Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[Scabby Joe]

I think that it does not follow that being an atheist means that you should be a vegetarian. Of course not. Atheism is just a lack of belief in something. It maybe atheism attracts those who don't want to live by any ethical or moral code; maybe that's what they didn't like about religion.

However, for those thinkers out there atheism does at least raise some issues to consider.

First, we were not created in the image of God. We are not special, just another animal. We do not necessarily need to hold onto the Christian idea of dominion.

Second, atheists reject God given moral law. Morals or ethics may be subjective or objective but some atheists may want to to ethical/moral even without the threat of eternal hell. So, can we agree on the following:

Causing unnecessary pain and suffering is unethical.

For those that can, and do eat factory farmed meat, how is it ethical.

If we cannot agree that causing unnecessary pain and suffering are wrong then this raises lots of other issues, not least the slightly empty criticisim of religion poisoning everthing. Surely even religious ethics are better than no ethics?

Dawkins, an apparent believer in objective morality, and ardent Darwinian thinker sees the implications for atheists. Seems not many here do.

I am both an atheist and a vegetarian. My considerations for each are strictly seperate.

I am not atheist because i am a vegetarian nor am i a vegetarian because i am an atheist.

I think Dawkins is saying its a kind of prejudice to elevate the suffering of humans over the suffering and rights of animals due purely to the fact that we are humans. Its like favoring your own race or gender and discriminating against them based on a similar prejudice. People used to, and still do, think that those were very real and rational lines drawn between treatment of others. I think that the line we have drawn between ourselves and other animals is just as spurious.

Agreed 100%