Veganism and killing

[elainevdw]

Originally Posted by Baltar

As far as plants go though, I don't see any problem with eating them. Plants don't have a nervous system, they don't feel pain. They also live in a symbiotic relationship with animals -- animals provide plants with food by exhaling carbon dioxide, and animal waste is fertilizer for plants. Plants provide animals with food and oxygen. They can't live without us, and we can't live without them.

I was thinking about this today and was a little stumped. Plants don't feel pain... but I think the "green thumb" effect has to do with how positive human energy can help plants grow. This kind of goes back to that Myth Busters episode I saw where a plant hooked up to a ploygraph showed stress when a team member sent evil intentions to the plant. (I know, good TV, but hardly scientific.) Also with a tidbit I read in a book on bioenergy that showed that, if you cut a leaf in half and then photograph it in a special way, its energy pattern still shows a whole leaf. (In the book, this was tied into "ghost limbs" felt by amputees.) So if the basis of everything is energy, how is a human different than a plant on an energetic level? Do plants have souls? Or are plants simply repositories of energy that can and should be used to fuel the life and growth of animals and humans?

I apologize about the new-ageyness of that paragraph in a thread outside of the spiritual/paranormal forums, by the way. The idea that everything has bioenergy is a completely foreign concept that I've only recently started researching.

Originally Posted by Baltar

Ok, so mass harvesting kills animals. That sucks, I agree. But how about we take into consideration that most of the harvest goes toward feeding farm animals? Escapee posted that "more than 90% of all agricultural land in Britain is used to feed animals." Extrapolating that data, if people didn't eat animals, then there'd be 90% less field animals killed because we'd be harvesting 90% less plants. That book's argument only makes sense if farm animals were raised solely on naturally growing fields with no livestock feed harvesting by humans. That's simply impossible because of how much livestock is being raised.

That's a very good point! The ecological effects of agriculture is such a multifaceted topic.

[Mnemosyne]

I find this thread to be of extreme interest because of the association I'm seeing between what people eat and their spirituality/religion/philosophy. This thread has shown me that people feel as strongly about what they eat as they do their own belief system.

[Joyous]

If you closely observe, you can see the laws of animal kingdom and same laws exist in human beings also, not physically, but psychologically. Lion kill deers, some other animal eat it's waste, same thing you can see human beings psychologically. some people are lions, foxes, horses.. All there... You can associate our personality traits to some particular animal behavior.

And if you watch animals closely, you can see the extreme deception they use for survival. And we all tell live 'natural'. What is natural is all about deception. This goes deep into what we say or believe as our morality.

[Qilfish]

Somebody mentioned about the silent screams of fruit being picked (I'm paraphrasing muchly here): There is such a thing as fruitarianism, in which you only eat fruit that has already fallen of the tree. Apparently, they have to live in communes together and it doesn't work very well.

Also, Erin P. said in one of her posts that it as not the killing that was bad, but the cruelty in which the animals lived and died.

I've been a vegetarian scince I was 5, so I forget why I became one, but it was probaly something along the lines of "eating animals is mean ". Interestingly enough, many of my friends back then tried out vegetarianism (although only one stuck with it to my knowledge).

[Lotus]

There's a theory out that says it's evolutionarily retarded to think that plants can feel suffering; why would an entity that is entirely sessile develop or retain pain sensors when it can't escape harm? Plants would be sitting there, screaming silently in pain, while being slowly munched by placid cows.

But, escapee, I feel the same way. I can't stand the thought that I might be building myself out of dead bodies. I know this is going to sound really stupid, but I feel like eating meat from animals that suffered is like putting that suffering inside myself. Does that make sense? I'm not meaning for this to be a logical arguement. I have lots of logical arguements to pull out of my hat. This is a purely visceral reaction that I've developed after having been veg*an for a long time.

[Qilfish]

Originally Posted by Lotus

But, escapee, I feel the same way. I can't stand the thought that I might be building myself out of dead bodies. I know this is going to sound really stupid, but I feel like eating meat from animals that suffered is like putting that suffering inside myself. Does that make sense? I'm not meaning for this to be a logical arguement. I have lots of logical arguements to pull out of my hat. This is a purely visceral reaction that I've developed after having been veg*an for a long time.

