While I understand the theory that vegetarianism tends to aggravate the population explosion, I find it morally reprehensible to consume the product of a cruel and unnatural factory farming system. My reasons for vegetarianism are not because I value a cow’s life over a carrot’s, and I know that both the meat and vegetable industries practice totalitarian agriculture. Both industries kill, but this is a “natural” way to get food. The problem, in my eyes, is that it is clear that cows are vastly mistreated during life, whereas carrots are not. My vegetarianism is a boycott of an industry that treats life as no more than capital. I want this industry to change. Are my morals unfounded in your opinion? Do you think vegetarianism is an ineffective way to bring about change in the meat industry? If so, what would be more effective, or what should I do instead?Categories: Here's My Opinion; What's Yours?, I Have a Bone to Pick with You!|Tags: Agriculture, Vegetarianism| Read More
I wonder if you’ve seen Ray V. Audette’s book “NeanderThin: Eat Like a Caveman” to Achieve a Lean, Strong, Healthy Body, which outlines a simple, natural way of eating based on what is known of the diet of Paleolithic humans.Categories: I Have a Question On a Specific Subject|Tags: Agriculture, Hunting, Vegetarianism| Read More
Wouldn’t the laws of chance dictate that the Agricultural Revolution was bound to happen to one culture in the human race sooner or later? If so, wouldn’t this contradict what B said about the Agricultural Revolution being a fluke? Maybe there was a specific reason for the revolution that we just haven’t discovered yet.Categories: Here's My Opinion; What's Yours?, I Have a Question On a Specific Subject|Tags: Agriculture, Education, Revolution, Vegetarianism| Read More
In your reply you suggest that being a vegetarian is ethnocentric. Are you implying that cannibalism is acceptable? About vegetarianism you say, “It suggests that creatures that resemble us are more precious than creatures that don’t.” You state that you can’t subscribe to the idea that animal life has some sort of higher right to life than plant life. Are we humans animal life? Isn’t taking a life, any life, wrong?Categories: Here's My Opinion; What's Yours?, I Have a Bone to Pick with You!, I Need Some Clarification|Tags: Agriculture, Hunting, Vegetarianism| Read More
You answer the questions about vegetarianism in strictly economic or agricultural terms. But vegetarianism can be a political stance as well–a desire on the part of people to NOT take from other species, to not use them, but in your words to “let all life forms continue to live and evolve.” A broad way of defining vegetarianism is that it not only involves not eating animal products but not wearing animals, not using them for research, not exhibiting them unnaturally, etc. In other words, if one looks at your 3-part definition of the Taker mentality, vegetarianism seems to fly in the face of all three. Why then, if looked at from this perspective, can we not say that vegetarianism, in its respect for the equality of all life on the planet, isn’t an example of the Leaver mentality? (I realize it isn’t the ONLY re-visioning necessary because we can still treat the earth as though it belongs to us even if we are only eating plant life. I also realize that Leavers ate meat albeit in a different spirit.)Categories: Here's My Opinion; What's Yours?, I Have a Bone to Pick with You!, I Need Some Clarification|Tags: Animals & Animal Rights, Famine, Hunting, Political Correctness, Vegetarianism| Read More
If animals don’t have a higher right to life than plants, then what about humans? We’re animals, and if we don’t have a higher right to life, then how do you justify our feeding on other forms of life?Categories: Here's My Opinion; What's Yours?, I Have a Question On a Specific Subject|Tags: Animals & Animal Rights, Vegetarianism| Read More
I think you’ve answered this question, but inadequately: There is a well-established correlation between standard of living and population growth. The higher the standard of living (and hence the more food produced locally) the lower the birth rate. This flies in the face of your contention that population growth is tied to food production. Taking this down to the microcosm – when you see a picture of people starving in Ethiopia, what is ALWAYS in the picture? A LOT of infants and children. They’re not producing any food, but . . . .Categories: I Have a Bone to Pick with You!, I Have a Question On a Specific Subject|Tags: Birth Control, Famine, Political Correctness, Population Control, Vegetarianism| Read More
Awhile back I read a question that asked if being a vegetarian wouldn’t be a good solution. I thought I understood you to say no. However, as I have talked to vegetarian friends and explored this more, I wonder if not buying meat in stores is a valid aspect of helping to solve the problem. Since so much of the world’s agricultural production is tied up with raising and feeding cattle, it would help if people ate less or no commercially raised meat. It’s not that eating meat is bad, just that the meat industry is a variation of the agricultural form.Categories: I Have a Bone to Pick with You!, I Need Some Clarification|Tags: Agriculture, Animals & Animal Rights, Vegetarianism| Read More
Since so much of the world’s agricultural production is tied up with raising and feeding cattle, wouldn’t it help if people ate less meat?Categories: I Have a Bone to Pick with You!, I Need Some Clarification|Tags: Agriculture, Population Control, Vegetarianism| Read More
Considering the Taker abominations of mass breeding and inhumane slaughter of factory farming, I think you HAVE to condemn meat-eating as wrong.Categories: I'd Like Some Advice|Tags: Vegetarianism| Read More
