Vegetarianism; why bother?

Perhaps vegetarianism will become our collective destiny, perhaps that's the course our evolution will take. I'll willing to admit that myself and the billions before me were wrong when that time comes. It's not that there even exists 'wrong' when you talk history on that large a scale. There is excess, but never wrong. The warring and genocidal behaviour of humanity, that is an excess, such an excess that it is definitely evil, so by using the term excess it doesnt imply that the holocaust was 'simply excessive' as oppossed to being wrong.
We believe that our excesses will be forgiven, and it's the more evil excesses that we're stilling trying to figure out whether will be forgivin. I digress, I guess I mean to say, in this debate I choose to be confident in my choices, at balance and peace with them, knowing, like many decisions, that I may not be fully informed. I don't trust the scientific reasoning of if we haven't measured it it doesn't exist. Thus pain cannot be quantified, especially between two species who have such different forms.

 

i think destroying creation which were arguably doing now and scientists are saying global warming is now totally irreversible thing could very easily be considered not the right thing to do, LOL, that is just my opinion though...
i think vegetarianism could very be possibly be our collective destiny, albert einstein even said it was crucial for humans evolution for us to evolve to vegetarian diets, which makes a lot of sense to me. think about it though, when you see roadkill on the side of the road, do you get turned on start to fire up the grill? i sordove hope you dont, but the argument that humans were not made to eat meat just makes a lot of sense to me for a lot of reasons...

i think it is inevitable to an extent, and that the meat industries are not something sustainable or something that can go on if we care ANYTHING at all about this world or the stuff within it. and the entire world cant afford to eat like americans do like someone said and some country is probably going to wake up to this at somepoint and make us quit being such greedy fucks, or maybe all of those poor animals will evolve some trait that kills us all the meateaters off if the world gets lucky btw- think thats awesome your converted to to veggie oil, read an article they are now starting a soybean oil refinery somewhere in my state and they are now creating hybrid trucks etc.. so you are definatley ahead of the curve there......

 

If I were to find an elk hit by a car in the winter and I came upon the carcass before the other scavengers got to it, hell yeah I'd throw it in the truck and take it home, especially if I was as poor as I often am. I know plenty of people, radical evironmental activists included who wouldn't hesitate to do the same. Why the hell not? What's good for the raven is often good for me.
Albert Einstein also persuaded that Americans to develop the A-bomb. He admitted he wrong wrong, of course. It was an excess of fearful behaviour, though, whereas his support of vegetarianism was born of something more spiritual and intellectual, like his theory of relativity. Said theory also seems to be an excess of...what, faith in numbers? Things can more faster than light, quantum pysicists are learning (and eastern philosophies knew all along) so in the end, Einstein was a genious of his time, but ultimately not the model of incontrovertable thought as we like to believe.

 

I drove by a bunch of onions that had fallen out of a truck yesterday, and I didn't even think to stop for them. Probably weren't organic anyway.

 

because the thought that your eating a dead thing is discusting to people

because you realize that the pain and suffering an animal has to go through isnt worth it, you realize you arent better than that animal was

 

i was veggie but i gave up because i love sea food and because my husband still ate it.

i might try again sometime.

i was doing it for health reasons and also because it's not so much that i feel eating meat is cruel but the factory farm industry IS.

 

When you pick a vegetable...It becomes a dead thing too. Pain and suffering are products of an inhumane meat industry. Free range animals that are protected live longer healthier and happier lives than if they were in the wild or raised on an agri-farm. As for the slaughter of said animals, it doesn't have to be painful and there is usually no suffering. If you do it right death is instant.

Also...not trying to argue...just wondering everyones perspective. Is it OK to eat eggs if they don't feel pain, and never had a chance for life (unfertilized)

 

Just so it is known by the maker of this topic, obviously not every acclaimed hippie is a vegetarian or vegan. I'm against eating meat myself. You say that if you stoppped eating meat than it wouldn't make a difference. If everyone stopped eating meat it would quite make a difference. The slaughter houses and meat industry would fail. Every little bit does count. I also think using fur in clothing is terrible. I'm glad some people feel beautiful wearing fur that was scraped off the bloody body of an animal. In an activist package I was sent last year for protest against Wet Seal's (a clothing line) use of fur, it was saying how the rabbits would either be killed humanely, starved to death, or stunned. Sometimes the stunning process would not be fully completed and they would be skinned alive. Some non-vegetarians honestly think it is okay to support this, or maybe they think their actions really don't matter, but they do. Shit I just think some people are horrible today. The government is disgusted if a human kills a child, but would care nothing if the child's pet bunny was skinned alive. I'm not saying that all people who eat meat are horrible, not at all, I'm just saying I don't support the people who don't care at all and wont think twice about it. Ah. So many different views.

peace
kels

 

I appreciate The beatiful life I've been given, So theres no way im gonna take that from the eyes anything else. It would just be hypocritical.

