Lara
Friend of the Arts
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic Coast
Why do living things need to kill and eat other living things to keep on living?
- Thread starter Farrah Nuff
- Start date
If you had jaws like a shark, Lara, it wouldn't matter if your eyes were in your bum.hmmmMakes sense, but what about Sharks?
Alligatorob
SF VIP
We all waste a lot of time here, I find it entertaining...Nevermind, waste of time
Are you sure about that? Maybe something we just don't hear, vegetables may have feelings too!
Would eating dumb cows be better? No screaming there.
RadishRose
SF VIP
- Location
- Connecticut, USA
good question.hmmm
Alligatorob
SF VIP
An interesting thought! Glad mine aren't I need to rethink my pants...
Lara
Friend of the Arts
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic Coast
I agree. My previous post was joking...thus emogi
bingo
Senior Member
- Location
- southeast illinois
the original poster asked that question dear...do you think it's a waste of timeThen why did you take the time to reply?
Nevermind, waste of time
because dear...the original poster...not you...asked the question..does it even need considering?Then why did you take the time to reply?
Nevermind, waste of time
you are not the original poster...so not your beeswax
oldaunt
professional hermit
I'm farm grown. Trust me, cows scream.
They (sharks) eat each other in the womb, but I don't know if they do once they are actually alive. Only the strongest are born.
JustDave
Well-known Member
The problem might be that we did not evolve in a way that did not require energy. So we must consume only sources of energy that are available. This often means other living things. Plants solved this problem by getting the energy they needed from the sun at a time in history when there were no other living things. They can then assemble raw elements they need from the ground and use them to grow and reproduce, with one of the byproducts being materials that be can utilized by other living things. In this new environment, animals evolved and could simply eat the plants. Living things don't really need to know what to eat. When an available source of energy is available, they just evolve to utilize it. It may be just plants or other smaller defenseless forms of animal life.
The original post suggests a moral issue is involved here, but morals are entirely human constructs and vary from person to person and society to society. Evolution is not subject to morals. Things simply evolve in ways that work, until they no longer work, in which case things become extinct.
Vegetarian philosophy is still an interesting one, whether a person agrees with it or not. I think it's a thoughtful exercise if more or less only academic, but from what I understand, humans evolved from the apes that were mostly or entirely vegetarians (I'd have to double check that), and early humans apparently evolved eating mostly plants, until they became more technologically evolved to kill animals with stones and spears.
Interesting topic.
The original post suggests a moral issue is involved here, but morals are entirely human constructs and vary from person to person and society to society. Evolution is not subject to morals. Things simply evolve in ways that work, until they no longer work, in which case things become extinct.
Vegetarian philosophy is still an interesting one, whether a person agrees with it or not. I think it's a thoughtful exercise if more or less only academic, but from what I understand, humans evolved from the apes that were mostly or entirely vegetarians (I'd have to double check that), and early humans apparently evolved eating mostly plants, until they became more technologically evolved to kill animals with stones and spears.
Interesting topic.
You mean when they are being killed or if physically hurt? I definitely believe that, why wouldn't they?
oldaunt
professional hermit
They also yell when its feeding time, when they are in season, and anytime they get separated from their herd. Cows are actually pretty noisy.
JaniceM
Well-known Member
- Location
- still lost between two shores..
Long ago, I read vegetables (carrots for example) do indeed scream when they're yanked out of the ground... but the sound can't be heard by human ears.
David777
Well-known Member
- Location
- Silicon Valley
My college logic professor would laugh at the way the OP unscientifically, tersely, awkwardly, posed the thread.
All Earth multicellular animal life consumes organic matter nutrients that had previously been alive. Plants, and various unicellular life creates that organic matter from non-organic materials through chemical processes especially photosynthesis.
A more direct question would be the ethics of we out of control, overpopulated, Earth monkeys with economic wealth goals, selling an out of balance range of animal products for food that are destroying the planet. Products most people viscerally enjoy so much they hardly consider the negative effects both to other life on the planet and health of their own bodies. Out of balance nutrition levels alien to how we evolved thus creating many health problems. Global industrial level animal farming that few consumers in this era ever have to actually dispatch and clean themselves versus our ancestors. Thus removing the inherent moral negatives from consumers awareness.
Why I still occasionally catch, kill, clean, and cook fish despite greatly disliking having to kill them because that gives me at least a modest level of awareness in balance of what I am really doing as an entity that requires nutrients.
All Earth multicellular animal life consumes organic matter nutrients that had previously been alive. Plants, and various unicellular life creates that organic matter from non-organic materials through chemical processes especially photosynthesis.
