In the past, yes, because hunting an animal was easier than finding plants that were equivalent nutritionally. But I don't think that's a problem with modern farming techniques.
I am not against eating meat and let others eat what they wish! Even if I've chosen not to eat meat. But what I dislike is the disrespect that others show for life. People in supermarkets choose meat products like if they were made from clay. When you eat an animal it becomes a part of you and its' life becomes your energy, it has given its' life (willingly or not) so you can live (like a sacrifice), but modern consumers treat it like a thing. That really disgusts me.
Your better off throwing your shitty life away sniffing coke, I inspire ideological metamorphosis. You should learn the difference In between the students and the master. Mercy is not expendable I'll break your fucking brain down into psychological chemicals. Paul Wolfowitz, motherfucker I'll see you in hell. Read between the lines and free your mind revolution is the birth of equality and the anti-thesis to oppression. Good day!
Muslim: Yes, and some have higher standards than others. So, if you found it "convenient" to kill somebody, that would be fine? Do you apply that to other people, too? If another person found it fun to beat you up, would that be ok? It might be more convenient for them than going to a gym and punching a bag, for example. Yes. There's no reason for evolution. It is not a guided process, and there's no set direction for it. Most people agree that humans have ethics. You're human, aren't you Muslim? Do you have any ethics? No. So what? Actually, the number one definition says: "Marked by comprehension, cognizance and perception". Did you forget to read that, again? So, Muslim, tell me. What do plants comprehend? What are they cognizant of? What do they perceive? Yes, plants are alive. So what? Yes. Moreover, suppose I eat an apple off a tree. What would happen to that apple if I didn't eat it? Answer: it would fall to the ground and rot. Do I kill the apple tree by eating the apple? No. The tree will grow more apples. Does the tree suffer when I pick the apple? No, it doesn't. Can the brain-damaged kid feel pain? Does he/she have an expectation that his life will continue? Is he aware of himself as an individual? Are there alternatives to killing him? Is there any need to kill him? Did God make bird flu? Maybe he was sending us a message to stop eating birds... No. You need to answer the questions above. I cited your own sources, which you neglected to read properly. Didn't you read my previous post? I agree. Do you agree, then, that if something does feel pain it is not alright to kill it - such as an animal? Killing it would be that much worse than if it didn't feel pain, right? This is the naturalistic fallacy again. It is not "natural" for you to drive a car, or live in a city, or wear clothes. But you do all those things, and think they are good. Yet, at the same time, you say that not eating meat is bad because it is "unnatural". You're a hypocrite. You only say natural=good when it suits you. That much is obvious. You hate animals, so you kill them with no moral qualms. I suppose you'd have no problem killing a person you didn't like, either. You claim that everything you don't understand is "just a load of big words", and "weak". I don't think you know what a dictionary does or is. What is the purpose of a dictionary, according to you? I agree. Darwin's mum and dad created him. Not at all. You misunderstand, again. Did you care? Or did you eat your pet? That is false. Animals can reason logically. You just need to watch them to see that. That is not to say they don't have instincts, too. And so...? And so...? Air consists of roughly 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and 1% other gases. Try to think. Your second statement does not follow from the first. Yes, life started in the water. But humans did not evolve from (modern) fish. Fish and humans do share a common ancestor, though. No. Try millions of years. Right, because man did not evolve directly from fish or birds. You have a lot of learning to do to get up to speed on this. There are plenty of good sites on the internet. Why not look at a few? There is plenty of evidence. You have just never looked - have you? Let's start with this: The Earth is about 4,500,000,000 years old. Oh dear - another indoctrinated religious person with no knowledge of science. I really don't want to start down this track in this thread, since it is so far off topic. Frankly, I don't have time to teach you science from scratch. Either you'll make an effort to learn for yourself at some point in your life, or you'll go through life living a delusion built on fairy stories. The irony is that you claim I have been watching too many "Little Mermaid" movies. Your whole world is Little Mermaid movies. But you don't believe in evolution. Why not? Only because you don't know anything about it. You have been told some fairy stories about how evil and bad evolution is, and you choose to accept them instead of making an effort to find out something about what evolution actually is. If I flip a coin, is that a process? Is the result random? Yes, or no? You think it makes no sense because you're working with a bunch of lies and false suppositions. As a first step, try to get an education before you make snap judgments. Nobody believes a monkey created Darwin. I don't know who told you evolution says that, because it does not. I can only assume you have been told fairy stories to make you scared of evolution. Evolution is nothing to be afraid of, Muslim.
