Sorry, Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too

here is my question. if it is all about pain, then why cant we simply sedate our animals before we kill them. no pain no foul right?

How about fear? do plants freak out when they see you with a knife in your hand. How about the reaction, if it's just an instinct then animals ar far superior, they have fear. An animal can look you in the eye and show you it's unhappy. Come one we are talking about plants.

So it all go's down to "If it's thinking don't kill it"
Is thinking special? Are plants self aware as in thinking "I am , I exist, preserve my self, hang on to life" I do not think this is the case.

Originally posted by Spiramirabilis


and - I am ABSOLUTELY trying to bait you LOL!

I knew it.....you sneaky monkey, you!

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd

It's something that zazzafrazz and I have talked about, though I jumped the gun and started one without involving her.

I didn't start this thread to convince anyone of anything.

:-)

fair enough

two things:
you've been here long enough to know - we like to bicker here at ATS - some of us like to bicker for fun

next - does zazzafraz know about this?!!!!!!
(I am of course kidding - you did good)

Forgot about the mimosa too.

Still with all this movement I dont think there is a single plant that can actually move AWAY from danger.

No movement away, no pain.
No brain, no pain.

Originally posted by Absum!
reply to post by wx4caster

 

I will make you this offer.

Cross the first bridge. (Stop killing animals.)

Then we can stand on the same ground
and debate how to stop killing plants.

However, until you cross the first bridge
you simply have no position to debate from.

what a non logical argument!

i have every position to debate from because this is the platform that we are debating.

that is like saying because we dont know everything about the moon we should forget looking at jupiter...

Originally posted by pepsi78

Are plants self aware as in thinking "I am , I exist, preserve my self, hang on to life" I do not think this is the case.

You don't think, but you don't know for sure.

I mean, I don't think a plant actually says "I am" but I don't know for sure. A spritual side of me likes to think it does. The scientist in me says, "not until further evidence is provided can we make a decision."

-Dev

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


For some reason, I wasn't picking up on the sarcasm, or poo being slung my way.

.......someone else was distracting me. Someone that I feel will be joining this conversation soon.

-Dev

Originally posted by watcher73
Forgot about the mimosa too.

Still with all this movement I dont think there is a single plant that can actually move AWAY from danger.

No movement away, no pain.
No brain, no pain.

but plants cant move long distances from pain because they are rooted. they will certainly grow away from pain, allowing for the part of the plant that is recieving the injuries to be scabbed over and protected.

if i were to be cemented in one spot, and you came up to me anc cut my left arm every day, i would shy away from it, and eventually i would grow a scab/callus in that spot and grow a tolerance for pain in that region.

people do it all the time in abusive house holds.

Originally posted by pepsi78

here is my question. if it is all about pain, then why cant we simply sedate our animals before we kill them. no pain no foul right?

How about fear? do plants freak out when they see you with a knife in your hand. How about the reaction, if it's just an instinct then animals ar far superior, they have fear. An animal can look you in the eye and show you it's unhappy. Come one we are talking about plants.

So it all go's down to "If it's thinking don't kill it"
Is thinking special? Are plants self aware as in thinking "I am , I exist, preserve my self, hang on to life" I do not think this is the case.

but there are many animals in this world that "think" as far as you are outlining and "feel pain" the way you deem necessary to be considered alive, or rather in your realm of worthy of letting live, that do not hold onto life the way you think they should.

the honey bee will sting, yet it will die from the sting.

and btw, are there not some vegitarians that refuse to eat honey or drink milk? yet milk and honey are inarguably not alive...

Originally posted by wx4caster


and btw, are there not some vegitarians that refuse to eat honey or drink milk? yet milk and honey are inarguably not alive...

Yeah, lacto-ovo vegetarianism.

But that's a nutritional/political stance. It has nothing to do with morality.

Edit to add: You have to remember that not all vegetarians/vegans choose that lifestyle for the same reasons. There are many motivating factors involved. I'd like to focus on the moral side of the coin.

-Dev

[edit on 29-12-2009 by DevolutionEvolvd]

Originally posted by DevolutionEvolvd

Originally posted by wx4caster


and btw, are there not some vegitarians that refuse to eat honey or drink milk? yet milk and honey are inarguably not alive...

Yeah, lacto-ovo vegetarianism.

But that's a nutritional/political stance. It has nothing to do with morality.

-Dev

ah gotcha...

i was under the impression that it was because we didnt have their permission or something like nothing that was produced by animals... but i dodnt want to have too much egg on my face


and btw, do eggs feel pain? are they alive? i mean the non-fertilized ones you get at the market. are those off limits as well?

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd

For some reason, I wasn't picking up on the sarcasm

you know - I get that a lot :-)

nutritional historian? really?

