Vegetarians are hypocritical.
- Thread starter salami1212
- Start date
I doubt as a species in 100 years we will be eating farm reared meat in the same was as we are today (if at all).
For a start it's incredibly inefficient - it will all be GM meat grown in a factory - which will be great as then we have to have tasty burgers & no animals get killed for it - it's a win win situation.
If you look at our cultural evolution our empathy has expanded in a number of stages - starting at close family level, to extended family, community, nation, religious groups - it's seems the natural progression of the evolution of empathy will include animals (after we extend it to include our entire species).
For a start it's incredibly inefficient - it will all be GM meat grown in a factory - which will be great as then we have to have tasty burgers & no animals get killed for it - it's a win win situation.
If you look at our cultural evolution our empathy has expanded in a number of stages - starting at close family level, to extended family, community, nation, religious groups - it's seems the natural progression of the evolution of empathy will include animals (after we extend it to include our entire species).
Is it better that an animal exists to be eaten or does not exist at all?
Since I'm pretty sure nobody is going to give land, resources and management over to cows, sheep etc. just for fun.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
Just because you CAN get egg's from cruel treating and disgusting condition battery farms doesn't mean you have to.
THe majority of my egg's come from one friend who, madly commutes from Wales to london(I still can't work out why he does it) and has a bunch of chickens on his land at home, they are free to roam around, they don't get eaten or killed before their time, they aren't treated badly, they are safe, well fed(better than if they were "wild" and it makes no sense to have an essentially unlimited amount of chickens in the world. They would create eggs and not all would turn into chicks if they were there or not, that is life.
Anyway, that is only some of the egg's, the rest come from my aunt who is much closer and has a similar situation with plenty of well treated, healthy chickens roaming their land.
If I buy from a supermarket, I buy known quality, free range and organic eggs, not as good, but they certainly aren't battery farmed or treated horrifically.
In life you do what you can basically, do people get bullied for not giving every penny they make to charity, no, people do what they can. I try to be as nice and helpful to people as I can, however I don't and can't put my life on hold, as no one else does, to only spend all their time and effort helping other people. If everyone did what they could reasonably do, the world would be a much better place.
I feel eating meat is pretty cruel, I would have no problem if, society "ended" and you were living in the country without an easy ability to feed yourself. Right now, living as we do I see it as a moral choice, I can eat cruelly killed animals for my own pleasure, or I can do my best to eat in a way that harms as few people and animals as possible.
There is no question, at all, that by being vegetarian I have contributed to less animals being killed than if I wasn't, that is as good as I can do in this society, and that is all I care about.
If as I hope at some stage in life I can buy some land out in the country I will happily have some cows who will live happy lives and get milked(something that cows actually need to happen) and eat eggs from healthy happy chickens, I could make my own cheese and grow much of my own food.
living in central london that simply isn't going to happen now, for now I do what I can, and that is enough for me. The moral part that you want to shove down my throat is, if while I could limit amount of meat and animal products I could eat, and I didn't..... for me that is the immoral choice.
As for hypocrital, please tell me what I've said is hypocritical? Just because you've randomly put your viewpoint of vegetarians across as "completely against animal cruelty" and then found vegetarians that don't fit into that and called them a hypocrite, your initial idea of a vegetarian is by and large wrong and doesn't fit in with a single vegetarian I know of.
Associate
- Joined
- 26 Oct 2005
- Posts
- 402
- Location
- South Coast
I'm vegetarian and have been for over 5 years. I really hated meat as a child and would chew and chew liver till my dinner turned cold, I only ever ate chicken since then. I gave up because of the health scares and don't like eating animals anyway - I cannot hold a moral high ground as I eat eggs and milk (by products) and I certainly don't preach about it. I don't miss it. I usually buy free range / organic / fairtrade when possible.
Soldato
- Joined
- 11 Dec 2005
- Posts
- 11,363
- Location
- Cheshire
My missus was a vegetarian when I met her. Now she is not. Happy times.
The voice of reason, well said. My wife and daughter are vegetarian, and all I ever see is meat eaters either picking them to pieces and taking the mick, or alternatively awkwardly justifying themselves with statements like "I don't eat much meat really, just a bit of chicken, and I do like vegetables". We know a fair few veggies, and none of them preach to anyone.
Me? I only eat fish. I comfortable with it at the moment. It takes all sorts.
Who are you to tell me am I wrong?
I'm an omnivore by design, so of course it's natural to me. I love meat, but I try to support locally raised and well treated animals. I've even been to a couple of the farms where my meat comes from to see for myself.Why should we evolve away from eating meat when without our adaptable diet we probably wouldn't have evolved to this point anyway? Who knows, maybe we'll have to rely on meat more in the future to survive as a species?
Associate
- Joined
- 25 Jul 2009
- Posts
- 1,634
- Location
- England
I could never be a veggie. Love meat wayy to much. Like my mates dad said, what were animals put on earth for? lol. Then again it is the way they are treated before death which is bad.
Soldato
- Joined
- 3 Oct 2006
- Posts
- 8,537
I'm a veggie, my siblings are veggie and my parents are vegan. out of all of them I'm probably the most marginal.
