Now to leonheart:
"ur forgetting though that death means the end of everything including your SELF"I am not. In fact that is my argument for why death might be more desirable.
ill deal with this in the second post.
"sussation of suffering is great, but it has no meaning without a SELF being present. save your life first, then try and get rid of the suffering in it. without a life there is no point to getting rid of suffering. you get rid of suffering FOR your life."That is incorrect. As I said there are many scenarios where you would get rid of the suffering just for the sake of not suffering, in the process giving up being alive. Your premise is that life is the most treasured thing we have, that is not accepted by everyone. Lets try to argument from a more objective view.
choosing death over life only happens when your mental faculties are being overloaded with pain. it is not a logical or reasonable choice. it is a forced choice. like offering sum1 a suggestibility drug and making them beleive their life is ending, and telling them to proclaim it to the world. truly no person would ever choose nuthingness over existance if they UNDERSTOOD what nothingness meant as opposed to existance. non existance logically, is infinitely worse off than any form of existance to entities whos axiomic categorisation as the entity in question rises from existance itself as opposed to "non existance". in so far as an OBJECTIVE point of view goes, maybe an entity not bound by thing like existance/non existance{i.e. god etc} , maybe able to say that they can not choose existance over non existance{with the full understaing of what each categorise} bu for humans and other EXISTING BEINGS, to proclaim as such is stupid and illogical because we are and should be, biased towards existance logically. as we are nuthing without it, and the very choice of existance vs non existance doesnt exist without our existance to support it.
"no, i beleive those people are not using their better judgement and avoid the problem or do not think about it. we can not let practices like slavery and genocide continue simply on the argument that some people tdo not think it wrong for such things to happen. i said we have the ABILITY to see what is right and wrong, if people do not use that ability, does not mean it isnt there."[/b][/i]That is very subjective though. To you animals suffering obviously is wrong. To many others it is not. How can you be sure that it is wrong and that all that do not think it is wrong don't use their judgement.
I would argue that there are pros that to me outweish the cons of animals suffering and dying.
the statement in language might be subjective. but the content it is conveying is not as subjective as you make it seem. to others it is not because they are being extremely selfish and not putting themselves in the animal's position. an argument of obscurity{where ur leading the discussion to} of exactly WHY, "logically" we should put ourselves in other's shoes/treat every1 equally/be unselfish, will take almost impossibly long, specially with pointless refutattions by the opposition. however, a very solid argument exists for it i assure you. therefore i can be sure that it is wrong, because we shoul treat others as we would like to be treated and minimize suffering.
actually you HAVENT argued. nor has any1 else, not conclusively or strongly. the best argument is still one of NECESSITY which doesnt really hold true in today's world.
"you honestly expect me to beleive that you put yourself in the position and found out that your life was not worth more than the enjoyement{not guarunteed} of a few mouthfulls of meat for a human being?"[/b][/i]That is not what I said though, is it?
The likelihood that I would be the one dying for that is small. Very small. Besides the animal doesn't have the same amount of self-consciousness that I have.
We are not all equal. That is a fact.
yes, but that is what i asked you to do. put yourself in their position. you are being very selfish, not giving significace to the existance or desires of anything other than yourself. any genocidal nation can make the same argument, "the likelyhood that i will be affected by this catastrophe is almost non existance, therefore as long as i am in luxury, i do not care if others suffer". it is illogical and selfish.
as for the "conciousness", that is untrue. an animal does not have the same amount of INTELLECT as you, but you can neither see nor measure or approximate conciousness.
"non sense my friend. you didnt put YOURSELF in the place of the animal or a loved one. you just looked from your own current perspective and thought "as i am NOW, can i sleep with eating meat?" and wrote the answer to that. how about an easier example, one not so extreme, would you kill another human in the absence of livestock simply to satisfy your taste buds even in the presence of vegetarian alternatives?"[/b][/i]Because that was the point.
