Like clockwork? 1) I posted for the first time in that thread halfway through page 2. Hardly clockwork, moron. 2) Are you still under the misimpression that I am a liberal? Haven’t I identified myself as a libertarian, like, a thousand times? If so, looks like my criticism of your reading skills is right on target.
Actually, I want to raise that challenge for jab1 to $100 bucks if he can find a post wherein I said, “There is no fundamental difference between me and a bull.” And there are enough SDers here who know me in person to hold me to it. $100 is yours for the taking, jab.
I second the motion.
Regrettably, I think the profundity and steadfastly reasonable, non-shrill nature that the thread has held since the beginning, has faded.
Ah well. There shall be others.
Also, I think pld and jab1 make a really cute couple. The way they’re going at each other, tireless, energetic, sweaty…you can just feel the palpable sexual tension underlying it. Life is so short and precious, when oh when will they stop fighting their own hearts?
Peace and love to all of creation’s edible bits.
I’m not sure I do. Spiritus has made some fine points that I’d like to see Scylla respond to. And I still haven’t seen Scylla’s response to the point raised surrounding the issue that one with pld’s philosophy would simply be repulsed by the concept of eating meat. (Incidentally Scylla - if you do respond to that, please respond to the original thought-out point in the post it came up, rather than my precis of it here. Thanks.)
I’m looking for Scylla to understand that some people’s philosophies have not eating meat as a natural and internally consistent consequence. Just because their ethics don’t tie in with his, doesn’t mean they are a “flake” or stupid. You see - I see Scylla’s lack of understanding of this as ignorance.
I used to be an angry meat eater. I used to assault vegetarians for their reasons and argue vociferously. I used to be, in a word, obnoxious about it. But one day I simply realised that the main reason I was so willing to jump in and fight was because I was worried that on this matter a vegetarian might be ethically superior to me. At this point, the situation crystallized. I realised two things:[list=1][li]I have a different ethical system to pretty much anyone else. We all do. Others can see things as more important that I do and neither of us are necessarily wrong. God is dead - there is no moral absolute.[/li]
[li]Maybe, even by my own ethical system, vegetarians are on this issue “better” than me. So what? Rather than get aggresive about it, I’d rather congratulate them. We can’t be perfect at everything.[/list=1]Either way, I realised, they win.[/li]
jab - how dare you tell anyone that they are stupid for thinking that animals are as important as people! Until you declare yourself divine and the arbitrator of what is appropriate ethics and what isn’t, you can bloody well keep your opinions in the realm of opinion. I don’t think that animals are as important as people. Who am I, however, to declare that as an immutable ethical law of the universe? Good god - to think that before all this I thought you might be intelligent!
Thank you kabbes, for bringing up some excellent points. One thing I want to comment to:
Well, as stated before, I’m religious, so I don’t believe God is dead. However, along with many other things, He hasn’t given an Absolute to me on this issue. So, I just consider it one of those things that’s up to your personal moral ethics, preferences, and/or tastes. Neither position is evil, just different depending on your sensibility, temperament, upbringing, etc.
Needless to say, it doesn’t follow that I think everyone ought to be in lock-step with my specific beliefs, or anyone else’s specific beliefs. I’m just taking the path I think is best for me, and I expect everyone else to do the same. I won’t pester them, and I hope they don’t pester me. (Well, actually, I expect that they won’t pester me, since I am taking pains to not pester them.)
We all have to do the best we can, in our own way.
Kabbes:
I appreciate your concern for my spiritual welfare. I’ve addressed all the points you’ve mentioned more than once in this thread.
You won’t eat beef because you do not want to contribute unnecessarily to the suffering of sentient animals; you think cattle are sentient; you agree with Peter Singer (Who the fuck is that?) that the difference between humans and nonhuman animals is not significant. If this does not mean that you see no difference between yourself and a bull, then just what DOES it mean?
I want my $100. I also want an apology for that hideous, totally unwarranted scenario where you wished death for my family JUST so I might learn a lesson. And I want it in the very next post you make on this thread.
Okay, this part I missed the first time around. You did say that.
So? Different jobs require differnt tools and resources to accomplish. The fact that meat is not inherently unhealthy for human consumptions justifies the resources used to raise meat animals.
So? We have an awful lot of land out there not being used. I used to think there was no land left, but not anymore. Also, we are learning how to raise more crops per acre than ever before. (Biotechnology is a GOOD thing.)
But why should anyone accept the dumb answers? Good grief, yosemitebabe said, “I don’t care if their reasons are because their parrot told them not to eat meat.” Oh, yeah, THAT’S a good reason not to eat meat. I suppose if their parrot told them to stop drinking water and start drinking their own urine, you’d be fine with that too. If your reasons for doing something are stupid, chances are it’s a stupid thing to do.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by jab1 *
It may not be a good reason, but it’s NONE OF YOUR FRICKIN’ BUSINESS. READ THE ENTIRETY OF MY POST, PLEASE TRY TO QUOTE IT IN CONTEXT. THANK YOU. If someone is doing something that is not harming them (certainly NOT eating meat is not harmful - it usually is considered healthy) it is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS about the why. So, they have a silly reason to eat healthy. Is this the same as eating feces? As jumping off a cliff? No. Let it go. None of your business.
I’ll leave it up to the readers of this thread to determine if what I said above comes close enough to “There is no difference between me and a bull.” Personally, I think anyone who can freaking read can see it doesn’t, but if you or I gets to judge, then the outcome is obvious. If the preponderance of readers think it does, e-mail me at pldennison@yahoo.com and tell me where to send the check.
