Why choose vegetarianism?

Yea, I dont like how we got assholes out there saying shit like "vegetarians are stupid we were meant to eat meat damnit, for every chicken you dont eat ill eat 3!"
But anyway... without being like one of those assholes, im going to say that yea, the lifestyle is kinda flawed.. I was vegan for awhile and after some thinking and reasoning I found that it was pretty pointless reading all these ingredient labels on everything I buy at the store. Every day, a lion gobbles up another creature, or a hippo or gorrilla(both insanely tough creatures that are pretty much 100% vegan other than the bugs and bug eggs that are on the plants they eat) kicks the ass/kills some other animal thats in the way of their food. It doesn't matter what I eat, someone lives, someone dies. And because I ate those vegetables someone else didn't get, I get to live.. And just because I only eat plants doesn't mean that I didn't kill or kick someone's ass to get it. I mean think of life before modern times. What kinds of things did we fight wars over? Food? Perhaps... But mostly it was for things that were totally vegan, like political shit, or because we want some gold or coal(totally vegan product... maybe there are disagreements on the vegan/non-vegan status of coal..).
Ive also heard that all kinds of critters get killed in the production of certain "vegan" products. Like all the tractors and heavy equipment used for farming mutilates possums and rodents that live in the ground. And I would guess that using the old horse and plow method probably killed just as many moles and gophers as heavy farming equipment.
I guess what im trying to say here is... Veganism does not lead to ethical purity.

 

I think it is important to live in line with what you consider ideal.

Your dollar is the loudest aspect of your "voice" as a consumer. Each dollar that you spend is important in that it makes a difference, cumulatively, in the market.

The "lion" example is perhaps one of the silliest arguments against a plant-based diet that I can think of. A lion is a carnivore: it cannot survive on a vegetarian diet, ever, end of story. Why compare that to a human? It simply does not make sense.

Even if a lion was capable of being an omnivore, this comparison still has no validity. A lion does not possess the same reasoning abilities as a human does. You, as a human, are capable of rational thought and reasoning. You make a choice about your diet. You have morality, you are able to control yourself.

You can choose to eat animals, or you can choose not to. Either way, a happy and successful life is possible. You can live well as a vegetarian, while not causing the unnecessary suffering of other creatures (or at the least minimizing it!). Why would you choose to cause suffering? In my opinion, minor convenience does not outweigh causation of suffering!!!

Yes, tractors might run over the occasional mouse, but this is not nearly equivalent to the amount of unnecessary suffering caused by deliberately eating animal products, day after day.

What ought to dictate our actions: whatever provides the greatest good for the greatest number. So, why NOT choose vegetarianism? No, veganism does not lead to "Ethical purity", because such a thing can never exist. But what you can do is the best that you can, given your circumstances.

 

Is it suffering of other animals that vegetarians worry about? Or is it the death of other animals? I myself am not bothered by animals getting killed. Yea its horrifying to see them suffer. Hell anytime I hear a story, see a show, or see an actual person or animal suffering severely im always so glad im not them! Sounds pretty selfish, but when you cant do anything about it thats really all I can think. But when I hear about someone or something dying, its just so much easier. "their dead? its dead? guess it/they are back to where they were before it/they were born."
If you think about it, death is possibly easier than life... Dunno what its like, but im assuming its pretty much like before you were born. But while im alive, I got the urge to survive, and well... I choose a different method than someone else. Were all hungry. We need to eat. so lets eat the beings that don't have as much intellegence as us. Guess we are mostly speciest. Perhaps I am. Does that mean we should eat retarded people? I dont know..? Depends on who you are, but I sure as hell wont eat a retarded person. There... to much like me.
Hell I was trying to come to terms with being vegan and all the logic behind it, and now I dunno what to do now that im back to eating the flesh of other creatures. This is where I say that morality doesn't really exist. You just do what you want, if you enjoy life, sweet, if you dont its not like it lasts forever. To live is to suffer! The buddhist monks say. So if I go out and kill a cow in the slaughterhouse I end its suffering. Sure if I fuck up and do it the wrong way, ill cause it all kinds of pain which isnt cool! But hey at least if I kill it now it wouldnt have to go through all the hell that was in store for it anyway. Some people MAKE the cow suffer, either because its for veal, or because they like to see the thing suffer. They still dont have to live and go through all the hell that was in store for it anyway.. Instead of distributing the pain and suffering throughout all the... 5 years?? that it was going to live you just hit it with the pain all at once.
How would I like to be killed in a slaughterhouse? It would fucking suck dick! Ask me the question "how would you like it? what makes you exempt from that kind of torture and the creatures with lower intellegence have to go through with it?"... Well its fate! I was born in a city with two arms, two legs, a humanoid body and plenty of protection from parents. I had legal protection and rights. I wasnt forced into being food by some more intellegent creature. Its pure fate.. and alot of the time fate is pretty damn shitty. If we reincarnate, its going to suck balls when I reincarnate as a fucking cow... =-S

