Vegetarianism, atheism and morality.

[Rum]

I go for the light topics on a Saturday night OK?!

I am considering going vegie again. We have a lot of cattle market traffic around here and I see wagons loaded with sheep and cattle on their way to the slaughter house on a pretty regular basis and when I do I feel like I am participating in mass slaughter ion a huge scale if I eat meat. I read the other day too that globally we eat about 50 billion chickens a year! That a huge fuckn' pile of chickens!

Now if I was a heartless atheist with no sense of morals and no notion in the back of my mind that someone or thing was keeping score of the moral content of my behaviour then I might say fuckit and enjoy the bacon and the chicken wings.

Unfortunately I am an atheist who has empathy for the suffering of other sentient entities and so I am struggling with this issue. I will never witness these poor creatures being killed on my behalf so sod it, right? No - not right for some reason. But why should I care?

On balance I am considering eating only free range meat. It is more expensive but as we only eat a little meat each week it is certainly affordable.

Thoughts?

[Clinton Huxley]

I have similar feelings. I've cut down on meat. Rationally, I know the beefs must suffer and it's not efficient to eat ' em. I could go totally veggie. and yet, meat tastes delicious. Tricky.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Deny your nature at your peril.

[Clinton Huxley]

Deny your nature at your peril.

Do ye not sometimes think of the cows getting the bolt through the brain? I do.

[Rum]

Deny your nature at your peril.

What the Hux said, but also - our 'peril' includes eating too much animal fat in the west.

[Ronja]

A pity it's nearing midnight here - but I can hope that there is something interesting to wake up to in the morning.

Free-range meat and game are both greatly to my liking, due to both taste and ethical considerations: if I had dictatorial powers, our family would eat little other meat than mutton, reindeer and elk (well our elk look a lot like North-American moose IMO, but both the dictionaries and Wikipedia say that we ought to say "elk" anyway )

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Deny your nature at your peril.

What the Hux said, but also - our 'peril' includes eating too much animal fat in the west.

If you'll remind, I'm the guy who used a LAAW on a water buffalo.

[Seth]

I go for the light topics on a Saturday night OK?!

I am considering going vegie again. We have a lot of cattle market traffic around here and I see wagons loaded with sheep and cattle on their way to the slaughter house on a pretty regular basis and when I do I feel like I am participating in mass slaughter ion a huge scale if I eat meat. I read the other day too that globally we eat about 50 billion chickens a year! That a huge fuckn' pile of chickens!

Now if I was a heartless atheist with no sense of morals and no notion in the back of my mind that someone or thing was keeping score of the moral content of my behaviour then I might say fuckit and enjoy the bacon and the chicken wings.

Unfortunately I am an atheist who has empathy for the suffering of other sentient entities and so I am struggling with this issue. I will never witness these poor creatures being killed on my behalf so sod it, right? No - not right for some reason. But why should I care?

On balance I am considering eating only free range meat. It is more expensive but as we only eat a little meat each week it is certainly affordable.

Thoughts?

Creatures die much more horrible deaths in the wild. Death is part of life. Farm animals are made by man for man. They should be humanely raised and humanely killed, but "humane" as opposed to "natural" is a rather grey area.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The African Wild Cat begins to eat its prey before it's dead. They can't choke it like a lion, so they have chew it to death. A farmed cow gets a quick and clean compared to that.

[tattuchu]

Well I'm semi-vegetarian now myself, so I'm certainly with you on this. I'm not keen on other creatures dying for my benefit if it's not necessary. And it's certainly not necessary. I eat a lot of fish now. Fish aren't too highly evolved, so I don't feel too bad about that. And I eat eggs, but only from free range chickens. Occasionally I do still eat pork or lamb or beef or chicken, but rarely now, as opposed to often as before. And when I do buy these meats, I specifically look for the organic, free range, grass-fed, etc variety. I can't stomach the thought of factory farmed meat anymore. It's not just cruel, but unhealthy and unnatural.
So, I try to stay away from the mammals. But like Clinton said, they are unfortunately delicious. So when I do on occasion indulge, I at least try to make a healthier choice.

[Rum]

The African Wild Cat begins to eat its prey before it's dead. They can't choke it like a lion, so they have chew it to death. A farmed cow gets a quick and clean compared to that.

But we are 'better' (I use the word with some care!) than African Wild cats - or people with Seth's sort of utilitarian outlook surely?

[tattuchu]

The African Wild Cat begins to eat its prey before it's dead. They can't choke it like a lion, so they have chew it to death. A farmed cow gets a quick and clean compared to that.

But we are 'better' (I use the word with some care!) than African Wild cats - or people with Seth's sort of utilitarian outlook surely?

As the most highly evolved creature on the planet (if that's not too arrogant a claim?), I think we can certainly decide for ourselves what we wish to eat or not eat, and what creatures we wish to kill or not kill. We have a choice. We're not slaves to base instinct.

[Seabass]

I tried going vegetarian when I was young and idealistic. Lasted a year, maybe a year and a half. Then one day, I'm hanging out with some buddies, drinking, eating, watching the game. So I'm sitting alone, on the opposite side of the yard, eating corn on the cob and trying to escape the smell of the grill. Everyone else is grilling ribeyes and sausages and laughing and having a good time. My god, the smell was mesmerizing. Overwhelming. So that was the end of that.

I just don't have the willpower to stick to it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The African Wild Cat begins to eat its prey before it's dead. They can't choke it like a lion, so they have chew it to death. A farmed cow gets a quick and clean compared to that.

But we are 'better' (I use the word with some care!) than African Wild cats - or people with Seth's sort of utilitarian outlook surely?

I'm an omnivore, it's built into my very biology. That meat is going to come from somewhere unless I decide to become a vulture.

[HomerJay]

It's really quite difficult to find decent veggie food if eating out, so I went pescatarian a few years ago and eat fish too. Suddenly a whole New World of catered dining beckons.

I don't think of veggie as a black or white, all or nothing, my kids eat chicken nuggets at McDonalds, it's just part of the mix.

I like the idea expressed in Time to Eat the Dog, that if people are going to keep animals as pets, they should keep chickens and rabbits and eat them when tender, rather than simply squander resources on affectations.