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Do you think animals are meant to be eaten?

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Original post by RobML
err looking at that double negative pains me


I am confused :frown:
Reply 21
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RobML
6
Original post by loveleest
I am confused :frown:


In my post you quoted :lol:
I don't think people who eat meat are evil but I think it wouldn't hurt to stop making nasty jokes about eating animals around vegetarians, we really don't like it (I know it's not everyone, please don't hate on me because of this comment)
it's the food chain. The most powerful of the animals will always eat and kill the smaller ones, it's inevitable and thus I think eating meat is natural. Humans are more powerful than chickens for example but a human isn't more powerful than a lion. If we lived in environments where wild animals and humans could freely interact humans would be killed and eaten by bigger animals. However humans have advanced in a way that we're now different from the animals. We've found a way to modify the animals and control the animals who are bigger and physically more powerful. We will inject drugs and hormones into cows for example to make them big and fat, we have developed much more dangerous weapons to make ourselves more powerful than the animals who could have killed us in the past. The way the meat industry is makes me question whether we should be living like this. I still eat meat but the way animals are treated saddens me, however I don't think it's unnatural to eat meat, o think the way we get our meat is unnatural. If we lived and ate in the same way we did in the past, eg hunting the animals for your own or raising the animals on your land, I wouldn't think twice about eating meat.
I think certain animals shouldn't be eaten.For example chimpanzees I would never eat a chimpanzee or any other great ape really I just think they're too much like us.And if you think about it its impossible to say just how much conciousness a chimp has.We have a common ancestor so when did the common anscestor develop a human level of conciousness.
Reply 25
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GUMI
19
But at the same time, do you think humans were meant to live past 50?
Reply 26
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ATW1
12
Yum.
Original post by T-Raw
Really? But people survive without it..?


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You missed the point. Whilst we don't need it to survive in the modern world, but our ancestors did. If they died of starvation before they got a chance to procreate, we'd fail to exist.
Original post by Tsrsarahhhh
it's the food chain. The most powerful of the animals will always eat and kill the smaller ones, it's inevitable and thus I think eating meat is natural. Humans are more powerful than chickens for example but a human isn't more powerful than a lion. If we lived in environments where wild animals and humans could freely interact humans would be killed and eaten by bigger animals. However humans have advanced in a way that we're now different from the animals. We've found a way to modify the animals and control the animals who are bigger and physically more powerful. We will inject drugs and hormones into cows for example to make them big and fat, we have developed much more dangerous weapons to make ourselves more powerful than the animals who could have killed us in the past. The way the meat industry is makes me question whether we should be living like this. I still eat meat but the way animals are treated saddens me, however I don't think it's unnatural to eat meat, o think the way we get our meat is unnatural. If we lived and ate in the same way we did in the past, eg hunting the animals for your own or raising the animals on your land, I wouldn't think twice about eating meat.


Well, more muscular rather than fatter. Fat isn't quality meat. That's just me being a pedant, though :lol:
Yes, I want to be eaten :wink:

Spoiler

Original post by loveleest
Well from an evolutionary perspective it would be a yes because Humans wouldn't be alive today if they didn't eat meat.


From an evolutionary perspective, nothing is 'meant' to happen, any more than the tide is 'meant' to come in and go out again, just because it has done so in the past. Besides, humans might not be alive today if our ancestors hadn't wiped out the neanderthals in order to survive the ice age. So I suppose genocide is also a valid human activity since it was a feature of our evolutionary past? Also cannibalism, murder, rape, paedophilia, etc.

People always seem to get confused between the concept of 'natural' and the concept of 'right'. The natural world is just an observation of how things are, it is usually a very very very very bad guide for how things should be from an ethical perspective. Just think about it: if you were designing nature from scratch, would you make it the way it is? Nature is what it is, it was not put there to be a 'guide' for how to live our lives.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 31
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Orlanda
7
We should eat meat imo. My argument essentially comes down to primital reasons - we are here today because our ancestors survived by eating the meat of other animals.

Yes, we can, and do, survive on diets that are free of meat.

The way I see it, the only viable reasons for veganisn/ vegetarianism are:
• dietary preference
• ethical reasons
• environmental reasons

I have a vegan friend who tried to rip the crap out of me for eating meat. She believes it is selfish for humans to use the energy of other animal for our own consumption. She thinks we have no right to put ourselves above the lives of animals. (Surely this is an evolutionary and therefore, natural, trait we have?). She once also claimed that eating an egg was the same as smoking 15 cigarettes. Silly girl.
(edited 7 years ago)
Herbivores are designed to eat leaves. Carnivores eat meat. Omnivores eat both, switching as different food sources become common or scarce as the seasons differ.

Our feet are thought to be the most effective shock absorbers in nature - our elastic arch is better than that found on any other animal and shows that we were designed to cover large distances. We're hairless, which helps us cool down by sweating. Sweating means that don't need to pant like a dog to cool down, and being bipedal means that our breathing isn't tied 1-1 with our breathing pattern like a cheetah or a horse. Bipedalism also has another advantage that per stride we cover more distance than four legged mammals. Because of a multitude of energy saving, efficient adaptations like these, we can run longer than any animal on the planet and we are the ONLY ones that run long distances eg marathon for pleasure. We're highly specialised apex predators that persistence hunt our prey in groups. If we were built to forage and only eat plants and small mammals like rodents and rabbits, we wouldn't need these adaptations.

