Nonvegeterian people are source of evil on earth and must be deported jungle 2844

kathryn

Oh okay, but you're going to have to use a bit more humour, because there are nutters out there who say such nonsense and mean it. Try being a little more outrageous.

... so you're saying no meat eaters have to take suppliments, then? :-P

Well that depends on whether you think animals are sentient enough that they can suffer and whether it is immoral to cause unnecessary suffering. If the answer to both questions is yes, then meat eating is clearly immoral. If you're unsure about either answer then the moral option is to give animals the benefit of that doubt.

Don't forget that less than two centuries ago, popular opinion doubted that slavey and child labour were immoral, so popular opinion has a rather bad track record on these things.

If the lions understand that the antelope suffers during the kill then yes, the act is immoral. Lions tend to suffocate their prey, either by clamping their jaws over the antelope's muzzle, or by using their jaws to close the wind pipe. Do you think antelopes suffer when they are killed? I think they are similar enough to us for the answer to be yes, they do suffer. For morality, it is the capacity of the agent which is relevent.

In the West, to make your sausages etc, the animal is killed using a captive bolt gun - the equivalent of someone smashing bits of your skull into your brain with a claw hammer (not using the claw, that would be cruel ;-).

13% of the time, the bolt does not work, so for every 10 animals, at least one will stagger around in agony until the bolt is readministered and for every ten of these a third application is necesssary and so on... This figure by the way, was published in an offical report to the British Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries.

For halal and kosher meat, the animal is hung by it's hind legs and its throat cut. The claim is that it takes two seconds for all the blood in the animal to drain out and so death is instantaneous. However, we know that blood functions to carry oxygen to the brain, so this form of killing is really just another form of strangulation. Do you think animals are similar enough to us to suffer during strangulation?

That is not all: I said earlier that the animals are hung by their hind legs, which were not designed to take strain that way. It must be like being hung by your hands tied behind your back. Do you think this would be painful?

There is little doubt that in mammals, whatever awareness they have is generated by neurons in the brain; that it is due to the collective action of many smaller units. So, it clear that consciouness - whatever form it takes - cannot just be switched off like a light. That some form of suffering as function breaks down is ineviable.

There is also no doubt that every man, woman and child on the planet can be fed without producing meat. Studies have been done showing that per calorie, meat production is in the region of 5% as efficient as agriculture. That is, that land currently used to produce meat would produce 20 times the food if it were dedicated plants. We could simultaneously end world hunger and leave more land for wildlife.

To be a moral agent, you have to be able to think symbolically and I believe they come together; that knowledge comes with moral obligation. Now that you know about the captive bolt gun, you have no choice but to give up meat, but I cannot force you, you must decide for yourself. In this sense you are free: free to live morally or immorally.

(-: Ian :-)