Not trying to be a troll, but PETA scares me...

[Tokki Wartooth]

My bad for mispelling empirical.... we all make grammerical errors.

That wasn't a grammatical error, it was a lack of understanding for the English language. And "grammerical" isn't a word. Pointing that out isn't personally attacking you, because when you're debating, it's sort of implied that if you want to be taken seriously, you express yourself in proper English. Anyways.

1. If being a high lifeform is measured in intellect (which it's not), then sure. But that's a generalization, since I've seen some really really dumb people. Actually...
2. Again, I ask you; because I am more intelligent than you, do I get more privileges than you do? Ridiculous logic.
3. So I suppose I'll use you then.
4. And...exactly what do you think torturing, abusing physically and mentally, and murdering animals for our pleasure (that's ALL it's for, and there is no way you can argue against that) is?
5. When we can live an easier and healthier lifestyle without doing so, no, it's defintiely abuse.
6. Then we agree on something.
7. Do you even know what you're saying? Do you think the seal hunters and people who are paid to work in slaughterhouses and killing their prey accidentally, or what?
8. Again, where are you getting this absurd claims from? Do you know that about 10 species of animals become extinct every year due directly to human interference, and another 11,000 are endangered, facing extinction? And do I even need to point out what your precious humans have done to the environment? If we're the only intelligent beings that exist, as you claim, we're sure doing a good job of utilizing that intelligence. Oh, but I'm sorry, I forgot it's okay for species of animals to die off, just as long as you're happy, because you're "smarter" then them!
9. Protect them? The concept of domestication isn't based on wanting to protect. And if we didn't domesticate them in the first place, they'd be infinitely better off.

So there you go. Each one of your points into the ground by at least one person.

[Peegee]

i'm a working girl, not a whore! says:
please comment on how clever my first paragraph was :(

Comment: your first paragraph attempts to be clever. I'm not getting involved.

The only way you can make a moral issue out of this with some merit would be to make animals have equivalent rights to humans, and how is this attained? I'm not sure myself, but I do know that people who support the 'ethical treatment of animals' probably expect a lot more than my definition of ethical. Or it might just mean 'don't eat them and stop cutting trees', which I don't support, for reasons I hope I can get into by the end of this. Regardless, it's my understanding that their agenda goes beyond environmental destruction and biting teddy bears in restaurants. Consequently my concern is not about the issue itself, but whether it's as 'bad' as people say. Regardless I'll still say something on the animals, and why my eating this is unjustified, yet I'll do it anyway. Yes this does come back to me being a selfish unlikeable ass.

Environmental ethics, last time I studied, used terms like 'consideration' and 'good'. Animals have a good attached to them, and we have consideration for that good when we treat them well. Animals feel pain in the sense that when I kicked my puppy out of a sense of mischief and general apathy, she yelped or snapped back at me or something of that nature. Is that a mechanical response motivated by innert biological mechanisms designed to maintain the gene reproducing machine? Well yes it is, but it's also 'Puppy feel pain. Puppy mad.' Animals feel pain, so killing them while causing pain is bad, because we associate the idea of causing pain to be bad (though masochists will say otherwise, but Plato would say they are 'convinced of the wrong things as right').

So establishing that animals feel pain and their being alive is a good thing, we conclude that eating animals is ethically and morally wrong and move on to plants. Plants don't feel pain (arguably from our limited knowledge), so let's eat them in great numbers! But then I have to bring up the argument that plants are alive. We water plants to keep them alive, because that is good for the plant. We avoid setting them on fire because burned plants are a dead plant and that's bad. So killing plants is morally and ethically wrong.

Oops. Um, let's eat sugar and salt and mineral deposits, drink water and so forth, right? That's my conclusion anyway. Live it, you murdering pirates. Arrr!

But as redundant and blasé as this topic is, I still haven't pointed out that killing yummy and tastey animals is just one of many immoral and unethical things that even vegetarians and vegans and starving fasting monks are wont to do. You are by virtue of the very prevailant and incessant moral laws bound to commit some attrocity. And so I suppose you might argue that being a vegetarian or a vegan or a starving 3rd world child is doing your part in 'limiting' the suffering, but then this comes back to my first point that the only reason this has meaning is if you put animal rights on par on humans. I pose you this: why? What do animals offer or do that justifies equal (above) standing over healthy, legal aged males? Wouldn't it be better if you stopped causing misery to other people (if you do), or just be a better person to humans?

I still think this boils down to how much merit 'animal rights' as a term really means. 'Special interest groups' always have a way of being better than everybody else. That's not equality, and I don't morally support inequality.

[Tokki Wartooth]

It's not the killing/eating of animals itself that's wrong, per se, it's the conditions they're kept in before they are killed, and the torture and emotional pain they suffer, and the inhumane methods of actually killing them that prolong their lives in a state of pain-filled consciousness just before death. This is basically what Peta is fighting to stop. While you may choose to eat meat, there is no way you can deny that the way the animals that feed you die is horrible and can be in no way construed as humane. Can we at least all agree on this?

[Peegee]

The the argument would go (from my perspective) of why not use that resource to at least make the minimal standard of 'thoroughly poor' people to 'at least have enough resources to live minmally rather than starve to death'? Because keeping animals in cages and stuffing 30 chickens in a cage 10 feet from a crack in the wall is what is required of 'free-range' chicken eggs? Maybe.

[Tokki Wartooth]

I agree completely. It would be a much better use of land and whatnot. These animals should never have been domesticated in the first place. But now that we're started it, we're obliged to follow through.

That whole "free-range" thing is moronic.

