We're talking about humans eating animals, not animals eating animals.
Humans are animals though.
Not the high and mighty ones, apparently. That may be the point of the thread.
It's not the point, but people should understand that we are more intelligent but we don't have the right to kill them like we do.
We do have the right because we're the dominant and most powerful species on the planet. Whether it's *morally* right to take advantage of our dominance is another matter which is more debatable, however what is not debatable is the fact that we're the dominant species and as such have the rights to do whatever we want to the animals (within the boundaries of the laws set by ourselves)
And what right do we have to pull something directly from mother Earth?.....Yet we still do, and those of us that solely eat these things think they're better than the ones that eat things with faces. If only it were that simple. "Faces bad, everything else good!" It's like you need some form of approval.
If you knew ANYTHING of the MODERN meat industry you wouldn't have started this thread. Why not wind back a few years to when we hunted our own food and claimed its life after 10 minutes of beating with a stick?
Apart from the instant death at the end of it all, most livestock will be better looked after than most people on here.
We do have the right because we're the dominant and most powerful species on the planet. Whether it's *morally* right to take advantage of our dominance is another matter which is more debatable, however what is not debatable is the fact that we're the dominant species and as such have the rights to do whatever we want to the animals (within the boundaries of the laws set by ourselves)
This makes no sense. The only "Rights" are moral, being strong shouldn't be enough to grant you special rights. That's just, well, immoral. This was intended as a moral debate. hence the word Barbaric.
Oh no, not the anti-meat websites and brochures?!??! I'm obviously wrong if a biased individual has gone to the trouble to type a report on a website agreeing with their opinion.
Yes, some places are a shit-holes and they should be shut down, but you can't use the bad apples of the barrel to portray the entire industry now can you?
That'd be like me telling people not to become a vegetarian because Hitler was one and look what happened to him.
One last thing before I leave this thread in the slaughter house and go to bed; how do YOU know that animals don't communicate with each other and discuss whether they're doing the right thing or not? I'm just curious how people can speak on the animal's behalf.
We do have the right because we're the dominant and most powerful species on the planet. Whether it's *morally* right to take advantage of our dominance is another matter which is more debatable, however what is not debatable is the fact that we're the dominant species and as such have the rights to do whatever we want to the animals (within the boundaries of the laws set by ourselves)
This makes no sense. The only "Rights" are moral, being strong shouldn't be enough to grant you special rights. That's just, well, immoral. This was intended as a moral debate. hence the word Barbaric.
You misunderstand me. I was drawing a difference between 'taking advantage' of our dominance, that is, killing animals for food, and simply knowing we have dominance, which we do.
werepossum: As to your dog living better than in the wild, I could make the same argument about my grandfather's and uncle's cattle. In the wild, few offspring live to reproduce. In the fields, most of the cattle live to reproduce, and almost all live at least eight or ten months. There is almost no infant mortality, almost no death from sickness other than occasionally at old age, no death from predators other than man, no death from starvation. In fact, their cattle are about as fat in the winter as in the summer. If some of them are eaten, well, almost all of them would be eaten in the wild, that or slowly starve. At least this way the ones who are eaten are killed humanely rather than being chased down, mortally wounded, and then consumed whilst slowly expiring.
Most animals that are raised for food AREN'T treated well. You're also comparing my dog that sleeps on the couch half of the day to a cow that's basically waiting to die.
It's a matter of us eating animals, not other animals eating animals. The animals aren't having discussions about whether it's moral to eat animals, we are. I'm saying that they shouldn't be tortured of killed by us. You guys are jumping to random conclusions about my stance.
We're talking about humans eating animals, not animals eating animals.
First, cattle don't know they are "waiting to die". As far as a cow knows she lives in cow Heaven. All she really wants to do is eat, sleep, and breed when the season hits. Cattle get to do all that in an environment free from predators, with free health care and food provided when there is little or none available.
Second, we're not jumping to conclusions about your stance, just pointing out that if humans don't have the right to eat animals, then animals have an innate right to not be eaten. Therefore humans would have not only an obligation to keep animals alive, but also an obligation to prevent other animals from eating them that must include limiting the numbers of predators by whatever humane means necessary to the absolute minimum required for the ecosystem's stability. If it is immoral for humans to eat meat, then it must be way more immoral for humans to raise animals strictly to feed other animals just for the pleasure of these carnivores' company. Personally though I don't think there should be such a thing as animal rights, only obligations and restrictions on human behavior.