A more direct question would be the ethics of we out of control, overpopulated, Earth monkeys with economic wealth goals, selling an out of balance range of animal products for food that are destroying the planet. Products most people viscerally enjoy so much they hardly consider the negative effects both to other life on the planet and health of their own bodies. Out of balance nutrition levels alien to how we evolved thus creating many health problems. Global industrial level animal farming that few consumers in this era ever have to actually dispatch and clean themselves versus our ancestors. Thus removing the inherent moral negatives from consumers awareness.
Why I still occasionally catch, kill, clean, and cook fish despite greatly disliking having to kill them because that gives me at least a modest level of awareness in balance of what I am really doing as an entity that requires nutrients.
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Knight
Well-known Member
Then there is this.
https://poitoucharentesinphotos.wor...-do-the-english-refer-to-the-french-as-frogs/
Not meant to be derogatory more along the line of trying for humor given the variety of replies.
That's true.
feywon
Well-known Member
- Location
- Rural North Central NM
Glad i don't know those. As it is i've met some obnoxious ones online. When it comes down to it i have little patience with any kind of 'evangelical' (someone who thinks their belief system gets to dictate the lives of others and to judge others with impugnity) including Nutritional and Atheistic ones.
i tend to take a somewhat 'indigenous' pov to food sources: It is not what you eat--but your attitude about it. When my parents hunted and we all fished---we never let food go to waste. We shared with neighbors and they with us. As a Native American friend of mine said recently---'The animals get it'--when it's a matter of food/survival. It is part of the physical reality of this world, this plane of existence.
As for the moral high horse many vegetarians and vegans get on--anyone who has read info suggesting plants have a form of consciousness (much of if replicated by more than one researcher) has got to realize that unless you want to live wholly on synthesized vitamins, minerals and chemicals---you shouldn't get judgmental about eating any food that once had life. It's just an ego boost, a way to see themselves as 'better than'.
Nathan
SF VIP
- Location
- High Desert- Calif.
I'm going to side-step all the dubious(and irrelevant) philosophical arguments and just address the obvious: because eating dirt and rocks only goes so far, and doesn't provide the necessary protein that eating other living things do(does?).
squatting dog
We don't have as far to go, as we've already been
- Location
- Arkansas, and also Florida
TeeJay
Member
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
That's wot I was gonna say, except maybe they DO scream, when we first kill them by pulling them from the ground. We just can't hear them.
Alligatorob
SF VIP
If we survive the risks of war, volcanos, asteroids, etc I am sure you are right. Probably both... Happy I won't be around for that.
We still are, most of us will end up feeding a good population of worms, bacteria, and fertilizing plants. And there are the many tiny creatures that live on and around us feeding on our bodies and waste all the time. Not a vegan in the lot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_microbiome
Also the occasional alligator, shark, bear and other large predators still feeds on us.
I thought our teeth indicated we should be a plant eating type of animal? And that being able to use fire and cook food made meat a more accessible food stuff for us? Though maybe not as significant as us learning agriculture and being able to grow and mill grain.
I'm happy with being a meat eating species but I would be much happier about it if we insisted on humane treatment and slaughter of the animals. I haven't gotten over what I learned during my visit to Boston, that MA had a referendum years ago where the citizens voted to not allow the sale of animal products that didn't have minimum humane care for the animals, and that even though there was a 5 year period for producers to adjust to the law, there was still an egg shortage because the egg producers had not followed the rule that the cage had to be big enough for the chicken to stand up.
From our own chickens I know they have feelings and personalities and I think it is awful that increasing profits by forcing a creature to live in a cage where it cannot even stand up is a bigger priority than humane treatment. I've switched now to buying cage-free type eggs, but all I can find for those are the brown shelled eggs and I would prefer the white shells. I don't understand why the cage-free are all brown, unless there is a type of brown egg layer that is a lot better getting along in a group situation? We had a couple Leghorns that layed white shelled eggs and they seemed calm enough to me, though they were my favorite so maybe they have bigger personalities.
I'm happy with being a meat eating species but I would be much happier about it if we insisted on humane treatment and slaughter of the animals. I haven't gotten over what I learned during my visit to Boston, that MA had a referendum years ago where the citizens voted to not allow the sale of animal products that didn't have minimum humane care for the animals, and that even though there was a 5 year period for producers to adjust to the law, there was still an egg shortage because the egg producers had not followed the rule that the cage had to be big enough for the chicken to stand up.
From our own chickens I know they have feelings and personalities and I think it is awful that increasing profits by forcing a creature to live in a cage where it cannot even stand up is a bigger priority than humane treatment. I've switched now to buying cage-free type eggs, but all I can find for those are the brown shelled eggs and I would prefer the white shells. I don't understand why the cage-free are all brown, unless there is a type of brown egg layer that is a lot better getting along in a group situation? We had a couple Leghorns that layed white shelled eggs and they seemed calm enough to me, though they were my favorite so maybe they have bigger personalities.