Why do vegetarians/vegans differentiate between plants and animals?

Being vegetarian or vegan can go much, much deeper than just some random choice whether to eat just plants (with or without diary animal produce), plants and animals or just animals.

It's kind of about what this place, this universe or planet is and seems to mean.

I think many children may have been very startled and disgusted in their very early years when they were learning what it is that people eat for sustenance. "We have to eat other beings? Gerry the Goat and Charlie the Cow? You mean kill them, end their lives, and put their bodies in our mouths, taste them, chew them and swallow them and ingest them?". These kind of thoughts can be horrible to many babies.

As a vegetarian, I'm certainly not against other people or animals eating meat. (I see humans as animal, nothing but. I see humans essentially as indistinguishable from other animals, whether or not we can or like to type on electronic keyboards to lighted screens which pass our thoughts to other animals around the world through wildly complex network structures).

I see that bears in the wild, for example, are not going to be able to survive on berries alone, and it seems that they are going to need to kill fish, birds, mammals, whatever they need if they have an impulse to stay alive. I don't know, but seems the animal spirit, including humans, may have that built into them whether they like it or not. Not even clearly in the logical impulse for staying alive, but much more subtly, it comes as hunger that seems to need to be satisfied and can be overwhelming, beyond choice or thought, especially if starved. As I said, humans are only a kind of animal.

So, when I say that vegetarianism can be a deep, deep element of life and identity, I'm not meaning it prescriptively, for everyone. If you choose to - eat meat.

The point is that, today, in much of the world (but by no means all, or maybe even most of the world), we now have a choice of whether to eat meat or not. There is no compulsion whatsoever to eat meat. We can stay alive and healthy without eating dead animal, without killing animal people and having Wendy the Chicken for dinner (today - Philomena would be for tommorrow, Jezebel for Wednesday, Emily for Thursday and then we'd be on to Samuel the cow on Friday and he'd do all weekend, bless him. If there's one thing about killing the cow you've fed in the back yard and brought up and loved all your life, it's that you know he'll last all weekend for the family, much of next week with still some of Sammy for the cold store for leaner times. After that, well, while I love how Francis the pigeon rests on my windowsill most mornings, and we do have good kind of chats, it's true that he can't live forever and exactly when and how he dies can be up to me.)

So, obviously, you can do that if you want to - if you choose (while many people avoid or have not been able to think much about doing this, deeply). However, we don't have to do it. Unlike many beasts of the wild, many human animals - actually most in the world (while maybe not in most places in the world) don't have to at all.

However, we still have hunger, have to eat to stay alive, and perhaps we think, since we find ourselves here on earth we are here for a reason. So that means, we live on plants.

We don't know for sure, we don't know much about the meaning of this place if there is any, but it seems that the fruits of plants might just exist for the very reason of eating them. It can be a little bizarre that potatoes are so nutritious, tomatoes the way the are and green beans so wholesome, if they were not to be harvested.

So, these being enough to eat, there's no need to kill and imbibe Geoffrey the Goat (etc. etc. week after week).

When you examine what eating meat really is in the nature of a place, this universe - we can see that all one is doing is making sure one stays alive, but in order to do this, every time, one is ending another being's life, who, it seems also wants to / is struggling to stay alive and be and grow.

At the end of the day, if you examine this closely, you will see that not only does it make no sense, it seems wildly to be against sense. It is a proposterous cycle of meaninglessness, suffering, torture (not only to the animal which receives the death, but perhaps more to the sensibilities, conscious or subconscious of the animal which is continuing to dominate and slaughter and eat other struggling animals).

Why do we do it when we don't have to? There is no reason. Cows don't have to, and now many humans in today's world don't have to. There were vegetarian societies many centuries ago, but before the modern age in the developed world, except in particular places people couldn't be sure if they could always be vegetarian.

