Crafty old McDonalds.

No, you see that's naive and simplistic. If it was clearly, objectively, unambiguosly better than the dole, then everyone on the dole would choose to work there in preference to signing on. Wich they don't.

Note to Americans: Dole = welfare

 

ok, so it was directed at me, well who says he wasnt defending me? His argument suits me perfectly, I consider the advancement of vegitarianism to be progress in a good direction, but that doesn't mean that im calling anyone who disagrees a dickhead. If you go in a recipe forum and talk about recipes for beef stew i wont go there and attack you. So why do you come here where we discuss vegitrian issues and take things that we say, first turing them into insults than turning to insults into specifically aimed at you? I belive you are just saying these things because you like to fight, and you are trying to mask that behind self defence, by claiming we attacked you. I don't think everyone who eats meat is a bad person, i think eating meat is bad, theres a distinction.

You keep using nazis as an argument tactic, well heres an example of distinguishing, I of cource think nazi belifes are totaly wrong, but i don't think everyone who fought on the side of germany in world war 2 were bad individuals, that part of who they were was wrong though, and in mass they made up a horrible disaster, just as meat eaters each may or may not be good people, but in mass they are causing much harm.

 

Fine. If you're happy to define both positions as preaching, then it must surely follow that if you take offence at me preaching to you, then I can equally take offence at you preaching to me? Or even better, how about neither of us takes offence at the preaching of the other, and confine ourselves to debating the moral argument?

It's simple. It derails the thread. I'm quite happy for you to debate this in a dedicated thread. You get to make your point. The existing thread stays on topic, and everyone's happy, surely?

I'm sorry if you mistook my meaning. I was speaking in general terms. However, your argument was that anyone who considers vegetarianism to be progressive must think that they're better than you, so it seemed to me implicit in what you were saying that you were including me in that assumption.

I don't agree that there's any such thing as natural law, so it's pointless us even debating this issue. I could equally say it's against natural law to kill for food without need. I'd have no more basis for that than you have for your own definition of natural law though.

That's irrelevant. There's been various points throughout history where there's been no popular conception that something has been morally wrong, which has later become accepted as wrong by the majority. Or are you saying that a minority can never be right?

Again though, I don't accept your notion of natural law. And we also come back to the same point that the beliefs of the majority do not automatically confer moral authority. Again, if this was the case, our concept of morality would've remained the same throughout the ages.

I have no problem with you disagreeing with the moral stance of vegetarianism. However, it's not reasonable to argue that we have no right to put our case and advocate vegetarianism as a moral principle. If we're wrong, then history will prove us so. Only a minority of people will ever accept it as a lifestyle, and you'll be vindicated. If we're right, then we'll make what we see as progress, and more people will come to agree with our stance. If we're not allowed to put our case though, then we'll never know, will we?

 

Their is a 1 arc mc d in aura ny it is weird

 

Exactly. That's how I see it. And I also know that my life isn't perfect, so I don't believe myself superior to meat-eaters. It's just one moral issue that I feel strongly about.

 

I am not going to start a new thread to address something that was brought in another thread. If you have a problem with that, dont post in response to me. I can talk it over with pablo, you can skip over my posts.

I have asked numerous times in this thread what exactly progress is(this is what started the argument remember?) I still have not gotten a real answer on what is progress. So what is progress? A more 'moral and humane stance towards animals?' I think we all want that.

I dont care whether you agree if there is such thing as natural law, that doesnt mean it doesnt exist. The world recognizes the most fundamental aspect of natural law: the right for all individuals to live. Yet you seem to think this is some foreign concept that is only accepted by some rich white aristocrat who died 300 years ago.

Can you provide an example of something that has been viewed as a minority view that was later recognized by the majority that was not in violation of natural laws(i.e. slavery, non equal rights for women, etc). I cant think of any off hand, so its kind of hard to respond to this statement..perhaps animal rights, but i dont know what the majority view was on animal rights 200 years ago..so i dont know how i can respond.

Of course the minority is not always wrong, but in my opinion, this time you are.