Of course I wouldn't want to be eaten, but that does not matter really. I won't be eaten. There are many other arguments to be considered. Why do you think that whether you want to be eaten or not has any bearing in this conversation?
no it wasnt. that is just an illogical selfish argument which cud only be made if humans were at their core, utterly and completely selfish beings with no ability/desire/need to do anything selfless, well they rent n if they were, they wudv died out a long time ago.
n again the argument is the same "i shud not care about others as long as it doesnt affect me", i think it matters because we neither are nor should be competely selfish beings. and even if we are, if we make such rules that apply to EVERY1, then it might just as likely be US that is on the receiving end of sumthing negetive and even selfish beings do not like RECEIVING harm.
"that is because you have not put yourself in the place of the animal. not really, your just looking at an animal as an animal, a being much more lowly than you. "[/b][/i]Actually, that is not correct. I do not see animals as lower. I see them as a different species that I personally have no moral obligation to. I can include them in my moral thinking if I want, but I choose not to. Why should I?
they are alive, they have a concoiusness, they have fealing/emotions/desires/needs. in those aspects they are very much like you and other humans. you can relate to them, that is why you have moral obligations to them. or are you next gonna say that you have no moral obligation to people of the same species as you either??????
[QUOTE]
"your kidding right. the freedom to kill people is not a freedom at all. this is a perfect example of seeing how easily things come around. by giving one person a gun to PROTECT themself, you are allowing every1 to have a gun so that they ALL feal protected and keep a deterrant balance of power. ofcourse what it ends up being is that EVERY1 is put in danger and overall many many people are shot at random and die/suffer injury when none had to were the guns not present to begin with. it makes the security situation WORSE for every one, ur not really PROTECTING yourself, your giving the whole society slow poisoning. and guns are often used for offence as opposed to defence, an open gun culture raises that occurance. anyhow, what kinda freedom is a place where a man is afraid to walk on the streets or be invited into sum1's house, when he knows the other persona can legally shoot him for trespassing. the logic is as stupid as nuclear deterrance. only in nuclear deterrance, MAD never happens. in gun totting communities like the southern usa, it does. more people have died of guns there then both the world wars combined.
really, the ammendment for society to bear arms is one of the most stupid surviving thing in the us constitution. seeing as it only made sense when warring oppressive governments wanted to bend civillians to their will and the law was for civilians to be able to protect their livelyhood and freedom."
[/b][/i]
As I said, you only see one side. And you are very stubborn about it too. Also, killing is not condemned by allowing people to own guns.
Anyhow, that's topic of another thread, but do you think you could look at topics from a less subjective and biased POV? QUOTE]
no, i see both and i discussed both. i am stubborn where needless death is concerned, yes. as for the killing is condemned point, i wud just like to say that you are trying to seperate death from owning guns, however, they are very much two intertwined variables in the practical world and society willl never be angelic enough to sperate the two. guns are to blame, its like surrounding a child by fire, and when he/she gets burnt, blaming the actions of the child and not the fire for the burn.
i am looking at the topic from as subjective a point of view as a human being shud.
Originally posted by debbiejoMeet the danger zone:
Well, my opinion is that people eat to survive. And it is what you eat that contributes to that. True? Wouldn't it be true that you need certain nutrients to evolve? If so, then what are you getting from raw meat. And if I may, why do we have to cook it and season it to make it taste good enough for us to eat? If it is indeed so beneficial, then why not eat it raw.
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OA/pubs/cfg/Color/jpg/07-dangerzone.jpg
We generally buy meat from a market where it has been kept at a tempurature ideal for bacteria for several months, so unless you kill an animal yourself and eat the meat raw, it's probably best to cook your meat.
but that is an illogical rationalisation. there are many humans like that and such characteristics give no true reason for another being who has nuthing to do with such creatures to kill and eat them. they are alive and self aware/conciouse. to an alien u might look like such an animal . wud that make it ok for them to eat you???
Originally posted by meep-meep
There is nothing wrong with having a diet of lots of fruits, veggies, nuts, etc. In fact its really good for your body. Meat in moderation isn't bad either. Vegans are wacky radicals. And sometimes dangerous wacky radicals.
vegetarian diets are normally lacking in some nutrients normally found in meat. They are really easy to supplement, but a lot of people, vegetarian or not, don't really pay attention to their diet that well.
I work with a vegan who at one point had less iron in her system than starving ethopian
