Big Questions

[Guest guest]

I'm another fifteen year old vegan and I've been so for three years (a

vegan, not fifteen...although it might be fun...) Anyhow, I thought I might

introduce myself and open a can of worms (so to speak). I was wondering

what you thought of this situation:

I was engaging in a rather anti-vegan discussion with a couple of my

friends (I was the only veggie...one girl was previously a vegetarian, but

her mom made her eat at least one type of meat because she was getting

ill...she wasn't paying attention to her health, so I guess it wasn't the

lack of meat, it was her lack of awarness of vitamins and all

that...anyhow...) One of my friends brought up the point that he didn't

" get " vegetarians. He said that some people he talked to took the position

that all animals were equal to humans...in which case, wouldn't it be okay

to eat meat because animals do it all the time? And if we are equal to

them, we can't justify our not eating meat as taking a morally superior

position. If we say we are better than animals, why shouldn't we eat them?

He said that by eating them, we are keeping their population in check and

mantaining the " natural order " of the universe. He said we were designed as

omnivores and should follow our genetic programing and eat meat...The irony

of this is that he himself had just given up red meat and was very proud of

himself...anyhow, he went on to say that if we didn't eat animals they would

over-run the earth and everthing would be horrible etc. etc. etc...and, of

course, he ended with the all time most often heard argument " and besides,

God put animals on earth for us the eat " grrrr....anyhow, he changed the

subject before I could retort, but I was wondering what all you thought

about that and how I might respond when I see him next.

Thank you very much

-Maia-

 

______________________

Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

[Guest guest]

Hello,

wow another one arent we cool?..lol ahhh ive been in one of those

situations before i was surrounded by male HUNTERS...grrr..and a female

posuer...neways I would have told him about being a hypocrite for number one

because that is pure irony like you said about him giving up red meat and

then saying that stuff and nowhere in the " bible " does it say its okies to

eat them Im not a bible maniac TRUST ME but Im pretty sure its not saying

" eat and kill as many animals as you please " ...and the thinga bout them over

populating is bull because okies say everyone was vegan....there wouldnt be

farmers/animal abusers artifically getting cows,chickens,pigs etc. preg.

they only mate sooo many times a yr like a cow is only supposed to have like

1 calf like every two or three yrs with artifical insemination they make the

cow have about 5 calfs ever yr..this my dear friend is not natural...and

pigs arent supposed to have soo many piglets either they are also

artifically pregnated...and they have like three of four litters a yr when

they are really supposed to have about one..maybe two but not likely..so

there is no way they could over populate the earth..trust me...and if

everyone was vegan it would soo be a better place to live..=) the only

reason cows,pigs,barnyard animal clique eat other animals is because thats

all the farmers give them they make dog food out of animals okies if once

again everyone was vegan there would be no reason to kill animals because

you would eat plants and grains and such adn they wouldnt have to eat

themselves (e.x. cows eating left overs of cows..sorries for the bluntness)

or eat other animals unless they were animals like bears and such..you

understand i am sure...well we arent better then animals but because ppl say

we are " superior " to them....they think its okies to eat them because " they

dont have feelings " or " theyre stuupid " ....its because we put a steroetype

on ourselves saying we ARE better we are MAN we are " SUPERIOR " ....I wonder

if that was a male testosterone thing?..lol neways ohh gosh I hate the bible

shite sooo bad..I hate it....he didnt need to say that..but I would

definately get him with being a hypocrite and stuff like taht and i think

thats my input I hope I helped you a little if not Im sorries...write me

back if you want..=) bye bye for now

 

" Why cant the livestock be free?!? " ~silverchair

~**Cynthia**~

 

 

> " maia goodman " <save_the_fish

>

>

> Big Questions

>Tue, 04 Jul 2000 11:19:54 PDT

>

> I'm another fifteen year old vegan and I've been so for three years

>(a

>vegan, not fifteen...although it might be fun...) Anyhow, I thought I

>might

>introduce myself and open a can of worms (so to speak). I was wondering

>what you thought of this situation:

> I was engaging in a rather anti-vegan discussion with a couple of my

>friends (I was the only veggie...one girl was previously a vegetarian, but

>her mom made her eat at least one type of meat because she was getting

>ill...she wasn't paying attention to her health, so I guess it wasn't the

>lack of meat, it was her lack of awarness of vitamins and all

>that...anyhow...) One of my friends brought up the point that he didn't

> " get " vegetarians. He said that some people he talked to took the position

>that all animals were equal to humans...in which case, wouldn't it be okay

>to eat meat because animals do it all the time? And if we are equal to

>them, we can't justify our not eating meat as taking a morally superior

>position. If we say we are better than animals, why shouldn't we eat them?