LOL, Muslim you dumb kid. When you are searching for a scientific definition for a particular word, I strongly recommend that you don't peruse a general dictionary. Although it's funny to note how selective you were when you picked one particular definition out of MULTIPLE definition from your source. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You circled definition two, while conveniently ignoring definition one, which clearly states that an animal is generally a member of the kingdom Animalia. Ergo, taxonomically, humans (homo sapiens) ARE part of the animal kingdom. I learnt that in primary school! The classification is as follows: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classification/Homo_sapiens.html Quite simply, you're confused over context. Words can have various meanings, and these meanings can change depending on the situation you are describing. Um, no, just no. Read your own damn definition. Sentience involves comprehension, cognition, and perception. The words next to this definition may have SIMILIAR meanings to 'sentience', but they are not the same. Not all living things are sentient, but all sentient beings are alive. Nevertheless, you're essentially debating semantics, which is pointless. The meanings are words are ultimately abstract, and you seem to have some knowledge of this, which is why you jump and change between definitions in order to delay any serious discussion. You know that you don't have a case, which is why you lower yourself to semantics. Quite simply, all that James is stating is that there is a marked difference between plants and animals. This difference is that plants (while being alive), lack a central nervous system. This effectively means that they can't feel pain, emotion, and they can't rationalize (ergo. they aren't sentient).
So do you not take showers, refuse to use antibacterial soaps, fail to sanitize your dishes, and let infections fester? Taking a stand of nonviolence is good, but remember it is in our best interest to kill some things. For everyone that incudes a couple billion living things everyday.
The point about bacteria etc. is a straw man. It assumes that vegetarians view all life on an equal footing, which is not the case. It is strange indeed that most meat-eaters put human beings on a completely separate plane from cows, yet at the same time expect vegetarians to put bacteria on the same plane as cows and humans. Hypocrisy at work.
Its not about higher standards, its just different cultures have different opinions on ethics, in India for example a Hindu is alright to marry his uncles daughter in the west that is somewhat frowned upon. And in India if you’re a westerner and you eat meat that is frowned upon there. It’s not about anyone have higher standards it’s about perception. Actually there are two issues there firstly my religion forbids the killing of any innocent persons, and also that would be illegal. So no I wouldn’t kill someone, if it wasn’t only for self defence. And the same argument doesn’t apply to animals, because its not illegal to kill animals you own for the propose of making them into food. Ah ha, before you said and let me quote: “You sound like you believe evolution must either be fully random or fully determined in advance. Neither approach is correct.” one minute you say it’s a guided process and the next minute you say its not – so go on then what is it? Oh so now am a human? When it suits you, before you all said humans are animals. And I was saying no humans are not animals but now you seem to be according humans are not animals and humans have ethics unlike animals. So you don’t mind killing living things? Because plants are living, and still I haven’t seen you prove to me that plants can feel pain. We can even take that all out of the argument; you’re pretty continent with killing living things. So we both agree plants are living? Do you have proof plants don’t feel pain? Say a tree when you cut a tree can you prove it doesn’t feel pain?
