We need an objective discussion on this topic and seems like this is one of the best places to do it.
Point 1: Objective argument
Looking at this from an animal cruelty’s perspective and considering objective arguments, food choices must be made solely depending on the level of development of the nervous system of the food choice. If we want to stop hurting the animals while we eat/use them, we must first measure the amount of pain it can feel while we consume them.
Thoughts?
Point 2: Implementation
Food choices and respective taste are all learned behavior, in the sense that it depends on the type of food you have relied on when you were brought up. If point 1 makes sense, the best way to implement this is by teaching kids from their childhood to make the right (based on point 1) food choices. Just like how many of us do not eat dog meat (only because we were not raised to) but is a common practice in a lot of places. Same goes with other food choices such as snakes, scorpions, cats etc.
Does point 2 take away the right for our young generation to make their respective food choices? Is that more important than the cruelty on animals when we consume them?
Thoughts?
Additional Remarks (for people planning to make these arguments):
1) If I were stranded on some strange island with no plants to eat, I would eat ANYTHING to survive. That’s only if I HAD TO. I would even eat another human being.
2) If our ancestors survived by hunting animals, would it be unnatural for us to stop consuming them? If it is in our culture, then why stop it? Well, so is the concept of God.
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Implementation of such a diet ain't going to work for everyone. I am a T-Rex when comes to diet. I want to hunt. I want my meat. I am a pure carnivore.
However, my genetics have screwed me over with the inheritance of a major cholesterol problem from me mom. I am now forced to be mainly a vegetarian. However, I WANT MEAT!! My diet while I was married was nothing more than meat, fat, and cholesterol. By the time I was 36, two years before my family's death, I suffered a mild heart attack. Forced me to drastically change my diet. However, I AM A CARNIVORE! I just do not eat as much meat as I once did. Now days, my diet is probably at least 80% vegetable and grains. I get protein from other sources mainly as cheese, and beans (fart fuel) that are high in protein. However, I still occasionally have my favorite breakfast food of a BLT with egg and cheese sandwich. Also the occasional T-Bone Porterhouse with a baked tater with butter, sour cream, cheese, bacon bits, diced onion. To better satisfy my need for meat, I now tend to eat skinless chicken breasts with the fat trimmed off, and ham, again with the fat trimmed off. I also eat lots of fish, especially salmon and makeral fillets broiled with margarine, cajun/creole seasoning, and BBQ sauce. Damn. Now I am getting hungry again.
Besides, most yunguns, as far as I have seen, are eating much healthier than I did in my first 3½ decades of life. Although they may be hitting the fast-food places more than I did, they are also getting veggie wraps, veggie pita sandwiches, salads, etc., etc.
rmfr
Ideally, I would not eat meat (or at least meat derived from animals that have been especially killed in order to be eaten).
In the short to medium term, it may be better to encourage a move away from meat-eating as a means to minimize the extent of anthropogenic global warming.
"If god did not want us to eat animals, why did he make them so tasty?"
Sorry, this quote just came to mind...not sure where I heard it.
I know you want a serious debate so just ignore.
@ Rickdiculous
"The Vegetarianism and Veganism Debate "
Oops. Missed the point of the OP.
I do not believe in the labels of "vegetarian" or "vegan." Ultimately, we are all omnivores. Period. What a person chooses to eat has nothing to do with labeling them. We are all Omnivores. Period. Exclamation Point!
rmfr
Yes, agreed. Nothing to debate there. Naturally we have evolved to be omnivores.
But, we have also evolved to understand that animals experience pain (depending on their nervous systems).
Why not make an effort to reduce this pain we are inflicting, when it seems like we can? Like mentioned in the OP, it seems like our food choices are learned behavior. So why not teach ourselves to make appropriate food choices and thereby reduce the amount of pain we inflict on animals?
Rickdiculous: " Why not make an effort to reduce this pain we are inflicting, when it seems like we can? Like mentioned in the OP, it seems like our food choices are learned behavior. So why not teach ourselves to make appropriate food choices and thereby reduce the amount of pain we inflict on animals?"
And I agree. However, like me, there are still those want their meat. I believe our acquisition for meat should be humane and as painless as possible. Again, however, My going totally on non-meat diet is not going to stop that acquisition for meat.
A thought: “Why do we call animal abuse “inhumane,” but we don’t call human abuse “inanimal”?”
As a bow hunter, I know I am causing the animal more pain than if I put a bullet through animal's skull. However, by bow hunting, I also give the animal a chance to get away when I miss. I do not use a compound bow. I use a recurve bow. Thus, I have to make sure I have the shot, draw the arrow, and release it as quickly as possible because a recurve at the draw strength I have does not allow be hold the drawn arrow indefinitely. The draw strength on my bow is too strong to hold a drawn arrow for more than a second or two. And to wholly honest, because of how I have to get, I am only successful maybe one out of three times. Maybe one out of four.
And another however, I am getting too old to continue hunting with a bow. Thus, I have retired from hunting. I do believe that animal cruelty such as mentioned in the OP is despicable. I think it should be illegal regardless of religious beliefs. We have evolved methods are much less cruel, but still cruel. As an omnivore, I still want my occasional meat.
rmfr
@arakish
"And I agree. However, like me, there are still those want their meat..."
Would this be the case if you were brought up a vegetarian?
