The best birth control is to educate girls and young women.

Bob Wilson

 

All good questions. I don't have answers in the ethics department, just from a scientific / biologic point of view.
-John

 

Ontop of limiting the population we can just have a society of the gentically perfect people and weed out all the duds, like they did in Woody Allen's Sleeper movie.

 

This is looking more and more like an "Anything Goes" discussion.

 

I agree- can this thread be moved to Anything Goes? Then I won't feel guilty about posting rambling answers to react to all the fun nuttiness in this thread which is terribly off-topic.

 

Well, I was adding some Environmentally-themed threads to get a green section started.

How about we stay on topic and other side discussions can be started in new threads?

So, back on topic...

My neighbor was shocked the other day, when I refused his homemade Musaka. It had organic eggplant and tomatoes from his garden and standard factory farm ground beef (with prob 100 cows in it).

I told him thanks, but I don't eat that. I didn't try to change him and I didn't succumb to friendly-neighbor pressure. He can complain too much. When his Silverado is in the shop, I give him a ride to work in my hybrid.

 

How about being a realist at the same time as caring about the environment?

It is unrealistic for the whole planet to be veggie eaters.
That's why God created carnivores, and humans, who are omnivores.

What would you like to do with all the dead animals when they die of old age?
Or should we just get rid of all animals so you don't have to look at a dead one?

The term "BALANCED DIET" comes to mind.

You cannot have a balanced diet, or balanced eco-system without eating meat. Can one person survive without meat? In our modern society, probably. Can society survive without meat, probably not.
What about animal by-products that were used for you to get your soy-beans to your plate? Or animal by-products that went into your soap? Into your home? Into your clothes? Into your car?

Not eating meat is very anti-environmentalist.

 

Hogwash.

There are a billion vegetarian Indians who might disagree with you.

Livestock is a human invention. There's nothing natural about it.

Carnivores have short intestines so they can gorge on meat, absorb what they need and expell the rest quickly.

Herbivores have long intestines that are needed to slowly break down vegetabel matter over time.

Guess which kind of intestines humans have?

Guess which animals are the only ones to die of heart disease and cancer? Humans and their pets.

Man walked on two feet and ate for millions of years before he learned how to kill for food.

We grow enough crops for livestock to feed the US four times over.

What animal "by-products" bring soy?

I eat a very healthy balance of fruit, veggies, nuts, seeds, and grain. When I ate meat I weighed 50 pounds more. I feel more balanced now than I ever have.

Read more at: http://www.goveg.com

 

Um, hate to get back into this, but humans and pets are not the only animals who get cancer or heart disease. Any animal can develop cancer. Anything with a heart can have a heart attack. Racehorses, which eat a vegetarian diet, frequently die of heart problems. So do other large work animals. Birds die of cancer frequently. Although they were my pets, both my childhood parakeets died of cancer. Guess how many steaks they ate in their lives? None. I doubt seriously that the smell of cooking meat killed them.
According to Encarta, the first humanoid (Australopithecus) rose out of the apes who survived the Ice Age. He was a hunter, and, as the earth was still in the Ice Age, there was not much in the way of plant life on which to feed, as it was too cold to grow.
Not all Indians are vegetarians. Perhaps your arguments would be a little more substantial if you'd stop with the blanket statements and more thoroughly thought through what you are trying to say.

 

I know im gonna get heat for this. The times of squatting in the woods (to eat fruit/nuts and to use the bathroom) are gone. Evolution happened. Nothing against the amish, but most people look at that society and say "wouldnt they be happier if they could use an electric saw or tool? People in poor third world countries look at us and say, man those people are lucky, they have meat. I believe in some countries the animals are worshiped as gods.
I have eaten some pretty strange things in my life such as snails, eel, snake, croc and squash. I don't put down anyone who eats what they like, im just stating that evolution happens. Sometime in the future our meals may be comprised of irradiated trash and we will be happy with it.