I'm not asking you to do anything, not even refrain from preaching. For better or for worse, thats a right you have. However, there is a thing called respect. Forcing your beliefs on others is down right rude and disrespectful. Hand out flyers all you want, sing the priases of tofu on every street corner, eat bean sprouts until you puke, i dont care. If you get on my nerves, i'll give you a mouthful. Dont try and take away my right to eat meat. However, as i said in the peta thread, dont target kids with information or propaganda, save that for adults. Atleast they can think for themselves. Kids dont need to be told their mom is a murderer and shown graphic pictures of dead animals.

That seems to be the irony here, You want me to respect your right to preach, but you dont want to respect my right to respond to you.

 

well he wasnt defending you because he was defending himself...that was kinda a tip off

All i said was that i asked for clarification on what progress was. No one has yet defined that. I was then attacked by doktor, but i'm the bad guy. ok, i see we disagree on this..so next.

I'm not using the nazi argument tactic, it was used in this thread before i even got here. It was used in other threads also. It seems to be a popular thing to mention.

I agree, not every nazi is a bad guy, most were fighting for their country just like an american was.

People are causing a great disaster for this earth. YOU are cuasing a great disaster for this earth. I am causing a great disaster for this earth. WE ALL ARE. Our species of humans have ALWAYS eaten MEAT. ALWAYS. Was the earth being destroyed 10,000 years ago by meat eaters? The problem is one of over population, NOT eating meat. I agree, we can always work to help clean up ALL industries, and we should.


edit: Doktor, do you think the government has the rightto take away your right to live? Your right to freedom? I know i dont, and i know manyy think that no government has that right. That is the basis of natural law. I really hope you dont think that any government which does that is at all legitimate.

 

really, there were vast feilds of crowded livestock being fed from millions of acres of agricultural land, with pesticides being used on them 10,000 years ago?...amazing!

 

you missed my point that it is an overcrowding problem, not a meat one...

however, you do bring up an interesting point. How many thousands of tons of pesticide is dumped on the earth so we can eat veggies and then consequently, meat.

This is also a good reason to be for GM crops, they can cut down on harmful pesticides that will have to be used to protect the plants.

 

but we have to grow more plants to feed the same amount of humans by feeding those plants to livestock than we do to feed thos plants to people. So the bad efects are still there. I have no idea why you are even arguing, but why dont you just go away, make a thread for this and let vegitarians who want to argue come to you instead of being an annoyance.

 

and yuo have to grow more plants to feed fat people. Should we set mandatory weight limits/food restrictions?

The smart idea is to invest in GM crops, so we can eliminate pesticides, maximize crop growth, and cut down on pollution to the environment.

 

This statement absolutely proves how comepletely ignorant you actually are.

The VAST majority of GMO crops grown in the US and Canada are "Roundup Ready" corn, canola, soy and cotton grown from seed modified by Monsanto. The idea was to genetically modify the crops so that you can spray Roundup on the crop throughout the crop's growth cycle. These GMO crops created a far more extensive demand for and use of poisonous chemical herbicides. These poisons are polluting our soil and have had unexpected and negative effects of the environment including huge kill offs in certain non-damaging insect species and cross field contamination of non-GMO crops by GMO crops (and Monsanto even had the nerve to SUE farmers who were using their own seed without knowing that their fields had become GMO contaminated). All this for an average increase in crop yield of less than 5%.

Yeah, GMOs sure are the way to go. *Rolls eyes.*

 

whats with your attitutude that if a solution doesnt fix every problem there is than it doesnt help? There is no one thing that would fix every problem there is, but less meat consumption would help. You argue by responding to people as if they meant something other than what their point really was. I just wish omnivores woulden't lie so much so that people could look at the real facts and decide if they want to go through the trouble to turn vegitarain or to disregard logic in order to save time.

 

This seems to be the logic of so many omnivores, and it just doesn't fit into my head...

OK, an introduction... a lot of vegetarians are vegetarians for environmental reasons, not polluting the environment, that sort of thing.

The omnivore's response to that is "yeah, but you drive a car, you do this, you do that, so you're harming the environment anyway".

I don't think there's anyone in this world who isn't directly or indirectly harming the environment. Well, maybe didge . But most people are harming it one way or another. It's virtually impossible to TOTALLY eliminate pollution or destruction of the environment.