I think an interesting thread would be a hardcore argument about the pros and cons of vegetarianism - not morally - but nutritionally

don't know where you stand (meat eater) :-)

but there are a lot of misconceptions I think - about whether or not vegetarianism is lacking as far as nutrition goes

[edit on 12/29/2009 by Spiramirabilis]

Originally posted by wx4caster


and btw, do eggs feel pain? are they alive? i mean the non-fertilized ones you get at the market. are those off limits as well?

Off limits by whom?

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


as in do vegetarians shy away from eggs.

i am not a vegetarian so i dont know what you can or cant eat as far as relation to meat and all.

i got wrapped up in whether or not plants are alive, fel pain, and move lol...

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


That's the next thread. The idea is to separate the three ideologies. Nutritional, political and moral stances in the argument of Vege vs. Omni. The hope is that will cut-down on the confusion and bashing, and get down to the information and discussion.

.....oh...nutritional historian....just means I like to read the history and sociology behind nutritional research, and analyze the data, figuring out why we believe what we do today.

-Dev

reply to post by wx4caster


Well, I'm not either, but it just depends on why you're a vegetarian.

I mean, vegetarianism isn't an absolute diet.

Sometimes it's only fruits and vegetables. Sometimes it's fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds. Sometimes it's vegetables and grains. However you wanna mix it.

I'm assuming, however, that a moral vegetarian would not consume chicken eggs, or any eggs for that matter.

-Dev

Originally posted by wx4caster

here is my question. if it is all about pain, then why cant we simply sedate our animals before we kill them. no pain no foul right?

It's all about the $$$. The cheaper methods win.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Has everyone here seen the movie Earthlings? Many people became vegan after watching it. If you just google the word earthlings, you'll get all kinds of options to watch it.

NOTE: The movie gets very graphic, so please don't watch it if you're sensitive to how animals are treated. (I found that out the hard way).






[edit on 29-12-2009 by misfitoy]

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


There are different reasons why people become vegetarian.
1 Out of fear that meat kills in time and degrades the body.
2 Fitness junkies obssesed with weight and all of the sort.(mostly women)
3 Out of moral obligations.

Most of them are not about morals and etics but about point one and two.
There are also semi vegetarians that eat sea food , fish included best included at number two.

If I'm going to become a vegetarian, I plan on it, include me at number 3






[edit on 29-12-2009 by pepsi78]

There are many experiments on the consiousness of plants.
www.youtube.com...

Many many evidence points to greater counsioussness than we all can imagine. They not only can feel pain, they even feel your pain and your intentions.
This experiment shows even baceria has feelings, comunicates over distance and so on. So now we can ad ALL to the same moral dicussion, not only plants, milk, egg, mushhrooms water EVERYTHING has an awareness of some sort.

[edit on 29-12-2009 by gusan]

Just to state up front, I am a vegetarian who eats dairy food and eggs but not fish

For me the fact that plants don't have a central nervous system is a big factor in why I eat them and not animals.

I would also argue that that even though I don't eat any animal there are definitely degrees of moral importance when considering which animals to eat.

If I had to eat a rabbit to survive (say I had crashed on a desert island), then I would and I would have no moral problem with doing so. I view myself as being more 'important' than a rabbit. My death would be a bigger calamity than that of the rabbit not only because of my greater capacity to reason, and feel emotions but also because of the effect my death would have on those who care about me. I would also have to factor in any future actions on my part that lead to good and happiness for other people, which are likely to be more profound than those of the rabbit.

Now as I said before there are degrees of moral importance when considering this issue.

If I were to kill another human in order to survive that would be far more morally questionable. Likewise killing a chimpanzee would raise greater moral doubts, although maybe not enough that I would sacrifice myself for the chimp.

However, at the other end of the moral spectrum, I could easily eat a fish in order to survive and not lose too much sleep over it.

And of course if there were plants available I would eat those. I don't think it's a defensible argument to say that a carrot has the moral equivalence of a chimpanzee.

The reason I don't eat animals at the moment is because I don't have to, in order to survive, and this lack of necessity is what for me makes eating animals morally wrong.

Another big factor in my vegetarianism is factory farming. I believe that chickens suffer far more in factory conditions than would lettuce grown in the same conditions. I think this could be easily proved as well

Finally, I would add that it's extremely difficult to live a blameless life and the most that anyone can hope to do is to try their best. If the aim of vegetarianism is to reduce suffering then that should be the motivating factor in all actions but the fact that sometimes you don't succeed is not cause for giving up completely. If I accidentally bite into a chicken sandwich, that doesn't mean that I would then be morally justified in killing a cow. Likewise, the fact that broccoli might 'sense' an insect attack doesn't negate the wrongness of needlessly killing a pig for food.