How do you, as a meat-eater, justify the violence inherent in your food?

[aneeshm]

As a vegetarian, I consider meat eating to be abhorrent, for both religious as well as secular reasons.

The religious reason is that there is tremendous violence inherent in the way that food is obtained. Such violence is not good for the perpetrator.

The secular reason is that killing animals and eating them is, frankly, disgusting. Another secular reason is that eating meat kills the seeds of great compassion.


How do you, as a meat eater (if, that is, you are a meat eater), justify the violence inherent in your food, and inherent in the act of obtaining it? Violence of that nature is, after all, negative, no matter which way you slice it.

[BeBMan]

I don't justify anything. I just eat it.

[Arrian]

The secular reason is that killing animals and eating them is, frankly, disgusting.

What disgusts one person may not disgust another.

I enjoy eating beef, chicken, pork, lamb... though I'll admit that raw chicken is pretty icky.

I don't feel the need to justify it. Does the lion justify his consumption of gazelle?

-Arrian

[LordShiva]

I give meaning to the lives of the noble animals that lay down their lives for me. Without me, they'd have no reason to exist.

[Heresson]

Re: How do you, as a meat-eater, justify the violence inherent in your food?

Originally posted by aneeshm
As a vegetarian, I consider meat eating to be abhorrent, for both religious as well as secular reasons.

The religious reason is that there is tremendous violence inherent in the way that food is obtained. Such violence is not good for the perpetrator.

The secular reason is that killing animals and eating them is, frankly, disgusting. Another secular reason is that eating meat kills the seeds of great compassion.


How do you, as a meat eater (if, that is, you are a meat eater), justify the violence inherent in your food, and inherent in the act of obtaining it? Violence of that nature is, after all, negative, no matter which way you slice it.

How do You justify violence against plants, which can't even try to defend themselves or run away?

[BeBMan]

If plants can't run away it's their own fault!

[Heresson]

Apparently farm animals can't run away either, so it's their fault as well

[aneeshm]

Let's turn the situation around a bit.

Imagine a race of aliens invades Earth tomorrow. Or rather, they just show up in the neighbourhood. For them, human meat is delicious. Also assume that they exist on a higher plane of consciousness or rationality than we do. Their technology is so much more advanced than ours that we are playthings in their hands.

Now they, seeing that we kill and eat animals based on the idea that we are more advanced or rational than animals, conclude that we cannot claim the right not to be eaten. They commence humanely slaughtering humans, and sending us back to their home planet in little tin cans. They don't kill too many - only a few million every year.

What justification will you, as a meat-eater, give to stop yourself being killed and eaten yourself?

[BeBMan]

Bigger guns.

[Nubclear]

I assure you, if an animal one day comes up to me and says "Hey, I'm capable of abtract thought just as you are, so stop killing me.", that animal will be spared

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by aneeshm
What justification will you, as a meat-eater, give to stop yourself being killed and eaten yourself?

I won't, as there is no such justification.

[BeBMan]

That's probably the great future of gentech. We'll get steak without any animal wrapped around it.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Let's turn the situation around a bit.

Imagine a race of aliens invades Earth tomorrow. Or rather, they just show up in the neighbourhood. For them, human meat is delicious. Also assume that they exist on a higher plane of consciousness or rationality than we do. Their technology is so much more advanced than ours that we are playthings in their hands.

Now they, seeing that we kill and eat animals based on the idea that we are more advanced or rational than animals, conclude that we cannot claim the right not to be eaten. They commence humanely slaughtering humans, and sending us back to their home planet in little tin cans. They don't kill too many - only a few million every year.

What justification will you, as a meat-eater, give to stop yourself being killed and eaten yourself?

Let's turn the situation around a bit.

Imagine a race of aliens invades Earth tomorrow. Or rather, they just show up in the neighbourhood. They eat a particular plant that requires large fields in which to grow. The soil and concrete under cities is the most fertile for that particular crop.

What justification will you, as a plant-eater, give to stop your city being demolished and yourself crushed under their harvesting machines and killed by their pesticides?

[Spec]

How do you, as a meat-eater, justify the violence inherent in your food?

Being hungry.

Life feeds on life. Period.

We just found a way to feed people without killing everything in nature. Cows, sadly, got that role.

Spec.

[Apocalypse]

Eating/killing for meat is less animalistic than what some people do in bed with significant others every night.