Help me answer a meat eaters comments?

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

 

As you might have heard, I am a hobbyist pipe organ builder and promoter. In

particular, I have figured out substitutes for leather throughout organ

building, a craft that is traditionally quite leather-intensive.

 

I make all my pipes from wood, which I like better than the traditional lead/tin

alloy in terms of being easy to work with low-cost equipment. The members of

the Pipes Forum, an online email discussion list are well aware of my sentiments

on leather. But I got this question the other day...

 

>Knowing how you eschew the use of Leather on moral grounds, I'd think

>you'd be equally against the use of wood since a tree has to be killed

>in order to harvest the timber.

 

>I'm not trying to be a smart alec, but just wondering.

 

This is of course a variation on the " you have to kill the carrot to eat it "

argument. How should I answer this comment in a way that is credible and

scientific?

 

NB: I could also use that resinous casting plastic but the mistakes aren't

biodegradeable. :-)

 

thanks, DG

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

> >Knowing how you eschew the use of Leather on moral grounds, I'd

think

> >you'd be equally against the use of wood since a tree has to be

killed

> >in order to harvest the timber.

 

Hi everyone,

 

David, I think the below excerpt from the article

 

" Responding Effectively to 13 Frequently Asked Questions About

Food, Fiber, Farm Animals, and the Ethics of Diet "

 

might be of some assistance to you. Here is the URL to the complete

article: http://www.upc-online.org/ethics_questions.html

 

Cheers,

Tammy

 

What about plants? Don't plants have feelings too?

 

It is very possible that plants have sensitivities that we do not yet

understand. Because plants do not have nervous systems and cannot run

away from predators, it has generally been assumed that they do not

experience pain and suffering. Recent scientific evidence suggests

that this assumption may be incorrect. However, we do know that birds

and other nonhuman vertebrates have well- developed nervous systems

and pain receptors the same as humans. Like us, they show pleasure

and pain and they present comparable evidence of fear and well-being.

Animals cry out in pain, they nurse wounded body parts, and they seek

to avoid those who have hurt them in the past.

 

In order to live, one has to eat. However, when we eat animal

products, we consume many more plants indirectly than if we ate those

plants directly, because the animals we eat are fed huge quantities

of grasses, grains, and seeds to be converted into meat, milk, and

eggs. As a vegan (one who eats no animal products) you cause fewer

beings to suffer and die for you.

[Guest guest]

DG:

 

My personal view is that causing as little suffering as is reasonably

possible is a good goal. To that end, eating as low on the food chain as

is reasonably possible is a good thing. Animals eat plants. Energy is

used to grow the plants. Energy is consumed maintaining the animal. A

great deal of energy is wasted (meaning the meat eaten contains a fraction

of the food energy used to grow the animal). So there is not a one-one

relationship between plant and meat (or leather), rather a hidden one-many.

I don't know the ratio but it's surprisingly high.

 

I know I did a fairly poor job of distilling this argument to its essence,

but do you understand what I mean?

 

Bruce

 

> This is of course a variation on the " you have to kill the

> carrot to eat it " argument. How should I answer this comment in

> a way that is credible and scientific?

[Guest guest]

Hi

 

I also am of the opinion that causing as little suffering as possible is

a good goal. But in order to survive one has to eat and this surely does

bring some suffering. But how do we reduce the suffering. For now let us

say that suffering or pain is equivalent to taking pleasure away from

living beings. What is attributed as pleasure is what the living being

experiences through its senses. Imagining urself without the ability to

see and u know how much true it is. So the more the senses you have the

more pleasure you derive from being alive. Conversely to put it the

lesser the senses the living being has the less the suffering/pain it

goes through when it is being killed. Since the animals are in the same

category as us in no of senses, we avoid having to see them as our next

meal. But plants being the ones with the least number of senses and also

the fact that we need soemthign to eat to survive , become the automatic

choice .

 

This is one of the arguments that i have found very useful. But I might

have done a really bad job at explaining this

 

Vidyanand.

 

 

Bruce Cannon [brucecannon]

Friday, January 17, 2003 11:39 AM

SFBAVeg

RE: [sFBAVeg] Help me answer a meat eaters comments?

 

 

DG:

 

My personal view is that causing as little suffering as is reasonably

possible is a good goal. To that end, eating as low on the food chain

as

is reasonably possible is a good thing. Animals eat plants. Energy is

used to grow the plants. Energy is consumed maintaining the animal. A

great deal of energy is wasted (meaning the meat eaten contains a

fraction

of the food energy used to grow the animal). So there is not a one-one

relationship between plant and meat (or leather), rather a hidden

one-many.

I don't know the ratio but it's surprisingly high.

 

I know I did a fairly poor job of distilling this argument to its

essence,

but do you understand what I mean?

 

Bruce

 

> This is of course a variation on the " you have to kill the

> carrot to eat it " argument. How should I answer this comment in

> a way that is credible and scientific?

 

 

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