Would you eat meat if animals could talk?

reply to post by Misoir


This is a rather pathetic attempt at gaining an emotional response. Of course I wouldn't eat it if they could talk AND reason and beg for their lives, but then again I think the exact same thing about my salad every time I stab into it with a fork. If a head of lettuce could reason I wouldn't eat it either. The point is that we are living beings that rely on death, whether it be the death of an animal or a plant, to survive. That's just the way it is. We've been eating meat for thousands and thousands of years now and I don't see that changing any time soon. I know for me the very existence of ham creates a wall against me ever becoming a vegetarian

reply to post by getreadyalready


Well, I guess if we wouldn't be prepared to change back (if necessary), then the glass walls logic would fit and we'd be vegetarian!

I think it's important to respect ALL life, and if you chose to eat something living (as in animal), then you should ensure all its needs are met during its lifetime, and that come the day of execution, it is done without them being fearful or distressed and the actual act is quick and as painless as possible!

The problem we have created, is that supermarkets provide meat on shelves in sealed packages and as a consequence, we become totally detached from the fact these lumps of food were once animals. We should never have allowed this to happen. We should always have needed to know its origin, and be satisfied it was dealt with humanely.

The breeders and slaughterers are only in it for the money and don't give a hoot about the animal. We, in our chosen ignorance, don't think beyond the package on the shelf. That void is the problem.

I watched two sheep I helped raise be driven by me to a farm slaughterman and saw him kill and butcher them.
It's not pretty... there's an amazing amount of blood and guts in an animal that size. But I knew they didn't suffer more than a 3 mile truck journey, and I was happy to carry on eating meat. I wish it was all done like that.

What if the plants we eat could talk too, scream when we pick them. Silly vegitarians, plants like to live too!

Some thoughts on this,

I have always thought that it would be nice if animals ultimately worked into the big picture, and how we treat them ultimately will come back at us in a big way. Along the lines of the ancient aliens theory, Aliens come back to "harvest" us ( I love how hunters refer to killing animals as "harvesting"). Wouldn't that be ironic? But seriously....

With regards to people stating, what if vegetables and plants "screamed"...not a valid comparison. We know Animals have complex central nervous systems, that's a a fact. Additionally scientist have also moved on to state FACTUALLY that fish and yes, even lobsters, also do process pain, perhaps to an even greater extent than we do. Additionally, animals DO talk. They do so in their bellows, barks, pupils, body language, you name it. Elephants openly grieve for their family members, as do many other species of "wild" animals. Watch an Orca pod following the boat that captured one of it's pod members for our shows at Water Worlds around the globe. The pods will follow for miles. We know whales verbalize, we also know by observation what some of these verbalisations mean. I could go on and on with examples with most animals. Watch the video of goats or sheeps having their throats slit, watch their resistant, bleating, bellowing, etc before they go into a stunned silence, then watch the video of Daniel Pearl having his head cut off. Watch as he bleats and bellows, albiet in English, before going into a stunned silence.

As for those who say "well they don't speak english so this is silly". Deaf mutes also don't speak language, should it be ok to shoot, bludgeon, beat, boil alive, skin alive, etc them as well? I'm pretty sure if you ran after a deaf mute with a knife they would verbalize in their way, just as animals do. Cannibals have stated that "human" tastes like pork. Should the village deaf mutes be slaughtered as the people see fit, to be put in the supper pot because "they NEED that meat and won't stop eating it"

Humans treat the world, and animals, like objects, doing with them as they see fit. We kill them, eat them, beat them, burn them, skin them alive, torture them for our entertainment( I could go on and on)...and really do not care. This behavior is incredulous to me.

How many of us watch "bizarre foods" and think it's cool when Andrew Zimmern eats a frog in China that is still living? And by living, I mean living, not last gasps of a central nervous system? Speaking of China, How many of you have seen the videos of popular food in China that consists of fish being lightly deep fried, alive, and served while still breathing?

Any Chinese here? If so then you are aware that cats and dogs are eaten, but not only eaten, they are killed in very cruel ways, such as hanging or beating or even being boiled alive, because the Chinese believe that this builds "stamina" in the animals, which will be imparted to them when they eat it. How brutal are we as a species? We like to hold ourselves up as enlightened, but we kill, the same as animals kill, at least some animals anyway. Some animals do not kill, they are herbivores, but we still manage to find a way to put them on a plate.

The Romans felt it was fun to beat burn kill torture Christians, along with animals. How many societies today not only are cruel and inhumane to animals, but to their people too? A lot of the world has wised up and do not condone mass murder, genocide, religious murders, etc....but a lot of the world HAS NOT. Would a wise people see humans as barbarians for doing what we do to animals, sentient beings, as most of us now look upon the cruelty to humanity?


Did you know that people lack the digestive tract of a carnivore? It's why so many people get colon cancers, etc. You can look it up if you wish. Carnivores have very short digestive tracts, ours is quite long, we call ourselves omnivores, but our intestines and even our teeth beg to differ.

For those that would quote the Bible, "and God gave man dominion over the animals", does that mean to you that we can do as we please, from eating them, to treating them badly, having them haul our goods within an inch of their lives, watch them die for entertainment? Or does this mean to you, that man was given dominion over the animals, to act as a steward of the animals? God gave dominion of man over woman, does this mean men can rape and kill women? ( some cultures seem to think so, and we for the most part consider them barbarians). Or does the bible mean that man is to be the care giver, the provider?

