Quote:
Originally Posted by joey m  Really? What then would be the difference between killing a human being and killing a chicken or a grapefruit? |
Civilians are permitted to kill chickens (humanely) and grapefruit, while only the government gives itself permission to kill humans. Different societies have different views on this. In some "primitive" societies of the past a male was not a man until he had killed someone (I'm not sure where any good links about this are, it's simply what I was taught in anthropology class).
Plenty of societies eat dog (to ancient taoists it's the only domesticated animal worth eating), and monkey is bush meat. The main potential health reason I could see for not eating human or monkey would be the increased chance of disease transmission. It's likely for a similar reason that pigs have to be cooked so much before eating (they're quite similar to humans, in taste and otherwise).