Here is the blog post from Erin that I mentioned earlier: Erin Pavlina’s Blog » Blog Archive » The Connection Between Psychic Abilities and Being Vegan

It says something similar to your feelings of putting the suffering inside yourself.

[Andrew Brunelle]

Just my two cents on this issue. I am really trying very hard to transition to vegetarianism, but I have some internal problems with doing that. I will eventually, but for now I feel like eating meat is part of my life. I do hate the cruelty on factory farms and animal suffering and I've almost completely given up dairy products, although it is a constant struggle for me. If I ever go out and eat with my family, everyone else orders meat and I don't want to be viewed as the one who always orders a salad or a vegetable wrap. I know that's a stupid reason, but I have made significant health improvements and I eat meat as little as possible, but sometimes I can't find a better alternative. But I'm revamping the whole diet and I've been eating more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, not to mention a variety of nuts. Walnuts are my favorite. So it's not like I'm eating meat constantly, and every time I do, I acknowledge the life of the animal this meal took and I honor it by enjoying it that much more. I guess you could say it's conscious animal consumption.

[DKSprocket]

Originally Posted by Andrew Brunelle

Just my two cents on this issue. I am really trying very hard to transition to vegetarianism, but I have some internal problems with doing that. I will eventually, but for now I feel like eating meat is part of my life. I do hate the cruelty on factory farms and animal suffering and I've almost completely given up dairy products, although it is a constant struggle for me. If I ever go out and eat with my family, everyone else orders meat and I don't want to be viewed as the one who always orders a salad or a vegetable wrap. I know that's a stupid reason, but I have made significant health improvements and I eat meat as little as possible, but sometimes I can't find a better alternative. But I'm revamping the whole diet and I've been eating more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, not to mention a variety of nuts. Walnuts are my favorite. So it's not like I'm eating meat constantly, and every time I do, I acknowledge the life of the animal this meal took and I honor it by enjoying it that much more. I guess you could say it's conscious animal consumption.

That's a very interesting topic - one that should probably be discussed in a thread of its own. From my own experience of recently switching away from meat and junkfood (and previous failed attempts) I'd say it boils down to the following factors:

Physical: your body craves some of the ingrdients from the meat/junkfood.

Emotional conditioning: we have a lot of associations to certain dishes, smells etc. Not to mention what to eat at christmas, thanksgiving etc.

Social: The peer preasure of being different. Its a lot easier to eat what's being served to you than the effort of explaining why you're eating in a different way.

Convinience: We have many years of experience cooking great meat dishes, knowing where our favorite food places are etc. Switching to a completely different diet takes a lot of effort.

Rasmus

[Amadeus]

Well, I'm speaking as a former meat eating Republican who believes that animals are here on Earth to serve man. Vegan is the way to go. I've been vegan for a month and a half now and my blood pressure (top number) has gone down 30 points. I'm now in the normal range. I was having heart congestion and my feet were swelling. I'm now losing weight, feeling great, and I don't have those crazy cravings for sweets and diary products. I think the milk and cheese was frankly killing me. Milk is in everything now and most junk food.

I will say though that everytime PETA gets involved with the Vegan stance, they are hurting their cause. The health benefits of eating vegan are incredible. However, people feel that the vegan diet is being pushed only to save animal's lives. They think the health benefits mentioned are not true and only propaganda. So I really think you guys should be focusing on telling the public about the HEALTH benefits. Don't mention ethics when it comes to people's food. Remember that we are animals also and survival comes first in our minds.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by Qilfish

Here is the blog post from Erin that I mentioned earlier: Erin Pavlina’s Blog » Blog Archive » The Connection Between Psychic Abilities and Being Vegan

It says something similar to your feelings of putting the suffering inside yourself.

Sweet. I'm not alone on planet Crazy.

