I will take a look at this tomorrow. They seem to have a good sense of humor though the show in question seem to be quite biased. Animal rights is probably something it's hard not to be biased on.

<sarcasm>
Hey, you don't go dissing the plants too, plants are part of the tree of life after all. What about bacteria that get brushed away every morning when we brush our teeth? Where does the line end, PETA? Kingdom animalia?
</sarcasm>

PLANTS LIVE! PLANTS SUFFER!

Oh and don't walk on grass. That's just cruelty.

:-)

Well, could you please show me a self evidential ethical basis not to:
Murder (unlawfull killing)
The raping of women
Stealing
Enslaving people

Thank you!

My ethical basis is that I think that it is wrong to cause so much suffering for animals, especially when it is not needed.
There are many myths about vegetarianism and it's health effects.
There has been much research on the health effects of a vegetarian diet with varying results, but I can't remember reading any where vegetarianism was shown as any worse than the common diet. I think it is probably more healthy but there are still much to learn abut nutrition.

A 1999 metastudy about diet and longevity combined data from five studies that I found cited
on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism has the following result.
Mortality ratios, where lower numbers indicated fewer deaths:
Fish eaters came out the best with .82. Both vegetarians and occasional meat eaters got .84
Regular meat eaters and vegans shared the highest mortality ratio of 1.00.

The difference between vegetarians and vegans is that vegetarians can eat milk products, egg products and honey while vegans can eat no product made from an animal.
A vegetarian can eat a normal varied diet and not need to be concerned about getting all that he\she needs. A vegan should be more conscious about their diet, they should eat both grains and legumes (beans, chick peas, lentils, etc) regularly to get all the proteins they need. Also vegans should take some kind of B12 supplements, vegetarians do not need that as long as they consume some milk products. Apart from that I do not know of anything else that is needed. Omega 3 is most likely quite good for you but is not essential. Vegetarians can get it from seaweed but fish is a better source.

Everybody and not just vegans would benefit from being more conscious about their nutrition. It is however not so easy to know today what is right even though our knowledge has increased tremendously in recent years there are a lot of different opinions on what food is healthy for you. As always, the best bet is to listen to well respected scientists and not some media "health expert".

Been to the Super Tofu Boy Twitter page? "I got a hidden character in my pants and he's packed with protein!"

Christ.

My ethical basis is that taking the lives of animals to get food to eat when it is not needed is wrong. If however it is needed, like if you get stranded on a lonely island with your kids who need a nutritious diet to become healthy and no legumes in sight it is your right to kill animals for you to eat. If you live in a country where you can buy both some kind of grains as well as either beans, lentils, chick peas or some other kind of legumes you don't need to and therefore I think it is wrong.
The killing of an animal is however a very small evil compared to the gruesome life that most of the animals that become food for Europeans and Americans have to live. I find this horrendous. If you go out into the woods and shoot a deer yourself I find it a hundred times less immoral than going to the supermarket and buying a chicken or parts of a pig.

I find this suffering wrong because most likely these animals have many feelings that are similar or analogous to me. All this is speculation since none of us actually knows how it feels to be a pig or a cow, but biologists have found more and more things that we once looked upon as uniquely human in other animals.


Yes, but we are not part of the biosphere anymore. Almost all of the vegetables and meat we consume is obtained from farming. The exception is fish for most of the fish we consume are still fished from the oceans.

The argument about what is natural or not does not hold any water. We have gone away from many natural things and rightly so. Dying of diseases is natural, curing them with modern medicine is not, I think we both agree that modern medicines, for the most part is a good thing.

We have set ourselves truly above other animals, for good and ill. One of the good things is that we have a moral choice. Simple morals have been observed in other animals as well, though not comparable to ours.
We can choose whether we want other higher beings to suffer or not. For me the choice is an easy one.

I think you should know a little more about the subject before you speak, otherwise you might end up with spreading myths.
Yes we are omnivorous, that does not mean that we need food from both animals and vegetables, only that we can feed from both.

There is no vitamins that is needed for vegetarians to be healthy that they must get through pills or other substitution. You are excused since this is a common myth. There was a concern before about B12, vegetarians seem to get enough of it through milk products and eggs but vegans should take B12 as a supplement. (This should not be very expensive.)
B12 deficiency is however very rare according to Wikipedia.

As for proteins you get all the essential (the ones that the body can't produce itself) ones from vegetables.


PETA may be somewhat moronic but there is nothing wrong with their basic moral system.

