I fixed it - auto correct 
. I wasn’t arguing is what I meant.
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Hahah…sure, Freudian slip if I ever saw one. 
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I thought so, but I couldn’t help but paw humour at it. 
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“Could be I’m arguing in my spare time”
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I think you guys may have missed my points about vegetarianism or, perhaps, I didn’t communicate well.
If I need an animal product to survive (a good example would be beef and pork insulin for diabetes in the past . . . before human insulin was synthesized from genetically modified yeast), then I’d take it.
I still exist at the expense of other living things . . . but being vegetarian is giving up a variety of dietary hedonism that comes from slaughtering animals. I wish to acknowledge that the existence of the suffering and betrayal experienced by food animals does not justify the gratification that I obtain from eating meat when I can almost as easily eat vegetarian.
Even if my sacrifice of a certain level of hedonism doesn’t change the big picture . . . I can–at least–try to avoid the accusation of hippocracy.
I am (as I said earlier) willing to eat lionfish, as they must be killed anyway. I also suppose I’d eat Burmese python–if harvested from the Everglades–as it’s another invasive species that must be killed off anyway . . . except that they say that the meat would be too parasite-ridden and diseased to be safe to consume . . . even if it is fully cooked. Supposedly.
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I don’t eat much meat at all. (Well, bacon because it’s, well, bacon.) I really haven’t a huge issue with folks eating meat as I think it is part the natural order of things. Heck, I fed rodents to my snakes. I watch the neighborhood hawk pick off starlings and find it fascinating.
It’s preferable, however, that humans kill their food animals using methods that don’t cause undue suffering. After all, we have the ability to do so.
I don’t eat much meat because I just hate the taste of it.
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But this is demonstrably wrong, as they are available to us from non meat products.
I largely agree, but for me there is also the aspect of well being for all animals, human and non-human.
This I find to be quite sickening, mainly because beating a child is unacceptable, I was beaten and I understand full well the problems it caused me later in life, which I overcame… eventually.
But not before I hurt others with my aggression, which is something else that haunts me, the cycle continues… ad nauseum.
I guess I should start eating grey squirrels then!
But no, in all seriousness eat what you want, but I would point out, this technically makes you a pescatarian, rather than a vegetarian, but I can understand calling yourself vegetarian for simplicities sake.
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But is it ethical, seeing as we understand the suffering it causes to non-human animals?
Would you agree that animals have emotions?
This isn’t quite as true as most would believe.
I’d need to first ask for the definition of suffering you are using in this context.
Then, i’d also like to highlight, that those who are working as a slaughterer, don’t tend to give a damn about the animals they are killing, they are killing them on mass day in day out, why would they?
I’ve worked in a slaughter house, and my personal experience of watching them at their work, was they took pleasure in the act, and often deliberately caused fear in the animal before finally killing them. When I asked why, I got dirty looks, and one Polish worker explained to me in Polish, that the adrenaline makes the meat taste better.
Even though legislation states that the animal must not undergo any undue suffering, on the ground this isn’t always the case, and it isn’t always enforced.
Then there are Halal slaughter houses, where the animal goes through agonising suffering, as it is an Islamic tradition, and as I’m sure many of you are aware, Haram to eat non-halal meat.
These Halal slaughter houses are increasingly common in the UK, even big brands like KFC are set to sell ONLY Halal in many countries. (I’m not sure which.)
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Hey, but what about the feelings of the vegetables?!!?!!?!!?
Salads are only for murderers,
coleslaw’s a fascist regime.
Don’t think that they don’t have feelings,
just cause a radish can’t scream.
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I guess I’ll just start eating dust then.
I’ll become a Buddhist monk and meditate my hunger away.
I especially like the credits. ‘Cows’ -------> ‘Bo Vines’
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Do animals have emotions? I don’t know. It seems some do. Not sure what having emotions has to do with it being ethical or not to eat them.
Did you notice I said preferable? You didn’t pick that up in your quote. Did you also notice I used the word undue? That would certainly include teasing an animal and halal/kosher style butchering. And certainly many food animal raising methods are despicable. So are some hunting techniques.
If you include actual death itself as suffering then I may not agree.
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I really get tired of people fighting over whose imaginary friend is better…
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The only meat I eat is turkey, chicken, and fish. No red meat for me–I just don’t like the taste of it.