But, since you asked - why plants if they are living beings also - the most basic reason it seems is because we do have to eat something. After that you can argue about that - for example, eating fruits of plants doesn't kill the plant - and there are other good arguments, but essentially the plant part is - because you have to or else you die. I don't even think most of us can go with a choice to starve to death, we're not able.

a reply to: moebius

There is no difference. There can be though...

At one point in my life I was only eating stuffs that didn't require me to kill anything.

fruits, nuts, some vegetables, dairy, etc... No plants or animals were killed for what I ingested.

I realized that it doesn't matter and killing to survive is just a natural part of the cycle, especially for the highest levels of the food chain. I'm all about being the highest on the food chain. In fact, for a while I only wanted to eat those things that were the next highest...for example, Shark...

Jaden

a reply to: Masterjaden

Masterjaden, you talk, and others do too, about identifying a natural order which says that it's the way that things are - meaning the way that things are supposed to be here on earth.

My point was kind of the very opposite. There is no way which things are, but there are two elements.

The first is survival. There is survival, and there is what you have to do if that's what you feel or can't physically choose to do otherwise.

The second element is choice, at least for humans in particular positions in the world - and after all, this is a human discussion, only involving humans. (Maybe I should say humanoids, this being Abovetopsecret).

I say - no natural order - only survival and choice. I think, at the end of the day, if you are, personally, subjectively identifying a natural order you see, because this is not written anywhere nor agreed universally, all you are doing actually is exercising personal choice in a particular way. (Rather than observing some kind of natural truth).


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Edited - added:

I don't think it is wrong as a fact to kill and eat other animals in this planet. But I do think that it is something that can harm us. Obviously, there is only one of me, of myself, so I can only speak for myself, but my guess is that there is a harm in the cycle of kill life to live when it is possible to choose otherwise. Going vegetarian was very hard.

Simply for many of us, killing other animals is senseless and exists within a cycle which is likely to harm us. We see our spiritual beings as being alien to the idea and practice of ending other struggling beings lives just in order to sustain our struggling lives. We see that as being essentially detrimental to us (but not to you if that's what you choose, we only choose for ourselves. For most of my life I ate meat.) We see that our lives are not worth that, and it is a miserable thing, and it devalues life, being and the eternal spirit of the individual if we choose to kill other beings to stay alive IF we don't have to. I, for one, eat plant life - yes life - because I believe I realise that if I didn't, I'd die. And I probably wouldn't be able physically to prevent myself preventing myself from dying by abstaining from eating anything. As has been commented before, seeds are life too.

You say natural order - we say extreme disorder (for me - to me). Yes, as I said it is deeply rooted in the nature of being an animal in this planet, in this universe, it seems - eating other beings which many animals have to or they would die. I say - this is only a temporal place and by no means contains all eternal wisdom or health and indeed is likely in most part to be against those things. I'm not Christian nor religious, but words attributed to Jesus of Nazereth (a wise man) I like are "We are not of this place", suggesting we are of somewhere else and only find ourselves in such a wild place for some time.

originally posted by: butcherguy

originally posted by: framedragged


Don't know what meat your eating lol, but no sustainable meat source grows to adulthood on silage, grass, or hay.

Maybe force fed corn and soy protein.

But not silage, grass, or hay.

I suppose that you have never cast your eyes upon a sign advertising 'grass fed beef'. You can find it in natural food stores along with unpasteurized milk products. There is one about a half a mile from my house. Their 2x3 foot sign is outside the store. One of their selling points IS sustainability.

And I suppose that you think we can feed the world's population on grass fed beef?

originally posted by: framedragged

originally posted by: butcherguy

originally posted by: framedragged


Don't know what meat your eating lol, but no sustainable meat source grows to adulthood on silage, grass, or hay.

Maybe force fed corn and soy protein.

But not silage, grass, or hay.

I suppose that you have never cast your eyes upon a sign advertising 'grass fed beef'. You can find it in natural food stores along with unpasteurized milk products. There is one about a half a mile from my house. Their 2x3 foot sign is outside the store. One of their selling points IS sustainability.

And I suppose that you think we can feed the world's population on grass fed beef?

