You cant generalize like that. You have absolutly no basis to do such a generalzation. If i said the same thing about meat eaters you would think it is absurd. Neither side can say that about the other, so dont even go there. I would also like to point out that, diet effects EVERYTHING. There is no part of your body that is not affected by diet, and also no part that doesnt respond to a dietary change.


And also, animals do not have anywhere near the same cognative powers as that of humans. They are not self aware to the point where they would value their life the same way a human would. Also you must stop to consider that, if we were living in the wild, no animals would spare us because they feel its right in their "heart" to do.

I by no means support to bad farming practices we see all around us today, but grassfed cows, free range chickens etc; there is nothing wrong with that in my book, and it is fine to eat them.

If you were to go by the humane argument, then why would you eat plants? If you really value all life the same, then you wouldnt eat plants either since they are organisms just like humans and animals. Why are animals so "holy" compared to bacteria, viruses, all vegetation, amoebas, fungus, insects, etc. You probably dont eat most of those, but you mow the lawn, you most likely have an exteriminator spray your house for bugs, your immune system is in place to fight forign bodies. I do not see any distinction as to why animals are of more value than any other organism.

Point is, we cannot survive unless we eat some other organism.

I don't know what generalization you're talking about. Diet doesn't affect everything. My supposed 'generalization' points out that somehow vegetarians have lower risks of heart disease, which people can increase the risk of such by eating meat, but yet for some reason Jazz_Thing claims it is a correlation and not a cauasation. If there is truly no part of the body that is not affected by the diet, which is bullshit, then that means that it is a causation and not just a correlation.



Animals value their own life, silly. I can't believe you didn't know that. Ever heard of evolution? Yeah. Just because animals have no moral qualms doesn't mean they're not self aware. Sure, humans might be 'more' self-aware than most animals.



Killing a sentient being is wrong, in my book.



I don't value all life the same. I value sentience over non-sentience.Vegetation, ameobas, fungus, and bacteria are not sentient, no matter what way you try to twist the definition of sentience. If something is not sentient then I don't have any problem 'kiling' it, as if the word 'kill' can be applied to something that wasn't conscious in the first place. It's like saying you 'killed' your computer when you smashed it's tower. It's not 'dead' and it wasn't 'killed', it's was broke and it is broken.



No shit, sherlock.

This post was edited by AEtheric on Sep 4 2010 06:02pm

I don't eat mammals. Feels like cannibalism.

This post was edited by RainyDay on Sep 4 2010 06:14pm

But you see you are generalizing that vegetarians have lower risks of heart disease. There are way too many factors for you to say that it is strictly meat products that increase heart disease. The two groups you are talkings about (meat vs vegi) must both have the exact same consumption of sugar, transfat, and enviormental toxicity and many other factors in order to show that to be the case. Someone can be healthy on either one. Neither side is the best in terms of health; it depends on who you are. There may indeed be a correlation, but that by no means is causation. If some people who are omnivorious have better biomarkers than some who are herbavorious, then the causation is already invalid.

I would like to know a part or function of the body that diet does not affect. The food you eat is the resources your body can use, there are very few instances that you can obtain useable resources from somewhere other than what you eat. Every cell in your body uses somthing called Glucose to function. Your body builds, repairs, detoxifys, grows, and finds the most efficent use of the resources available to it. That would mean that there is a part of the body that doesnt use any resources, which obviously is not the case. (unless it is dead tissue) If the diet does not affect everything, then what is it that affects the parts diet doesnt?



A computer is not a living organism for one.

In the context we are speaking; killing means ending the life of an organism. You can kill bacteria, fungus, vegetation, protozoa, etc; since they are living organisms. Consciousness does not constitute being alive.

But my question is why do you have such a problem killing somthing sentient? I do not see why just because it is sentient means its life is more valued than any other life.

And i would also pose this question; What if we successfully created a sentient computer? Would you have a problem "killing" it?

Meat tastes good.

Think about all the meat being duped in farms today. It requires a aprroximately 2,500 gallons of water for one pound of meat. On top of that they inject chemicals into the meat that may contribute to a whole range of infections. Then you have to transport all the meat via trucks that guzzle gas and contribute to global warming. The consumption of meat emits more co2 than anything else on this planet. Good job meat eaters!

By the way, eating veggies alone does not make anyone weak. You have been conditioned to think meat is somehow better to eat for you. You will benefit as long as you get all the nutrients your body needs. The only thing that vegetarianism/veganism lacks is B12 and that can compensated with a supplement.

If it's a correlation and not a causation then how do they know that eating meat causes these things? These are published peer-reviewed studies, not some people guessing that a correlation is a causation. I think the people who made the studies are smarter than that. Additionally, these studies are based on groups of people that are large enough to outweigh individual differences in sugar, transfat, and environmental toxicity, as they get the average health of vegetarians versus meat-eaters.



How can one kill a machine? That's what cells, bacteria, fungus, and vegetation are. They work through mechanical, chemical, and electric means, they do not process information subjectively and are not conscious. Consciousness, for me, does constitute being alive. If one is not conscious then one is no different from a machine.

I have a problem killing something sentient because, first of all, I don't think it wants to die, and second of all, sentience is all we have, we have all the time in the universe to not be sentient. For all you know you could have been non-sentient for eternity before your birth, and you can be non-sentient for eternity after your death. I think consciousness is sacred and rare.

If there was such a thing as a sentient computer then yes, I would have a problem killing it.

Populations genetics and metabolism could be your answer. Sometimes people develop heart disease for seemingly non-diet reasons.

Population genetics and metabolism vary from individual to individual, but if one selects a large enough sample size for a study then these things disappear or are averaged out. Sure, heart disease can be caused for non-diet reasons, but obviously diet is a major deciding factor in heart disease.

This post was edited by AEtheric on Sep 5 2010 10:58am

If population genetics varies between individuals then why do all humans have canine teeth, incisor teeth, and molar teeth? This combination indicates an omnivorous preference of genetic expression.