You haven't addressed humanity's biggest hit on animals - our footprint. Loss of and pollution of habitat is by far worse on animals than eating them. The former forces the number of animals down and degrades the existence of all the animals in the affected areas; the latter increases the number of animals and degrades the existence of some. For example, it would be hard to argue that the life of a breeder cow or free-range chicken is worse than that of a wild animal. For those animals kept in cages, you have to make some assumptions on the relative worth between protection and freedom, between having all your young survive to maturity with most perishing soon afterward and having most of your young perish young but living free. Frankly I don't think it's possible to make that projection because animals are not capable of that level of thought. Thus it boils down to either keeping domestic animals for our own use, or limiting their numbers by humanely killing them, or limiting their numbers naturally by allowing boom-bust cycles where they eat everything and populations boom followed by starvation where most die.
We do have the right because we're the dominant and most powerful species on the planet. Whether it's *morally* right to take advantage of our dominance is another matter which is more debatable, however what is not debatable is the fact that we're the dominant species and as such have the rights to do whatever we want to the animals (within the boundaries of the laws set by ourselves)
This makes no sense. The only "Rights" are moral, being strong shouldn't be enough to grant you special rights. That's just, well, immoral. This was intended as a moral debate. hence the word Barbaric.
You misunderstand me. I was drawing a difference between 'taking advantage' of our dominance, that is, killing animals for food, and simply knowing we have dominance, which we do.
I see. But in that case, the word "Right" should not be used, because, as I said, the ability does not equal the right. Although I think that's a bit clearer than I said it before.
Countless millions of insects and small mammals are killed DAILY on agricultural farms, whereas with Livestock there is potential for much less animals to killed (you can produce more food over a smaller area of land, by building up buildings etc).
Countless millions of insects and small mammals are killed DAILY on agricultural farms, whereas with Livestock there is potential for much less animals to killed (you can produce more food over a smaller area of land, by building up buildings etc).
What do you want to be said about it? lol You're right erm .. the only thing i would say is that yes they are, but that doesn't justify the livestock being killed as well
Countless millions of insects and small mammals are killed DAILY on agricultural farms, whereas with Livestock there is potential for much less animals to killed (you can produce more food over a smaller area of land, by building up buildings etc).
And the food the animals eat? Doesn't it come from agriculture? There is a logical fallacy somewhere here.
Countless millions of insects and small mammals are killed DAILY on agricultural farms, whereas with Livestock there is potential for much less animals to killed (you can produce more food over a smaller area of land, by building up buildings etc).
And the food the animals eat? Doesn't it come from agriculture? There is a logical fallacy somewhere here.
I can see your logic, but Hay and other grasses rarely if ever get sprayed with pesticides, which is doing the majority of the damage in terms of loss of life. Also the number of animals killed is pretty much proportional to the area of land, and as you can keep a herd of cattle in a paddoc that produces more yeild product than an equivilent sized paddock filled with any fruit/vegetable I can think of, my outlook is that less animals are killed in the meat industry. I may be missing the point though, if the problem is with cruelty to animals (especially poultry) or knowingly and deliberately killing animals, as oppose to accidently and unkowngingly killing animals then my arguament has no bearing
Countless millions of insects and small mammals are killed DAILY on agricultural farms, whereas with Livestock there is potential for much less animals to killed (you can produce more food over a smaller area of land, by building up buildings etc).
And the food the animals eat? Doesn't it come from agriculture? There is a logical fallacy somewhere here.
I can see your logic, but Hay and other grasses rarely if ever get sprayed with pesticides, which is doing the majority of the damage in terms of loss of life. Also the number of animals killed is pretty much proportional to the area of land, and as you can keep a herd of cattle in a paddoc that produces more yeild product than an equivilent sized paddock filled with any fruit/vegetable I can think of, my outlook is that less animals are killed in the meat industry. I may be missing the point though, if the problem is with cruelty to animals (especially poultry) or knowingly and deliberately killing animals, as oppose to accidently and unkowngingly killing animals then my arguament has no bearing
Well, you already covered my first point, but keep this in mind. People who get angry when we murder animals will also be the type to prefer organic foods and those that don't use pesticides(unless they're hypocrites), which means that the only thing killing the animals would be the blades of the equipment. Which is the same in hayfields and other foods. So meat still results in more killing, and growing is more efficient when we eat the feed the animals are taking(or the land it's grown on).
