Is it moral to eat meat? ***Constructive Discussion ONLY***

[Barnyard Dawg]

For hundreds and thousands of years,

The stew in the pot has boiled up,

A resentment very hard to level.

If you want to know why

There are wars in the world,

Just listen to the haunting cries that come

From a slaughterhouse at midnight.

 

[greyfields]

Is that really your own words?

 

[Barnyard Dawg]

Quote:
No, I found it interesting though.

 

[Tutter]

A forum of nearly 11,000 members.

We are from so many walks of life that many of us would never run into, or perhaps even associate with if we did, one another.

Vegetarians, vegans, die-hard meat eaters, and light meat partakers.

And yet we sit here, and are agreeing completely. Why don't I say that again. We are sitting here and agreeing with one another completely.

Regardless of who we are, we all agree that the most important thing is respect for the animals. That animals eaten, whether one partakes, or not, be given respect and a good life, and as stress-free and swift end as is humanly possible.

I picture bikers, 10th generation farmers, lawyers, the gray haired, and the 8 year olds. I know there are birk wearers, and miners.

I'm really proud to be part of a forum which breeds such tolerance between people because we accept one another on a basic, common level, and then choose to allow for the differences because we've learned that we really do like one another when we talk about our new chicks, getting dinner on the table, and our children.

When someone gets a sunburn, or their toddler hits their head, or someone's rooster is down, no one cares that this one is long haired, that one is flat topped, or any other silly thing.

What a breath of fresh air.

 

[Nugget]

I am not a hindu and have no religious reasons for being vegetarian.

I used to fish, I used to hunt with my dad as a kid. Once we were driving home with a partrige dad got. I felt badly for it. I asked dad how he felt. He said he did feel badly for the animal, but someone has to kill the food we eat. Does it make a difference if it's you or someone else?

I thought about that for a long time. I decided that if it made me feel that uncomfortable to take a life then I have no buisness eating lives and that it shouldn't make a difference if it is killed for me.

This is not related to the morality/ethics of eating meat. The ethics of it are based on the question "Does eating meat cause suffering?"

 

[Carolina Chicken Man]

Quote:
To expand on this: in this context, it's worth distinguishing between grain-fed animals, which DO indeed reduce the total amount of food available to humans, versus grass-fed animals (at least if they are on pasture that is inherently not viable as longterm cropland).

Animals raised on pasture -- or more generally, eating things that people cannot or will not, such as a lot of the stuff traditionally swilled out to pigs or chickens -- *increase* the total food availability to humans, since they're "built of" stuff that we ourselves could not / would not eat.

Pat

The cause of worldwide hunger is not a lack of food. It is caused by poverty. There is plenty of food to feed the people of this world, despite the high cost of producing meat. (I agree it is a luxury) They just can't afford to buy the food.

Most poverty in the third world can be attributed to a lack of functioning political systems and laws. Probably the second biggest cause of poverty in the third world is farm subsidies in the US and Europe. Our nation's early development and prosperity was related to agricultural. Later, we had an industrial revolution. That can not happen in Africa because we (and Europe and Japan for that matter) subsidize farmers. That, and reason #1.

 

[chcknrs]

The ethics of it are based on the question "Does eating meat cause suffering?"

Good question, but one would logically also have to ask, "Does not eating meat cause suffering?" For some of us, it does.

Philosophy usually tends to look at both/all sides of a question before an answer can be found. Often there is more than one answer.​

 

[greyfields]

Gosh I wish I could get some of these farming subsidies. Someone, hook me up!

 

[The Chicken Lady]

Some animals eat people. Does that make them as "bad" as the humans who eat animals?

It is our nature to eat one another, but only humans sit back and philosophize about it (because we were gifted with the means to do so).

This is an interesting conversation.

 

[Crunchie]

Quote:
To expand on this: in this context, it's worth distinguishing between grain-fed animals, which DO indeed reduce the total amount of food available to humans, versus grass-fed animals (at least if they are on pasture that is inherently not viable as longterm cropland).

Animals raised on pasture -- or more generally, eating things that people cannot or will not, such as a lot of the stuff traditionally swilled out to pigs or chickens -- *increase* the total food availability to humans, since they're "built of" stuff that we ourselves could not / would not eat.

Pat

The cause of worldwide hunger is not a lack of food. It is caused by poverty. There is plenty of food to feed the people of this world, despite the high cost of producing meat. (I agree it is a luxury) They just can't afford to buy the food.

Most poverty in the third world can be attributed to a lack of functioning political systems and laws. Probably the second biggest cause of poverty in the third world is farm subsidies in the US and Europe. Our nation's early development and prosperity was related to agricultural. Later, we had an industrial revolution. That can not happen in Africa because we (and Europe and Japan for that matter) subsidize farmers. That, and reason #1.

I agree with the fact that poverty is a cause of hunger worldwide (and the political reasons for it). Though I think that a more effective way to help this would not be to give people money to buy food but rather to give them a means to become more self-sufficient. Has anyone ever seen the organization Heifer International (www.heifer.org)? It's a charity that works worldwide, and the premise is to give an impoverished family an animal(s) that they can use for food--but they aren't just given, say, a chicken to slaughter for the stewpot. They are given a small flock of chickens for eggs and meat, and they are taught how to care for them properly so that they can breed more chickens for more meat and eggs, and eventually maybe a surplus to sell at market. The deal with the "loan" is that once the animals are producing offspring, they must pass on the gift to another needy family.

Some types of animals in certain areas are damaging to the eco-systems and eventually the local economy and general well-being of the population. I have seen first hand in Costa Rica the damage that trying to grow beef for market has done to the rainforest eco-system--beef production is the leading cause of the destruction of many of the world's rainforests. It's not just all tree-hugger reasons to be concerned about that. These things are all interconnected, it can be devastating to local economies.