Any Vegetarians/Vegans here?

[Jacob(smooth)]

None of them native to Australia all of them destructive disease carrying death for our native animals and our flora

Really?!

From what I understand, your native fauna is f***** well hard! Your venomous snakes are threatened only by by he fact that your spiders eat them! You have toads which cause Road accidents (also venomous) and cute, floppy giant bunny things which can, I'm told, kick a man so hard his kidneys fly out his arse! Then there are he koalas, savage face eating bastards which masquerade as teddy bears. And all of those survive only because the REALLY dangerous animals live in the sea!!

Frankly, I'm surprised any invasive species survived 10 minutes!

Question for the veggie. If you were out for a walk and And saw a hawk swoop on a rabbit, would you feel a moral obligation to save the rabbit?

[KichigaiNeko]

None of them native to Australia all of them destructive disease carrying death for our native animals and our flora

Really?!

From what I understand, your native fauna is f***** well hard! Your venomous snakes are threatened only by by he fact that your spiders eat them! You have toads which cause Road accidents (also venomous) and cute, floppy giant bunny things which can, I'm told, kick a man so hard his kidneys fly out his arse! Then there are he koalas, savage face eating bastards which masquerade as teddy bears. And all of those survive only because the REALLY dangerous animals live in the sea!!

Frankly, I'm surprised any invasive species survived 10 minutes!

Funny that, enough of them survive to breed in times of plenty, it is the ecosystems of the smaller animals that is under threat and the trees.

[Jacob(smooth)]

Yes the flora tends to be the fragile link.

I understand it's been quite warm in places as well...

[KichigaiNeko]

Yes the flora tends to be the fragile link.

I understand it's been quite warm in places as well...

Yes it has. Hot air masses have drifted across the country (as usual) raising temperatures and igniting our eucalyptus forests. Pity the "free animals" to die.

[là bạn điên]

I'm not the only one who thinks you're an obv. troll.

name the others then

I'm inventing a strawman?

yes

Here you clearly infer that insects feel pain and scream when they are boiled unconscious - since that's what you were replying to:

No. I just claimed that plants don't feel pain and carrots don't scream oh and learn the difference between infer and imply. I implied nothing. You inferred something that wasn;t there

Yes it does actually, stop calling me a liar.

No It doesn't actually, It only talks about giving false witness. Stop lying and I won;t call you a liar.

Omni is short for omnivore.

Right.... so you're a different species to me and a herbivore then?

No I'm a herbivore and you are an omnivore. there is no species difference.

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Jacob. If you wish to ask me a question then use my name.

[Aractus]

But Jacob... what about the drop bears?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULEQpUY_crc

[James2014]

To get back to the original question, I'm an Atheist vegan! Been vegan for 2 years, and veggie for about 12. It always surprises me that more athiests aren't also vegans or vegetarians. Both have to challenge social norms, and both are not able to appeal to god to justify their actions.
From my reading of this thread, it appears that this is the main reason meat eaters put up for eating meat, interrupted by La Ban insulting people (seriously what is wrong with you?) is to appeal to nature. This can be in the form of "animals kill others to eat so why cant I?" or "Humans have always killed animals". After getting rid of the whole God argument for eating meat though (ie eating meat is wrong cause god told me so) you would have thought the nature argument would also follow suit in being disregarded as nonsense. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Why? Firstly because all behaviours are natural. Think about it, natural selection enabled humans to think, hold values and change our behaviour as we desire. This enabled us to survive in new environments, create tools to capture food, wear clothes to stay warm, and build shelter. We developed empathy and values, helping us to live in groups and eventually develop civilisation. It stands to reason therefore that if using these natural abilities is natural, ANYTHING we could possibly conceive of doing is therefore also natural. Meat eaters pick and choose those aspects of nature that agree with their desires to eat meat, substituting God for nature.

But the fact is natural selection it is not directed by values, and the behaviour it selects for can be against the values we choose to hold. Consider for example males fighting to mate with a female, which can often lead to death of one of the males. Most animals do this, characteristics are selected for this. But that does not justify this in humans, because we have the ability to reason and hold values. Natural selection has given us these abilities, which means, unlike other animals which are amoral (because they cannot reason or hold values), our actions have ethical value.

