Humans are herbivores.

That's pretty much right ( i think she worded it a little better there). I wouldn't kill a cow anymore than I'd kill a person. I value the lives of animals. I'd stop to help an animal on the side of the road just as much as I'd stop to help a person if they needed it. It's absolutley true.

and I was never making the argument that if we eat cows then we should just eat humans!!!!!!! I was simply pointing out that a rotting corpse is still a rotting corpse whether it be human or cow......and I don't see how anyone can enjoy eating a rotting corpse. That is all I was saying.

I also don't place my morals above "those of nature") if I was placing my morals above nature than #1 my cat wouldn't be a meat eater which he is....and #2 I wouldn't be allowing him outside to hunt mice and whatever else it is that he kills, which I do.
But yes, if I catch him in the act (has only happened twice in 3 years) I'll save the mouse....why shouldn't I? That's one more mouse that still has it's life and my cat could care less. It has nothing to do with me interferring with nature. My cat isn't out there killing for his dinner. If I saw a feral cat (or any other cat) killing a mouse I wouldn't step in.......

 

With appologies if what I say has already been said in the numerous postings, and with respect to one and all, but if humans are herbivores as the OP suggests then how does one account for humans safely consuming protein from myriad animal sources for millions of years?

 

As important as us? get off your high horse man, who defines this importance? important to what? if a person was trying to kill a dog i would step in and take him down. and how would you know how we as a species should treat animasl? tha'ts a load of shit, 'it's simply not possible for us as white men to treat the others as equivilent to us' said whitey about the slaves.
all species on this earth are of equal importance whether you like it or not, you can kid yourself, but if there's any inequality it's closed minded people at the bottom of every other life.

~Dan

 

~Dan

 

How is treating different species differently the "same argument as racism and sexism?"

Racism and sexism are about relationships within our species. They have nothing to do with how we treat animals.

 

The more I think of it, the more your argument about slavery offends me.

You say that black people are animals in an attempt to get me to treat animals better.

The Klan says blacks are animals in order to get me to treat blacks worse.

I say that black people are not animals.

 

"People who pride themselves on being part of the human hunter tradition should take a second look at the story of human evolution. Prehistoric evidence indicates that humans developed hunting skills relatively recently and that most of our short, meat-eating past was spent scavenging and eating almost anything in order to survive; even then, meat was a tiny part of our caloric intake."

As long as humans have lived in the northern regions of the world they have eaten meat. Humans have lived in Europe for at least [size=-1]40000 years. Thats [/size][size=-1]40000 years of humans living through winter...[/size][size=-1]

"[/size]Ask yourself: When you see dead animals on the side of the road, are you tempted to stop for a snack? Does the sight of a dead bird make you salivate?"

Obviously not, we're not scavengers or detrivores...

If we were true herbivours our jaws would physically resemble and mimick the motions of other herbivourious animals. Wich they definatley do not. We never would have developped incisors.

We are not carnivors nor herbivors.

 

use your brain dude, humans are animals, so yes, black and white people alike are animals.
the point i'm tryin to get across to you is that the basis for the speciest argument is just the same as the argument for racism and sexism. the fact that something is different gives you the right to control it. sexism draws the line between male and female, racism draws the line between color, and speciesm draws the line between human and non-human animals. to say any person is not an animal is ignorant. you're an animal, i'm an animal, tha'ts fact no matter what you want to believe.
do i need to explain more about speciesism?
~Dan

 

Specicism, yah I'll accept that label.

Yea, I know that biologicaly humans are animals. The fact that blacks and women are the same species as I am puts them in a different moral class than non-human animals. I contend that morals or ethics apply only to members of our own species.

As you say there are different lines that can be drawn.
Race is the most difficult line to draw, because it is hard to define. What race is Tiger Woods? Race is a blurry distinction that can't be objectivly described. (In the 19th century, there was talk about the different qualities of the European races. The first time I read "the Belgain race" was a shock, I finaly got that the meanings of words change with time.)

