Lol I had to read The Jungle in highschool. I know there's food to replace meat, but it's hard to change. It's just too available lol. I just want to be more healthy in general for the sake of my pineal gland
I am also a vegetarian. A lot of people say that it is unhealthy but if you eat meat replacements and enough other nutrients it is healthy. It is even more healthier. I am really happy to be a vegetarian and I'm 13
meat is helthy...theres a reason its good..and allso there is a reason its helthy. its just like any other fruit, you need it to hae a healty body just as you need vitamins :)
and you cant live on pills bro, just take a look at Elvis...
No one's suggesting you need to. Plants also contain protein, without the bad cholesterol. And theres a big difference between the drugs elvis did and dietery suppliments, but you knew that alreadly. Or at least I hope you did. But the main point isn't about health its about not supporting an industry confining innocent creatures to short lives of misery fear and pain all for one's own personal pleasure. Look at the actual footage and you'll see how petty the desire for meat is.
@Roenazarrek i think a avorigde boutcher would not kill an animal to cause pain and fear. making animals suffering is not point of producing meat.
obviously you dont know much about meatindustries..the killing happens faster than the animals "fear reaction" if you dint know hwat a knife is, and sombody chopped of your head with one, you would not only die fast and painfree but you would not fear it,because you dint know hwat was about to happen.
@MrOlekul The point is not to cause suffering the point is to make money. And it's not individual butchers that are the problem its the factory farming industry which is the only way to accomidate the vast demand for meat. It's humourous that someone with aobut 5 spelling errors per paragraph that thinks that animals don't understand that sharp objects can cause pain is accusing me of not knowing much about the meat industry.
@Roenazarrek mocking down on pepule for bad spelling isnt really adult ;) hwats wrong with the food industries? jes i know its about money, and guess hwat? in the modern society we need both money and food.
btw at least hwere i live the farmers take ekstremely good care of their animals :P a cow dosent give a shit if it sees its owner even if he holds a sword.
Another reason is that some people do claim to be obligate omnivores after being vegan or vegetarian. Despite their attempts to keep their meatless diet and think it was more moral to do so, they found they were unable to. Of course, this doesn't mean everyone has to be an omnivore anymore then someone being healthy veg means everyone has to go meatless. I believe it is an individuals choice and that eating meat or not eating are morally neutral.
@DrKyure To say that it is morally neurtal is to say that there is nothing wrong about eating meat. And in the context of modern society where the vast vast majority of our meat (over 97%) comes from the meat packing industry, factory farming, that is to say that there is nothing wrong with financially supporting that industry, which I think is to say that there is nothing substantially wrong with the way that they treat the animals.
@Roenazarrek: Yes, I believe that the act of killing an animal to eat is, in of itself, not immoral. However, factory farming and slow slaughter are not OK. But the act itself is.
There are humane farms still. Going veg harms the good farms more than the bad ones. But if you have a problem with how we raise and kill meat in western society, you have a problem with factory farming and the practices that go with it, but saying that it is wrong to eat meat at all is a large jump from that.
Haha, well if people merely stopped eating the vast majority of meat from fast food chains and virtually all restaurantes, and did some investigation, and there were 100% transparency policies such that we were all sure that the meat that we eat was obtained with no suffering then I would be quite satisfied and may even start eating it again myself. That is not the world that we are living in though.
@Roenazarrek: That animals are raised in a way where they are constantly sick and mistreated while being raised. After that they are taken to the slaughter house where they are not guaranteed a quick death. Since we eat animals they deserve our respect. That means to be well treated, given a good life, and a as quick and painless death as we can give.
But simply raising and or killing animals for food is not something I find immoral. The morality lies in how we do it, bot that we do it.
@Roenazarrek: That is a great strawman. I said that it was OK to eat meat, not that it was OK to torture animals in factory farming. I can support eating humanely raised, well treated, and quickly killed animals without supporting factory farming.
But what I said still stands. To me, eating meat and eating plant are not morally different and do not mean you are a better person or worse person for doing it.
@DrKyure There is the substantial difference that plants are not conscious and therefore cannot experience suffering. In light of that it's a bit silly to say that there is no difference.
@Roenazarrek: There are in fact animals that are unable to experience pain. But ability to experience pain is not grounds for a right to life. An animal being able to feel pain is grounds to not raise them in a way that they are constantly suffering, IE factory farming.
But the animals that are raised next to where I live are not in factory farms and eat grass and hay. They are not suffering, or if they are it is drastically different than a factor harm.
@Roenazarrek: I do not say that plants are just like animals, I say that killing an animal for food is no morally different than killing a plant for food. Not because they two are the same, but because they are killed for food and food has very little morality governing it.
I do have a question though. You say you are an Atheist, I'm guess you also lack a belief in the afterlife too. I also am guessing that you don't believe in God because there is a lack of concrete proof, though I could err in this guess. But morality also has no concrete proof of its existence, so why do you believe in morality but not any kind of divine being if proof is lacking for both? After all, morals are subjective.
@DrKyure "morality has no concrete proof of its existence" what exactly do you mean by that? what would either exist or not? You speak of it as though it is some object that could be pointed to and examined, as opposed to a body of discourse.
@Roenazarrek: You do not believe in any divine being right? I am guessing that this is because you lack evidence of said divine being. Now I do believe in God, but I don't say I know it exist, I say that I believe it exists. I do not know moral facts, but I believe in morality. But to say I know it is moral to eat meat is just a false of a state as to say I know it is immoral to eat meat. I simply believe in it.
