Reply #38: You didn't ask a question, [View All]

[forgethell]

you made a statement. However, as I read between the lines I'll try to answer what I think your question is as well as I can.

I believe that we are animals like any others in certain regards. We have to eat, to sleep, to drink. We breed. We die. They eat each other, some of them ate us in evolutionary history. And still would, given the opportunity. For instance, I read somewhere that leopards are our natural predator, and kill more people every year than any other wild animal. I don't have a link and can't vouch for the accuracy of the statement.

But man has a moral dimension. Whether it is because we are made in the image of God, or simply a quirk of evolutionary chance, I am not prepared to say at this time. But you cannot deny that it exists, or we would not be having this discussion. For instance, you suggest that all creatures have a right not to suffer. Where did that idea come from? Certainly no animal holds it. And without a moral base of some kind to judge from, well there is not "right or wrong". There is just "the way things are".

While vegetarians have existed for many centuries, certainly vegetarianism has never had the following that is does today. Not in the West, anyway. And, while I could certainly be wrong, here, I think that a lot of it has to do with the various meat substitutes that have been developed from soy. Why should these soy product be shaped into hamburger or sausage, and flavored like meat?

Finally, again I am no expert, but what I have read tends to indicate that man's digestive tract and dentition show that he was evolved to eat meat.

Therefore, I feel perfectly justified in eating steak, burger, chops. I respect your right not to want to eat meat, for whatever reason. I just don't think vegetarianism is a more moral position than eating meat. I don't for example, hunt, but I have no objections to those who do, so long as they use the meat, or at least give it to someone who will. Deer or prey animals.

But just to "throw you a bone", so to speak, philosophically, I have a lot of trouble with the factory farm methods used today, which I do consider needlessly cruel.

MERRY CHRISTMAS:)