Sex is another line that can be drawn. Indeed, it has to be drawn. If I want to breed, I need to find a female.

Species is also a clear distinction. But of a different kind than sex. If I am to eat, I look to a different species.

You draw the dinner line between plants and animals. I draw it differently. To answer the original post (yet again), that is a choice on our part rather than a feature of our teeth or digestion.

I am assuming that you are doing it for rhetorical purposes, but I reject the notion that I should behave towards other races as I do towards non-human animals.

On your choice of diet, why is the presence of a cell wall (the defining distinction between plant and animal) such a strong feature of your ethical structure.

 

Actually, according to the OP, humans have only been "safely consuming protein from myriad animal sources" for several thousands of years, not millions. Humans haven't existed for millions of years. And we became able to do this because we created tools that facilitated our ability to kill animals. And, in the wild, you have to eat to survive, so that's what we did. We didn't have too much choice over what we ate.

It's still discrimination, foo'. =P

Racism is discrimination by race. Race is basically a subcategory of species. Sexism is discrimination by genitalia. Similarly, ?specism? is discrimination by species.

Then you'd be doing something called rationalizing; making up excuses, in other words.

Studies in primates has suggested that primates also have an ethical sense. There is also a sociobiological stance on ethics that suggests that "ethics" is actually built into the minds of most species, because cooperation and having a sense of ethics is a greater insurance of survival and reproduction.

Granted that humans are not generally cannibals, there are cannibalistic species out there that do eat their own species.

I personally actually suggest two lines. Certain inalienable rights such as that to life and freedom, that pertain to ALL sentient beings, and then certain "human" rights that humans have created society to enforce and determine.

Human rights should not be extended to non-humans. However, there are some rights that are not just rights for humans alone, they must be extended to all sentient creatures.

It's not the presence of a cell wall. Its the presence (or former presence) of life. I define life as the ability to experience, in one or more ways, one's existance as separate from the rest of the universe. Plants are incapable of "experiencing" anything; they have no nerves, no senses, have no central nervous system, et cetera. They remain merely complex functions of the universe, like waterfalls or supernovae. However, since animals are capable of having experiences, and are sentient, this is what I define to be life.

 

Haikaro Zero,

** Off topic digression **
I applaud your (proper) rhetorical use of "descriminate" as a synonym of "diferentiate". Your argument that "discriminating" is bad, but treating different species in a manner appropriate to their difference is good shows a command of debating skill.

On the other, I would suggest that you drop the equivilance of "sentience" with "living". Plants are living things.
** End digression **

I don't know about your practice, but I have heard vegans debating the issue of sponges. There are those who use the cell wall to draw their line.

I think we agree that modern humans have no biological reason for vegetarinaism. How long our species has been digesting meat is secondary to the fact that we currently do. (I just had a thought that the article addressed eating flesh and ignored egg stealing, honey collecting, and other food sources from animals.)

Well, its dinner time. I need to go cook my eggplant.

 

Well, brother, that all depends on who you believe. I believe the Leakeys (sp) and what they say Lucy has to say about how long humanids have been around. From them I get millions of years (or at least one million and several hundred thousand in change). But we can dismiss that and agree on thousands of years. And I can still pose my question.

 

(quote)

Human rights should not be extended to non-humans. However, there are some rights that are not just rights for humans alone, they must be extended to all sentient creatures.

(end quote)

Why? Who says? Isn't that just 'speciesism'? If animals are equal to us, why shouldn't they have *all* the same rights as us?

 

Even by your own definition of life plants are a form of life and when you are eating a plant you are "killing" a lifeform.
Numerous researches have proven that plants do indeed experience their environment.
I highly recomment the book The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird.
I opened a thread about it in the Science&Technology forum, where you can read an Intoduction.

 

Actually, that is not what I said. If you were actually paying attention, you'd know that.