When I read the following I had to think of you: Evolution IS a hard concept to explain to children. I once thought I had done a fabulous job with a 7-year old, explaining the whole ape to human thing, and he went off seemingly content. Then the next day he came to me and said, "I have a question about evolution." Me: "Sure!" Him: "You know you said we used to be monkey's right?" Me: Yes.. Him: "How come I don't remember when I was a monkey?" Anyway, I think the problem is they really can't comprehend evolutionary time. Everything you say to a 6 or 7 year-old gets related to their own lifetime. It takes a more mature brain to get past that. The most success I have had in getting the concept across is to keep coming back to natural selection. How some things live and some things don't. And the things that live have babies just like themselves so eventually everything looks like them. You can play a game with colored jelly beans or M&M's to illustrate this point. Use a colored paper background, a colored carpet or best of all, the green lawn. Talk about how there are many different colored jelly-bean-people hiding in the grass and a predator wants to fly down and eat them. Spread out the jelly beans and have the child pretend to be a predator – catching the ones that are the easiest to see in a short period of time. Then collect the remaining ones and discuss how the green ones and the black ones "survived" and now there will only be green and black jellybean babies – at least until the first snow.
That has nothing to do with me. When we talk about evolution we talk about millions of years. Am not stupid. And just because you lost the argument with me earlier, please don't use starwman fallacy and pretend you have refuted me. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
two points: (edit: make that three) 1)Plants and pain - they can't yell, but they certainly react in telling ways RE: pain. Increasing immune response, changing growth pattern to avoid repetitive damage, etc. Certain trees, when chewed on by giraffes, release a hormone into the air. Those plants downwind then increase their chemical defenses to the "attack", which quickly makes them inedible. (as an interesting side-note, giraffes have learned to counter this defense by eating the trees in an up-wind direction). Ficus trees over-react to changes in their environment; shutting down and dropping leaves with the slightest of environmental changes, at time to the detriment of the plant's health (even moving a ficus into direct sunlight from and extended period of shade can prompt this). While modern biology certainly does relate awareness to a CNS, even flatworms react to Pain stimuli (poking, extremely bright light, etc). WHY do we assume that awareness cannot be chemical? 2)Muslim - I'm sorry to say, but you selective quoting and avoidance of certain points brought up by others (perfectly exemplified by your "STRAW MAN FALLACY!" post above) is causing the validity of all of your argument to fall into question. If you wish your argument against vegetarian evangelism to be heeded, it would be wise to treat you detractors with respect, and not shouting. You do not appear to be stupid to me, but you are certainly not representing your point well. edit: a third item: His points are not in contradiction, you are simply misunderstanding them. Mutation is Random, selection is not. Neither needs to be guided by an intelligence to work. That is why he said that "fully random or fully determined" were both wrong. "fully" being the important bit there. Evolution does not appear to be directed by an intelligence with a plan, but it is not completely random, either. His statements were correct.
The way I like to think about it is this: a long time ago there were a million chimpanzees, all very similar. Then one day, a mutant chimp was born. He was a little ugly, but the rest of the chimps didn't mind much. After all, they weren't that smart. A few years after he was born, a plague swept through the chimp world. It seemed that eating your own feces had turned deadly. However, this mutant chimp had a habit of throwing his feces instead of eating it. So, many years later, him and another chimp, a sweet little female chimp, were two of the few chimps left. They had survived the plague while most others did not. Many thousands of years later, chimps throw feces and smoke menthols.
Muslim: How is it a straw man fallacy, kid? You can't just scream 'fallacy' without first explaining why it is so. The fact of the matter remains that BOTH of your sources SUPPORT James statement that humans are classified as animals. You just conveniently pick the definitions which 'support' your nonsense, while ignoring other definitions. Ergo. You don't know how to use a dictionary. But I guess that's the best 'rebuttal' you could pull out of your ass. You looked at my post, saw a detailed essay which tore your bullshit to threads, and you ran. Don't bother addressing it... just label it a fallacy and run away. Coward. Typical of animal murdering wimps. You fucking retard. Why can't you grasp the concept that 'human' and 'animal' aren't mutually exclusive. Humans are a particular species of animal. Just like the poodle is a particular breed of dog, but it is also a poodle (a particular breed of dog). Likewise, a human is an animal, and a human. Once again, let me educate you, dumb kid. http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.e...mo_sapiens.html Note how the species 'homo sapiens' is firmly placed in Kingdom 'Animalia' (the animal kingdom). Wow, you sure do look silly now, don't ya, kid? Perhaps eating too much meat has killed your brain cells. I love how you make the fallacy of assuming that our ancestor must have been a modern fish, especially since the modern fish today AREN'T are ancestors, but share a common ancestor with us. 'Fish like creature' would be more accurate, but what you define as 'fish like' is up to debate. On a lighter note, I notice how you keep focusing on fish, as though they are the only creatures which exist in water. What about algae? Seaweed? Octopus? Whale? Starfish? Sea Cucumber? Shifting the burden of proof. However, plants lack a CNS, so they lack the ability to feel pain. Of course, if you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to present it. It sure would surprise me. Not the evidence, that is, but the very fact that you are using independant material to support your drivel. Well, no, actually, it WASN'T a logical argument. In fact, it is entirely based on an appeal to nature, which is a logic fallacy. Evolution makes no claims about morality, it merely points out how things ARE (not how things should be). Claiming that anything natural = moral is a load of crock. Good golly, religion as a whole is unnatural, and expects unnatural behaviour from its followers. If we apply your drivel to religion, then we come away with the conclusion that religion is evil! Darwin was an ape, kid. Humans, due to particular characteristics, belong to a subgroup of the kingdom Animalia known as 'ape'. riverwind: LOL! Dumbass. Reacting to negative stimuli != pain. You need a CNS to experience pain.
