Human Beast
Let’s pretend for a moment that meat was an absolute necessity for human survival. Shouldn’t we, as the superior beings that we are, uniquely capable of imagination, speech, art and ethics do our utmost to ensure that animals live a good and comfortable life and die in a nanosecond without any chance of feeling any pain?
Now, since we do not need meat to survive, and in fact are healthier without it, then shouldn’t treating animals with such disregard and killing them so callously be considered a doubly barbaric act?
Until we are collectively able to use our intelligence to care about the well-being of all others and stop thinking solely about ourselves and our superiority, it doesn’t matter whether we’ve been to the moon, built pyramids or iPhones – we’re still no better than beasts.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:58 am
Was at a BBQ at the weekend and happened to get chatting to a veggie. I never thought much about it much at the time but over the last few days I have asked myself a few questions like Are we meant to eat meat? Could we do without our bacon sarnies or chicken tikka?
Is their cruelty involved in your ribeye? Are pigs intelligent? I could go on. All I know is its got me thinking about things and reading into the subject in more detail
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April 22nd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
great post…i linked to you from veggietweets on twitter.
@visionary, pigs have the intelligence of a 3 year old. i don’t know if you know many 3 year olds, but they are quite smart. i’ve met many that age who are already spelling, reading and have quite a healthy hold on their super ego.
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April 22nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Well said! All those technologies mean nothing if we don’t have active compassion!
I sometimes tell people who think we are superior to animals that in this matter, we are INFERIOR to animals because even the animals who kill to eat do it in a quick and humane way, and they obviously don’t imprison animals for their entire lives in horrific conditions. Plus, those animals aren’t making a conscious choice to kill. They do it solely by instinct. We don’t kill by instict; we can actually think before we act, and that makes the act that much worse.
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June 7th, 2010 at 1:32 am
“Let’s pretend for a moment that meat was an absolute necessity for human survival.” I’m a vegan but I’ve always been troubled by this question: are we entitled to everything we need for survival? How about organ transplants, for example? I think it would be wrong for me to kill someone for his organ, even though I would die tomorrow without it.
Wouldn’t it also be wrong for me to kill an animal for meat, even though I’d starve to death without it? Does my right to survive outweigh the animal’s right against being killed?
I really hope I’m never stuck on a desert island with nothing to eat but animals. Taking my morality seriously might mean starving to death.
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December 17th, 2011 at 3:36 am
You’ll find to numerous fraud stories there are heard of it all. I would personally certainly not confidence that.
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