Rusting Car Bumper

Agreed. Note how many times in this thread it is implied to stated that that I, as someone with a diverse diet, is painted as immoral and unempathetic when I, myself, have not called others immoral.

In fact, these are levelled in spite of EXPLICIT comments to the contrary.

DC

crab juice

Thank you for your diagnosis . Now if you concede that it may be a medical necessity for some, who should get to decide what constitutes necessity? Why do you think you know better than someone else what they should put in their bodies?

Thank you for your excellent post, brighid, and I must say that links you have provided on this subject have come in very handy for me.

I wonder if it would possible to have my body consumed by sharks when I die. I'd feel like I was giving something back.

The AntiChris

DigitalChicken

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you suggesting that all "distinctions" are arbitrary?

You appear to be confirming that you really do understand why (rational) humans have varying degrees of empathy for different species of life on this planet. Why then, would you ridicule the vegetarian position by suggesting that they (vegetarians) are inconsistent in some way by not empathising equally with all (animal and vegetable) species of life?

Your argument makes no sense.

Ok, let's get the facts straight.

One poster, Lord Snooty, has made clear his view that meat-eating is immoral. However, bearing in mind that he is an ethical vegetarian it's hardly surprising is it?

Now, Lord Snooty posted in a thread which opened with a link to a "hilarious" put-down of vegetarianism and, prior to Lord Snooty's first post, vegetarians had been variously characterised as "holier-than-thou assholes", "self-righteous assholes", and "fundaMENTALists".

On balance, I'm pretty sure where the majority of self-righteous indignation's coming from.

Chris

LordSnooty

A doctor. Who else? What did you think I was going to say?

I may not be a doctor, but a cursory reading of your dietary outline would indicate to me that you were eating a poor diet.

If I'm wrong, then I apologise. If you ate well, but you cannot survive (or be healthy) without meat, then please accept my sincerest apologies. I'm not calling you a liar. But I have seen cases in the past of people living on idiotic diets, getting ill, then blaming vegetarianism for it, and it grates on the nerves after a while!

Fact is, very, very few people will become ill as a result of being vegetarian. If you're one of those people, I'm sorry.
Huh? I don't care what you put into your body.

I do care if you cause suffering and death in order to put something into your body. I can't do anything about it, but I care.

I don't want to convert you. I don't want to preach to you. Your moral choices are your own. I've never tried to convert anyone, but I will defend my position when I have to (especially when faced with the ignorant bigotry present in this thread).

I'm not posting into this thread any more. It's almost funny how something as insignificant as a change in diet can provoke normal people into nasty, spiteful ones (and I should point out I'm not aiming that at you, Crab Juice).

Much respect to Chris though. I'm not very good at explaining myself, and it's good to have someone here that can articulate himself a little better.

Paul

The AntiChris

LordSnooty

Thank you.

Nonsense. It's good to see a robust defence of ethical vegetarianism - not easy to do when the mere mention of the 'V' word on this board seems to inevitably invoke a whole barrage of ad homs. :banghead:

Chris

PJPSYCO

Really, I am sick of the meat eaters are immoral because they disrespect animals argument. I understand that the person who made that statement has left the thread and will not be returning, but I will, for the sake of anyone else with that type of bigoted remark towards omnivores, reexplain the position of the omnivore.

Plants deserve respect too.

My hypothesis. First our requirements were tourturing and causeing the death of living things. That was what was made as the basis for moral food consuption. So, we can make the proof statement if we don't kill a living thing or tourture it to do so then we are moral. So, what is a living thing. Well, that would be something that is made up of cellular compontnets. Plants, animals, fungi, (I will eliminate viruses, protists, and bacteria from this list since we tend not to actively consume them - yougurt, beer, bread, etc, all having that part ignored).

So, then we have to define death. Ok, this can become complicated with the fact that these are multicellular organisms, and they can be thought as either a part or the sum of their parts. This is where the disagreement will come in. I see them as the sum of their parts, millions of little living creatures. Now, since all can live without the whole being kept intact (I can remove some of the parts of any organism and the organism can continue on). So, we'll count death as removing part of the organism that will cause the whole to stop working. So, this can be applied to the consuption of anything by this method. This covers most plants and animals. Fruits(I am using the scientific defintion - cucumbers, etc are the fruit of the plant) are only good if the seeds are not destroyed in the consumption. So, corn, soy, basically any other monocot and some dicots are considered causing death when they are consumed.

Next is torture. What is torture? Well, it can't be killing that which is just like us, that is killing not torture. It can't be killing something that has emotions thats just killing again. Torture must be defined as something different as killing. In this case we can define it as the causing of pain before killing. This mearly gives us a secondary reasone not to eat the things that we can't already eat becuase we would kill them. Fruits are what we are limited too, and fruits don't feel pain. We don't change what we can consume.

So, therein the tourture ideal is just plain irrelevant thanks to our previous can't kill rule. Ultimately, our consuption has been litmited to those fruits where the seed have not been destroyed. Guess what can't do that. No killing, no nutirtion, no living. So, to not torture or cause the death of cannot be our rule for being moral, since it would not be moral to survive.

Fix your rule, or stop living, you can't have both.

On the belittlement of the animals, a further point can be made. I susspect that it is caused by a misunderstanding. By raising up the animal over the plant a negative position in made on the plant. The statement is that animals have something that plants do not. This is the objective statement. The emotive part of the statement is that this diffence is looked upon favorably and therein the plant is looked on with belittlement for not having the desired trait. Ultimately, when the equalist says. Killing both is obsene, they are not making an equal statement to the first statement. They are not saying that plants deserve equal respect of them selves based on some arbitrary characteristic of one. They are saying that both have the same characteristic and therein are both equally treated by the feelings towards that same characteristic (for those confused, the trait is the life, and the feeling is that it is a trait that is positive). We see the conflict here. The person making the first statement is confusing their emotive part of their statement with the objective part of the second mans statement. This is a verbal dispute not a genuine dispute. They are arguing past each other.

LordSnooty

I have indeed left the thread. I return only to correct a falsehood.

I did not make that argument.

Paul

brighid

Crabjuice,

You are welcome! I am glad I could be of assistance.

Brighid

Rusting Car Bumper

I didn't. My precise words were that the argument was "not compelling." I do not believe that counts as ridicule. Specifically I noted the moral argument was not compelling. I did not comment on others.

And the mere assertion fo that point is supposd to convince me?




This is some usage of the word "facts" that I am unaware of.

If you had noted above you'd read that I agreed with another poster that INDIVIDUALS often engage in religious-like behavior regarding either view. I agreed with the scorn given to either behavior.

DC

Valmorian

The fact of the matter is that ALL diets cause suffering and death. There's no avoiding it. You could argue that you are causing less pain and suffering, perhaps, but you contribute to the pain and suffering of animals indirectly every single day you are alive.




Not really sure what you mean by that. How does a change in diet have anything to do with this thread?