@Roenazarrek: I find it curious that you believe in morality but not God since both lack concrete proof.
I could say that God is not an object that can be pointed to and examined, as apposed to a divine being that we have no ability to detect. I'm sure you would call BS on me if I said that, or if you didn't, it would not convince you there is a God.
I believe in morality, but I accept that my beliefs of it are subjective and not factually known.
@Roenazarrek: Though don't think that I think you can't have morality and be an Atheist. I simply find it puzzling that you think the two go hand in hand since both God and morals are abstract things. Perhaps concepts of man or constructs of the universe.
Perhaps an example. If humans could only impregnated females who were between ages 6 and 11 when the males were over 40, we would not believe having sex with children was immoral. If this happened to us, our subjective morality would change.
@DrKyure Suffering and compassion are not abstract concepts. And they are something that the vast majority of human beings (barring psychopaths) have in common. To feel compassion for someone is to think it is bad for them to suffer. If you had no compassion for animals at all, or thought that it was impossible for them to suffer you would not think even the worst factory farming practics was wrong and yet you agree with me that they are.
@Roenazarrek: Wow, another strawman, that makes 3. We can study suffering via pain receptors and compassion is a defined human feeling/action. I didn't say those were abstract. Morality, however, is abstract. It is also a feeling, but it is a feeling about actions that has good and wrong attached do it, unlike compassion, which makes it susceptible to human emotion and opinions, which is why morals are subjective.
@DrKyure Yes but imagine a world with no compassion and no suffering and you are imagining a world in which no one has any incentive to behave morally, and thus it woudn't make much sense to suppose that it "exists". Also for fucks sake morality is not a "thing". Stop calling it a thing, you are confusing yourself.
@Roenazarrek: You do not need morals to have compassion. You can think that humans should or shouldn't do certain things without saying that it is right or wrong, you say you have a preference.
Morality is an abstract creation of man that doesn't actually exist or it is an universal law that humans are not able to know the facts about since we cannot detect the morality of a situation.
You can't know if your morals are true anymore than you can know if God exists. (please don't say you do.)
@DrKyure Well they way you put it, its not that you wouldn't know wheather or not your morals were true, so much as morals are not the sort of thing that can be true or false. Would you agree that they can however make more or less sense?
And I wouldn't say that you can know if god exists, but I also wouldn't say that you can know if thor exists either, that does not make it a 50/50 chance though as I think you would agree. And of course the "odds" would be different depending ontheconcept
@Roenazarrek: Exactly, the difference though is that I will acknowledge that. I have belief, not certainty.
I personally believe morals exist and there is a definitive answer, however I am not subject to that knowledge. There either is or isn't a God, but we don't know the answer.
Some do, some don't. Veg*anism is about the best bad argument there is. It sounds great...until you start picking it apart.
Then you get to heaven, and see Thor, Santa, and the invisible pink unicorn. -_-
@Roenazarrek: Even with saying that some make more sense than others, you are still banking on you being right. Most people do this, but as long as you understand that what you say is belief and not fact and don't try to pull the number games where you have a 99.99-repeating% change at being correct, it's simply enough to understand you may be wrong.
If you may be wrong, you have a less chance at being an extremist
@DrKyure And how exactly am I doing "strawmen" make your possitions clear and I won't misinterpret them. Morality is just a reference to the body of discourse we have for trying to decide how we should and should not behave. There are answers that make more and less sense, once a framework is in place answers for what is "right" and "wrong" become quite objective. If the word "wrong" is to mean anything surely it must entail puting conscious creatures in abject misery for your own pleasure?
@Roenazarrek: I was talking about morality and you said suffering and compassion are not abstract. Morality, however, is. Morality can be boiled down to belief and we are not subject to the facts regarding morality, we don't even know if it exists, we just feel a certain way about certain things and because of that we say if something is right or wrong.
@Roenazarrek: Not really. What makes sense to you, won't for someone else. You say that it is wrong to eat animals, I could say it is wrong to exist since existing will always cause pain and suffering to you and other organisms.
Since you already exist, the best thing to do would be to not breed and live as much of a modest life as you can, that means giving up the computer that you use as well as other things.
I'm sure that could make sense to you, but you are not required to follow it.
@Roenazarrek: The problem is that it isn't solely for my own pleasure. It is true that it is enjoyable to eat meat, however, that is because we have evolved to eat meat and that it is actually good for us to eat (in the right amount). The same way why we enjoy salt and water, we benefit from it.
On the flip side, we do not like the smell of rotting flesh. That is because this can make us sick. A vulture has no problems with how rotting flesh smells because it is evolved to eat it.
@Roenazarrek: Needlessly harming animals is a lot different than killing them for food. You can spank a child and you can beat a child. You can also fight a war and murder innocent people, both examples has something we both likely find moral and immoral, yet all four involve pain or death.
@DrKyure I am an atheist not because I have no use for "abstract concepts" I am an atheist because I am commited to the goal that all my beliefs be true, or as many of them as possible.
@Roenazarrek: That doesn't really make what I said untrue. If the reason you do not believe in any divine being is because you do not see any good evidence of it, then the same can be said for morals. Beyond feelings, we have no evidence. You have Atheists and Theists saying they "know" the truth, but that isn't true since they do not.
I also find it ironic how you say you don't like the bad arguments used by theists yet you seem to be dodging what I'm saying without good arguments.
@Roenazarrek: And of course you also changed what you believed. This doesn't make you a better person or wiser. You changed your mind not your personality. The same person who you think made the flawed and immoral decision to eat meat and put it off for so long is the same person who made what you think is the moral and compassionate decision that eating meat is immoral.
