A mere infant indeed haha. I had been feeling compelled to give up meat for a few months already. I'd heard about the vast health and environmental concerns. But for whatever reason, those really didn't affect me as much as they should have. The real kicker happened during a day in my Environmental Studies class. We were talking about specific arguments for animal rights and my professor brought up that animals are sentient. I'd never really thought about that for more than a few seconds and it hit pretty hard. Now, to think of an animal going through pain to get to my plate doesn't necessarily irk me too much. If I were in the wild and I'd have to kill a deer for food, I'd do it. But it'd be humane. No word exists to describe the cruelty towards animals in factories. So, I decided to stop eating meat unless I know it was killed humanely or unless I find it in a dumpster where it would otherwise occupy a landfill.
Congratulations for having the courage of looking at animal rights critically. Most people don't dare to. I also don't see any sense in animals living in bondage and dying for my own taste pleasure in an age when we're well past survival mode and we know scientifically that we can have a balanced plant based diet. The killing humanely is kind of a funnily contradictory concept. It presupposes that killing is a human like thing to do, which is a bit strange to me. For as painless as a death is, I'm pretty sure any animal would have preferred to live on and be free, if given the choice. But somehow we have come up with this human definition of what is considered "humane" or "fair" which I'm not quite sure most people understand or even agree in its definition. Anyway, there's a really good long debate of vegetarians vs homnivores with a fairly large audience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNED7GJLY7I Worth a watch if you ever get a spare couple of hours... guess who wins?
Well thank you very much.
Yeah, it doesn't make too much sense. I think it stems from a sense of entitlement most Americans have. It could also come from the fact that meat does taste good, but in the most shallow sense (if that makes sense). Haha we talked about the term "humane" in terms of animals also in my Environmental Ethics class. I guess killing has become a human thing, but only by habit, which is a very unfortunate thing.
You have a valid point. Although, I do like the application of biomimicry and think it could shed some insight on the situation. Animals kill other animals in the wild for food. The killing isn't cruel like ours is, but it is still killing. I think that it is a natural thing for humans, who have the capacity to eat meat, to kill animals for food. Cruelty need not be associated. I'll check this out tomorrow. I did check out Earthlings. Heavy stuff. (Post-disclaimer: I am extremely tired right now. If none of this makes sense, please attribute it to my fatigue.)