are vegetarians more ethical by not eating meat?

[Sal]

Then people that buy factory meat from a grocery store are excused. They didn't kill the animals that constitutes those meat products.

The moral realm doesn't only extend to our own direct physical actions but also to the actions we condone or support with our choices of consumption. Paying someone else to kill is no more moral than killing yourself. Stalin was responsible for the people who died in his gulags even though, as far as I know, he never killed anyone himself.

I agree and concede my point - I think that people should, as far as they can realize, value their actions on how to behave and how to minimize suffering in a bigger picture.

A pipe-dream, if I ever saw one. Very unrealistic. Problem is that we cannot control how others behave, is why I think it's a pipe-dream.

No, not a pipe dream. You can either go around raping and pillaging or you can join a charitable organization and help others in need, you must see that there is a difference in the amount of suffering caused. We control how others behave by our example, its completely intuitive, we follow those whose actions we admire, we imitate them and we change. It's easy to say "but I'm only one person, what difference does my action make", but even if only you yourself change this does make a difference for your own actions and it will affect others actions eventually. Many of the good changes in history came about not by revolution but by individuals taking baby steps.

I think so too, but I also think that the actions of the few unsuspecting individuals is unable to extrapolate to a bigger picture. It seems way too chaotic to me for it to have any meaningful change.

That's anthropomorphizing on a grand scale. Animals don't know they're prisoners in the same sense humans know it.

This argument can easily be turned around: A human prisoner of war for example can endure his prison stay because he has reason and knows that he will be free after the war. An animal has no such capacity, therefore its suffering will be greater since it cannot follow its instincts and move freely.

What if they did not have such a capacity and were wholly complacent?

Again, I'm against factory farming - so I don't stress that point.

[Little Rik]

littleendian...........neuroscience tells us that animals show the same neuro-activity when painful stimuli arrive in the brain than humans do.

Animals in the scale of evolution are very close to human being but not close enough to have the same peculiarities as humans therefore is natural that their reactions to stimuli will be a bit different.
The old saying is still valid..............no brains no pain.
But i rather would say.......less consciousness less pain...more consciousness more pain.

[LastPoet]

Since morality is that important to fundie vegetarians, I'll give them the moral high ground. There, you won! I'll now eat some beef to drown my sorrows

[ideologue08]

Since morality is that important to fundie vegetarians, I'll give them the moral high ground. There, you won! I'll now eat some beef to drown my sorrows

I don't really understand some Atheists, they mock other people's pursuit of what they perceive as moral justice, yet you yourself are just as fundamentalist when it comes to opposing the death penalty, or other kinds of justice found in Africa like criminalizing homosexuality or chopping of people's hands for theft in the Middle East. You are just as fundamentalist with your viewpoints.

[LastPoet]

I don't really understand some Atheists, they mock other people's pursuit of what they perceive as moral justice, yet you yourself are just as fundamentalist when it comes to opposing the death penalty, or other kinds of justice found in Africa like criminalizing homosexuality or chopping of people's hands for theft in the Middle East. You are just as fundamentalist with your viewpoints.

Do you have reason to back up your post or are you just banking on the old argument from ignorance?

To my knowledge, atheism is the lack of beliefs in god(s), what part of that can't enter your thick skull?

[ideologue08]

I don't really understand some Atheists, they mock other people's pursuit of what they perceive as moral justice, yet you yourself are just as fundamentalist when it comes to opposing the death penalty, or other kinds of justice found in Africa like criminalizing homosexuality or chopping of people's hands for theft in the Middle East. You are just as fundamentalist with your viewpoints.

Do you have reason to back up your post or are you just banking on the old argument from ignorance?

To my knowledge, atheism is the lack of beliefs in god(s), what part of that can't enter your thick skull?

The reason why I said "some Atheists" is because I'm on an Atheist forum and have seen "some Atheists" make such comments. This could apply to any other group of people on any number of forums, but in this case, I'm on an 'Atheist' forum and have seen "some Atheists" do that.

Now are you going to address the substance of my post or are you going to deflect by bringing up red herrings from your thick skull?

[LastPoet]

Depends, what point have you brought? Explain to me in simple words O ideologue, because the red herring is on you!

[ideologue08]

Why are you mocking other people's pursuit of what they perceive as moral justice, yet you yourself are just as fundamentalist when it comes to opposing the death penalty, or other kinds of justice found in Africa like criminalizing homosexuality or chopping of people's hands for theft in the Middle East? You are just as fundamentalist with your viewpoints.

[LastPoet]

You know, there are good reasons to eat meat, but a big lack of those for the barbaric traditions of your religions 'mo'. I can back up human meat eating habits with alot of reasons, but you can only back up homossexuality persecution, hand severing and other atrocities to a faith, a made-up god given right to do so.

Fundamentalist am I? Despite some vegetarians views about people that eat meat, no meat eaters have ever killed or persecuted vegetarians for their views, I know it escapes your narrow sight, but that is the sad truth you have to live with.

[ideologue08]

Yes, you are fundamentalist Poet. You are just as much of a fundamentalist as those Poe's wanting to ban meat, there's no reason why people's shouldn't dismiss your "reasons" as much as we dismiss the veggie's "reasons". You want people to live their lives by your ideals just as much as those whom you call fundies. You're a fanatic.