But you still lack proof because feeling pain doesn't make it immoral to kill and eat animals, some of which can't feel pain.
I'm right because I try to be right so I'm right.......you act as if I try to be wrong, but it's all subjective. If you don't want to eat animals fine, but it doesn't go along with Atheism and it isn't a fact that it's wrong.
The slavery aspect is really overused, as is the holocaust. What we do to animals now is a lot worse then we use to. Treating them with respect, while also eating them, should go hand in hand.
Humans and animals have in their nature to eat meat. It would be similar to saying sex is immoral, even though it is in both human nature and animal nature.
I don't think eating animals is wrong, I lack a belief in eating meat being immoral. Since you believe it is immoral, do you have proof for it?
Great video Roenazarrek! I often think of the slavery comparison myself, it is the same idea, people participated in it due to convenience as people participate in meat consumption due to convenience. I have heard so many different arguments on intelligence ect. determining how we should treat animals, I realized this is absurd because we do not even do that, but judging them by intellect still wouldn't make sense. I now judge simply on ability to suffer, conscious life is equal to me.
I felt the same way after i watched EarthLings Documentary.... I couldnt sleep that night , i Kept cry .. Its so painful to see the suffering we are causing to those innocent animals .. I am a vegetarian now .. And i feel good ..
You could be me at your age 10 years ago. I'd have made the same carefully reasoned points. Though, I'm no longer a vegetarian. The atheism and homosexuality stuck with me however ;) Incidentally, you're well handsome bro.
@Roenazarrek Several factors were involved. Mainly, my uncomfortability with the hypocrisy of my stance (medicine, animal testing, the myriad animal derived ingredients in an enormous variety of everyday products, the fact that modern agricultural techniques also cause large amounts of animal suffering, etc.). I am aware of the significant flaws (perfection fallacy) in this argument (most notably voiced by Singer et. al.) and so have backed away from it more recently.
@10mintwo It it really hypocracy to say that sacrificing animal well being for the significant betterment of mankind as in important medical research is a good reason, but that sacrificing animal well being for personal pleasure is not a good reason? It seems straightforward and logical to me. If you're talking about things like mayo, and how the eggs in it require similar suffering as the straight up meat you may have a point.
@Roenazarrek And the second most important factor, which involved me realizing that I seemed to be making a false equivalence of sentience, and thereby a capacity for suffering, between species, eg. humans and chickens. Here, the "speciesist" arguments of Singer ring utterly hollow to me, as it does not at all follow, in my opinion, that the suffering of a pig is in any way comparable to for instance, that of a sardine or a clam. There is a hierarchy of capacity for suffering.
@10mintwo I agree that chicken cannot suffer like humans can, and therefor don't deserve as much moral concern, but certainly they deserve enough convern to not flippantly subject them to the factory farming process in order to have a more pleasurable diet?
@Roenazarrek Thus, I now accept that the suffering of some animals simply means very little to me. For instance aside from concerns of extinction, etc., I couldn't care less if a billion mackerel are killed every year for our food. Their encephalization quotients are so low, there is just no realistic chance of anything like self-awareness or conscious knowledge of past and future existing in them, and so the pain they admittedly experience on death is largely meaningless to me.
@10mintwo Well I agree that there is no compelling reason to think that an oysteur or sardine can suffer in a significant way, I'm less concerned therefor about that meat. But the notion that a pig or even a cow cannot suffer is insane. Chickens probably less so, but when you look to the reasons for eating meat the notion that they hopefully don't suffer all That much just sounds pathetic. As far as seafood goes its mostly the environmental factor with me, much less important to me.
@Roenazarrek my dear boy, your previous videos all indicate that you are MORE than sufficiently intelligent to see that the argument you're making is a straw man. Nowhere did I claim such a thing as cows can't suffer. I would claim however, that their suffering, if given a Temple Grandin approved humane end, is roughly equivalent to that of an (elective) aborted late second trimester fetus: largely untroubling.
If don't right their suffering could be minimized as to be untroubleing. But I don't think it is typically. Some of the footage can just make you sick, and I have a hard time thinking any decent person would just sit back and watch if someone were treating them that way out in broad daylight. They'd want to stop it. But it's out of sight and out of mind.
@Roenazarrek You're changing the subject by using the red herring of animal abuse in the livestock industry (which no one here is condoning) to irrationally poison the well of the idea that such business can and should be done humanely. That's disappointing. Should the produce industry be abolished because sometimes farms abuse migrant workers, or should we ensure regulation of that industry is rigorously enforced to prevent such injustice?
So, wouldn't choosing to purchase meat only from farms that employ appropriate farming methods (whatever one defines that as) be a much better approach to resolving the moral issue of food production. Choosing to be vegan or vegetarian is the "lazy" way out, isn't it?
@jbramson33 No, it is in the nature of capitolism to adapt the highest efficiency possible and in this goal it tends to unfold as rather psychopathic. Even towards people before we put forth the necessary legislation. And no, the "lazy" way out is to compromise for appropriate farming methods that will always be highly pressured (to remain competative) to cut corners when it comes to the animals' well being whenever they can get away with it.
@jbramson33 Upon investigation even the "organic" farms often turn out to be substantially less ethical than they advertise. The people managing every establisment would really have to have their heart in it, which doesn't happen often.
As far as what's natural from the evolutionary development of the human species, living past your 30s isn't natural either, so what is natural is neither here nor there. And there are no nutrients you would die without that can only be found in meat.
