I originally started this as a comment for the blog before this, but it got long, so I figured I through this as a post and add the social aspect to my vegetarianism:
Okay, so I think most of you missed my point about why I eat fish. I don't believe fish are fully concious, and don't truly suffer. If you reread my post, you'll notice that I mention conciousness as necessary for moral standing. Without conciousness, an organism lacks the ability to fully suffer. Thus, I eat fish, or plants for that matter. Secondly, James, I would very very strongly disagree with your statement that a purpose of animal is to be food. I strongly believe, and I can give you tons of scripture to back this up, that creation was not created for us, but for God. Cows, dogs, monkeys, chickens, and Free Willy do not all exist for our enjoyment and to satisfy our tastes but for God's enjoyment and glorification. However, I also believe that, if necessary for our survival, God gives us his blessing to eat his animals. But it is not necessary for our survival. We eat meat solely to satisfy a taste. Thirdly, Adam, Free Willy was a dolphin (orcas are actually dolphins, not whales), not a fish. So I wouldn't eat Free Willy either, cuz he's pretty concious. Plus, you totally see him suffer in the movie: like when he gets really popular and everyone's banging on the windows under water? dude, poor whale.
Now for my huge social justice reasons for not eating meat besides fish: something like 35% of the world's and 70% of America's grain goes to feeding livestock. Thirty to forty thousand people starve to death every day. The grain consumed by such animals a year could go to feed 800 million people a year. Likewise, it's also wasteful of water: the amount of water needed to produce a pound of meat is fifty times that necessary to produce a pound of wheat. This is a gross mismanangement of a needed resource. Secondly, meat consumption is a primary reason for environmental devastation. It greatly contributes to deforestation: "the primary reason for the destruction of rainforests in countries like Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, is to provide grazing land for cattle, virtually all of which goes not to the poor in these third world nations, but rather is exported to wealthy countries like the United States" (Mohr).
Anyways, I'm out to 1 AM Thai, later.
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3 comments:
Werd dave, good post. Um, quick little advertisment for myself. I'm not sure if the SPAM comments bother you, but if you do, try out Haloscan to manage your comments. You don't get the spam, and you don't have to be a blogger member to comment, so it's nice for everyone. Keep up the solid work, you big chunk of manly flesh.
Dave you calle Free Willy a whale again..might want to fix that. Yeah Gotcha.
Genesis 9:1-3 says: "Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all of the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, now I give you everything."
Sounds pretty clear to me... I understand the environmental aspect of raising livestock is detrimental to the environment but so are an awful lot more things. Maybe not eating meat is a good way to take a stand against that sort of reckless management of the world's resources... but eating meat is not the issue, the issue is what preceeds the eating of meat... class time.
reimer out.
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