[Adiieu]

Alright so I've never tried vegetarianism or anything like it untill two months ago when I decided to try it basically for the hell of it. Before this I didn't eat a whole lot of meat just because it didn't really appeal to me so the change wasn't really too much trouble, but now I'm two months in and I don't really know why I'm a vegetarian. I have a lot of trouble justifying it with the normal reasons like oh killing animals is 'bad' or that there are health benefits. Personally I haven't really noticed any health benefits but I was in pretty good shape before. As for the animals I have never really heard a well reasoned arguement as to why eating animals is 'bad' 'wrong' 'morally aborhant' whatever. Most of the arguements just seem to say that animals can feel pain and so they have some sort of intrinsical moral value, but there are a lot of holes I see. I would argue that people can feel pain/pleasure in a probably more direct and experiential way than animals do, and so before the animals became a real concern shouldn't we first help the starving and downtrodden people of the world? Wouldn't they count at least as much as an animal and if so than why aren't most of the vegetarians I know not actively working to help them? Yeah, this is a rant I know and apologize for that but its really early and I'm quite tired. I guess the bottemline of this entire piece is that its quite odd to see so many vegetarians worrying about animals but then being lax when it comes to the people of this world, whom must be at least as worthwhile as an animal.

[Keith]

I strongly recommend the following webcomic (yes, it's pertinent to this thread).

The Jain's Death

Note: The first couple of pages have some spiritual/metaphysical intro text. If that's not your sort of thing, click through - the main story begins a few pages on.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Lotus

There's a theory out that says it's evolutionarily retarded to think that plants can feel suffering; why would an entity that is entirely sessile develop or retain pain sensors when it can't escape harm? Plants would be sitting there, screaming silently in pain, while being slowly munched by placid cows.

But, escapee, I feel the same way. I can't stand the thought that I might be building myself out of dead bodies. I know this is going to sound really stupid, but I feel like eating meat from animals that suffered is like putting that suffering inside myself. Does that make sense? I'm not meaning for this to be a logical arguement. I have lots of logical arguements to pull out of my hat. This is a purely visceral reaction that I've developed after having been veg*an for a long time.

Lotus it makes perfect sense. There are the people who are unaware through social conditioning that eat meat, then there are those who are aware and still eat meat. Blood on their hands.

[mviara]

Just wanted to point out some research done by Jagdish Chandra Bose in the early 20th century. According to the article:

His research in plant stimuli were pioneering, he showed with the help of his newly invented crescograph that plants responded to various stimuli as if they had nervous systems like that of animals. He therefore found a parallelism between animal and plant tissues.

and

He claimed that plants can "feel pain, understand affection etc," from the analysis of the nature of variation of the cell membrane potential of plants, under different circumstances. According to him a plant treated with care and affection gives out a different vibration compared to a plant subjected to torture.

A more detailed article: Bioelectricity and the rhytms of sensitive plants.

A search in Google scholar lists his publications.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by mviara

Just wanted to point out some research done by Jagdish Chandra Bose in the early 20th century. According to the article:

and


A more detailed article: Bioelectricity and the rhytms of sensitive plants.

A search in Google scholar lists his publications.

I disagree with this entirely. Plants have have no central nervous system and look to have evolved in such away that being digested and excreted by animals is a sure way to fertilse and spread their seeds.

[mviara]

Originally Posted by Stephen

I disagree with this entirely. Plants have have no central nervous system and look to have evolved in such away that being digested and excreted by animals is a sure way to fertilse and spread their seeds.

This argument fails for a large variety of plants that do not have to be "killed" to disperse their seeds. That, I believe, is the motivation behind the fruitarian diet who only consume the fruit without killing the plant that gives them the fruit.

I'm not saying we should all be fruitarian or even vegetarian. I just wanted to point out that one cannot justify eating plants by claiming they don't feel pain. Even if they did not feel pain, that too would not be a justification - imagine a cow being quickly and painlessly chopped before your eyes - if that was not justified, neither is the plant. One can keep going further along this argument to killing insects, microbes, etc.. This then becomes something that one cannot use in an objective argument to justify a diet, it belongs in the realm of religion/spirituality, which is inherently subjective.

It is true however that vegetarians are at least killing less living beings than the omnivores. The ultimate solution may be evolution (if not natural, then technological) - as Socrates says in the Way of the Peaceful Warrior:

"Our primary source of energy in this system," he said waving his arm to indicate the solar system, "is the sun. But, in general, the human being - that's you . . ."

(Dan) "Thanks for the concession."

". . . in his present state of evolution, has not developed the ability to make direct use of the sun's energy; you cannot 'eat sunlight' except in limited ways. When humanity does develop that ability, the digestive organs will become vestigial and the laxative companies will go out of business. For now, food is the form of stored sunlight which you need."

I strongly recommend reading Socrates' take on diet in the book(starting page 116). It may seem like he is advocating a "positively ascetic" diet, but his reasons for it are not quite what one would expect.