@Roenazarrek - vit B12 is only found in animal products and is essential for live. For the most part, we have sufficient stores for survival for a while, but deficiency may cause pernicious anemia that may be fatal. So, you are incorrect there. This is sometimes seen in strict vegans, albeit rare. The fact that a nutritionally essential dietary component comes exclusively from animal consumption is the point here.
@jbramson33 You are argueing that there is one nutrient that can only be derived from animal products that we need at least a tiny ammount of, and this is so vastly important that there have been rare cases where strict vegans (not vegetarians) have died, althought the vast majority of vegans are fine, and this is a reason why we should all just eat meat? Should we compare the statistics of b12 defficiency death to those of hypertension directly related to a high cholesterol diet?
@Roenazarrek i am only saying that consuming animal products is a staple of the natural human diet. Vegetarianism undermines your argument since you are still supporting the exploitation of animals, so to support your moral argument, you'd have to be a vegan. I think a diet including small amounts of meat and animal derived products is healthiest, but that is not the nature of your argument.
@jbramson33 That same line of reasoning could be used to defend the nazi death camps. You eat meat so you support the unnecessary fear and suffering of conscious creatures for your own pleasure, so to support your moral arguement you would have to be vegettarian. Factory farms are horrible places of fear and suffering and we should be ashamed to be financially supporting them for a more pleasurable diet.
@Roenazarrek really? you have to be kidding?! that is idiotic. I assume you must float about everywhere, because the trampling of insects is like a nuclear bomb! You must not breathe so as not to falsely imprison microbes in your lungs! Gimme a break! Your analogy is moronic.
@jbramson33 You misunderstand the point quite spectacularly. Amidst your histrionic raving about the analogy I gleaned that you gathered that I mean somehow that there is no hierarchy of moral concern and thus microbes deserve just as much as human beings? That's Ironic because that is what I got from your arguement that we cannot argue for animal rights without being vegan. So it's you that fails to see the difference between different conscious creatures not me.
@Roenazarrek if you can, as you say, comprehend a hierarchy of moral concern, than you should be able to see how your analogy to nazi death camps is a poor one.
I do not suggest that you can't argue for animal rights without being vegan, only that if you assert that vegetarianism is the logical response to objections related to animal exploitation, you'd also logically have to extend that line of reasoning to other animal derived products.
You can choose not to eat meat, and that is fine, but being a vegan (not so much a vegetarian) is not natural based on evolutionary development of the human species. We evolved to eat meat. It is out nature and the only source for certain essential nutrients, outside of supplementation via manufactured molecules.
Objection to the methods used in the mass production of food is an entirely separate issue. That's the problem with the argument you present IMO
I'm curious about something that the video didn't quite make clear: do you think eating meat is wrong in and of itself, or is it just that's it's nearly impossible to eat meat in ethical ways in our super-industrialized society?
@kxt6187 More the second one, I'm not especially against eating meat thats hunted for, but that's less than 3% of the meat available, if everyone only ate that sort the meat packing industry would be pretty much destroyed or transformed unrecognizably. There are other health and environmental reasons for it as well that I think are important but the ethical issue of the suffering involved is paramount to me.
I must say this makes for an excellent emotional exploit, and practice in assertion laying, but I fail to notice any intellectual rigor at all in it. For instance, in your homily on moral relativism, you used as a moral frame of reference the torture of women as being in some way suggestive of eating meat. In that these two somehow occupy the same moral domain such that the example isn't on its face absurd. I'm dubious. Nice hair though. =^_^=
@Roenazarrek in that I specified a standard against which a moral claim could be referenced (in this case, your standard tortured Muslim woman) indicates, to my mind anyway, that I understood your video. I don't think it's ambiguous, though perhaps not plainly written. On versus against? I'm fairly certain these are actually consist terms. When one writes on rape, say, no one reads 'on' to be a counter to 'against' such that 'on' means 'advocacy for'. I'm dubious. But still, nice hair! =^_^=
i became vegetarian simply because i learned how meat was produced and how the animals were treated, not to mention as i got older i started to get grossed out by eating dead animal parts :/ for me it had nothing to do with religion (even though im not religious) Thanks for putting this video out here, you make a very good point
I've been a vegetarian since 1990, but it had taken me 3 years to get there, after meeting an animals rights advocate in '87 while backpacing around Europe.
My lifestyle is more than 95% cruelty free. Some things, such as any needed medication, are a moral compromise I'm willing to make.
I'm very happy and healthy this way. As I approach 50, I am at my high school weight, and most people say I look about 10 years younger.
Lol I had to read The Jungle in highschool. I know there's food to replace meat, but it's hard to change. It's just too available lol. I just want to be more healthy in general for the sake of my pineal gland
kalphitekil 1 week ago
I am also a vegetarian. A lot of people say that it is unhealthy but if you eat meat replacements and enough other nutrients it is healthy. It is even more healthier. I am really happy to be a vegetarian and I'm 13
BrittanyOfChipettes 1 week ago
meat is helthy...theres a reason its good..and allso there is a reason its helthy. its just like any other fruit, you need it to hae a healty body just as you need vitamins :)
and you cant live on pills bro, just take a look at Elvis...
MrOlekul 2 weeks ago
@MrOlekul
No one's suggesting you need to. Plants also contain protein, without the bad cholesterol. And theres a big difference between the drugs elvis did and dietery suppliments, but you knew that alreadly. Or at least I hope you did. But the main point isn't about health its about not supporting an industry confining innocent creatures to short lives of misery fear and pain all for one's own personal pleasure. Look at the actual footage and you'll see how petty the desire for meat is.