>He said that by eating them, we are keeping their population in check and

>mantaining the " natural order " of the universe. He said we were designed

>as

>omnivores and should follow our genetic programing and eat meat...The irony

>of this is that he himself had just given up red meat and was very proud of

>himself...anyhow, he went on to say that if we didn't eat animals they

>would

>over-run the earth and everthing would be horrible etc. etc. etc...and, of

>course, he ended with the all time most often heard argument " and besides,

>God put animals on earth for us the eat " grrrr....anyhow, he changed the

>subject before I could retort, but I was wondering what all you thought

>about that and how I might respond when I see him next.

>Thank you very much

>-Maia-

>

>______________________

>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

>

 

______________________

Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

[Guest guest]

hi there maia,

 

welcome! i'm mylène, i'm 22, i've been veg for 5 years and working

on becoming vegan for the last year and a half. here's some of the

things i thought of while i was reading your post...

 

> " get " vegetarians. He said that some people he talked to took the

> position that all animals were equal to humans...in which case, wouldn't

> it be okay to eat meat because animals do it all the time?

 

most humans are *able* to eat vegan and be healthy. animals are

not.

 

to me, it's all summed up in one phrase that i try to use as often as

possible:

 

" do no harm unnecessarily " . (it's a quote from a philosopher

named albert schweitzer, i don't know anything else about him tho

*laugh*)

 

anyway, the basic idea makes a lot of sense. some animals need

meat to be healthy. some humans can't afford to eat vegan.

especially in places where the growing season is short, like where i

live in eastern canada, it's pretty hard to eat vegan through the

winter unless you can afford grocery store food (produced in

expensive greenhouses or trucked in from elsewhere), which some

people can't.

 

i *can* eat vegan, so i do. up til recently, i *couldn't* afford to buy

vegan clothes and shampoo and stuff. so i didn't. i didn't beat

myself up over it, but it did make me sad that capitalism forced me

to go against my beliefs. i gave up buying what i could (cosmetics

and other unnecessary stuff) until i can afford vegan things. soon

i'll have a little more money, and i'm looking forward to spending it

to support the companies that make vegan products.

 

why kill if it's not necessary? is it so hard to understand that

taking away the life of a creature for no reason other than your own

pleasure is an injustice? (and i'm not talking about the " injustice "

of inconvenience of changing your diet a little, either).

 

suppose i develop a taste for annoying anti-veg boys. does that

make it ok for me to factory farm them and barbecue them? he

kills for his meals, so why shouldn't he *be* killed for mine? i

mean, i wouldn't want to make myself out to be " superior " , right, i

want to show him that i respect him and really think we're equals.

in fact, i think his breed is overrunning the earth... there seem to be

an awful lot of them... maybe there needs to be a way to keep their

population in check? (*ugh* hope it's obvious i'm not serious

here... my point here is only to show that this is a foolish line of

argument. if it's unjust when we apply it to humans, and it

absolutely is, then it's unjust when applied to other animals)

 

now, there are times when i believe it *is* necessary to kill. if it

comes down to my survival versus some other animal (whether that

be a human animal or other), i will pick me. i make no apologies

for that, and i don't expect anyone else to either. but most of the

time it's *not* a matter of survival. it's usually a matter of

convenience, or comfort. convenience and comfort and great, but i

think there are ways to get them without taking somenoe's life in

the process.

 

and, there's another, sort of separate (to me) issue. even if it does

become necessary to kill, i don't think it's *ever* necessary to kill

by torturing and inflicting suffering, for example as in factory

farming.

 

> And if we are

> equal to them, we can't justify our not eating meat as taking a morally

> superior position.

 

let me turn this around for a second. i believe that women are

equally worthwhile humans as men. some men commit rape.

does that mean that by not raping anyone, i'm declaring myself

superior to men? this argument doesn't make sense.

