Dewrede said:

Of course, it's barbaric and murder and all that. I agree. Killing anything for food totally sucks but that’s just the way it naturally is and I am at peace with that fact and not in denial about the way things are naturally.

If we should stop, I guess it’s also our duty in the name of morality to make sure that ALL meat eating animals stop as well...otherwise the argument is incredibly flawed and hypocritical.

And yes, I know what humans are made up of, silly.

Dewrede said:

I used to be a strict vegetarian when I was 18 or 19 and it didn´t go down so well due to my lack of knowledge ( I simply didn´t eat meat,fish or poultry and didn´t know enough about proteins and minerals. In the end, I had a zinc deficiency and also needed some shots from my doctor).
Later, when I was in my late 20s, I became a vegetarian again (1999-2004) and while it wasn´t a big problem to maintain an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, I still had a huge craving for meat, especially fish. But I didn´t eat any and relied on tofu, mock meat products and dairy products.After five years and intense research on tofu and other soy products, I stopped eating soy products. One of the people who had earlier on influenced me in becoming a vegetarian stopped being a vegetarian due to some long term effects he experienced (he´s over 60 , by the way) and I started eating fish again because I felt I wasn´t getting enough protein, and eating just eggs and dairy all the time wasn´t very healthy from a nutritional point of view.
I started eating fish again because I was worried that I was missing out on certain things (protein, zinc, vitamin b 12, omega 3 acids) and to my surprise, I noticed a change VERY quickly, within a few weeks , and so I stopped being a vegetarian. Reading up on some websites ( pro and contra vegetarianism) also helped me with my decision.

I´m not saying that eating meat is essential in order to survive but I sure has its benefits, this I can say from my own experience. Consciencewise, I don´t feel comfortable with it and I also don´t believe in specie-ism like some pseudo-vegetarians ( you know, those ridiculuos people who often say" I´m a vegetarian, but a pesco-vegetarian"....bullshit, you either are or you aren´t , there is no such thing as a pesco-vegetarian as far as I´m concerned.).

If I could, I´d be a full fledged total vegetarian again but I simply prefer my current diet, fully aware of the pros and cons of it and its ecological and ethical disadvantages, but, having tried both ways, I am pretty much convinced that this is the best thing to do for me. I understand and deeply respect other people´s decisions when it comes to something as intimate and personal as a diet, but I think it´s wrong to tell people what they need and don´t need or what they should or shouldn´t eat. Another thing to consider is that we´re all individuals with very individual needs.
Do you eat soy products, or do you combine, say, legumes with grains or how do you manage to follow a vegetarian diet? How long have you been a vegetarian?

why do you consider it's ok just because it's 'natural' ?

for instance ; one could argue rape is 'natural' too , that doesn't mean it's right


animals can't grasp the concept of 'barbaric' and have no other alternatives to eating meat , therefor , imo , that argument is flawed as well

(replying to JustErin)
[Edited 1/6/10 8:31am]

KoolEaze said:

i've been a vegetarian since i was 7 (28 years now)

and i haven't had any health issues

i eat tofu every now and then and plenty of grains
[Edited 1/6/10 8:29am]

Dewrede said:

If humans can create alternatives to meat for themselves you know as well as I do they can do it for animals. Remember, you're the one using alternatives as a reason not to eat meat, not I.


And really, no have no idea really what concepts animals actually have.
[Edited 1/6/10 8:33am]

^
i was talking about predators not pets
[Edited 1/6/10 8:45am]

Dewrede said:

So was I. If people are willing to fight the big morality fight they should be prepared to take it all on or they just end up falling short.

I'd love to try Dolphin.

JustErin said:

i seriously don't see the argument here

what does animals eating meat have to do with humans eating meat ?
[Edited 1/6/10 8:53am]

Characteristics are conditioned, co-dependently arising phenomena that arise to make something the way it is. Without these 'conditions' any organism would be completely different from what it is. There is no 'thing' seperate from these conditions.

And since all of these conditions can be changed, and are thus dependent upon other conditions, the notion that we should value one species or form of life over any other based on the 'features' or 'intelligence' derived from auspicious conditions as discriminated through our own prejudices becomes an exercise in self-congratulatory vanity.

Why not afford the same level of respect to fish? To birds? Or if we draw an artificial litmus test for intelligence as a determining factor for basic rights, why not impose policies upon the least intelligent of our own species?

I think such a way of thinking would have unintended consequences indeed. We should respect all life. Or we should take the stance that intelligence should nto be a determining factor for respecting other sentient life--rather, good looks should be.

^
[Edited 1/6/10 8:52am]

I my self have seen a dolphin communicating with a 1 yr old child.

If anyone is interested, please read the works of John C Lillly, it will blow you away.

ehuffnsd said:

This reminds me of the book Speaker for the Dead

NDRU said:

One of the best sci-fi books ever. I love The Ender Series. I like all the books except Children of the Mind. I haven't read the Bean series yet, but I hear they're equally good and better than Xenocide or Mind.

I like them too much to treat them like people.

Oh I have heard that Dolphins are more likely to cause harm to a person than a shark. This is likely due to the myth that they all like people and like to play with people. When in reality they are still wild animals that will kick your but if they feel you pose a threat.

do girl dolphins have nice tits??

if they do, I have no problem with treating them as people...

roodboi said:

No, they don't...but I heard they give great head.

JustErin said:

with what??

their blowhole...

TheVoid said:

Have only read the first two, but I liked Speaker a lot more than Ender's Game, which I still liked.

In Speaker, the "non-human people" were called piggies, for their resemblance to our own pigs. It's interesting because I don't like to eat pork, not for religious reasons, but because they seem too intelligent.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

maybe they should be treated like dogs & cats

NDRU said:

There's a whole slew of reasons I won't eat pork, but that's one of them. It feels like cannibalism to me.

luv4u said:

Dolphins are well known to inappropriately dirty play with human's swimming around or standing in the water. Some scientists do believe they are the next highest intelligence on the planet with many human-like behaviors.

so uh....it looks like you guys are okay with eating animals that are perceivably dumb. this talk of eating smart animals and cannibalism is just

If 'treated like people' means treated with respect, and not be used for our own use I agree, but I think its stupid that they should be treated so because of intelligence level. All animals should be treated in that way. I just read an article where there was a bust of 118 chickens in a cockfighting raid. It was said there were knifes attached to the chickens to make it even more gruesome and the wastes of lives who ran it just discarded the dead chickens in the bin with their beers and rubbish, and just abandoned their children they brought along when the cops raided the place. That is one of the most foul things I've heard in regards to animal abuse (not to mention child abuse) and should be stopped regardless of perceived intelligence level.

JustErin said:

Stupid is right.

If we're deciding which creatures deserve the best treatment according to intellingence a whole bunch of humans need to go,

where would they live, the dolphins?

fleshtrashheat said:

in houses filled with water of course

ahah