@ Rickdiculous
Probably not. When I was running my landscape architect business, and now using 20/20 Hindsight, I wish the fast food places had more vegetarian-style "eat me" choices instead the meat, fat, and cholesterol burgers. Today, I have gotten to the point that I actually enjoy eating vegetables. It also does wonders for my cholesterol numbers. Back when I had that mild heart attack, they only went by the one number and my cholesterol was 389, with 180 being the max. Now days, my HDL is perfect, my triglycerides are normal, and my LDL is only slightly high. Guess the occasional meat dinner still causes that, but the total single number still remains below 180. Soo... I'd have to say I am doing good with my diet of 80% vegetables and grains. Also the fish don't hurt any. Salmon and mackeral are high in those fish oil thingy. However, the doctor still has me on Lipitor because of my triglycerides problem and the family history of such problems on me mom's side.
In all, I'd say a diet high in vegetables and grains is actually a good thing. Only problem I have is getting the protein from beans and the flatulence they produce. I also add garlic to everything I eat and that also helps with the LDL problem.
All in all, I actually enjoy being a mostly vegetarian. But that carnivore side of me still needs its occasional treat.
rmfr
@Rickdiculous OP
That is going to be difficult as it is all very subjective. It is said that chickens have roughly the same intelligence as cats and dogs have. Yet especially in western countries, the thought of raising cats and dogs for food is abhorrent, but just about everyone agrees chicken is very tasty and eating them is not abhorrent. Measuring pain will be difficult too. We may be able to measure how much of the brain lights up and gets overwhelmed by the pain signals, but for instance, an ant may feel pain having its leg ripped off, but then it will heal and the pain will go away. A human loses a leg, theirs the pain of the event, plus the pain of the knowledge of the loss of the leg and what that represents.
Another point that must be considered is the manner we raise and slaughter food. We could use a cattle prod that kills the cow before it knew what happened, or we could be lazy and slice its throat and let it bleed out. Many chicken farms will try to break a chickens neck, but sometimes fails to do so, and instead the chicken gets its feathers removed while still alive, we could reduce animal "cruelty" by making death quick and painless. We could perhaps further remove cruelty by slaughtering cows in a private quite manner next to the barn they were raised, instead of sending them to slaughter houses (cows KNOW something bad is happening as soon as they arrive to the slaughterhouse, and their final moments are filled with terror.) (On top of the stress of being in a truck for many hours or even days sometimes being driven to the slaughter house.)
How would you determine who gets eaten? You or the other person? Is it whoever strikes first? How would you know there was no other options (like you know there was no help coming) How would you know eating the other person would not also result in you after dying your self? Also, eating another person, especially uncooked (you said no plants, so nothing to burn most likely) would you still eat the other person knowing one, you have to murder them (and not get injured yourself in the struggle) and only likely win because "you did it first." and then eat another human being raw, uncooked and knowing you will likely fall violently ill, dehydrate and die a few days later?
Don't get your god reference here, what does that have to do with anything? I dont think it would be unnatural, when humans run out of palatable animals to eat they have gone to vegetation in the past, I am sure plenty of times, we eat what is palatable and available to us. Much of the human race rarely eats meat simply because they cannot afford it. Unnatural? I suppose.
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@Logic
"That is going to be difficult as it is all very subjective. It is said that chickens have roughly the same intelligence as cats and dogs have."
I did not mean to get into differences in the nervous system of specific species but in a broader sense. For example, differences between a fish and a cow or snake and a human etc. The end game is to realise that plants don't have a nervous system and it is ideal to just consume them (from an animal cruelty perspective).
"How would you determine who gets eaten? You or the other person? Is it whoever strikes first? ...."
You made some valid points here. But I was trying to just give a rebuttal to the argument "what if there was no other alternative than eating meat?". In such cases there is no choice. But now, we do have a choice, so we must choose appropriately.
"Don't get your god reference here, what does that have to do with anything?..."
This again was a possible rebuttal on "why stop doing something that has worked for us for ages?". Doing something for ages, does not mean we are doing something right; just like worshipping God.
Rickdiculous: "The end game is to realise that plants don't have a nervous system and it is ideal to just consume them (from an animal cruelty perspective)."
Now I have to do some searching. There was a scientific study that showed that plants actually do "sense" pain when they are damaged. This was some 20+ years ago. Thus, it may take me a while to find the journal article. But it was a fascinating read.
rmfr
Fungus, (mushrooms) and the like have a nervous system and can feel the presence of other things. (Such as walking on them.) They react and send nerve like signals to other parts of the fungus.
I have not done a ton of research on this subject, but I think it is highly likely that "solid line" between plants and animal life, is actually a very blurry one. With exceptions on both sides of the line.
I will do a full response on this subject later as it interest me quite a bit. And it does tie back into religion and their widespread particular view of life.
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▮Please include @LogicFTW for responses to me
▮Tips on forum use. ▮ A.R. Member since 2016.
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I have to wonder why this subject keeps popping up in atheist forums.
What does eating meat or not have to do with atheism?
It has nothing to do with a/theism. However, as is said in the description of the AR Debate Forum, “We encourage discussion about any and all topics as long as it abides by our forum guidelines.“
I'm not saying it cannot be discussed here.
I'm genuinely curious why this topic is often discussed among atheists.
It is not really, it just been brought up 2-3 times recently on these boards. I imagine in part because there has been news stories going around talking about the need for everyone to change their diets for environmental reasons.
@CHK-C
For me, it is easier to have an objective discussion with people here especially on sensitive topics such as our food choices.
Just how it is easier to explain why there are more quarks than antiquarks in the universe to a classical physicist than to a biologist even though classical physics has very little to almost nothing to do with quantum mechanics.