Atheism, Animal Rights & Ethical Veganism (1/2)

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Atheism, Animal Rights And Ethical Veganism (1/2) - The Atheist Experience #583 with Matt Dillahunty and Tracie Harris.

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Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Atheism
• Animal
• Rights
• Ethical
• Veganism
• Atheists
• Experience
• Religion
• Christianity
• Christians
• Faith
• Belief
• Bible
• Christ
• Jesus
• Catholics

[badger500]

Matt and Tracie have hit some home runs when in their ballpark (atheism) but they--and the caller--make a hash of this issue. It need not be complicated by what other animals do, prioritizing people over animals, health or environmental consequences. The bottom line is if non-necessary aspects of your diet is knowingly contributing to the appreciable suffering of vertebrates, there's a good cast to be made that you are ethically in arrears.

[Maeryck]

Maybe we should start with treating each other humane first.

[jsamari]

Tracie stopped being vegetarian because she saw 2 apes eat a monkey? What about the majority of apes that DO NOT eat meat? ignore that

[IndieAnthias]

The issue most certainly doesn't come down simply to where you draw the line as described here. Defensible animal rights arguments do not rely on the unobtainable assumption that eating meat is fundamentally wrong.

[jynxvox]

I credit Matt for giving me the notion of looking for evidence and questioning things in my life but after watching this I feel like he's just a hypocrite. How can you have a show that ask people to question life and morals and look for evidence and when it comes down to ethical treatment of animals he says shit like "I don't buy that" when the evidence is presented. The plenty of evidence that eating meet is unethical. More evidence for that than God and yet he still does it.

[Daveedamo]

What disappointingly irrational engagement with an issue atheists (as well as others unbeholden to harmful tradition for traditions sake) ought to take seriously. 'Natural' is not synonymous with 'good'. Animals are not deserving of 'human rights', but maybe they are deserving of animal rights? And just because some people have to eat meat as a matter of survival does nothing to inform our discussion about whether we have reason to.

[rsgirl10]

I disagree with Matt (never thought I'd say that). Just b'c we give animals some rights doesn't mean we have to give them all rights. There's a difference between not putting animals in horrible living conditions & giving them the right to vote.

I do agree that we are speaking from a privileged position & that I value humans over animals. However, eating meat b'c it's necessary to live & eating it for luxury after it lives in horrible eating conditions is not the same.

[UninspiredGirl]

slippery slope... it's the same argument that was used for interracial marriage and it's the same argument used today for same sex marriage. "Well we could let them do that but then they want this,, and this.." It's ignorant. Perhaps there would be benefit in some research in nutrition. I agree with some other comments. He sure can argue for atheism and sell it but I think this was kind of blown..

[TheSkunkCat]

I guess... for me... There's some people like the late Sagan or Richard Dawkins who I really look up to. And there's some others like the late Hitchens and Matt Dillahunty here that I like to watch debate religious people, and consider very good at that, but outside that... eh...

Even with people I look up to though, I like still thinking for myself. And not many people even on the atheists side necessarily do that. Some just blindly agree with whomever they respect.

[TheSkunkCat]

@badger500

I think Matt (and the AE crew) are REALLY good at debating when it comes to religion and atheism.

When it comes to anything else... Eh, it's hit or miss. I'm not actually that impressed per se with Matt when it comes to things that do NOT have to do with atheism. But he's very good at that topic, that I'll definitely give him!

(Actually I felt the same about the late Hitchens. VERY good at debating for atheism, but lost it otherwise when he started voting for Bush.)

[weelittledragon]

@marcluc1988 I never said anything about natural or not. Whether something is natural or not has no bearing on the ethics of the matter. I only said that I eat little meat for environmental reasons and not for ethical reasons. That's all I said. I think the killing of animals should be done humanely and I think animals should be treated decently. Therefore, to me the eating of meat is not an ethical issue in itself but the way the animal is killed and the way it was treated in life is.

[acr08807]

@vappole Do you have any idea how many insects and mites you kill every day? What makes you so special that you can kill millions of creatures in your lifetime?