TheGhostOfSin: Well we either consider ourselves above animals and continue using "lower" animals as whatever we feel like using them for.
Or we consider ourselves the same as them, in which case it would be perfectly acceptible to randomly attck other animals and eat them alive.
Or we could stop thinking in black and white and find a happy medium.
In this discussion there isn't one I'm afraid. Either we are the same as other animals or we or not, there are no other options.
No, because in both of the options all of you guys are giving me both end up at the same place.
"Either we're above them and we can kill them or we're the same as them and we can kill them. No room for your beliefs!"
I'm saying yes, we are more intelligent than them, but that doesn't give us the go ahead to kill them. We're sitting here talking about this, we have morals and we can change this. Those lions can't do that, you're asking for them to be as intelligent as us or else they don't matter.
werepossum: Thus it boils down to either keeping domestic animals for our own use, or limiting their numbers by humanely killing them, or limiting their numbers naturally by allowing boom-bust cycles where they eat everything and populations boom followed by starvation where most die.
This is getting off topic, but I'll give a response.
And the more we expand the less land given to animals and they'll all be kept in even worse conditions if they're domesticated. Basically, ever since humans broke out of the food chain where we would be controlled, I would never say we're at the top. I look at it more like we're on the outside and pop inside to take what we want and then scurry back to our homes. But we're no longer controlled, we just expand and expand, eventually something has to give. How? I don't know. But as we continue expanding for the growing population the animals in domestication get screwed as well.
Hey, GUYS, GUYS, GUYS!!! this topic is called, is it barbaric to eat meat. Not animal rights, alturnitives, questions of morality, etc... Is it wrong to eat meat? No, but again not the question. Is it barbaric, I don't see it as that. Do we take immense joy in slaughtering animals and bringing their deaths for our needs? After we kill them, do we stick their heads on poles?
To end other dissuccsions, it all comes down to personal choice. We all have different moral values. Plus if we outlawed eating meat(except survival cases) their would be a boom in all animals. That would be a major change, in such a short period of time.
It only becomes barbaric if you act like Jack and his hunters(Lord of the Flies reference). So let's not forget the orginal question now. Is it barbaric? No. xoxo
Scarletmarine: Hey, GUYS, GUYS, GUYS!!! this topic is called, is it barbaric to eat meat. Not animal rights, alturnitives, questions of morality, etc... Is it wrong to eat meat? No, but again not the question.
The discussion basically includes those sub-topics.
Once again, the taste of a product doesn't mean it's alright.
Yeah, but it is still quite tasty.
Thanks for contributing to the thread. As always, it's much appreciated when people don't have anything of interest to say. It brightens my day to know that meat is tasty, really. Not only that but it contributed oh-so-very much to the debate/argument.
God it feels good to flex the sarcasm muscles. Weight off my shoulder that one.
Meh, I'd say pretty much every angle of the argument has been discussed in the nearly thirty pages worth of arguing this thread has produced, so there wasn't much to be contributed anyway.
And before you even ask the question, the answer you'll get is "Because I was bored."
Countless millions of insects and small mammals are killed DAILY on agricultural farms, whereas with Livestock there is potential for much less animals to killed (you can produce more food over a smaller area of land, by building up buildings etc).
I read it and generally agree. Having lived on farms raising cattle and raising crops, certainly more animals use pasture than crops as habitat, and more are killed using pesticides as well. (Although a surprising amount of mice and snakes are killed whilst baling hay.) Problem is, people against humans killing animals for food prefer to ignore animals killed by humans EXCEPT for food or pleasure (hunting.) As Shivari said, she has no problem with her dog eating meat, which would have to be raised and slaughtered by humans; she has a big problem with humans doing the exact same thing for our direct benefit. It's a very subtle distinction which, frankly, I don't see, but she does.
werepossum: As Shivari said, she has no problem with her dog eating meat, which would have to be raised and slaughtered by humans; she has a big problem with humans doing the exact same thing for our direct benefit. It's a very subtle distinction which, frankly, I don't see, but she does.
As humans I believe we can rise above eating meat. My dog really can't.
Not the high and mighty ones, apparently. That may be the point of the thread.