(Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
I'll begin... I'm a vegetarian and just for fun I decided to start this thread... I'm not strongly opposed to any diet, I just like to discuss things. Please don't let any emotions get in the way! :)
This is just for fun and for the sake of discussion.
I'll start by quoting TheAnimus from another thread...
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAnimus
Think about the poor carrot, been skinned, chopped, boiled?
The moral vegie argument can be simply de-railed by analysising someones spendings, there are right now roughly 1.5Billion people in the world who are below the poverty line, dieing etc, because of a want for clean water. When we buy something like a packet of cigs, or a coffee from starbucks, we are implicitly making a choice, me over them.
So lets not get all uppity about morality of life taking.
Just because there are people starving, doesn't mean it is immoral for people not to starve.
Morality is a matter of personal feelings, something only the individual can understand about themself.
For example, I feel bad about all of the poverty and death in the world, and I do what I can to help those whom I can. If one person helped one other person, then every person would be helped (unless there's an odd number of people, in which case one person would have to help two people.) But in theory this is how it should be. For those who need help, there are government funds to help them, and billions being donated in their cause. Although, I don't see how that has anything to do with a vegetarian diet.
Vegetables and fruits yield more food per square kilometer than meat. If there were more demand for vegetables (say, due to a larger number of vegetarians...), then world hunger could be fought better equipped. The problem is not due to individual morality but large-scale political purposes. The governments simply don't do enough to help these people.
You say the "moral-vegie" argument is "de-railed" by that analysis, but I don't see how it has anything to do with a vegetarian's morality. I cannot feed 1.8 billion starving people, if I could, I would. I can, however, feed 1-2 at least... And I do by giving money to charity.
It's easy to see that cutting a living creature's throat, letting it bleed out, and then eating its flesh for sustenance is unnecessary when you can survive perfectly well off of fruits, vegetables, and nuts. It is causing unnecessary harm.
However, I'll propose an argument against vegetarians that actually works, as opposed to the one that you made which doesn't.
Every living creatures existence, whether plant or animal, has such a finite perceivable purpose that it is irrelevant, from a large-scale-perspective, what happens to said creature.
If you zoom out and look at the entire universe from beginning to the distant future, life flashes before your eyes. Everyone and everything is born, and then dies just as quick. So with that mind frame you can easily kill animals, who don't speak your language and cannot ask you to stop, and eat them. If you don't, they would die any ways and you would've wasted an opportunity to eat fresh meat, and now it will rot and be left to scavengers.
So with this argument, it's taking the "cycle of life" theory, which shows that all creatures are born, and then are either eaten, killed, or die of "natural" causes... and then the cycle starts over again... So no matter what you eat, or don't eat, in the end it doesn't matter because everything has the same fate.
However, as intelligent humans with the ability to perceive suffering and to comprehend it to the extent of being able to alter the circumstances of said sufferer... we should not hasten to take such a world-view, unless we want to stagnate our beautiful evolutionary progress.
We would have to regress to becoming just like any other animal on the planet, in order for that argument to be proper. We would have to say that we're simply animals and it doesn't matter what happens to other species, so long as our species is #1...
But there's other animals who are cannibals... Should we be cannibals? Why or why not? We perceive it as evil, but if you open this chapter, then nothing is "evil" it's just a matter of survival, and the "cycle".
So you either have a limit, or you have no limit...
If you're going to have a limit, then you'll run into all sorts of issues. If you have no limit, then nobody can really argue with you, because you're just an animal who lives to die.
However, with limits, you live to hopefully prosper and help to achieve some sort of purpose in life.
Many people feel that their purpose is to try to put an end to suffering. Something that can never truly be done, but something that should be attempted none-the-less. Can you think of any other genuine purpose in life?
There's only so much we can do... eat/sleep/drink/poop/mate/die/sports/watch tv/games/travel/learn... Learning is something we all neglect very much, yet even those who neglect it still learn something new virtually every day.
If you can physically kill an animal yourself and cut its flesh and then cook it and eat it, or not cook it, and just eat it, then you qualify to be a rational meat-eater... But if you can't do it yourself, then why do you eat meat? If you see something wrong with it, personally, then why eat meat?
I don't know of anyone short of a psychopath who can kill another human and eat them. Why should we treat animals differently? Would you eat your dog, or your cat? Why not? They are meat just the same as cows and pigs and chickens...
So the moral dilemma is not with the vegetarian who tries their best to put an end to suffering, but with one who says they'll put an end to suffering yet has a bundle of it in their fridge.
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
If you want to start an arguement about evolutionary biology... restraining myself here and the other post or I will begin a rant.
I have nothing against vegetarians but your reasoning in the other post was flawed... especially your point about digestive systems.
a point I would like to make is that some people can't be vegetarians, they wouldn't be able to get the protein they need e.g. if they have allergies or intolerances.
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zadock
If you want to start an arguement about evolutionary biology... just try me, I have a degree in ecology... restraining myself here and the other post or I will begin a rant.
I would like to read that rant Zaddock. Please go ahead :D
Nice avatar by the way :laugh:
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zadock
If you want to start an arguement about evolutionary biology... restraining myself here and the other post or I will begin a rant.
I have nothing against vegetarians but your reasoning in the other post was flawed... especially your point about digestive systems.
a point I would like to make is that some people can't be vegetarians, they wouldn't be able to get the protein they need e.g. if they have allergies or intolerances.
Lol, you didn't even read what I wrote in this thread.
The digestive argument is flawed just like ANY argument. There are hardly any arguments that aren't flawed, unless they are mathematical arguments.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MadduckUK
That's not nice lol :P
I'm not emo, and even if I was, why are you so anti-emo? Meat-eating rage, it seems... :)
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MadduckUK
Nice photos Madduck... and Funk... funny stuff...
Amino acid deficiencies can be solved on a vegetarian diet no different than a meat diet.
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Lol! I'm at work... I'll get told off for spending ages posting here.
Further to my point above, a friend I work with is gluten, lactose and "something else" intolerant. He has now gone back to eating meat just to have some more variety in his diet... he was a strict vegetarian for about 15 years.
I have a degree in ecology&zoology by the way, so I'm full of useless information about mammalian digestive systems. Interesting stuff :)
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
This thread makes me want to go eat a giant steak :)
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
EVERYTHING tastes better with bacon.
http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/wp-...l_IMG_0550.JPG
especially cookies
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Arrrgh im so hungry. I'm off to make a huge sausage sandwich with some brown sauce :)
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tigerboyce
Arrrgh im so hungry. I'm off to make a huge sausage sandwich with some brown sauce :)
Don't forget to wrap in bacon and garnish with aborted chicken foetus.
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
directhex
EVERYTHING tastes better with bacon.
especially cookies
Damn you directhex!
http://icanhascheezburger.files.word...05/do-want.jpg
Re: (Just for fun) Vegetarian diet or Carnivorous diet?
Rob, why have you started another thread for this? Aren't there already plenty of these kinds of threads you could have continued?