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I’d say having emotions in my opinion goes a great deal towards understanding the ethics of choosing to eat them, as I don’t want to cause fear in any animal. I feel the weight of our species crimes against other species, and do not wish to add to that.
I did, I failed to highlight it when I pressed quote, this is largely due to hastiness on my part. I also failed to see your meaning on your usage of the word undue, I’m glad we can agree that such methods are causing undue suffering.
I can’t agree that the event of death is suffering, but the moments leading up to it would be, especially when they are often seeing what is happening to those ahead of them on the production line, when another of their species, chickens for example, see other chickens being slaughtered, they start to panic, as they appear to comprehend they are next, and also grieve for their kin.
I saw true terror in their eyes, and some of them also appeared to seek rescue with me in particular, as I was visibly distraught at what I was witnessing, who knows if they picked up on this, maybe it was just my projection. I was also told to cease attempting to console them, and laughed at by some.
I even saw one sick bastard hump one of the chickens before throwing it harshly back into the group of chickens. It took restraint on my part not to lay into him when I saw this.
They quickly moved me to a different area of the site, where I was assisting in packaging offcuts.
I did not stay long at this job, longer than I would have liked, as I was desperate for money to keep the roof over my head.
Even chickens understood what was happening, they even arrived with broken legs and wings, some even had beaks missing, so who knows how long their torment had been going on for before they arrived on site.
Chickens are arguably one of the less intelligent species to be slaughtered, think about cows, they are a extremely social species.
I really don’t want to relive these memories, especially as I am soon to be asleep and dreaming.
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It brings a welcome change to debate another topic I’d imagine?
Let’s not hope a chicken god exists, otherwise we are probably all screwed, condemned to an eternity of being torn apart by vengeful beaks.
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Same here, we’ll have steak dinner once or twice a year, and ground beef maybe 1 or 2 times a week, but we eat a lot of turkey and chicken. They’re delicious.
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LOL… I use extremes in moderation? I can be a really weird person. One of those quiet types you would never imagine would get picked up by the police for doing … that. (Basically I am very rational… but… I have no fear.)
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Paw! Paw! Paw! What the F*)&^((^%&^ I have opposing thumbs on my hands and my feet! I have hands on my hands and hands on my feet. “Pull my paw” indeed! Sheesh! You lose the ability to eat with your feet and that somehow makes you superior? I even typed this post while holding a peanut butter and banana sandwich in one hand, a bottle of coconut juice in the other, scratching my ass and typing with my free hand.
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Like most religions, sexuality is discouraged universally among monks. Among laypersons, sexual misconduct is defined as having sexual relations with any woman who is still under the care of her parents. Thus, immorality in Buddhism is more lenient than, say, Christianity where any sex before marriage is outlawed, along with adultery and what not.
How later civilizations who went on to adopt formal Buddhism as their religion dealt with sexual improprieties is not necessarily a reflection on the clear restrictions made by the Buddha for his monks and laymen
Not true. Maybe true in some countries. But not a reflection on the discipline of the original Buddha and his teachings.
Exactly. Buddhist societies - not the teachings of the Buddha himself. The Buddha never elected a person to lead his following after his death and also foretold that his dhamma would die out 400 years after his death. He never intended for whole civilizations to take up his teachings and organize them into a societal/political construct.
Nope. The Buddha is described explicitly as he who does not accept slaves, gold, women, horses, and so forth. He also explicitly states that the kings who own slaves should generate happiness when a slave decides to join the monastic order. Thus your whole idea that the Buddha endorses the caste system of India at the time (which predates him) is absolutely wrong. The Buddha denounced the caste system, denounced the Brahmanic order and threw the whole idea of the caste system into doubt. Buddha stated that one is not made a Brahman by birth, but rather by integrity and disposition. Likely having much to do with the fact that Buddhism almost completely died out in that same India which was strongly rooted on the caste system. The Buddha also readily accepted “untouchables” into his order of monks. Unheard of at the time for “Brahmans” who held the position of religious power.
I could easily show you scripture where this is not the case, but I encourage you to provide your own since you are making the claim
That may be true of certain “cultures”, but again; you can no more blame Jesus for the Crusades or the Inquisition anymore than you can blame the Buddha for what societies outside of his lifetime decided to do as proprietary owners of his teachings.
Incidentally, along with the untouchable caste, the Buddha allowed for the creation of a female “bukhinni” order of nuns - completely unheard of at the time for the Brahman class who controlled all religious matters.