It is no more indefensible to say that killing animals to eat them is wrong than saying killing humans to eat them is wrong.


Well what is this anger that you feel? Have their arguments offended you in any way? Let me ask you this. Have you ever felt disgust when you hear about people who just for the hell of it kill and torture animals? If you are like most people you will probably answer yes to this, and if you are like most people (outside of India) you probably think it is okay for animals to suffer a little for you to get some tasty meat. Have you ever thought that there might be some dissonance in this?

1. I don't care about my health that much to cut out something I like to eat so the health arguments don't sway me, and even they are kinda misleading.......you can eat lean meats and still not suffer the health effects vegans/etc claim a meat diet brings to ALL meat eaters.

2. Animals suffering is something I couldn't care less about. Humans I care about, as it's my species so I identify with it and hate when people suffer, but even then I know there's not much I in my position can do to stop human suffering on a major scale so I don't do much beside signing petitions and writing politicians/etc.

I also identify with humanlike species like apes and the like, but feel that limited non lethal and minimally painful ape/chimp experimentation is fine........not to say that

But if I want some bacon(or other meat i'm ok with eating) and there ain't any and i'm hungry I may even go so far as to skin the pig myself, of course only after killing it. I mean, i'm not THAT cruel. But alot of animals are just that...DUMB(Compared to humans higher mental functions) animals. You don't see a cow building a home or city now do you? Or a chicken learning a new language? I didn't think so.

They're there to complete the web of life and to eat and control the plant populations and the populations of other animals, while other animals are here to control the first animal groups populations and so on. If animals can eat other animals and no veggie cries that we should change those animals because it's "natural/in their nature" then I don't think they should try to stop man from doing so either. Just because we have a choice doesn't mean we have to adhere to another's way of thinking. It's up to each individual and nothing can or should change that, barring them violating the law or something.

They also protect our houses from zombies! I've never seen a cow do that!

<no sarcasm>
For me it is kingdom animalia. (But I do value higher and lower forms of animals differently)

But where does your line end? Chimps? Neanderthals? Let's say hypothetically that certain people like Scandinavians or Japanese were lawful to eat, and were moreover considered a delicacy. Would you eat danish people if it was acceptable?

1. Animals may have "feelings", but they do not know what those feelings are in terms that we do, or possess the higher brain functions to realise on a major level the way the world work and other concepts such as these that only a species with a higher brain function can grasp.

2. Animals...higher beings? Maybe chimps and dolphins and the like, but don't try to make me believe cows and chickens are on the same level of intellect....and it's those animals we eat for the most part. Not the apes/dolphins/etc of the world.

3. Stop...just STOP right there..........there's a big difference between eating your own species(taboos and criminal laws and intelligence and all that mess), and eating a cow that sits in a field all day long and chews on grass.

4. Torturing animals and pets is wrong imo.....but yes, I like eating meat so i'll/we'll keep on doing it. Yes, we wish farm conditions were better and slaughtering methods more humane but beyond that we don't see animals used for food as equal to humans, and they aren't. They may "feel" emotions on some base level, but they're not as smart or intuitive as to what these emotions mean on a grander scale as we are so I consider them fair game for my belly.....and they may feel pain but IMO the only problems we have now is factory farm regulation abusers causing more suffering than is necessary, but i'm guessing that even cutting their heads off or killing them even less painfully would still be too much for people like you and that's what irks us most.

This hypothetical holds no water as in most areas the taboo of cannibalism and the laws keep people from doing such....it's simply too stigmatic and abhorrent to do so. I know some animals do it though, which points out another point towards them being of extremely low intelligence. Humans see eating one's own species or killing/raping one's own species as wrong, yet alot of animals do these things every day. If they were intellgent enough they wouldn't allow it and we'd see evidence of it en masse in nature.

Lot's of TL;DR in this thread. :)
I stongly recommend people who are interested in these issues to read Pentti Linkola, the only sane envioronmentalist/animal rights guy i know of.

Actually, I used to eat a danish for breakfast pretty often. They're delicious when they're cheese-filled.

So.... many.... laughs... *wipes tear and clicks the little green + button*

And seriously WTF at the person who started jabbering about eating our own people. Jesus H Christ, I bet that dude would be the first to nominate barbecuing the frozen dead people if he got in a plane crash in the Himalayas.

Nobility is all fine and dandy until it's do or die. Remember that.

ZOMG! Completely forgot about that! Yeah, fucking cows. Lazy, stupid and noisy. SLAUGHTER EM! *dials up McDonalds*

Have you had your break today?