You probably should have qualified your original post as "...no global sustainable meat source grows to adulthood on ...". I know I didn't understand that scope from your original post.

a reply to: Krakatoa

Tis a very valid point. I definitely have an issue not explicitly qualifying things that I implicitly qualify when I communicate with others :\

Vegetarians would hate to see the research of the expression of "feelings" in plants:

originally posted by: framedragged

originally posted by: butcherguy

originally posted by: framedragged


Don't know what meat your eating lol, but no sustainable meat source grows to adulthood on silage, grass, or hay.

Maybe force fed corn and soy protein.

But not silage, grass, or hay.

I suppose that you have never cast your eyes upon a sign advertising 'grass fed beef'. You can find it in natural food stores along with unpasteurized milk products. There is one about a half a mile from my house. Their 2x3 foot sign is outside the store. One of their selling points IS sustainability.

And I suppose that you think we can feed the world's population on grass fed beef?

I am not interested in feeding the world's population.
Either way... see the tribes of East Africa, such as the Himba and Maasai, that survive largely by herding cattle and goats in arid lands. Again, I am concerned with feeding my family, not yours, but if the Himba can do it in a desert.....

a reply to: SystemResistor

"Vegetarians would hate to see the research of the expression of "feelings" in plants:"

I don't think so, you know, because as I've said, we do know they are living beings. Obviously a plant once wasn't there, then it is there, then it grows much bigger and can develop big pieces of fruit. I think it's really calling people dumb to put against them that they are not aware that these things are real, living beings.

Again, it comes down to survival - staying alive. To me, there are only animals and plants which you can eat, apart from tiny particles such as salt. We eat organic, biological matter.

There isn't really a choice. But there is a choice to avoid the 4 legged / 2 legged / winged things we know are struggling to live such as us.

So, even if eating plants could be wrong somehow, it can't be avoided here. To me the question was not very forward thinking - we do have to eat or we die. You want vegetarians to die?

I think that's the assumption people level against vegetarians - that they must be wrong because they eat other living beings, and that vegetarians publicly or privately hold meat eaters as wrong and so are hypocrites. That's what the question seems to suggest. But the former allegation holds no weight, because, for those who don't eat meat, it's plants or death, probably. For me and many vegetarians the second point is nonsense because we don't prescribe what others eat - we say it's up to you to eat exactly what you want, what makes you happy but we recommend you think deeply about it.

I've always thought that plants have feelings and indeed each has a kind of individual life spirit. But while I don't like my life involving killing other beings like me to eat, I do see we have to eat, and conclude that plants were put here to be eaten. Others disagree with me and say that plants and animals were put here to be eaten. I don't conclude about the latter part, I just know, if one doesn't have to survive on meat, there is a choice and my choice is sensible and not (or anyway, much less) an ongoing cycle of senseless, pointless, meaningless, spiritual torment.

The truth is, someone could say to me, "Would you like to go to a place and live for a long time with, I say, beautiful views, smells and tastes and beings, where, if you want to stay there you have to kill other beings like you and end their time there? Otherwise, you will die a slow, extremely painful death, if you can even control it so you can die - you probably can't". And I would tell them to "**** off forever".

However, here I am. Last time, though. One supposes there is more to life here than just butchering other beings for oneself to stay alive. However, at the same time, also, there is an irresistible impulse to stay alive, to feed to stay alive. I say it cannot be the be-all and end-all and can be avoided if you choose (but not the eating plants bit - that can't be avoided). If you don't want to choose - that's your choice and at the end of the day (or time) what living is all about - being you, choosing.

originally posted by: moebius
After all, both are lifeforms, aren't they.

On a cellular level they aren't even that different. Both belong to the group of eukaryotes.

Being somewhat flexible one could actually see plants as non-locomotive animals.

So when the cops receive a 911 call and arrive at your house, they must shoot your dog and your pot plant - because they are one and the same?

a reply to: SystemResistor

If I care about plants and animals then I kill fewer of both by being vegetarian. So your point is, well, pointless.