 

One other note to the thread originator: every bit helps.

To take this to another sort of consumption: my fiance's car gets around 20 MPG. (Yeah, it sucks... it's a station wagon, which he needs for transporting supplies and tools.) On days that he doesn't need to transport anything heavy to the shop, he rides his bike. The trip is 9 miles each way. So each day he rides, he saves almost a gallon of gas. A lot of months, it winds up meaning one less trip to the gas station. We have a bike trailer we are refurbishing that we'll use for grocery shopping and picking up the kids from school in the fall. That shaves a few more miles a day off our gas consumption.

Okay, that's still not a lot.

But, we have another friend rides his bike to school and work and recently started taking the bus to the produce market. He fills his gas tank about once or twice a month.

Our neighbors down the street just bought motorcycles that get 50 MPG. They use those to drive anyplace that they don't take the kids.

It adds up.

 

They don't eat me, I don't eat them. Animals are people too. Would you eat a human? I hear we taste quite nice.
I try not to harm living things. Since I became vegetarian my entire family has become more aware that they are actually eating animals, not just red slabs of chewy stuff, and although they still eat meat, they buy less of it, cook more veggie meals for the entire family, and try to buy organic and free range, an all that jazz. Its all good. I just dont like the idea of killing our fellow creatures when it's blatantly unnecessary for me to eat meat to survive.

 

You are making a difference, believe it or not. Every little bit helps. The less meat consumed, the less meat is bought, therefore less meat will be raised.

 

ya, fucking free-range, but what about the animals in slauhter houses? i wasnt even talking about free-ranged. fr is soo much better than slaughterhouses. , (i;ve researched the shit im talkng about), most people dontkill the animals in the safe, humane way. there's is a pain-less way to kill them (so i;ve heard), but its cheaper to just kill them the painfull way, cutting them open while still alive and draining the blood, throwing the pigs around until they're dead.... most pople dont buy the guns because the bullets are too expensive...

 

I like that. It sums up what I feel.

peace
kels

 

i agree with littleredone too

 

I like to consider myself a hippy, and i love hippies. but i also love meat and i don't see why it should be held against me

 

Although it might make you feel better personally and ease your consciense...your facing an uphill struggle against the majority of the rest of the population (meat eaters)....

sure if 1 more person becomes veggie it might eventually save the equivalent of an animal's life. Thats great! but thats nothing compared to all the animals that are still slaughtered.

Theres strength in numbers and unfortunately the meat eaters win on that count hands down. I'm not saying what your saying is wrong but doesnt it feel like you are fighting a battle which you have already lost?

 

Try walking through the plains of Africa and explain your philosophy to the Lions there. Even in the United States where we've broken down the natural food cycle by destroying the habitat of any large predator that may pose a threat to us, there are still several deaths a year attributed to mountain lions who are starving. Just because we've wiped out 99% of the large predators doesn't mean that they would shake your hand on your way to grandmas house.

Humans are predators too. We're the worst kind because we kill indiscriminately, but it's kind of simplistic to think that Animals wouldn't dare eat a human.

I will admit...I haven't heard of any bovine attacks.

 

it contradicts every hippie value... what do hippies believe in? peace, love, protecting the environment, not war or violence or unecessary killing, which is everything the meat eating industry is AGAINST. they are industries built on greed and consequently hate, they are built on violence and cruelty, and money making, even if it costs us our precious environment or if it costs a billions of LIVES every YEAR which is totally unecesary! it is absurd, and something needs to be done about it.


and vegetarians save an estimated 100 lives a YEAR, which is not a bad dent in the industry at all if you ask me, plus you just add that up since vegetarianism is growing so much in this country, even a lot baseball parks offer veggie burgers now, which i think is great and i love veggie burgers. i bet you guys havent even TRYED them, their much better for you than real meat, i promise you that, and much easier to digest.

 

all of the animals we eat could EASILY be kept as pets or we could live in harmony with. they are totally harmless to humans unless your a total jackass like most everybody who works in a factory farm is, but even then their so unhealthy they probably couldnt fight if they WANTED to. hell some of them die before they even make it to the slaughter house, and a large percent cant even walk off the transport truck, they are not given fair lives at all. they are RAISED quickly as possible and then KILLED, after a short life in a cage filled with drugs suffering and abuse, they are then KILLED often inhumanely YEAAAARS before their natural lifespan, its fucked up.
i dont believe humans are meant to be carnivores unless absolutley necesary, humans have brains and can reason, humans are capable of COMPASSION. humans are capable of living in PEACE, and letting things be, but we just chose not to for doubtfully any valid reason.