I think the animal farming 'industry' is impractical in terms of land usage, not only to supply space for the animals but also food, we waste so much land on soya production, land that's not farmed sustainably (just look at the desertification of the Amazon for this) and far more soya than we'd ever need to sustain the human population.
because of the demands of space for the animals they are legally cramped in confined spaces, spaces which allow very little freedom to the animal and allow it very little stimuli.
from the evidence I can see some abattoirs/farms, even those proudly bearing the badge of RSPCA 'freedom food' are operated illegally (not enough vets present during slaughter, not enough space, no attention paid do dead or diseased livestock etc etc).
consumption of red meat/ham is directly linked to higher cancer rates, this, in part, is because of the crap we pump in to the animals to ensure they provide a decent yield at slaughter time and can be slaughtered at an earlier age. another contributing factor is the length of time meat stays in the digestive system, while plant matter is relatively easy to digest meat can take many days for the body to thoroughly digest.
The argument that our teeth are 'designed to eat meat' is something of a fallacy as well, whilst we have canine teeth which are perfectly suited to eating meat it's worth noting that in primates (of which I'm sure most of you will agree we are descendants of) primarily use these teeth for defence and a visual threat, a sneer meaning scorn or disgust exposes these teeth almost as a threat to the person we are scorning. also worth noting is that the largest primates (again with similar teeth) subsist almost entirely on vegetation and insects, not animals.
taking all that in to account (plus a number of other reasons) I disagree that we should eat meat as we currently do, however I have no problem with people eating meat, it's usually they who have a problem with me not doing so (as evidenced by a number of the opinions expressed in this thread), or using animal by products such as milk, eggs, skins and so on, I try to source as much of my possessions as ethically as possible in regard to not only animals but also humans and the planet in general.
I think the animal farming 'industry' is impractical in terms of land usage, not only to supply space for the animals but also food, we waste so much land on soya production, land that's not farmed sustainably (just look at the desertification of the Amazon for this) and far more soya than we'd ever need to sustain the human population.
because of the demands of space for the animals they are legally cramped in confined spaces, spaces which allow very little freedom to the animal and allow it very little stimuli.
from the evidence I can see some abattoirs/farms, even those proudly bearing the badge of RSPCA 'freedom food' are operated illegally (not enough vets present during slaughter, not enough space, no attention paid do dead or diseased livestock etc etc).
consumption of red meat/ham is directly linked to higher cancer rates, this, in part, is because of the crap we pump in to the animals to ensure they provide a decent yield at slaughter time and can be slaughtered at an earlier age. another contributing factor is the length of time meat stays in the digestive system, while plant matter is relatively easy to digest meat can take many days for the body to thoroughly digest.
The argument that our teeth are 'designed to eat meat' is something of a fallacy as well, whilst we have canine teeth which are perfectly suited to eating meat it's worth noting that in primates (of which I'm sure most of you will agree we are descendants of) primarily use these teeth for defence and a visual threat, a sneer meaning scorn or disgust exposes these teeth almost as a threat to the person we are scorning. also worth noting is that the largest primates (again with similar teeth) subsist almost entirely on vegetation and insects, not animals.
taking all that in to account (plus a number of other reasons) I disagree that we should eat meat as we currently do, however I have no problem with people eating meat, it's usually they who have a problem with me not doing so (as evidenced by a number of the opinions expressed in this thread), or using animal by products such as milk, eggs, skins and so on, I try to source as much of my possessions as ethically as possible in regard to not only animals but also humans and the planet in general.
Soldato
- Joined
- 7 Jul 2009
- Posts
- 16,234
- Location
- Newcastle/Aberdeen
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 27 Sep 2004
- Posts
- 25,821
- Location
- Glasgow
Typical - I post and within a minute there's you posting about whiny vegetarians, it's almost like you were waiting for the opportunity.
Bit existential isn't it? There are actually a number of people who keep what we'd think of as farmyard animals purely as pets - that there wouldn't be the same quantities as there are now isn't in doubt but to say there would be none isn't quite true either.
I suppose part of the question is what you'd consider to be an animal - while humans are mammals and therefore a species of animal there is also a school of thought that they don't fit into the ordinary category of animals. It's not a view I'd agree with but it's a possible way round the argument.
Then again you could take it from the angle that there's no suffering caused to the animal involved and it's a voluntary "gifting" of the milk which isn't necessarily the case with another animal.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
Who are you to tell me am I wrong?
Why should we evolve away from eating meat when without our adaptable diet we probably wouldn't have evolved to this point anyway? Who knows, maybe we'll have to rely on meat more in the future to survive as a species?
To address the last point, there is FAR more chance of meat becoming an unusable meat source and NO chance of vegie's/nuts/etc disappearing.
When you have large quantities of animals, or humans, anything really in a small space you encourage disease, foot and mouth and other things are far more likely to make people stop eating meat. You can't have the other happen because somewhere along the chain vegetables, nuts and everything else are the FIRST food source, every animal you eat, eats a vegetarian diet, or another animal that has a vegetarian diet.
IE it all comes from plant life to start with, if that goes, we all go, if animals become diseased and unsafe, which has a fairly decent chance of happening... again just on a bigger scale then in the future having to survive on meat will simply never happen.
On several other posts and that most veggies or those who have family members who are veggies, the almost universal abuse we get from meat eaters who have to ask question after question as to why we are vegetarians, that is what bugs me. I never preach, I've never been in a restaurant and questioned someone why they can eat meat, so why should I get those kinds of questions. Either way it somehow comes across as defensive from meat eaters, like they know what they do is somehow wrong and someone standing against it somehow embarrasses them, otherwise why the need to constantly make such a big deal out of it?
Why the need for this thread where someone has to come up with a reason why vegetarians are somehow "bad".
There are plenty of people in the world who could give up meat easily, and plenty of other people who rely on it and couldn't live without it.
Personally I also find the reaction of meat eaters to other people eating certain animals hilarious.
Its fine to eat a cow, but somehow eating a dog is sickening? That makes most meat eaters the hypocrites when you really think about it.