Now, if you value suffering, then one should not eat meat. Its pretty simple. What happened in the past is irrelevant. The fact that we might always cause some harm is irrelevant. The ethical principle is the same, if you value suffering then one should do ones best to stop causing suffering. Eating meat is cruel, and atheists completely undermine their philosophical integrity with these nonsensical appeals to nature.

[Aractus]

name the others then

Pfft, like you haven't noticed them saying "hey you're a fucking troll".

No It doesn't actually, It only talks about giving false witness. Stop lying and I won;t call you a liar.

Pfft, that's the same thing, fool. Lying is "baring false witness", you obv. don't appreciate how ancient languages work. It is, simply, as it reads in the bible (literally): the act of intentional/deliberate lying.

The full commandment:

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

When you tell somebody anything you know to be untrue and lead them to believe it, you have done just that. There isn't any wiggle room.

You're a fucking troll, stop trying to tell me what the Bible says when you have no clue whatsoever.

No I'm a herbivore and you are an omnivore. there is no species difference.

No, you're still an omnivore, you're just lying about who you are. Like a man that says he's a woman, or a child who says he's 18.

[Bad Wolf]

Sure, I value suffering, but do animals I eat suffer?
And have you thought through your plan for when everyone stops eating meat? What happens to all of the animals? Don't tell me you're one of those idiot activists who go around the country setting animals free. We are losing all of our Water Voles because some idiot released American Mink from their farms.

[James2014]

Sure, I value suffering, but do animals I eat suffer?
And have you thought through your plan for when everyone stops eating meat? What happens to all of the animals? Don't tell me you're one of those idiot activists who go around the country setting animals free. We are losing all of our Water Voles because some idiot released American Mink from their farms.

Hi Bad Wolf,

I'm always amazed how meat eaters will suddenly devalue the cognitive abilities of animals when their meat eating is challenged. Here's an interesting study which details the effect. http://www2.psy.uq.edu.au/~uqbbast1/Bast...0press.pdf

Now, can animals suffer? Yes, animals have a range of cognitive abilities that are suggestive of consciousness. This includes associative/non-elemental learning and episodic-like memory, the ability to remember the "what, where and when" of an event. This suggest animals such as mice can create new representations of the world in novel combinations, binding together different sensory modalities in the same way that consciousness binds together our experiences. Animals can feel pain, and feel emotion in response to that pain that affects their ability to learn in much the same way as in humans.

They also show signs of being able to be depressed, for example when a rodent pup is forcibly separated from the mother. These animals show a reduced performance in a forced swim test, ie they stop trying to tread water and escape from a tank of water and instead enter a state of despair. Another way of inducing depression in animals is the chronic mild stress model that involves the exposure of animals to a series of mild and unpredictable stressors and results in long lasting changes of behavioural and neurological function that can be reversed with antidepressants, just like in humans.

The next question is do farmed animals undergo painful experiences? Yes they do, take for instance the cow, forced to be almost continuously pregnant to produce milk. After just a day, her young is forcibly removed. Overfed to produce as much milk as possible, the mechanical suckling cause infections in her udders. Most dairy cows only live a five or six years, when they have a natural life expectancy is around 25 years. Why do you think this is? They have a short brutal life, and when there exhausted bodies stop producing large amounts of milk they are killed.

And how are dairy cows and beef cows killed? Usually a capacitive bolt is used to induce a state of unconsciousness before having their throat slit. However studies show this is frequently not effective, with 8% of cattle(15% for young bulls) showing signs of consciousness http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...4007001544 The fact is eating meat is cruel, and causes horrible suffering. An even if you could ensure a pain free life, they are still conscious beings whose life would be brutally cut short.

Your last point, would we do otherwise? The current animal population would be allowed to live out the rest of their lives in a safe environment, and the land would be allowed to return to being forests etc that could support a biodiverse population of wild animals and plants.