Taco Bell joins Europe's Horse Meat Parade... — Page 3

I'm getting so sick of everyone posting pictures of their dinner online!

I don't know what to make of your assertion that we have but recently learned of our kinship with mammals. We've known of it since we've known what mammals were. Not sure what difference that makes.

people who are experts in the matter estimate the human species to be at least 100,000 years old. some say as much as 250,000. darwin discovered the truth of evolution not even 200 years ago, and the discovery of DNA and that we share 90% of DNA with mice not even a century. i.e., just a drop in the bucket in the history of the human race, and a blink of evolutionary time. so even if you take the minutest estimate of the age of the human race, humans ate animals for 90,000+ years without knowing their kinship with them.

No, it was because of the diseases that were rampant amongst pig that are easier to guard against now. Your anecdotal evidence that firefighters don't tend to eat pork does not match mine at all. I know a LOT of firefighters, and one of the first things that goes on a bbq list is pork ribs.

this is an old wives' tale. two points. trichinosis is more common in cold environs than warm. secondly, archeologists have gone through the middens of ancient civilizations. they can identify jewish remains not only through circumcision, but also that pig bones would be absent. apparently they can conclude that those that DID eat pork DID NOT sicken and die of it.

lastly, even if you disregard the anecdotal evidence, it is a fact that we can use pig tissue in humans, such as heart valves and skin grafts.

I agree that most commercial animal farming businesses are inhumane, though people like Temple Grandin have worked to make it a little better.

i was not necessarily making a point about humaneness. i was merely pointing out that, if you took an average person who had no idea of our kinship with mammals, made him watch a pig defecating on its immobilized neighbor, which would go on to eat its own fecal material, then killed the pig and served it to him, i doubt he would go, "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

Actually, we're prisoners of biology. We are not vegetarians, we are omnivores. We need some meat to remain healthy (yes, it is possible to stay healthy on a vegan or vegetarian diet, but it takes a lot of work and planning, and it is NOT natural).


no, prisoners of history. as outlined above, for at least 99,800 years humans hunted and killed animals without knowing how closely related to us they are. the ethics of raising sentient creatures to kill them and eat them is only very recent in human history. had the knowledge and question arisen 2000 years ago, say, then the debate may have already been settled. what you say may have been true 100 years ago, but with modern technology, we know what it is we require from meat to remain healthy.

and no one on this board should seriously ever use the "natural" argument. it makes two mistakes. 1) it assumes that what is natural is "good." earthquakes and smallpox are entirely "natural," but no one would ever say they are good. 2) airplanes and computers are also "natural" in the sense that they are the products of human intelligence, which is "natural."

I'm not here to argue, but to ask the question - how do we really know whether humans are meant to eat meat or not. Who decided?

no one decided. we evolved as omnivores, but one cannot get an ought from an is. that is to say, we ARE omnivores, but that does not mean we must LIVE that way. we are sadly burdened with the knowledge that the practice of meat-eating, is, sadly, the practice of raising sentient creatures that in fact do have emotions and feelings and are intelligent (pigs ARE smarter than dogs, and have a similar cranium to body capacity to porpoises), to kill them and eat them. the question of whether to do so is worth discussing.

If the invisible genie in the sky wanted us to be vegan, then he shouldn’t have made creatures that are delicious to eat…

if one believes in an invisible genie in the sky, then that indeed is a huge question. why does he make the dogs we adore so much in the west so tasty to eat that they are cultivated in asia for that purpose? why does he give them feelings and emotions like love, only to have its neck snapped and then go under a cleaver? why does he make conditions in asia such that they have to resort to that? i relieve myself of that burden by saying there is no evidence that such a person exits, and that none of these dilemmas can be ascribed to a non-existent person.

i say all of this as a person who finds meat tasty, and probably could never give it up if asked. the conclusion that society should move away from eating meat is from studying available evidence. if we are going to eat meat, we might as well be consistent about it, and farm dogs, cats, guinea pigs, and anything else that is farmable, to eat as well.

Updated On: 3/3/13 at 02:36 PM

TL;DR

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You really are not making sense.

" so even if you take the minutest estimate of the age of the human race, humans ate animals for 90,000+ years without knowing their kinship with them."

Our ancestors were so attuned to our kinship to the animals they ate that they offered up prayers of thanks for their sacrifices to us.

"archeologists have gone through the middens of ancient civilizations. they can identify jewish remains not only through circumcision, but also that pig bones would be absent. apparently they can conclude that those that DID eat pork DID NOT sicken and die of it. "

I don't know what to make of this, either. Archeologists can tell from bones that Jewish remains were uncircumcised, and the lack of pig bones proves that no one died from eating pig meat? Or do you mean that pig bones were found elsewhere and they couldn't prove that people died of trichinosis or the like?

"the ethics of raising sentient creatures to kill them and eat them is only very recent in human history."

Comparatively true - but requiring meat on occasion has been a necessity from the dawn of time. We used to hunt it. Now we farm it. Getting rid of its necessity borne of thousands of years won't happen overnight.

Yes, we can use pig tissue medically. I don't get your point there either.Yes, we are both mammals. Yes, we have things in common.

And?

Updated On: 3/3/13 at 04:24 PM