Roenazarrek 2 weeks ago
@Roenazarrek i think a avorigde boutcher would not kill an animal to cause pain and fear. making animals suffering is not point of producing meat.
obviously you dont know much about meatindustries..the killing happens faster than the animals "fear reaction" if you dint know hwat a knife is, and sombody chopped of your head with one, you would not only die fast and painfree but you would not fear it,because you dint know hwat was about to happen.
MrOlekul 2 weeks ago
@MrOlekul The point is not to cause suffering the point is to make money. And it's not individual butchers that are the problem its the factory farming industry which is the only way to accomidate the vast demand for meat. It's humourous that someone with aobut 5 spelling errors per paragraph that thinks that animals don't understand that sharp objects can cause pain is accusing me of not knowing much about the meat industry.
Roenazarrek 2 weeks ago
@Roenazarrek mocking down on pepule for bad spelling isnt really adult ;) hwats wrong with the food industries? jes i know its about money, and guess hwat? in the modern society we need both money and food.
btw at least hwere i live the farmers take ekstremely good care of their animals :P a cow dosent give a shit if it sees its owner even if he holds a sword.
MrOlekul 2 weeks ago
Loved the clip at the end of the video. Who was speaking?
ashley060189 1 month ago in playlist More videos from Roenazarrek
@ashley060189 Lol that was the amazing Jim Gaffigan :) very good stand up comic
Roenazarrek 1 month ago
Another reason is that some people do claim to be obligate omnivores after being vegan or vegetarian. Despite their attempts to keep their meatless diet and think it was more moral to do so, they found they were unable to. Of course, this doesn't mean everyone has to be an omnivore anymore then someone being healthy veg means everyone has to go meatless. I believe it is an individuals choice and that eating meat or not eating are morally neutral.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure To say that it is morally neurtal is to say that there is nothing wrong about eating meat. And in the context of modern society where the vast vast majority of our meat (over 97%) comes from the meat packing industry, factory farming, that is to say that there is nothing wrong with financially supporting that industry, which I think is to say that there is nothing substantially wrong with the way that they treat the animals.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: Yes, I believe that the act of killing an animal to eat is, in of itself, not immoral. However, factory farming and slow slaughter are not OK. But the act itself is.
There are humane farms still. Going veg harms the good farms more than the bad ones. But if you have a problem with how we raise and kill meat in western society, you have a problem with factory farming and the practices that go with it, but saying that it is wrong to eat meat at all is a large jump from that.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure
Haha, well if people merely stopped eating the vast majority of meat from fast food chains and virtually all restaurantes, and did some investigation, and there were 100% transparency policies such that we were all sure that the meat that we eat was obtained with no suffering then I would be quite satisfied and may even start eating it again myself. That is not the world that we are living in though.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@DrKyure I'm glad you agree that the inhumane treatment in factory farming is not OK, but what is it about it that makes it not ok to you?
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: That animals are raised in a way where they are constantly sick and mistreated while being raised. After that they are taken to the slaughter house where they are not guaranteed a quick death. Since we eat animals they deserve our respect. That means to be well treated, given a good life, and a as quick and painless death as we can give.
But simply raising and or killing animals for food is not something I find immoral. The morality lies in how we do it, bot that we do it.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: That is a great strawman. I said that it was OK to eat meat, not that it was OK to torture animals in factory farming. I can support eating humanely raised, well treated, and quickly killed animals without supporting factory farming.
But what I said still stands. To me, eating meat and eating plant are not morally different and do not mean you are a better person or worse person for doing it.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure There is the substantial difference that plants are not conscious and therefore cannot experience suffering. In light of that it's a bit silly to say that there is no difference.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: There are in fact animals that are unable to experience pain. But ability to experience pain is not grounds for a right to life. An animal being able to feel pain is grounds to not raise them in a way that they are constantly suffering, IE factory farming.
But the animals that are raised next to where I live are not in factory farms and eat grass and hay. They are not suffering, or if they are it is drastically different than a factor harm.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: I do not say that plants are just like animals, I say that killing an animal for food is no morally different than killing a plant for food. Not because they two are the same, but because they are killed for food and food has very little morality governing it.
Again, you seem to be making a strawman argument.
DrKyure 2 months ago
I do have a question though. You say you are an Atheist, I'm guess you also lack a belief in the afterlife too. I also am guessing that you don't believe in God because there is a lack of concrete proof, though I could err in this guess. But morality also has no concrete proof of its existence, so why do you believe in morality but not any kind of divine being if proof is lacking for both? After all, morals are subjective.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure "morality has no concrete proof of its existence" what exactly do you mean by that? what would either exist or not? You speak of it as though it is some object that could be pointed to and examined, as opposed to a body of discourse.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: You do not believe in any divine being right? I am guessing that this is because you lack evidence of said divine being. Now I do believe in God, but I don't say I know it exist, I say that I believe it exists. I do not know moral facts, but I believe in morality. But to say I know it is moral to eat meat is just a false of a state as to say I know it is immoral to eat meat. I simply believe in it.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: I find it curious that you believe in morality but not God since both lack concrete proof.
I could say that God is not an object that can be pointed to and examined, as apposed to a divine being that we have no ability to detect. I'm sure you would call BS on me if I said that, or if you didn't, it would not convince you there is a God.