[bix]

Baltar: I think humans will always cause some damage to the environment no matter how hard we try to reduce it, simply because we can't live "within" nature as other animals do.

I would not uniformly call everything that people do to the environment "damage". Some things, maybe, but ultimately not everything.

Come to think of it, when a bird eats an insect, is it causing "damage" to the environment? Or, when a snake eats that bird's egg, is that "damage"? If not, is it "damage" when the egg is eaten by a human being? I see three possible answers:

1. This is not "damage". There are no ethical arguments against eating animal food.

2. This is "damage". Eating animal food is bad.

3. This might or might not be "damage" depending on the circumstances. Thus, sometimes eating animal food is OK and sometimes it is bad.

I happen to think that the answer to the question is 1 and that eating animal food is OK. It looks like a lot of people here would disagree. I am curious to know what their logic would be. Anyone?

[Baltar]

When I said that humans damage the environment, I was mostly referring to things like deforestation, destruction of habitat, hunting species to extinction, air/water pollution, light pollution (trees get confused by night time illumination), and anything else that we do which disrupts the ecosystem.

When a bird eats an insect by the way, it's not damaging anything. It's playing its role in the ecosystem by helping to control the population of insects. Same idea with any other predator. In nature there's a balance to everything. When humans eat animals these days, 99% of the time that animal was bred and raised for that sole purpose. If humans actually went out to personally hunt and kill every animal that they ate (particularly those animals that need population control due to human caused lack of natural predators), I would have no problem with it in terms of ethics. Though, if people had to do this every time they wanted to eat some meat they might settle for alternatives.

[bix]

If humans actually went out to personally hunt and kill every animal that they ate (particularly those animals that need population control due to human caused lack of natural predators), I would have no problem with it in terms of ethics.

So, I guess you think that the answer to my question is that eating an animal by a human might or might not constitute environmental "damage" depending on the circumstances. Is the requirement to hunt an animal the only circumstance that plays a role here? What about mass-hunting animals by luring them into environmentally-friendly holes and slaughtering them with rocks? What about the "last bengali tiger" argument - do you consider the killing of the last bengali tiger by a hungry man (who does the killing with his bare hands and then eats the meat raw without ever lighting a match) to not be "damage"? What are the bounds?

[Andrew Brunelle]

Originally Posted by Adiieu

I guess the bottemline of this entire piece is that its quite odd to see so many vegetarians worrying about animals but then being lax when it comes to the people of this world, whom must be at least as worthwhile as an animal.

Here is the point. Animals are just as important as animals. The importance of one's existence is not set in how intelligent or how big an animal/plant/other is. Just because we are more intelligent does ont give us more of a right to live. It just means we have the ability to dominate other species. But even so, every being on this planet has an equal right to life and justifying that humans are at least as important as animals is right, as they are exactly as important as animals. Sure, we may be in charge now, but after the human race becomes extinct, I'm sure the world will eventually go back to becoming a better place. So maybe the lives of animals are even MORE important than those of humans because they are not as destructive in nature and live within nature, not away from it.

[fretho]

Most people do not think killing animals is wrong. So that approach doesn't really work to convince people, and I don't even think it's 100% wrong myself. But most people do understand that torturing animals unnecessarily is wrong. So vegetarianism can be seen as basically a decision based on economics and relative ethics. Most people aren't aware of how inhumane the standard process for making meat is. Even if 99% of the cows we eat are treated relatively humanely, the remaining 1% taints the industry because you can't really be sure. You may be able to get organic beef that is guaranteed to be treated humanely, but it's going to be over-priced.

Another important argument is that we shouldn't squander or unnecessarily tax our environment's resources. Most people aren't aware of the amount of water and land that goes into making a pound of meat versus a pound of vegetable protein. The ratio is huge. The extra food we would be getting by focusing on just plant-based agriculture could go to feeding starving people around the world. It would also make it a lot cheaper to produce biodiesel and other plant-based fuels, leading to a more sustainable way of life.

I find it weird (maybe even a little discouraging) that people are so afraid of anything new that they find vat-grown meat to be repugnant. What the heck would be wrong with it? Imagine meat that has never had a nervous system, never feels pain before it gets to the table. It would be morally superior, more higienic, and probably a lot more efficient to produce as well.