Nature's God

Can we? Certainly. Will we? Not soon. They are efficient and produce large quantities at lower cost. When price is the most important (or only) consideration, ethics tend to lose out. Remember Upton Sinclair. Everything except the squeal.

Oh, your right! I sometimes forget that when money is involved some people forget about ehtics. I just don't get that! But I've never been offered billions of dollars either...I'd like to think I'd keep my ethics in tact, but who's to say..I think that's a whole other thread!

Very good topic, I must say. Yes I do eat animals and their products. I have been vegan and vegeterian in past and hopefully wil manage to go back to it in the future and stay that way. I do believe it's sort of not very nice to eat animals but in order to became a vegeterian I would have to learn a lot about cooking vegetarian meals. And the problem is curently I just can't find the will power to do it all but hopefuly that will change. Of primary importance is I would say fixing first our treatment of humans around the world. However if you are being more compasionate towards animals which are I believe sentient beings than maybe that leads to a more compasionate aproach in dealing with felow humans. And of course in everything you should not go to far and you should use your reason.
Thanks

Very good point, Ervin. How we treat our fellow humans is the most important consideration.

Don't sweat it Ervin! If you decide to go vegetarian you'll know when you're ready!I think the way a person treats an animal can say a lot about how they treat their fellow humans! You are right though, we need to learn how to treat one another first, with that humane treatment of animals should start to fall into place. Then we could be one big happy family! Ahhh..Utopia! Well I can dream can't I?

people have "always been" superstitious, that's no argument..


here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruelty it says: When cruelty to animals is discussed, it often refers to unnecessary suffering.
for human health and strength it is sufficient to consume plants and animal products, therefore, humans do not have a need to consume animals. being that consumption of animals is not necessary, how can killing them for food not be cruel?


fixing human problems requires effort, stopping eating meat does not. i don't see how is it harder to cook some potatoes/ beans/ lentils/ rice and a couple of vegetables than making a meat meal..

a little reading

Plutarch - THE EATING OF FLESH

Porphyry - ON ABSTINENCE FROM ANIMAL FOOD

For complete protein and other nutrients we have to be somewhat more careful on a vegetarian diet, especially a vegan diet. Again, we certainly can survive on a vegetarian diet. It is just a bit harder and requires a bit more attention to detail. It is a choice, a matter of taste and habit. I was not raised vegetarian. I was raised on meat. I choose to consume the flesh of animals and fish. It is normal and natural for humans.

Interesting. I certainly read the Stoics and ancient Greeks and have assimilated much into my personal worldview. Certainly not everything, but much. Vegetarianism is a personal choice.

vegan diet is unnatural, vegetarian diet is completely sufficient for everything a man needs.


one of the most revered martyrs of Sikh faith, and a head of their most important religious university, was a vegetarian with a very interesting diet..
every day he ate a pudding which is served in Sikh temples- it is made by mixing equal amounts of flour, sugar and (cow milk) butter, and besides that the only thing he ate was raw tropical fruit that grew where he lived. he only ate these two things in his life. he was perfectly mentally healthy, he was both a philosophic rhetorician and religious person who knew the Sikh hymn book of 1430 pages by heart, and perfectly physically healthy, he fought in a war when he was 87 years old..


a part of the Porphyry's text is written "against the Stoics" in favor of vegetarianism

But if one is basing one's diet on avoiding cruelty to animals, one's diet must be vegan. Cows, sheep and goats produce milk only when they bear young. What, then, do you do with the young? You can't just keep producing calves, lambs and kids endlessly. It's hard to raise chickens to produce eggs efficiently if they are truly free range. Do you have only plastic or canvas shoes? No animal products at all? I think it is a matter of personal choice.

Not typical, certainly. Hard to believe he didn't have some deficiencies.

That's why I was careful to note that I am a student, not only of the Stoics, but of other ancient Greek philosophers as well. I highly recommend the book the Eight Pillars of Greek Wisdom by Stephen Bertman. I am always impressed by how much the Greeks had already figured out so many years ago. I am sure other civilizations had mastered a great deal as well, but what they learned has not been passed down as effectively, at least in the west.

i don't think so. it is not cruelty to use an ox for ploughing and a cow for milk, as long they are treated with care and compassion. animals are not rational and cannot have the right to liberty same as humans do, but they do feel fear, pain, and a desire to life just as do humans, and should accordingly have the same right to life and freedom from cruelty.


ask/ read around about, or if you can visit a Hare Krishna farm and you'll see what treating animal humanely really means


my family keeps four hens as pets, and we eat their unfertilized eggs


i must admit that i am a little uncarefull here, i do not buy leather shoes, but i do not check if the material they are made of contains animal products...


i try to do my best..


will try to find it..