I believe in morality, but I accept that my beliefs of it are subjective and not factually known.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: Though don't think that I think you can't have morality and be an Atheist. I simply find it puzzling that you think the two go hand in hand since both God and morals are abstract things. Perhaps concepts of man or constructs of the universe.
Perhaps an example. If humans could only impregnated females who were between ages 6 and 11 when the males were over 40, we would not believe having sex with children was immoral. If this happened to us, our subjective morality would change.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure Suffering and compassion are not abstract concepts. And they are something that the vast majority of human beings (barring psychopaths) have in common. To feel compassion for someone is to think it is bad for them to suffer. If you had no compassion for animals at all, or thought that it was impossible for them to suffer you would not think even the worst factory farming practics was wrong and yet you agree with me that they are.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: Wow, another strawman, that makes 3. We can study suffering via pain receptors and compassion is a defined human feeling/action. I didn't say those were abstract. Morality, however, is abstract. It is also a feeling, but it is a feeling about actions that has good and wrong attached do it, unlike compassion, which makes it susceptible to human emotion and opinions, which is why morals are subjective.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure Yes but imagine a world with no compassion and no suffering and you are imagining a world in which no one has any incentive to behave morally, and thus it woudn't make much sense to suppose that it "exists". Also for fucks sake morality is not a "thing". Stop calling it a thing, you are confusing yourself.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: You do not need morals to have compassion. You can think that humans should or shouldn't do certain things without saying that it is right or wrong, you say you have a preference.
Morality is an abstract creation of man that doesn't actually exist or it is an universal law that humans are not able to know the facts about since we cannot detect the morality of a situation.
You can't know if your morals are true anymore than you can know if God exists. (please don't say you do.)
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure Well they way you put it, its not that you wouldn't know wheather or not your morals were true, so much as morals are not the sort of thing that can be true or false. Would you agree that they can however make more or less sense?
And I wouldn't say that you can know if god exists, but I also wouldn't say that you can know if thor exists either, that does not make it a 50/50 chance though as I think you would agree. And of course the "odds" would be different depending ontheconcept
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: Exactly, the difference though is that I will acknowledge that. I have belief, not certainty.
I personally believe morals exist and there is a definitive answer, however I am not subject to that knowledge. There either is or isn't a God, but we don't know the answer.
Some do, some don't. Veg*anism is about the best bad argument there is. It sounds great...until you start picking it apart.
Then you get to heaven, and see Thor, Santa, and the invisible pink unicorn. -_-
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: Even with saying that some make more sense than others, you are still banking on you being right. Most people do this, but as long as you understand that what you say is belief and not fact and don't try to pull the number games where you have a 99.99-repeating% change at being correct, it's simply enough to understand you may be wrong.
If you may be wrong, you have a less chance at being an extremist
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure And how exactly am I doing "strawmen" make your possitions clear and I won't misinterpret them. Morality is just a reference to the body of discourse we have for trying to decide how we should and should not behave. There are answers that make more and less sense, once a framework is in place answers for what is "right" and "wrong" become quite objective. If the word "wrong" is to mean anything surely it must entail puting conscious creatures in abject misery for your own pleasure?
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: I was talking about morality and you said suffering and compassion are not abstract. Morality, however, is. Morality can be boiled down to belief and we are not subject to the facts regarding morality, we don't even know if it exists, we just feel a certain way about certain things and because of that we say if something is right or wrong.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: Not really. What makes sense to you, won't for someone else. You say that it is wrong to eat animals, I could say it is wrong to exist since existing will always cause pain and suffering to you and other organisms.
Since you already exist, the best thing to do would be to not breed and live as much of a modest life as you can, that means giving up the computer that you use as well as other things.
I'm sure that could make sense to you, but you are not required to follow it.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: The problem is that it isn't solely for my own pleasure. It is true that it is enjoyable to eat meat, however, that is because we have evolved to eat meat and that it is actually good for us to eat (in the right amount). The same way why we enjoy salt and water, we benefit from it.
On the flip side, we do not like the smell of rotting flesh. That is because this can make us sick. A vulture has no problems with how rotting flesh smells because it is evolved to eat it.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: Needlessly harming animals is a lot different than killing them for food. You can spank a child and you can beat a child. You can also fight a war and murder innocent people, both examples has something we both likely find moral and immoral, yet all four involve pain or death.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure I am an atheist not because I have no use for "abstract concepts" I am an atheist because I am commited to the goal that all my beliefs be true, or as many of them as possible.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: That doesn't really make what I said untrue. If the reason you do not believe in any divine being is because you do not see any good evidence of it, then the same can be said for morals. Beyond feelings, we have no evidence. You have Atheists and Theists saying they "know" the truth, but that isn't true since they do not.
I also find it ironic how you say you don't like the bad arguments used by theists yet you seem to be dodging what I'm saying without good arguments.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: And of course you also changed what you believed. This doesn't make you a better person or wiser. You changed your mind not your personality. The same person who you think made the flawed and immoral decision to eat meat and put it off for so long is the same person who made what you think is the moral and compassionate decision that eating meat is immoral.
But you still lack proof because feeling pain doesn't make it immoral to kill and eat animals, some of which can't feel pain.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek: Last thing. Circular logic.
I'm right because I try to be right so I'm right.......you act as if I try to be wrong, but it's all subjective. If you don't want to eat animals fine, but it doesn't go along with Atheism and it isn't a fact that it's wrong.
DrKyure 2 months ago
@DrKyure It only indirectly goes with atheism because it is the spirit of intellectual honesty that took me to both.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
The slavery aspect is really overused, as is the holocaust. What we do to animals now is a lot worse then we use to. Treating them with respect, while also eating them, should go hand in hand.
