen when mass-producing meat.
Some do. Many have.
Stop lying - if you talk about the consequences of meat mass-production in a thread about discussing the pros and cons of vegeterianism and meat-eating, that automatically means you are a vegan eco-nazi cowhugger, who wants to ban steaks and send red-blooded meat eaters to FEMA labor camps in Alaska.
jeez, is it that obvious 
No I’m serious, I have a small gipsy family living in my basement. Come winter I will eat and slumber.
Here is the last post on this subject I’ll make:
You can certainly argue that the mass-production of food (of any sort) without regard to the damaging effects to the flora and fauna of this planet is wrongheaded. I totally agree so this is not a point of contention. I can certainly argue the wrongheaded approach of liberal use of pesticides, genetically-modified cross-breeding and other insane things done in the world of food-from-plants production including things like overburdening the human diet with high-fructose corn syrups because it’s cheaper than sugar.
You’ll get absolutely no argument from me about that front.
What I am saying is that THAT ARGUMENT is irrelevant in my mind to the choice of whether you “eat meat” versus “eat plants” because THAT ARGUMENT is about saving costs by cutting corners (effectively socializing expenses by moving the costs onto their consumers) and the dangers of unregulated capitalism.
The point of this thread, however, is the debate between eating meat and eating plants. You can debate the morally-ambiguous “inhumane treatment” argument because, through evolution, animals from the jellyfish (with no functioning central nervous system do not feel pain or, arguably, sentience) all the way up to our closest relatives in the Primates family and everything in between have a range of qualities that one could draw a line on whether it’s okay to eat them or not. Where you draw the line is arbitrary at best.
Believe it or not, I feel the best argument for vegetarianism appeared in the Half Life 2 parody comic, “Concerned”:
(click the picture to go to the comic’s context)[/SIZE]
I’ll leave you with this:
The Homo sapiens species is evolutionary conditioned to eat both plants and animals, as evidenced by our cuspid teeth (aka “canines”) which we share with other omnivorous species. We are an omnivorous species. We eat what is available to us.
The choice to remove meat from your diet, for whatever reason, is yours and yours alone. If others want to hear why you’re a vegetarian, then great. Otherwise, you’re proselytizing where it’s not desired and you come off as a giant asshat.
Same, too, for the meat eaters out there! 