As I already posted, you prune a tree and its growth flourishes... You slit the neck of any animal and it is dead.

As for me saying plants do not feel anything? Where did I say that? I have said plants do not have the same nervous system as humans and animals have, so don't keep repeating something in complete error.

I like your views on life in general but I'm afraid to say I don't really see an answer to my question as to why you feel you have the right to eat another living, breathing creature. Anything that grows is obviously alive, how can I dispute that, and so if it grows it must naturally feel. But there are varying degrees of this, as seen in the case with the complexities of central nervous systems. I am very well aware of Nature, and its essense and all it has to offer. It is not necessary for you to try and convince me of such. The whole point of this ideal is that it IS destryoing nature. So even if you were just a carnivore (hypothetically) because you feel so strongly about plants and trees, you are in fact contributing to the death and destruction of Nature, at a rapid rate too.

Now I have only heard and read of a few breatharians, where we live within "evolved" societies it just isn't possible because of polution. So we obviously HAVE to eat to carry on living. But we DO have a choice as to how we are going to keep on living:

Slaughter the cow and abort her unborn baby, or munch on a carrot and salad and nuts and potatoes and and and.

Every day you make a choice, and every day each choice you make has ramifications not just on an individual scale but also a global scale.


P.S I really do get the impression you don't read most of my posts or too carefully when you do, not a judgement just that when you state something as fact when it concerns me perhaps do some extensive reading on my viewpoints beforehand, thanks!

Of course it is about respect, but it's also about choice, and the ability to evaluate like I said before.

Carnivores in nature eat out of survival. And they only eat when they need to. They do not catch 20 deer or zebras or buffolo just to eat its breast, rump or tongue. They eat only out of necessity. And the other fact is, the lion for example does not stand there pondering, deciding which zebra's stripes is towards his licking, he goes in for the kill, the weakest one or the poor hapless animal that happened to get seperated. Carnivores in the wild act on pure instinct, an instinct for survival.

Man chooses, man decides, man kills, and bases his decisions on greed.

That is a very good point, because nothing grows in Greenland! It is something to ponder on...

Precisely, I mean the consumption is staggering, as I have already pointed out, and the means in which people get their meat is where another huge problem lies. Is it necessary for the cruelty to exist in the first place? Reduced levels of meat consumption (because I know instant global vegetarianism is not going to happen) would mean less demand, which would then obviously mean less production which would then mean in essence less animals would have to die. It's the strain of demand that causes the insane, inhumane treatment of animals.


P.S It's patty not paddy, Paddy is a teddybear!

Excellent post!!!!!

hahaha Good one!

Eskimos need the high fat content of meat to survive. If we were as active as they are in their cilmate meat would be a need rather than a want too.

http://www.westonaprice.org/myths_tr...ths_bones.html

Here, is where you said they had no central nervous system, you state that you believe that plants cannot suffer.

And you also stated that you thought the plants dont need to feel pain, so you doubt that an evolutionary cycle would give it that ability.

So you have said plants are incapable and unable to feel anything.

I am reading your posts, I just just have to decide what your tryiong to say.

And my right to eat meat? 'I shall not kill, unless I have to' " I will not eat, unless I am hungry' Death is a nesseary part of life, consuming life, we eat, we live. What isn't part of our digestive process will make us sick. I am allowed to eat meat, Nature gives me this right, this does not mean with unnesseary pain and suffering.

http://members.fortunecity.com/rica...do4you/id9.html


"Isn't it hypocrite to kill and eat plants?


It would be hypocritical IF the same criteria or morally relevant attributes that are used to justify animal rights also applied to plants. The criteria cited by the AR movement are "pain and suffering" and being "subjects-of-a-life". An assessment of how plants measure up to these criteria leads to the following conclusions.

First, our best science to date shows that plants lack any semblance of a central nervous system or any other system design for such complex capacities as that of conscious suffering from felt pain.
Second, plants simply have no evolutionary need to feel pain. Animals being mobile would benefit from the ability to sense pain; plants would not. Nature does not gratuitously create such complex capacities as that of feeling pain unless there is some benefit for the organism's survival.

If we can bring ourselves to momentarily assume that plants feel pain, then we can easily argue that by eliminating animal farming, we reduce the total pain inflicted on plants, leading to the ironic conclusion that plant pain supports the Animal Rights position." *Note the quotation marks






That is what was quoted in a previous post, note it was a quote giving the perspective of research and animal rights, I added the URL of the site I found it on. Not my own words, but perspective on that matter. Now had you read my words in all my posts you would have seen that I said all things are alive thus taking any form of life one would incur karmic implications. So I can only conclude that you do not in essence really read my words.