Humans and animals have in their nature to eat meat. It would be similar to saying sex is immoral, even though it is in both human nature and animal nature.
I don't think eating animals is wrong, I lack a belief in eating meat being immoral. Since you believe it is immoral, do you have proof for it?
DrKyure 2 months ago
Great video Roenazarrek! I often think of the slavery comparison myself, it is the same idea, people participated in it due to convenience as people participate in meat consumption due to convenience. I have heard so many different arguments on intelligence ect. determining how we should treat animals, I realized this is absurd because we do not even do that, but judging them by intellect still wouldn't make sense. I now judge simply on ability to suffer, conscious life is equal to me.
ValkyereHowie 2 months ago in playlist Uploaded videos
I felt the same way after i watched EarthLings Documentary.... I couldnt sleep that night , i Kept cry .. Its so painful to see the suffering we are causing to those innocent animals .. I am a vegetarian now .. And i feel good ..
207Param 2 months ago
You could be me at your age 10 years ago. I'd have made the same carefully reasoned points. Though, I'm no longer a vegetarian. The atheism and homosexuality stuck with me however ;) Incidentally, you're well handsome bro.
10mintwo 3 months ago
@10mintwo I'm curious what changed your mind on it? Or did your mind not change but your priorities?
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek Several factors were involved. Mainly, my uncomfortability with the hypocrisy of my stance (medicine, animal testing, the myriad animal derived ingredients in an enormous variety of everyday products, the fact that modern agricultural techniques also cause large amounts of animal suffering, etc.). I am aware of the significant flaws (perfection fallacy) in this argument (most notably voiced by Singer et. al.) and so have backed away from it more recently.
10mintwo 2 months ago
@10mintwo It it really hypocracy to say that sacrificing animal well being for the significant betterment of mankind as in important medical research is a good reason, but that sacrificing animal well being for personal pleasure is not a good reason? It seems straightforward and logical to me. If you're talking about things like mayo, and how the eggs in it require similar suffering as the straight up meat you may have a point.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek And the second most important factor, which involved me realizing that I seemed to be making a false equivalence of sentience, and thereby a capacity for suffering, between species, eg. humans and chickens. Here, the "speciesist" arguments of Singer ring utterly hollow to me, as it does not at all follow, in my opinion, that the suffering of a pig is in any way comparable to for instance, that of a sardine or a clam. There is a hierarchy of capacity for suffering.
10mintwo 2 months ago
@10mintwo I agree that chicken cannot suffer like humans can, and therefor don't deserve as much moral concern, but certainly they deserve enough convern to not flippantly subject them to the factory farming process in order to have a more pleasurable diet?
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek Thus, I now accept that the suffering of some animals simply means very little to me. For instance aside from concerns of extinction, etc., I couldn't care less if a billion mackerel are killed every year for our food. Their encephalization quotients are so low, there is just no realistic chance of anything like self-awareness or conscious knowledge of past and future existing in them, and so the pain they admittedly experience on death is largely meaningless to me.
10mintwo 2 months ago
@10mintwo Well I agree that there is no compelling reason to think that an oysteur or sardine can suffer in a significant way, I'm less concerned therefor about that meat. But the notion that a pig or even a cow cannot suffer is insane. Chickens probably less so, but when you look to the reasons for eating meat the notion that they hopefully don't suffer all That much just sounds pathetic. As far as seafood goes its mostly the environmental factor with me, much less important to me.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek my dear boy, your previous videos all indicate that you are MORE than sufficiently intelligent to see that the argument you're making is a straw man. Nowhere did I claim such a thing as cows can't suffer. I would claim however, that their suffering, if given a Temple Grandin approved humane end, is roughly equivalent to that of an (elective) aborted late second trimester fetus: largely untroubling.
You have impossibly beautiful eyes by the way.
10mintwo 2 months ago
@10mintwo
If don't right their suffering could be minimized as to be untroubleing. But I don't think it is typically. Some of the footage can just make you sick, and I have a hard time thinking any decent person would just sit back and watch if someone were treating them that way out in broad daylight. They'd want to stop it. But it's out of sight and out of mind.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek You're changing the subject by using the red herring of animal abuse in the livestock industry (which no one here is condoning) to irrationally poison the well of the idea that such business can and should be done humanely. That's disappointing. Should the produce industry be abolished because sometimes farms abuse migrant workers, or should we ensure regulation of that industry is rigorously enforced to prevent such injustice?
10mintwo 2 months ago
So, wouldn't choosing to purchase meat only from farms that employ appropriate farming methods (whatever one defines that as) be a much better approach to resolving the moral issue of food production. Choosing to be vegan or vegetarian is the "lazy" way out, isn't it?
jbramson33 3 months ago
@jbramson33 No, it is in the nature of capitolism to adapt the highest efficiency possible and in this goal it tends to unfold as rather psychopathic. Even towards people before we put forth the necessary legislation. And no, the "lazy" way out is to compromise for appropriate farming methods that will always be highly pressured (to remain competative) to cut corners when it comes to the animals' well being whenever they can get away with it.
Roenazarrek 3 months ago
@jbramson33 Upon investigation even the "organic" farms often turn out to be substantially less ethical than they advertise. The people managing every establisment would really have to have their heart in it, which doesn't happen often.
As far as what's natural from the evolutionary development of the human species, living past your 30s isn't natural either, so what is natural is neither here nor there. And there are no nutrients you would die without that can only be found in meat.
