Posted on 12/03/2004 9:06:50 AM PST by NorCoGOP
The same happens with my 4 year old, 15-pound cat. He nags and whines like you wouldn't believe until I give him his favorite food, canned tuna. He's gotten fat from eating too much and hardly moving around.
The hardcore ones plant a certain number of new plants for each fruit they eat, in accordance with the usual success rate of non-interfered-with fruit.
... end of story.
What's to say that a plant cannot feel pain? Is it fair to say that wheat doesn't suffer simply because it cannot scream? Is it correct to claim that an ear of corn is not quietly suffering a painful, indignant death as we cut it apart and shuck it?
I used to be a vegetaian at one time in my life, after a friend showed me some videos of horrible animal treatment and torture. What bothered me was the (possible) conditions the animals were kept in and way they were being treated before being slaughtered, not the fact that they're being killed in and of itself.
As for vegetarians finding it ok to eat plants and stuff but not animals, I think the reason for that is this--or at least it was the reason for myself. Animals have a nervous system (which registers pain); plants do not.
Yes, but which came first...the mental illness or the vegan diet?
Especially after cutting off it's ears from the whole of the body.
One might ask whether the systems created to do this are "living" but as they probably won't be able to reproduce by themselves, I doubt that we will worry about it much.
Mother Nature does have a sense of humor. Our fourteen-year old Blue and Gold Macaw’s favorite food is chicken. We just call her cannibal when she demands some chicken from our plates. Our bird thinks other birds are good eatin!
Just my two cents, I see animals as "meat on the hoof" and nothing more. They are merely naturally growing fuel. I divide life into two groups: 1) man; 2) everything else. The death of an animal is like the death of a dandelion. I don't really see it as death in human terms. Animals seem to be like us, but they really are not. I wrote the following a while back about this:
"Actually, I think humans share a lot with the animals. After all, they share the same designer, and were designed to flourish within the same ecosystem. I see all plant and animals (including man) as biological machines, with the human machine being on the top as far as diversity, functionality and overall quality is concerned.
Imagine you were placed on a planet that was covered with water. To survive, you are given a small craft that you get inside and basically strap on. This machine would attach so directly to all of your bodily functions that it would be an extension of yourself to the point that it would be your only physical contact with this water world and others on this planet would begin to see this machine as “you.”
That is, as a Christian, how I see the human body. It is very similar to all the other machines on this planet. It is self replicating and self healing. But it is not me. It is merely the machine I occupy while on this planet, living in this particular ecosystem. The ME is the spirit that dwells within this earthly vessel. When it expires, I go to be with the Lord in eternity. In eternity time does not “flow” as it does in His creation.
The purpose of that diatribe? My body has a great deal in common with the rest of the biological machines in this world, but it is not “me.” It is the machine I have strapped on and is my direct contact with this world, designed to survive and flourish here – until it wears out – at which point I go home.
It also gives you a perspective on how Christians view death, and why preservation of this life to make it as long as possible is not a concern to Christians.
The Bible tells us we or “in but not of” the world."
I see animals as serving two purposes here. The first is obvious: a source of ongoing energy for the biological machine we occupy. The second is one of simulated companionship. That is, they are sort of "AI" biological machines that can sometimes (often with many people) give the impression that they interpret and interact with the world with the same "feelings, emotions and motivations" as humans. It allows us to bond with them in much the way a child bonds to an inanimate cuddly toy.
But it works.
My car and my computer have a "nervous system." They don't feel pain, they merely respond to stimulus (such as my hitting the "T" key) via their programming. Stimulus - response. Not pain.
>>One might ask whether the systems created to do this are "living" but as they probably won't be able to reproduce by themselves, I doubt that we will worry about it much.<<
I dare say only a handful of us are worrying about it now. 8^>
That is a tough question.
All I can say is that the vegans I have come in contact with are some of the craziest, self centered, irrational, fanatical people on the planet...
please add me the the college ping list
thanks
Get a vegetarian college student stoned and put a Pepperoni Pizza in front of them. Instant meat eater.
I have said this before, but half my family is vegan. And you wouldn't know it unless you sat down to eat with them.
I disagree with the authors contention of pain being the primary difference between animals and plants.
The larger point still is valid, though. Plants are living, and even nuts and fruits carry forms of life in an incipient form. Therefore, to live is to essentially prey on other living forms. In that, the author is correct.
A religious group (Jains( does precisely that. And they live as long as most of us do.
Since I do like vegies I probably would sit down and eat with them....just not every meal. :)
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