 

(obviously, there's a big difference here, cause i really am out to

stop anyone from committing rape, but i'm not out to stop non-

human animals from eating flesh. still, just wanted to point out that

this makes no sense)

 

i think the problem with this arguement is that it assumes that

" acting more ethically " is the same as being " inherently superior " .

it's a common mistake, but they're not the same. i think i pay

attention to ethics more than some people, but that doesn't mean

they couldn't do the same thing if they tried, and it doesn't mean

that i'm so much better than them that it's ok for me to torture and

kill them.

 

i think humans have more opportunity and ability to act ethically

than other animals. therefore i think we should use it! that doesn't

make our lives more basically valuable than theirs. the same

applies to humans. some people have lots of opportunities to help

others and reduce cruelty in their lives. other people have such a

lot of work to do just surviving that maybe they don't have the time

or money to be out doing 80 hours of volunteer work a week. that

doesn't make one person morally superior.

 

> He said that by eating them, we are keeping their population in

> check and mantaining the " natural order " of the universe.

 

there are many books that explain why this isn't true, a good place

to start is the ones by john robbins, or any sort of " basic facts

about vegetarianism " website.

 

> He said we were

> designed as omnivores

 

i am extremely healthy, as are many vegans i know or have heard

from... more so than many of the omnivores i know. obviously it's

possible for many people to be healthy as vegans. furthermore,

animal product consumption has been linked to a whole bunch of

diseases. so why do it when we don't have to?

 

> and should follow our genetic programing and eat

> meat...

 

the use of the word " programming " is not accurate here. our

genetics don't " program " us to do anything (except for the

debatable issue of basic reflexes like sucking and grasping etc).

" programming " would be a set of instructions from which we are

unable to deviate. obviously meat-eating isn't " programmed " into

us, since we are able to not eat meat, and able to be healthy at it.

 

> was very proud of himself...anyhow, he went on to say that if we didn't

> eat animals they would over-run the earth and everthing would be horrible

 

the time that humans have been on earth is basically a blink of an

eye, in the scale of how long the planet's been around. the planet

and its animals seemed to do just fine before we got here

 

also, species of animals go extinct every day. this isn't a good

thing, but for example whatever the carrier pigeon ate, it hasn't

taken over the planet yet. ecosystems adapt, even when an

entire species is taken completely out of the loop, so surely the

fact that we would stop breeding enormous numbers of farm

animals just so we can kill them and eat them would be ok.

 

actually, if he's worried about animals overrunning the planet,

maybe he should worry more about meat-eating than veganism...

after all, it's to feed the world burgers that the rainforests are being

cut down for cattle-ranching... now *there's* an example of animals

overrunning the planet! (although obviously that's the fault of

humans, not animals...)

 

> heard argument " and besides, God put animals on earth for us the eat "

 

i'm assuming he's referring to the xtian god here... the scripture

that is most often quoted to support this is in genesis somewhere

(sorry, don't remember chapter/verse). the king james bible has

something about " man " being given " dominion " over the animals.

but if you go back to the original greek and hebrew, the word

actually translates more closely as " stewardship " , which means

" protection " , instead of " dominion " , which means basically

" control " .

 

there's another bible quote, also i believe from genesis, that states

something like that fruits and other veggie-type stuff " shall be as

meat to you " . ( " meat " , by the way, means " edible part " , which is

why the inside of a nut is called " meat " too.)

 

the sad thing about this line of reasoning is that there's probably

not much you can do to one-up god, in the mind of someone who

really believes that stuff.

 

on the other hand, even someone who believes that it is divinely

ordained that humans should eat animals, can't very well use the

bible to justify the *amount* of meat we eat, or the stunningly cruel

ways we produce that meat. as above, even if killing is necessary,

torturing is not. until i see xtians (and other religious groups with

similar stances on animals) trying to create truly respectful, non-

cruel farming and/or hunting practises, i will continue to believe that

this argument is more of a smoke-screen than a serious attempt to

create understanding.

 

hope this helps...

 

take care,

 

mylène

 

++++++++

" [We] are only beginning to uncover our own truths;

many of us ... would be glad just to lie down with the

sherds we have painfully uncovered...

 

The politics worth having, the relationships worth having,

demand that we delve still deeper. "

Adrienne Rich

--------------