Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[Zen Badger]

It always blows my mind when I see terrible arguments from atheists. I get that not every atheist arrived at atheism by being rational, skeptical, or intelligent in the slightest, but this thread is just ridiculous. Folks, your arguments absolutely blow. Try to exercise your critical thinking skills before spewing idiotic pro-meat bollox. It's okay if you like to kill and eat dudes, but there's no excuse for sounding like a dummo.

We as a species have evolved to eat meat, if you have evidence to the contrary please present it.

[and]

I eat meat, not only is it a required part of my diet as an omnivore, but I enjoy eating it.

People love to get caught up on what our ancestors did for some reason. Whether the consumption of flesh had any impact on our evolution is irrelevant, though. The only direction that discussion can go is toward an argument from tradition, which no one should find convincing in the slightest. I will point out that you're confusing "evolved the capability to eat meat" with "evolved to eat meat." Those are incredibly different statements, and the one you used is very much wrong.

Are you actually serious about humans requiring flesh to survive? Since you seem unfamiliar with the workings of basic human nutrition and are unlikely to educate yourself on the subject (nobody ever does ), simply take a look at any long-term vegan for evidence that your claim is false. You'll find plenty of people who have been vegan for decades and are perfectly healthy.

It is not about morality, it is about reality.

It should be obvious that this discussion is firmly in the realm of morality. All someone needs to do is say, "That's wrong!" and the discussion now includes morality. You could argue that you don't have a moral obligation in regards to killing non-human animals for their flesh, but it's silly to claim the discussion's not about morality at all.

If you do claim you have no moral obligation, an explanation of why would be nice. Please raise your standards of argument for that one, though.

What is immoral is causing unnecessary suffering beforehand.

This claim only works if you already discount the value of non-human animal lives from the start. Apply this claim to humans and see how far it takes you.

And even that is only a human perception as no predator in nature gives a fuck if their prey suffers as they kill it.

Good thing we're human then, amiright? All of our morality is from a human perspective. That does not devalue it in the slightest. You'll find plenty of humans who don't give a fuck if other people suffer as they torture and kill them. I somehow doubt you find that a convincing argument for torture and murder, though. It's foolish to take moral lessons from those most lacking in morality.

And I would kill an animal for food, not for enjoyment, not for sport, but for my survival,and I would minimise its suffering as I did so.

Well welcome to veganhood, then! If you're not killing animals for enjoyment, you quickly find yourself shit out of luck for any reasons to do it at all. You certainly don't need to kill any of them for survival.

Just remember, EVERYTHING dies, and everything becomes food for something else.

Seriously, you know you wouldn't accept an argument this poor in relation to other topics. How can you possibly consider it good enough here?

"Sure I killed and ate Joe, but that fucker was going to die and get eaten by worms anyway. No harm, no foul."

You can do whatever you want to do in life. Eating flesh is legal, so it's not like those wacky vegans can stop you or anything. Just try not to defend your actions with shitty arguments and incredibly poor excuses for logic and reason. "I eat meat because I just don't give a fuck" works fine. Just say that.

Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris agree that there's no ethical justification for eating flesh. But they still eat it. You just don't hear them spouting nonsensical garbage and idiotic arguments about why it's okay. If you don't accept terrible arguments from a theist, why the hell are you throwing terrible arguments at veg*ans?

All those words and not one actual refutation of anything I've said.

Good work......

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BTW, from the wikipedia :article: on vegatarianism

A 1999 metastudy combined data from five studies from western countries.[78] The metastudy reported mortality ratios, where lower numbers indicated fewer deaths, for fish eaters to be 0.82, vegetarians to be 0.84, occasional meat eaters (eat meat less than once per week) to be 0.84. Regular meat eaters and vegans shared the highest mortality ratio of 1.00. The study reported the numbers of deaths in each category, and expected error ranges for each ratio, and adjustments made to the data. However, the "lower mortality was due largely to the relatively low prevalence of smoking in these [vegetarian] cohorts". Out of the major causes of death studied, only one difference in mortality rate was attributed to the difference in diet, as the conclusion states: "...vegetarians had a 24% lower mortality from ischaemic heart disease than non-vegetarians, but no associations of a vegetarian diet with other major causes of death were established."[78]