There is quite a difference in "discrimination" (check your spelling) and "differentiation" (again, check your spelling). Humans ARE different from animals. One of the ways that humans are different, for example, is that we have a society which has rules that pertain only to humans.

However, we are currently not just differentiating between humans and animals. We are discriminating against animals. The Constitution only deals with government and society and human rules. There are certain rights that would not be found in the Constitution, which pertain to ALL SENTIENT BEINGS, not just humans. These include the right to life and the right to freedom.

When we treat different species in a manner that is actually *appropriate* to their difference, THEN I will be satisfied. But, currently, we are just being a bunch of assholes to animals.

Actually ... that is highly debatable. I argue that plants are not living things. And there are MANY people who support my position.

When you were in high school, didn't you learn that nobody knows whether plants are alive or not?

Even so, what constitutes a life? Does a plant have a life? Let's explore this question.

What can you do with a life? Okay ... let's see ... you can ... feel things. You can, do things. You can experience changes and differences in things.

Can plants do any of these? No. Plants cannot feel, plants are immobile, and plants do not have any senses. In this sense, they do not have a "life" of their own. They are bound entirely by external environmental conditions. That is not "life."

Plants grow. But so what? So do mountains, with time. And stalagmites. Plants also reproduce. But again, so what? Viruses reproduce. Computer viruses even reproduce. Neither of these occurrances constitutes what "life" is, and just because they are present doesn't mean "life" is.

What is life without the ability to live it? Plants cannot "live life" in any manner of speaking. All they can do is sit there, grow, and reproduce. They aren't even aware of the fact that they are doing this. They are no more aware of reality than a rock. That isn't life, by any means.

The vegan movement is based on animal cruelty and unnecessary animal slaughter. Some might use the cell wall to draw their line, but the majority do not. Regardless, it does you no good to generalize and say that everyone does or everyone doesn't.

Yes, I agree with you on that. =)

Beliefs are simple and flawed. I don't "believe" anyone. The only thing that I put my "belief" in, if it can be called that, is the evidence. And there is only evidence to support that humans have been around for tens of thousands of years. There is no evidence to support human existance for millions of years. Millions of years ago was the age of dinosaurs, not humans. =P

Regardless, your question was, "if humans are herbivores as the OP suggests then how does one account for humans safely consuming protein from myriad animal sources for millions of years?"

Lets substitute in millions for thousands.

Humans have, for the past several thousand years (since we invented tools, probably after the ice age), begun eating meat and consuming protein from animal sources, because we are (as someone once said) "opportunivores."

When every day is a struggle for survival, you don't have much choice over what you can eat. You try to survive on berries, but you're freakin' hungry, so if you figure out how to kill an animal, you eat the animal. We didn't have much of a choice back then. However, we do now, which is why we need to stop.

Humans have banded together to form what we call "society" and "government" to rule over society. Because we have done this, we have entered into a "social contract" in which we sacrifice some of our inherent animal rights as sentient beings (such as the right to complete freedom) for other rights (such as the right to remain silent, the right to not incriminate yourself, the right to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure, et cetera).

Animals do not have a society, and have not sacrified any of their inherent rights for "extra" rights. In a HUMAN society, ANIMALS have no place. However, this Earth is not just a human society, it includes animals. Thus, human rights must govern the human world, and inherent animal rights must govern the rest of the world.

I actually just defined plants as non-living. They are not lifeforms.

I have only seen false claims about this. People have told me this, and I asked them where they heard it, and they went out to find it again, and couldn't.

If you know where these "numerous" researches can be found, let me know. I'm very interested in them. However, there is no evidence otherwise that suggests that plants can experience anything, since they have no central nervous system.

If plants CAN experience ... how? What do they have that we don't that allows them to "experience" existance?

I took some time to read the introduction that you posted to that book, the Secret Life of Plants.