Before "evil" in the garden of Eden, the lion and the lamb lay together, and people were vegetarians. I could be wrong but isn't peace and ultimate fulfillment when the "Lion and the Lamb" lay together once again?

I have mentioned both secular and religious examples, just thought I'd throw this out there.

Sure, didn't you read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe? Just engineer a cow that wants to be eaten.

We are animals, we are predators, we kill and eat other animals for nutrients. This is nature, nothing more, nothing less. Some of us are probably a lot more merciful in the kill than a lot of the predators out there. Animals die, whether by predator, or natural causes. Predators eat them, scavengers eat them, bugs eat them. We all crap in the soil, and make nutrients for plants. It's nature.

If you choose not to eat animals for whatever reason, fine, your choice. Just don't sit there like you are on some moral high horse and talk down to those of us that do eat the flesh. We all take nutrients from other living things, each one is as important as the next.

Animals can talk. We just cant understand them.

I also don't understand Chinese people. So does that mean its ok to eat them ?

Just trying to get the gist of the question.

It depends on if they have anything interesting to say. If they ramble on on on about chemtrails, reptillians, Nibiru, and how great Obama is, then...Yes! I would eat their liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Well, of course this doesn't count as talking, but it does point to the fact that even a chicken has empathy:

Mother hen feels chick's distress

...scientists have now discovered that a hen shows empathy if she saw her chicks in distress...

The hens, which were separated from the chicks but could see, smell and hear them, paid more attention to their surroundings when the puff of air was directed at them. But when it was directed at their chicks, the mama birds responded more intensely with a stress response equivalent to fight-or-flight behavior: The hens’ heart rates increased and their external temperatures changed (even though the chicks weren’t making distress calls, ruling out the possibility that this was a protective-mom response)

For the record: yes, I do eat meat

reply to post by Misoir


If they only talked about birth certificates and reptillians.. yes.

Seriously though.. probably no one would eat meat with an animal that was of high enough intelligence to communicate. Also if animals were smart enough to communicate they would be intelligent enough to do other things and would have logic, reason, religion and culture. No one would eat them.

Unless you meant like parrots talk.

Some people say plants can talk. I guess if that is true we would really be up the creek without a paddle.

But, no, I don't think I could eat an animal that could talk. I don't think I could even eat a parrot -- and they are merely mimcs.

Plants certainly don't use human grammar, though, and neither does any animal that we know of. Do plants have "words", though? Probably, in a sense.

Too bad we're not air-ferns. Maybe, ignorance is bliss.

Originally posted by GogoVicMorrow
reply to post by Misoir

 

If they only talked about birth certificates and reptillians.. yes.

Seriously though.. probably no one would eat meat with an animal that was of high enough intelligence to communicate. Also if animals were smart enough to communicate they would be intelligent enough to do other things and would have logic, reason, religion and culture. No one would eat them.

Animals do communicate,have logic, reason, and society/ culture, not sure about religion.

Ugh! Just noticed that this is an old thread...

Originally posted by Misoir
Would you eat meat if animals could talk? This question is targeted at all the Omnivores and Carnivores on ATS.

Yes, I would. The reason is that animals CAN 'talk'. They just speak a different language. I've gotten pretty good at understanding and even speaking 'dog'. I don't eat, dog, however.

When being gathered for slaughter, a cow 'speaks' volumes. His body language, eyes, mouth and vocal chords are all working together to speak plainly, it's just that we don't speak their language.

Excellent thread!
S&F

Animals do talk..... most humans just don't understand the languages.

While I am not a vegetarian, I must say that I am disappointed (and rather annoyed) with many of the responses here -- certainly not surprised, though.

For those of you who answered "yes", I am compelled to ask you this completely serious question: How do you feel about the killing and eating of humans? What's your stance on that?

baby


the other, OTHER white meat


GET IN MAH BELLAY!

Originally posted by AngryOne
How do you feel about the killing and eating of humans? What's your stance on that?

Our society does not practice cannibalism. So, I have been raised to be grossed out by the idea. And I am. (I hear long pig may be a too tough for my tastes anyway) I have been eating meat however since I was a small child. Eating meat is practiced in our society. So, I feel OK about that.

Yes I would.
They'd still taste delicious.

Originally posted by AngryOne
W

For those of you who answered "yes", I am compelled to ask you this completely serious question: How do you feel about the killing and eating of humans? What's your stance on that?

My stance is simple.

I don't practice cannibalism.

I eat sheep, cows, pigs and fish.

Here's a question for you veggies / vegans.

If we weren't designd to eat meat, then why does meat taste so good? Surely if meat wasn't supposed to be eaten then surely evolution would have enabled meat to taste vile?

So why is it so tasty?

I'm not sure it is bad that humans eat meat...but moreso how we eat meat. I think we eat way more than we really need to. Other animals kill only what they need to survive. It is the ungrateful manner in which animal life has become a commodity that will come and has come back to haunt us. I imagine if the trend was to hunt and kill ones own meat supply, and eat only the portion deemed necessary the world would be a better place. It is this disregard for life and gluttony that is negative. Also, having to hunt and self ration would come with a sense of gratitude to the animal, so next time you have that 3 oz. Steak, stop and thank the universe and the animal you are about to consume for the nourishment you require to survive.

This would change the world.