But you still didn't say if you agree or not; is it within in our rights to unnecessarily torture beings that we (ignorantly) consider less intelligent than ourselves?

[Peegee]

I did, albeit indirectly:

Yes this does come back to me being a selfish unlikeable ass.

You implied that animals have equal standing. Justify. I can't respond properly because I agree that domesticated animals are useless in the wild and regardless that free-range eggs cost a bundle I don't buy them because I know better.

[Tokki Wartooth]

Wanting innocent beings to be tortured for no reason at all isn't simply selfish, it's immoral and quite frankly disgusting. They can die in a less painful manner and still provide you with your unnecessary and selfish wants.

I don't imply that animals have an equal standing to humans (well, I do believe it, though I won't try to argue that here), but that's completely irrelevant. You're implying that because we're "superiour" to them (in ONE ASPECT only), we have the right to torture them.

[Peegee]

I'm implying that I'm less of a monster for eating a burger than the other atrocities that I'm (currently) involved in. We both know I know that it's wrong to eat meat, and it was mean to kick puppies, or other such things.

And no, I don't think my anthropocentric superiority complex is the justification for eating animals. It's actually simply: we can do it in virtue of our dominance over them.

Oh snap, didn't we use this argument against slaves and blacks? The parallels! The future will be one where we stop eating meat but slaughter plants!

-_- When you stop eating plants and animals I'll do the same.

[Emerald Aeris]

"What makes you think that a dependent and/or obligatory relationship can't be mutually symbiotic?"

I didn't say can't, I said that isn't the case with us and the species we're talking about.

"The only way you can make a moral issue out of this with some merit would be to make animals have equivalent rights to humans"

I don't see any reason for you to believe this.

"Is that a mechanical response motivated by innert biological mechanisms designed to maintain the gene reproducing machine?"

I disagree, but should that matter? Pain is pain.

"Plants don't feel pain (arguably from our limited knowledge), so let's eat them in great numbers! But then I have to bring up the argument that plants are alive."

No, they definitely don't feel pain. I don't see how they possibly could, even considering they feel some sort of plant pain, than the nerve and brain sort of pain we feel, there's just nothing that could possibly function like that in plants.

Also I think the difference between eating plants and animals is udsuna's difference between eating humans and animals. They're intelligent. They feel. It's wrong. Plants don't.

"why? What do animals offer or do that justifies equal (above) standing over healthy, legal aged males? Wouldn't it be better if you stopped causing misery to other people (if you do), or just be a better person to humans?"

I ask you, why do they have to offer anything? Why must they be equals in order to deserve help? When I see someone who needs help, I don't ask "what do they offer me? What can they do for me?" I help them because they need help. Asking these questions is upsetting. When did we as a species become so apathetic that we need to consider these questions at all?

And who is causing misery by being a vegetarian? Are you suggesting that rallies and such cause more pain than slaughtering millions?

"I still think this boils down to how much merit 'animal rights' as a term really means. 'Special interest groups' always have a way of being better than everybody else. That's not equality, and I don't morally support inequality."

You're putting words in their mouths. PETA doesn't say animals should have more rights than people, and that's ridiculous.

"The the argument would go (from my perspective) of why not use that resource to at least make the minimal standard of 'thoroughly poor' people to 'at least have enough resources to live minmally rather than starve to death'? Because keeping animals in cages and stuffing 30 chickens in a cage 10 feet from a crack in the wall is what is required of 'free-range' chicken eggs? Maybe."

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying there, so bare with me. Are you justifying keeping animals in squalid conditions in order to improve the human condition? Why not, instead of brutalizing innocent creatures, attack the movie stars making millions and millions of dollars? Besides that, I already said that switching to a vegetarian diet would make more food available to people.

[Peegee]

See now we're getting somewhere. You're putting plants lower than animal life on a scale of 'morally acceptable things to kill'. I'm not. I acknowledge that when I eat meat or plants I'm eating something that had to be killed for me to live. You're saying it's okay, and have your limited qualified arguments (plants don't feel pain so killing them is okay).

I'm going to go out of my way to kill plants wherever I go now. It's the morally okay thing to do.

[Tokki Wartooth]

But how is eating animals any different from eating humans? I'm completely serious here. Murder charges aside (because murder is only murder if you're murdering a human, of course), let's use the udsuna's argument: I find a fully grown adult who is less intelligent than me, and if I eat him it is justified because his intellect will never compare to my own thus he is not going to benefit society as much as I will. I can also use the only argument you guys have to justify eating meat; people taste good! I'm selfish and I want my transient wants satisfied at the cost of other's lives!

Mike, torturing animals is wrong because they experience pain. I condone your torturing of plants.

[Emerald Aeris]

I'm going to go out of my way to kill plants wherever I go now. It's the morally okay thing to do.

That's wrong because it hurts things that feel pain. :P No habitats, and on an even larger scale, eventually, no oxygen. That and plants are nice to have around.

[Peegee]

Then why do you eat plants? It's all a subjective sliding scale of what's moral.

And to Bonnie, ffs go ahead and eat humans. It's just as wrong as eating plants and animals :D

[Tokki Wartooth]

You can't have a healthy diet without plants, when you kill them they don't suffer, etc.

And I've already started, but I'm starting small. Just a few pieces off the arm here and there. Humans are quite large. They can feed you for several weeks, you know. Very economical.

[Peegee]

I'm not sure what your point is because I've already agreed that eating humans is viable (and you say they are tastey?). The only problem I see is that the average person is 1/4 - 1/2 fat and that doesn't leave much to eat, other than the tongue and if you can actually find any, the meat on the legs.

Unless you like eating fat.