And my point? Well if after all these posts you don't see my point then I guess there's not much more to say to you specifically. I think it's glaringly obvious what I am trying to share.

Regardless of whether you wrote it or not, to post something means that you agree with what it has to say, are you saying you do not agree with something you posted?

And I never ever once said anything about the Karmic implications about taking life, I never disagreed with that statement, or that all things are alive.
If I dont say anything, it is because I have nothing to say about it. What would you have liked me to say? There is nothing for me to add to that, or disagree with. I am not going to go around stating the obvious, just because you need to feel like you are heard.

But keep this in mind, you said earlier, twice if I remember correctly, that if you prune a tree it blooms brighter(or dies, if pruned wrong), well if people are beaten in the right way, or raped, they can become stronger and shine brighter, it still doesn't make it right.

I certainly hope you are not patronizing me.... hehe...
yes a lot of it comes down to convenience.... and the thing about all that TVP looking like burgers and hot dogs is it substitutes convenience of meat for convenience of vegetables..... which is what I thought you wanted in the first place.... anything which will help a person choose a vegetarian lifestyle should be a good thing for your mindset..... I cooked the entire time I was a vegetarian.... back than finding any resteraunt that served vegetarian dishes was impossible..... it is much easier to stick to a vegetarian diet in todays world..... and it is becoming a much larger portion of the population that lives as vegetarians.... I will probably revert to the lifestyle myself if only for health motives rather than moral ones.....
yet what it comes down to is personal choice.... we here in the US enjoy personal choice.... noone shoves burgers down our throats.... if someone is fat and unmotivated it may be attributed to them not caring enough to change.... which adds to the unchanging consumption of meat..... we could also stop driving cars and wasting natural limited resources and polluting our fragile eco-systems with crap.... yet convenience breeds entropy..... and in our technological society convenience is the motto.....

I think we may never really fully understand each other, and I honestly do not wish to enter into a one on one with you about issues within the larger issues.

I have stated that I do not believe one can relate a plant to an animal because of the physiological facts concerning central nervous systems. But not once have I said they are not alive and not sentient. Posting that quote gave a perspective on that opinion. That is why I posted it, I honestly won't keep repeating what I have already said in previous posts.

And I did not in any way imply you mentioned Karmic implications, I did.

As for the last part of your post I will choose to refrain from commenting.

I was being facetious but unfortunately it was more ironic because of the truth of it. We are a generation of laziness...

I wish to comment on the whole "choice" aspect of this because I have been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching since I started a deeper investigation into these facts. It has had a profound effect on me, I became more informed and as a result have been deeply affected by what I have seen, even though I knew of "some" of those harsh realities. The extent of which it stretches as far as the amounts yearly was just staggering, and to be confronted with it in such a dramatic way and to witness the apathy from people in general has caused me to evaluate my whole perspective on life and humanity to a point where I felt nothing but a deep sense of despair. Well I wasn't going to go into that now as I honestly don't have the time, but regardless, I will get back to this. I will continue with my thoughts as soon as I can.

Lilith, Very Well.

The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? But rather, Can they suffer?
-Jeremy Bentham, 19th C Philosopher, Oxford University

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
-Gandhi, The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution.
Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
-Thomas Edison, Harpers Magazine

It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human
emperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.
-Albert Einstein, letter to Vegetarian Watch-Tower

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts,
how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
-George Bernard Shaw

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.
-Voltaire

The vegetarian movement ought to fill with gladness the souls of those who have
at heart the realization of God's kingdom upon Earth.
-Leo Tolstoy (author of War and Peace), News Review

Forget the pig is an animal. Treat him just like a machine in a factory.
-Hog Farm Management


But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time they had been born to enjoy.
-Plutarch, Moralia

[W]e have discovered chickens literally grown fast to the cage
... the flesh of the toes grew completely around the wire.
-Poultry Tribune

I have no doubt that it is part of the destiny of the human race
in its gradual development to leave off the eating of animals.
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.
-Issac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Laureate

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be for meat.
-Genesis 1:29

People who let their dogs and cats have litters in order to show their children the "miracle of birth" should come witness the "miracle of death" performed in the back rooms of animal shelters all over the country.
-Phyllis Wright, Humane Society of the U.S.

Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity.
-George Bernard Shaw, preface to Killing for Sport

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans
any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.
-Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity.
Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.
-Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the
only thing that ever does.
-Margaret Mead

Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out their conscience,
thus helping bring the collective conscience to life.
-Norman Cousins

To one whose mind is free, there is something even more intolerable in the suffering of animals than in the sufferings of men. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime. That alone is the justification of all that men may suffer. It cries vengeance upon all the human race. If God exists and tolerates it, it cries vengeance upon God.
- Romain Rolland (Nobel Laureate), Jean Christophe

We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things,
humanity will not find peace.
-Dr. Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization

The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.
-Jeremy Bentham (philosopher)

Life is life--whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage...
-Sri Aurobindo (poet and philosopher)

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
-Thomas Edison (inventor)

The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.
-Leonardo Da Vinci (artist and scientist)

“Although other animals cannot reason or speak the way humans do, this does not give us the right to do with them as we like. Even though our supposed possession of a soul and superior intelligence are used to create an arbitrary dividing line over rights, the fact remains that all animals have the capacity to experience pain and suffering, and in suffering they are our equals.”
— Nathaniel Altman (1948- )

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness Thereof, Oh, God, enlarge within us the Sense of fellowship with all living Things, our brothers the animals to Whom Thou gavest the earth as Their home in common with us . . . May we realize that they live not For us alone but for themselves and For Thee and that they love the sweetness Of life.”
— St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea (330-379)

“The old assumption that animals acted exclusively by instinct, while man had a monopoly of reason, is, we think, maintained by few people nowadays who have any knowledge at all about animals. We can only wonder that so absurd a theory could have been held for so long a time as it was, when on all sides the evidence of animals’ power of reasoning is crushing.”
— Ernest Bell (1851-193

“The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny . . . a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But, can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being? The time will come when humanity will extend its mantle over everything which breathes. . . .”
— Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

“We find amongst animals, as amongst men, power of feeling pleasure, power of feeling pain; we see them moved by love and by hate; we see them feeling terror and attraction; we recognize in them powers of sensation closely akin to our own, and while we transcend them immensely in intellect, yet in mere passional characteristics our natures and the animals’ are closely allied. We know that when they feel terror, that terror means suffering. We know that when a wound is inflicted, that wound means pain to them. We know that threats bring to them suffering; they have a feeling of shrinking, of fear, of absence of friendly relations, and at once we begin to see that in our relations to the animal kingdom a duty arises which all thoughtful and compassionate minds should recognize—the duty that because we are stronger in mind than the animals, we are or ought to be their guardians and helpers, not their tyrants and oppressors, and we have no right to cause them suffering and terror merely for the gratification of the palate, merely for an added luxury to our own lives.”
— Annie Besant (1847-193

“What the factory farmers emphasize is that animals are different from humans: we can’t, we are told, judge their reactions by our own, because they don’t have human feelings. But no one in his senses ever supposed they did. Anyone acquainted with animals can guess pretty well that they have less intellect and memory than humans, and live closer to their instincts. But the reasonable conclusion to draw from this is the very opposite of the one the factory farmers try to force upon us. In all probability, animals feel more sharply than we do any restrictions on such instinctual promptings as the need, which we share with them, to wander around and stretch one’s legs every now and then; and terror or distress suffered by an animal is never, as sometimes in us, softened by intellectual comprehension of the circumstances.”
— Brigid Brophy (1929- )

“On profit-driven factory farms, veal calves are confined to dark wooden crates so small that they are prevented from lying down or scratching themselves. These creatures feel; they know pain. They suffer pain just as we humans suffer pain. Egg-laying hens are confined to battery cages. Unable to spread their wings, they are reduced to nothing more than an egg-laying machine. . . . The law clearly requires that these poor creatures be stunned and rendered insensitive to pain before [the slaughtering] process begins. Federal law is being ignored. Animal cruelty abounds. It is sickening. It is infuriating. Barbaric treatment of helpless, defenseless creatures must not be tolerated even if these animals are being raised for food—and even more so, more so. Such insensitivity is insidious and can spread and is dangerous. Life must be respected and dealt with humanely in a civilized society.”
— Senator Robert Byrd (on the floor of the U.S. Senate, July 9, 2001)

“Never believe that animals suffer less than humans. Pain is the same for them that it is for us. Even worse, because they cannot help themselves.”
— Dr. Louis J. Camuti (1893-1981)

“The saints are exceedingly loving and gentle to mankind, and even to brute beasts. . . . Surely we ought to show [animals] great kindness and gentleness for many reasons