Muslim: I do not believe that all beliefs (particularly beliefs about ethics) are on an equal footing. Do you? Do you believe that what is legal is always good, and what is illegal is always bad? Can you imagine such a thing as an unjust law? I already told you. Evolution needs two things: variation, which is random, and natural selection, which depends on environmental factors. Neither factor is guided or determined in advance. But natural selection cannot be considered random, either, because the environment determines which animals live or die. It is not a toss of a coin. In other words, evolution has both random elements and elements which are not strictly random. Some animals are better adapted than others to their environments, and they have a better chance of surviving and producing offspring. It's a simple point, Muslim. Here's the logic: All humans are animals. Some animals are human. Some animals are not human. You are human AND an animal, Muslim. Because all humans are animals. Your dictionary says so. There are many different types of living things. I don't mind killing bacteria. Sometimes I do that even without thinking about it. Sometimes I kill small insects, though often I do not. It depends. All living things are not equal. No I can't. Can you prove it does feel pain? What about a cow? If you cut a cow, do you think it feels pain? If you were willing to wait for an animal to die before eating it, I probably wouldn't have a problem with that. But killing it before it dies of natural causes is a whole different ball game. Interesting how you think humans are the centre of the universe. If Allah wanted to test humans, why would he make birds sick? Why punish the birds to test humans? Why not make the humans sick? Why not human flu instead of bird flu? No. Dictionaries record usages of words, Muslim. The number 1 meaning given is usually the most accurate usage of the word. Further meanings record alternative usages, which may be common as well but not as accurate. But you would feel obliged to point out why you believe drinking is wrong, wouldn't you? And you could give reasons (such as health reasons and religious reasons) for why drinking is bad. Suppose you tell me drinking is bad, and give me your reasons. Then, unless I can come up with equally valid reasons for why drinking is good, you have the moral high ground. It is no different with my vegetarianism arguments. I'm not pretending that. I admit that eating meat may be natural, but that doesn't make it right. It's strange to kill and eat something you love. But when you say "I love animals" you mean no more than "I love the taste of animals". Love for most people means more than that, Muslim. Humans never lived in the sea. The ancient ancestors of humans lived in the sea. See the difference? Do you mean the last ice age? The most recent ice age ended about 13000 years ago, from memory. Humans didn't exist before a few hundred thousand years ago. Before that, certain apes existed, some of which evolved into modern humans. Again, from memory, roughly 3 billion years ago. I have no problem with part of this. The first modern human being was probably born in Africa, perhaps 150,000 years ago. It would have been born to a member of a very slightly different species, such as Homo erectus. Dividing lines between species are, of course, very very fuzzy. As for Adam and Eve, do you think their names would have been passed down for 150,000 years, give or take 1500 or so? Yes, if we go back 150,000 years or more.
But some ancient "sages" or ... tell you not to eat pork and other stuff, and you listen (I guess). Independence of the agenda at its best: )