Nowadays, we're not going to starve if we don't eat meat, so we have the choice whether we want to contribute to the widespread abuse and poor treatment of animals that is farming, but it's silly to suggest we shouldn't eat meat because it's unnatural or barbaric etc. Sure it is, but that's who we are.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 33
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T-Raw
OP
Original post by WoodyMKC
You missed the point. Whilst we don't need it to survive in the modern world, but our ancestors did. If they died of starvation before they got a chance to procreate, we'd fail to exist.


So what then? Veg wasn't around then?


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Reply 34
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pilock
Original post by loveleest
Exactly, which it confuses me when vegans talk about how evil meat eaters are.

A lion would eat a human at a given oppotunity yet no one talks about how evil they are?


I thought humans claim they are different from wild animals? There are also animals that rape their own species yet humans complain when a human rapes someone.
Original post by T-Raw
So what then? Veg wasn't around then?


Posted from TSR Mobile


Yes, vegetables were around then. Good luck living strictly on vegetables though. You'd die from malnourishment - much like the early versions of the Protein-Sparing Modified Fast diets of the 70s that actually killed people despite the fact that numerous portions of vegetables made up the majority of the diet, due to a lack of both quality bioavailable proteins and an essential range of nutrients.
Original post by WoodyMKC
Yes, vegetables were around then. Good luck living strictly on vegetables though. You'd die from malnourishment - much like the early versions of the Protein-Sparing Modified Fast diets of the 70s that actually killed people despite the fact that numerous portions of vegetables made up the majority of the diet, due to a lack of both quality bioavailable proteins and an essential range of nutrients.


Funny that a significant portion of the population of India has been vegetarian for many centuries, and they don't seem to have died out. In fact India is on track to become the world's most populous country thanks to China's one child policy.
Original post by Copperknickers
Funny that a significant portion of the population of India has been vegetarian for many centuries, and they don't seem to have died out. In fact India is on track to become the world's most populous country thanks to China's one child policy.


They're vegetarians, they don't live purely on vegetables. They typically eat fair amounts of rice and flour-based foods too.
Original post by WoodyMKC
They're vegetarians, they don't live purely on vegetables. They typically eat fair amounts of rice and flour-based foods too.


And what is your point exactly? It is possible for large populations of human beings to survive and thrive as vegetarians. Maybe it was not possible before the advent of agriculture, but that's not hugely relevant now is it? A lot of people seem to think that because a load of illiterate cave dwelling hunter gatherers ate meat, we should strive to emulate them for some reason. I suppose we should also revert to their religious beliefs, marital customs and monetary system, and become human sacrificing polygamists who exchange goods through bartering salt and carved rocks in the shape of penises.

But no, it's only their diet we should be emulating apparently, because living our lives like cavemen is only a valid position when its results happen to produce tasty burgers. If you believe eating meat is acceptable, then just say so, why do people bother making ridiculous and illogical arguments to try and justify themselves?
Original post by Copperknickers
And what is your point exactly? It is possible for large populations of human beings to survive and thrive as vegetarians. Maybe it was not possible before the advent of agriculture, but that's not hugely relevant now is it? A lot of people seem to think that because a load of illiterate cave dwelling hunter gatherers ate meat, we should strive to emulate them for some reason. I suppose we should also revert to their religious beliefs, marital customs and monetary system, and become human sacrificing polygamists who exchange goods through bartering salt and carved rocks in the shape of penises.

But no, it's only their diet we should be emulating apparently, because living our lives like cavemen is only a valid position when its results happen to produce tasty burgers. If you believe eating meat is acceptable, then just say so, why do people bother making ridiculous and illogical arguments to try and justify themselves?


So, let's recap:

1) Someone stated that, from an evolutionary stand-point, we wouldn't be alive if meat was not consumed.
2) Someone else stated that we don't need meat to survive.
3) I quoted them saying they'd missed the point, and clarified the other person's point that our ancestors needed meat to survive due to little other option, and of course if they'd failed to procreate then we wouldn't be here.
4) That person replied, saying that they had vegetables to eat.
5) I stated that you can't live off strictly vegetables, and gave a bit of evidence as to why.
6) You quoted me stating that people in India have been vegetarian for years. Clearly didn't read my post properly as I said you couldn't live off vegetables alone - I said nothing about vegetarians.
7) I agreed but stated that they're vegetarian, they don't strictly just eat vegetables and do eat a variety of foods.

From that, you've somehow drawn the conclusion that I've suggested that we need meat to survive in the modern world (when I've explicitly stated in one of my previous post that we clearly do not), and that a vegetarian diet = death, and in the process seemed to misunderstand not one, but two of my posts even though they were short and to the point. Communication isn't your strong point, is it :lol:

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