This, however, does not justify people who seem to think "I can't eliminate destruction completely, so why the hell should I bother even thinking about cutting down on something?". Every effort counts. Yeah, we all know small rodents etc. are killed by farm machinery, we can kill ants when we step on them accidentally when walking, yadda yadda yadda. But cutting down, or eliminating, meat and dairy products WILL be a good deed to the environment.

I think that the people who hold the insane theory that "oh, if I can't stop every form of pollution/animal cruelty/whatever" really couldn't be bothered to make any kind of effort to even cut down on the things mentioned, and are just looking for an excuse.

 

"Are GMOs safe for the environment?


Most scientists point out that no new ecological or environmental problems have shown up in the thousands of biotech field trials and the millions of hectares of commercial planting. In fact, all the signs point to less damage to the environment than with conventional crops. A study by the National Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy in the United States last year showed that planting GM corn with the Bt gene that kills the corn borer insect reduced the amount of land that would have been sprayed with traditional insecticides by 810,000 hectares. That's millions of litres of chemicals that didn't seep into groundwater.

GM crops resistant to herbicides while growing, rather than treating the soil before planting, may also reduce the number of chemical applications needed. The herbicides used with these GMOs may be less polluting than conventional ones like atrazine, according to Bill French at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany in Cambridge, England.

Increasingly, environmental scientists are coming to realize that Europe's intensive conventional agriculture has raped the countryside in a way GM crops never could. Three decades of it have poisoned groundwater and created dozens of "superweeds" with tolerance to herbicides. In the United Kingdom alone, the last 20 years have seen the loss of more than 20 million farmland birds of ten species. "In Europe we already have serious problems with conventional agriculture, including surface and groundwater pollution," says Brian Johnson of English Nature, the government's official advisors on nature conservation. "Biotechnology may offer a way out."

http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2000/09/think_gm.html


can you link to a study that shows that that GM foods are MORE devastating to the environment than non GM foods? I'd love to see such a study.

 

lie about what?

 

Many cut down in their own way. Should you cut back in every way i see fit if i am to cut back in every way you see fit?

 

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

You are constantly spouting that you won't accept sources from "biased" organizations like PETA, the PCRM, COK, etc., but you actually have the nerve to quote an article by a blatently Right Wing magazine that quotes a study conducted by a lobbying group.

http://www.gmwatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=94

 

can you, or can you not post a scientific study showing that GM foods are more harmful? If PETA links to a scientific study done that is legit, feel free to link to it. What i meant when i said i dont want links from BIASED pages is i dont want Op Ed articles with no sources....oh let me say that a study done by the scientists at peta doesnt mean much, i hope if you post one from them, you post one where they quote an independent study.

edit: nm, it works now

 

That wasn't the point of my post. My point is that you posted a psuedo-scientific study conducted by a blatent right-wing lobbying organization (in other words, biased), but you refuse to believe anything said by any organization that you consider biased.

Not that scientific studies that indicate that GMOs may be hazardous to humans, animals and the environment do not exist, because they do. Of course there are less of them because science has been bought and paid for by the multi-nationals who are looking for conclusions that are favorable to their products. For instance, if Monsanto grants funds to a university, the university isn't likely to publish findings that are damaging to the reputation of Monsanto's products.

I do find it interesting that FAO's (FAO being an organization that is in favor of GMOs, by the way) website contains this:
http://www.fao.org/english/newsroom/focus/2003/gmo8.htm

Count how many times words and phrases like "unsure," "we don't know," "inconclusive," etc. are used. Then, if you navigate to "For GMO" argument, we see Golden Rice, a rice that has been genetically modified to increase the amount of vitamin A in the grain. This little experiment is a complete joke, of course, since Golden rice will provide less than 2% of the RDA is vitamin A per serving. And we also get a lot of "maybe," "perhaps," and "in theory."

Fact is there really isn't much good, reliable scientific data on GMO crops, and that frightens the heck out of me. I think releasing GMOs into the environment when we know so very little about the long term effects of doing so is a little like an 13th century doctor trying to perform a heart transplant. Chances are, it's not going to go well because he probably doesn't even know what the heart is for.