Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Eating meat & experimenting on animals is wrong.

liquidlight · 03-24-2005, 12:48 PM

It's a bit simplistic, and forgive the religious reference but I've always summed up the gist of this argument with the following:

If God hadn't intended for the crows to eat the grasshoppers, he would have given the grasshoppers shotguns so the crows wouldn't fuck with them.

At it's basic form all I'm saying is that the differentiation between lower animals and humans is that regardless of their capacity for feeling or understanding pain, they lack the cognizance to do anything about it. Humans are afforded certain rights because they can fight for them and they earned them (no going back to babies doesn't change that, a child given 15 years will gain the capacity to represent itself, no matter how old the cow is it will still just stand there), until that cow can tell me that it doesn't WANT me to eat it I'm going to continue to enjoy it's meat. I don't feel there is a moral situation here owing to the fact that through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution all that's really occurred is that these animals have become easier to consume, and yes I understand that they are bred that way, however; they niether recognize their peril, or attempt to avoid it, until they are already dying.

As for the experimentation on animals, most cosmetic experimentation is done on rodents, or on animals that are very well treated because the results are highly valuable to the institution or organization conducting the experiments. You seem to have overlooked one underlying fact with your accusation that these experiments are preformed for nothing more than curiosity and that is that the type of testing that you describe is by nature and situation very precise and usually very expensive. Even grant programs that require relatively little investment from the person performing the work are closely guarded by the committees that present them owing to amount of investment that is related! Though if you do happen to know someone that is willing to give me money just so I can screw around and satisfy my curiousity about some things I'd love to hvae their number, I'm curious as to what the effect would be of having somebody pay all my bills so I can sit on my ass all day for years.

03-24-2005, 12:48 PM	#96 (permalink)
liquidlight AHH! Custom Title!! Location: The twisted warpings of my brain.	It's a bit simplistic, and forgive the religious reference but I've always summed up the gist of this argument with the following: If God hadn't intended for the crows to eat the grasshoppers, he would have given the grasshoppers shotguns so the crows wouldn't fuck with them. At it's basic form all I'm saying is that the differentiation between lower animals and humans is that regardless of their capacity for feeling or understanding pain, they lack the cognizance to do anything about it. Humans are afforded certain rights because they can fight for them and they earned them (no going back to babies doesn't change that, a child given 15 years will gain the capacity to represent itself, no matter how old the cow is it will still just stand there), until that cow can tell me that it doesn't WANT me to eat it I'm going to continue to enjoy it's meat. I don't feel there is a moral situation here owing to the fact that through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution all that's really occurred is that these animals have become easier to consume, and yes I understand that they are bred that way, however; they niether recognize their peril, or attempt to avoid it, until they are already dying. As for the experimentation on animals, most cosmetic experimentation is done on rodents, or on animals that are very well treated because the results are highly valuable to the institution or organization conducting the experiments. You seem to have overlooked one underlying fact with your accusation that these experiments are preformed for nothing more than curiosity and that is that the type of testing that you describe is by nature and situation very precise and usually very expensive. Even grant programs that require relatively little investment from the person performing the work are closely guarded by the committees that present them owing to amount of investment that is related! Though if you do happen to know someone that is willing to give me money just so I can screw around and satisfy my curiousity about some things I'd love to hvae their number, I'm curious as to what the effect would be of having somebody pay all my bills so I can sit on my ass all day for years. Last edited by liquidlight; 03-24-2005 at 12:58 PM..