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

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
A secular reason to be vegeterrian is that it is a more efficient use of earth's resources. A lot more food goes to feeding a cow or pig than the meat it produces.

Jon Miller

Not really, since everything in nature is recycled. If you continue with this argument, then you need to get rid of all animals and pretty much anything else that doesn't derive it's energy directly from the sun.

[Jon Miller]

Animals take the plant matter (food!) and turn it into waste, heat, and their body. We eat their body, but not all of it. So the direct food consumption is low.

While we do turn some of their waste back into food, that is another long process, it is more efficient to just consume the food you had to begin with.

Also, people haven't yet harnassed the energy expended in heat to do anything.

Jon Miller

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Animals take the plant matter (food!) and turn it into waste, heat, and their body. We eat their body, but not all of it. So the direct food consumption is low.

While we do turn some of their waste back into food, that is another long process, it is more efficient to just consume the food you had to begin with.

Also, people haven't yet harnassed the energy expended in heat to do anything.

Jon Miller

Yes, but there is no net loss of resources. What we leave is food for something else. And they become food for plants. Ah, the circle of life.

[Jon Miller]

time, and we are animals ourselves

and heat

basically, the animals are all extra steps that are unneeded, if we want max population we will have to be rid of them

Jon Miller

[Kuciwalker]

That's silly.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DaShi


Yes, but there is no net loss of resources. What we leave is food for something else. And they become food for plants. Ah, the circle of life.

What about the chemicals used in crop fields, and the energy required to support herding farms ?

[DaShi]

What about it?

[Fake Boris]

Don't be such an idiot.

[DaShi]

Hey, you asked an open-ended question. Are the chemicals a net loss of resources? No. Is the energy? Unless the sun goes out, no.

Feel dumb now.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
This thread makes me hungry. Gotta stop by the butcher's store on the way home and get a kilogramm of fresh kill (blessed be those who still have a real butcher in their surroundings and not only huge supermarkets). Or may be I'll have a grilled chicken?

Me too! I know it's probably some sort of sad reflection on my impoverished spirituality but I had to stop halfway through this thread and make a deli meat sandwhich. I wouldn't have predicted a thread on the ethics of eating meat would have that effect on me.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Asher
For the record, what's wrong with violence? It's nature, baby.

for the record what is good about nature?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Beat you to the punch.

But my post didn't explain why he was wrong, leaving the door open for him to continue to make a fool of himself, which is why I am a superior poster.

Is that why you never explain your insults?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by DaShi
Hey, you asked an open-ended question. Are the chemicals a net loss of resources? No. Is the energy? Unless the sun goes out, no.

Here's your original claim:

A secular reason to be vegeterrian is that it is a more efficient use of earth's resources. A lot more food goes to feeding a cow or pig than the meat it produces.

Jon Miller

Not really, since everything in nature is recycled. If you continue with this argument, then you need to get rid of all animals and pretty much anything else that doesn't derive it's energy directly from the sun.

In case you still haven't noticed, that was a totally worthless answer to my (and Jon's) argument.

Crop fields needed for feeding livestock use up immense amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (and that's not counting the pollution that comes from chemical processing in the first place) ; they drive deforestation ; and feces disposal is a huge issue, especially in the massive, industrial "farms".

http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0612sp1.htm

The livestock sector is by far the single largest anthropogenic user of land. Grazing occupies 26 percent of the Earth's terrestrial surface, while feed crop production requires about a third of all arable land. Expansion of grazing land for livestock is a key factor in deforestation, especially in Latin America: some 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon is used as pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the reminder. About 70 percent of all grazing land in dry areas is considered degraded, mostly because of overgrazing, compaction and erosion attributable to livestock activity.

You completely missed the point about efficiency. Nobody's talking about the 'eternal chain of life and death' - but rather of the vast quantities of resources wasted on herding.

Feel dumb now.

Since you're on the topic, why not examine another claim of yours ?

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.

The first isn't secular, it's a personal opinion.

Pray tell, how does something being a personal opinion precludes it being 'secular' ?

Here's the definition of secular : "denoting attitudes, activities or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis."

I gather you used to quarrel with UR when he was still a regular. It sounds like he was your perfect match.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by aneeshm


I know that omelettes are delicious, having eaten them many times before.

Rape is pleasureable to the rapist, too. Usually gives him a thrill.

If the Hen could be made intelligent enough to communicate at an adult human level with you, do you think it would mind you eating it's unfertilized eggs?

[Fake Boris]

Well, it would probably have an issue or two with being caged in a hen-house ; that's probably what distinguishes us from animals, we tend to enjoy our chains.