 

I'm mostly a vegetarian because I don't find meat to be particularly appetizing. I think fish is okay, but I don't think I would want to eat red meat.

 

I am not a vegetarian, I am a pescetarian. But I'll tell you the reasons I stopped eating meat in 1975.

• Meat is loaded with tranquilizers, pesticides, and herbicides
• I do not believe it is ethical to kill animals.
• Eating meat contributes to world hunger.

 

I can understand if you believe our meat is tainted with chemicals and pesticides, which it probably is, but the part I disagree with is that it is unethical to kill animals. If you don't want to eat meat, that's fine. But people survive off of meat, and especially in survival situations, I believe it is fine to kill an animal for food.

 

I agree it's OK if you need to kill animals for survival, but that applies to very, very few people in America. Otherwise, I believe it's wrong to kill.

 

And what exactly did the Bible mean..."Thou shalt not kill?"

I cannot even kill damn stink bugs that get in every fall looking for a place to hibernate for the winter....those little tiny, clumsy helicopters. LOL

I round them up and throw them outside again.

 

That's true ; very few depend on killing for survival in America. And I agree, we should treat animals with respect. The problem I have though, is that there are vegetarians that believe animals should be treated equally as humans, sometimes better. That is just messed up.

 

Should be treated equally...What makes us think we are so superior, anyway? Just because we are on the high rung of the food chain? Is that it?

The other species are not destroying the earth and thmeselves, either.

 

Superiority is a very relative construct. Not to mention a human one! What are we superior at? Reasoning. Yet if you threw us into the jungle, naked and unarmed, we would be relatively useless when battling a jaguar. Jaguars are the best at being jaguars--having sharp teeth, strong muscles, natural hunting abilities, etc.

And toads beat us at being toads! We can't run nearly as swiftly as a gazelle, either. To say one species is better inherently...no sense in it.

 

Superior on the food chain because of our weapons.....that someone had brains to make in the first place....so inventiveness....but still.....people that say animals are beneath us really rile me up.

 

Superiority is a human concept anyhow. Nature operates like a puzzle, not a ladder. How very characteristic of man to believe that we are some great exception.

This is my thought when we talk about aliens. We assume they are interested in us, Earth. We assume they are humanoid in shape. Why would they care for us? Why would they look like us? Because we are the peak of creation, the center of the galaxy, of course!

 

Cooperating, adapting the environment to our needs.

They might get one of us, but the next time we would snare their asses. irate:

 

I don't say this. I think if aliens are visiting here, it is for the gold here.....or we are some sort of experiment....but it is something they need or want....and no great concern for us.

 

Hm. I tend to think the world might benefit from just the opposite! Less humans, more jaguars!

 

I don't believe that is true. I think most vegetarians do it for their health, some do it because they love animals or at least don't feel it's right to kill them.

So, I've had no meat for almost 40 years, now I'm 61 and I feel great and people tell me I look and act young for my age. (But I confess, I still eat fish.)

Only once in all that time have I run into anyone who felt that animals were as important as humans, but I called her on it and really questioned her sense of values. I think this is a very rare opinion among vegetarians.

 

Why is that "messed up"? Animals a truly innocent, in the human sense. Why wouldn't their suffering get equal consideration? I'm not saying that animals are entitled to everything that humans are entitled to. I think that animals suffer and their suffering ought to be treated equal to our suffering. This applied to the basic need for a pain free life.

That is, if these basic rights exist at all. If one assumed that they exist, and exist for human animals, then I believe that they should also assume that they exist for animals.

 

I'm a little confused what you mean by "suffering".
I don't think it's right to treat animals with the same order of priority as humans.
Are you going to care more for an injured dog than an injured human?
Do animal's care about our lives as much as we care about theirs?

 

Read this, if you've got the time.

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer02.htm