Roenazarrek 3 months ago
@Roenazarrek - vit B12 is only found in animal products and is essential for live. For the most part, we have sufficient stores for survival for a while, but deficiency may cause pernicious anemia that may be fatal. So, you are incorrect there. This is sometimes seen in strict vegans, albeit rare. The fact that a nutritionally essential dietary component comes exclusively from animal consumption is the point here.
jbramson33 3 months ago
@jbramson33 You are argueing that there is one nutrient that can only be derived from animal products that we need at least a tiny ammount of, and this is so vastly important that there have been rare cases where strict vegans (not vegetarians) have died, althought the vast majority of vegans are fine, and this is a reason why we should all just eat meat? Should we compare the statistics of b12 defficiency death to those of hypertension directly related to a high cholesterol diet?
Roenazarrek 3 months ago
@Roenazarrek i am only saying that consuming animal products is a staple of the natural human diet. Vegetarianism undermines your argument since you are still supporting the exploitation of animals, so to support your moral argument, you'd have to be a vegan. I think a diet including small amounts of meat and animal derived products is healthiest, but that is not the nature of your argument.
jbramson33 3 months ago
@jbramson33 That same line of reasoning could be used to defend the nazi death camps. You eat meat so you support the unnecessary fear and suffering of conscious creatures for your own pleasure, so to support your moral arguement you would have to be vegettarian. Factory farms are horrible places of fear and suffering and we should be ashamed to be financially supporting them for a more pleasurable diet.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek really? you have to be kidding?! that is idiotic. I assume you must float about everywhere, because the trampling of insects is like a nuclear bomb! You must not breathe so as not to falsely imprison microbes in your lungs! Gimme a break! Your analogy is moronic.
jbramson33 2 months ago
@jbramson33 You misunderstand the point quite spectacularly. Amidst your histrionic raving about the analogy I gleaned that you gathered that I mean somehow that there is no hierarchy of moral concern and thus microbes deserve just as much as human beings? That's Ironic because that is what I got from your arguement that we cannot argue for animal rights without being vegan. So it's you that fails to see the difference between different conscious creatures not me.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
@Roenazarrek if you can, as you say, comprehend a hierarchy of moral concern, than you should be able to see how your analogy to nazi death camps is a poor one.
I do not suggest that you can't argue for animal rights without being vegan, only that if you assert that vegetarianism is the logical response to objections related to animal exploitation, you'd also logically have to extend that line of reasoning to other animal derived products.
jbramson33 2 months ago
@jbramson33 Unless they do not require a similar ammount of suffering, and inasfar as they do, I do extend that line of reasoning.
Roenazarrek 2 months ago
You can choose not to eat meat, and that is fine, but being a vegan (not so much a vegetarian) is not natural based on evolutionary development of the human species. We evolved to eat meat. It is out nature and the only source for certain essential nutrients, outside of supplementation via manufactured molecules.
Objection to the methods used in the mass production of food is an entirely separate issue. That's the problem with the argument you present IMO
jbramson33 3 months ago
I'm curious about something that the video didn't quite make clear: do you think eating meat is wrong in and of itself, or is it just that's it's nearly impossible to eat meat in ethical ways in our super-industrialized society?
kxt6187 3 months ago
@kxt6187 More the second one, I'm not especially against eating meat thats hunted for, but that's less than 3% of the meat available, if everyone only ate that sort the meat packing industry would be pretty much destroyed or transformed unrecognizably. There are other health and environmental reasons for it as well that I think are important but the ethical issue of the suffering involved is paramount to me.
Roenazarrek 3 months ago
I must say this makes for an excellent emotional exploit, and practice in assertion laying, but I fail to notice any intellectual rigor at all in it. For instance, in your homily on moral relativism, you used as a moral frame of reference the torture of women as being in some way suggestive of eating meat. In that these two somehow occupy the same moral domain such that the example isn't on its face absurd. I'm dubious. Nice hair though. =^_^=
integralmath 3 months ago
@integralmath I don't support moral relativism, do you mean my homily against it? Your comment is fairly ambiguous.
Roenazarrek 3 months ago
@Roenazarrek in that I specified a standard against which a moral claim could be referenced (in this case, your standard tortured Muslim woman) indicates, to my mind anyway, that I understood your video. I don't think it's ambiguous, though perhaps not plainly written. On versus against? I'm fairly certain these are actually consist terms. When one writes on rape, say, no one reads 'on' to be a counter to 'against' such that 'on' means 'advocacy for'. I'm dubious. But still, nice hair! =^_^=
integralmath 3 months ago
This video reminded me of why I became a vegetarian in the first place. Truly, excellent video.
MadMapler21 3 months ago
i became vegetarian simply because i learned how meat was produced and how the animals were treated, not to mention as i got older i started to get grossed out by eating dead animal parts :/ for me it had nothing to do with religion (even though im not religious) Thanks for putting this video out here, you make a very good point
ItsJustJasmine 3 months ago
Good points made. BTW, there is a nice sci-fi novel by Arthur C. Clarke about the whole planet turning vegetarian in a not so distant future.
timeofwonder2009 4 months ago
I've been a vegetarian since 1990, but it had taken me 3 years to get there, after meeting an animals rights advocate in '87 while backpacing around Europe.
My lifestyle is more than 95% cruelty free. Some things, such as any needed medication, are a moral compromise I'm willing to make.
I'm very happy and healthy this way. As I approach 50, I am at my high school weight, and most people say I look about 10 years younger.
EyeLean5280 4 months ago