The book offers no evidence whatsoever; all it is is pretty words. Let me give you an example:

This sentence is misleading. It implies that plants have a sense of taste in their roots. Yet, nowhere in this introduction does it explain through what mechanism a plant tastes the soil. With a tongue? With some sort of nerve system? Neither of those are present in plants. So there is actually evidence that suggests that this statement is wrong. It's merely a literary term used under poetic prose license.

And yet, we differentiate between "movement" and "growth." Because, growth is patterned, and the pattern cannot be broken without external movement. External movement, on the other hand, would occur regardless of growth. I am a human, but I don't consider the growth of my body to be me "moving."

Similarly, so what if plants move, by this definition? By this definition, mountains move, rocks move, air moves, and heck, even sunlight moves. This definition of "movement" is inconsistant with the concept of movement that we are actually referring to. So this book justifies that plants move by using an inconsistant definition.

The above is a paragraph. A mere statement. There is no evidence to go along with this, and the book has already misdefined "movement," and the statement above is based off of this definition of movement, saying that plants can "stretch" which implies that they can extend, regardless of growth processes, a part of themselves, elongating that part, and then contracting it again (which is not the case with any plants as far as I am aware of).

See what I'm saying? I don't mean to shoot you down, I only seek the truth through evidence and reasoning. The book, while it sounds convincing, doesn't have much real substance behind it.

 

Well Hikaru, an introduction is an introduction. The book itself goes much more into detail. There has also been a documentary which showed the movement and reactions of plants to their enviromnent in moving pictures, which explains better than words.
Interestingly enough you only picked on the more poetic formulated sentences and didn't respond to other observations like for example that some plants react with closing their flowers, when ants come to steal their nectar.
You might also have heared about the Venus Flytrap, a plant which catches flies!?
Still think that plants don't experience their environment?
A very easy experiment you can do at home is to get a climbing plant. Put a stick next to it and you will notice that the plant will grow towards the stick. If you move the stick to the other side, the plant will change direction and grow to the other side as well.
Here is a link about Plants and Movement and another one about Plantgrowth and Music.
Still not convinced?
Use google and you will find a lot of articles and research done about the fact that plants experience their environment.

Sorry for offtopicness

 

[offtopicness]
eleria, are you a fruitarian? or a Jain? If so, very cool. I don't eat plants, but it's not because I believe they think & feel. I just think plants are gorgeous, and I'll be damned if I chop one up and stick it in my mouth. It's how most vegetarians view animals--it doesn't matter if it's an intelligent mammal or a brainless jellyfish. Why eat it if there are so many yummier alternatives!
[/offtopicness]

 

Why is a presence of a cell wall such a strong feature? It really doesn't have much to do with the fact that a plant has a cell wall, mostly just cuz they don't have any sort of nervous system so they can't feel pain.
I'm not necessarily say you need to treat every non-human animal as any other human when it comes to certain things, but I feel that everyone should respect their right to a life without being confined and killed for pleasure. I'm not saying everyone is equal so you can equally mate with anything or that you can interact equally with different species. The point was that non-human animals are forced against their will into cruel conditions based on the fact that humans feel a sense of superiority and physically can do this and just because of a line drawn between species makes it seem just fine. When it comes to things like race and sex, people can draw lines at IQ, levels of hormones, size, etc.
The question of whether or not humans are herbivores or omnivores could be debated all day, but you're right, it comes down to the choice, so it really is irrelevent. I draw my 'dinner line' at plants - yes, plants can respond to light and touch, but they cannot feel pain since they don't have the systems required for that. Food is a need to survive and I'm causing the least amount of pain sticking to a vegan diet. I just don't understand how people can feel humans have a higher status which is only based on the sole fact that humans are humans.

~Dan

 

I am just curious, would cows and other domesticated animals even exist if it were not for humans using them for food and as beasts of burden? It seems like their species gets some benifit by us guaranteeing their procreation.

 

I don't see it as symbiotic as all that. Sorta like asking "don't lions benefit from living in the zoo?" The simple answer is "yes". But the profound answer is a resounding "no".