And people in hell want ice water. I want an admission from you that you are deliberately not reading people’s posts, and rather disagreeing with them out of personal dislike and attributing to them positions they do not hold because it’s convenient to do so. And I can hold my breath as long as you can. Absent that, go ahead and take it to the mods.
Why should anyone accept your dumb answers? Oh, that’s right–you’re so far beyond the rest of us that you never give any. :rolleyes:
Huh. Well, I may not 100% remember every detail of the wager, (I’m in a rush out the door right now.) But if it is about the man and bull thing…
Saying something is “not significant enough to justify causing unnecessary suffering” is NOT the same as saying there is no “fundamental difference” between a man and a bull, as a whole. Note the “to justify causing unnecessary suffering” part. That doesn’t mean he thinks we are exactly like bulls, just when it comes to suffering, there isn’t that much of a difference in how we experience suffering.
If I had a parrot that was smart enough to tell me to stop eating meat I would listen:)
Hey jab, didn’t you once complain that christans should not bother atheists? Well they think your atheism is dangerous ignorance and you should listen because they are only trying to help dispell a little ignorance.
scylla
Are you sure? Perhaps your posts have become invisible, too.
pldennison
It wasn’t. Jab1, you seem to have confused “fundamental difference” with “difference significant enough to justify causing unnecessary suffering”. There are fundamental differences between men and women. Those differences do not justify spousal abuse.
You ain’t getting it because it ain’t the truth. Mondays through Fridays I have an enormous problem reading long threads when the board is so damn slow. It’s also because I post from the library; the library limits everyone to only one hour at a time. (And they are about to limit everyone to just two hours PER DAY!) That means that once an hour, I must type in the URL and sometimes wait as long as twenty minutes *just to open a damn thread!!! I read for forty minutes and then I have to logoff, go to another floor and start the whole damn process all over again!
It’s been that way since the day I started and it doesn’t look like it’s ever gonna change. I’m on Social Security and SSI. I am disabled by more than one mental disorder whcih keeps me from working. (Chronic depression, PTSD and mild autism. They are interelated. My autism causes me to overreact to crises and traumas, which makes even mild events traumatic for me and that causes my chronic depression.) I have to live on just $800 a month and my rent costs HALF OF THAT!
To continue, I must either read as fast as I can (which, of course, affects my retention) or not read long threads at all. If it means I am missing important details, then I guess I should not read so fast anymore.
BTW, pld, I HAVE told you in the past that I suffer from chronic depression, so don’t you say you don’t remember. (BTW, I have yet to confirm my suspicions that I also have PTSD and mild autism. I should not have given the impression that they are. But I sure seem to have most of the symptoms of both.)
This series of posts is exactly what I was talking about: I could not finish my previous post before my time was up at 1:00 PM PDT. Since the library forbids people from putting their own disks into their computers, I can save a post only one way: By posting it, errors and all, complete or not. I didn’t have time to preview.
Also, I am NOT stupid. Back in 1981, when it became clear I had some kind of mental disorder, I saw a VA psychiatrist (I was in the Navy from 1976 to '79). He gave me a standard IQ test and I scored 127. I am NOT stupid. So to hell with anyone who says I am. A person can have a high IQ and be autistic.
You may be right. But I’ll be damned if I see the difference. It looks to me like the difference is only semantics. OTOH, autistics often have language problems.
Spiritus:
Yeah, I saw your post, but the proven risk is so vanishingly small it’s really a de minimus kind of thing.
Besides, assuming a risk for beef, why would that stop one from chicken, fish, pork, mutton, etc?
Why be a vegetarian because of one product at risk?
And what about the chemical risk of veggies? Wouldn’t you need to show that that was less than that of beef?
I have made more than one, you appear to be responding to the first, but you have not addressed the point. However minimal the proven risk, it is insufficient in itself to declare any response unreasonable. Are you unclear on that, or do you disagree?
Which someone are we talking about, here. If you have a particular strawman in mind, set him up and I’ll huff and puff at him. Whether a random vegetarian has assessed the risk of any particular food group as significant enough to avoid is not something I feel qualified to speculate upon. Even if I did decide to do so, without knowing the cost that person associated with avoidance of that food it would be outrageousy presumtuous for me to declare his decisions irrational.
I don’t know anyone who avoids all meats because they are worried about additives/treatments/hormones/etc in beef. If you think you do, then perhaps you should ask them. They may have other reasons for avoiding other foods.
No. This again shows that you are focused on risk as if it occurred in a vaccuum. That is an irrational method for determining actions.
Spiritus:
Well, that’s what Kabbes is arguing. He uses the example of Mad cow, and the “chemical cocktails” cows are injected with, and says that this is in itself sufficient reason to “opt out” and become a vegetarian from a reasoned standpoint.
I think that’s horse pucky.
Spiritus Mundi wrote:
Spiritus, are you cribbing Paschal?
Paschal’s Wager:
Spiritus’s wager:
(And yes Spiritus, I recognize that you are a meat-eater, but it seems that you are creating/legitimizing a sort of Paschal’s wager for vegetarians.)
While I’m quite certain phil doesn’t mean there is no difference between a human and a bull…this block of text could be taken either way if you just read the sentence normally.
Hey…he asked for opinions on it. I don’t think it’s what he meant, but the wording is ambiguous IMHO. And I know ambigous text - a lot of people have got after me for ambiguous posts I’ve made…