Scholar

I think you are making my argument. The most extreme thing we are doing to survive is going to the grocery store, yet we keep justifying the killing of animals by comparing us to carnivores who live in the wild and have to survive every day. We don't need to consume animals, kill them in this way, and we certainly are not predators living in the wild. To me, animals are individuals. I view them as my brothers and sisters. I think it is unfortunate that you would view them as nothing but food. They are living, feeling creatures just like you are. A bear will eat you because he has to survive, and because he has no moral agency. It is sad to me that people today have less respect of animals than our ancestors who actually needed to kill them to survive. They were respectful of each animal, to them they were not just food. They knew that the animals they were killing we no different from them, just trying to survive in a harsh world. It wasn't until the advent of agriculture and religions that view the human as somehow seperate from nature that people started to view animals, and other races of people as property on a larger scale. Animals are not food, they are our brothers and sisters. This is not about drama, this is about compassion. I think you have much yet to learn, but I am the wrong person to teach you.

Let us not talk about your brother, let us talk about you. Whether it is a gaschamber or a knife, as long as you take yourself the right to kill the animal or pay for it's death, I will take myself the right to confront you about it. If you truly believe you need animal products to survive, all I can tell you is to get your information from proper reliable sources. Do you agree that if you do not need to consume animal products to survive, that it would be immoral to buy them and support industries that enslave and kill animals?

I don't think that watching people assassinate their own health makes you happy at all. I don't know why you think that I think that. I also let you do what you want to with your own body, but as soon as you are forcing your own subjectivity onto others, like killing a pig, then I think it is appropriate to keep you from doing this, especially if you do not need the consumption of flesh to survive. You already are imposing your own needs onto others. As long as you take yourself the right to put a pig into a gaschamber, I will take myself the right to confront you about this. You are taking this too personal, I simply want to protect the pig. You do not need to consume flesh to survive, and if you did, you would certainly not need to consume pigs. There are many things that would be consumed far before we would consider killing a pig.

Yes, this is true. But also not true, only from your current perspective this is valid. Relativity itself is relative. This is the beauty of Creation. You will not capture this with the mind, infact you cannot capture this with your own perspective. Any perspective, and belief about relativity you offer, will not escape this. Danio, you are facing the issue of attempting to capture the arational with a rational mind. This within the concept-thought structure will lead to all kinds of loops. It is much like attempting to capture a 3d object on a 2d surface. How could you possible capture the entirety of the 3d object on the 2d surface? It will always be a snapshot of the object. And even worse, if you try to capture all of the 3d object from all it's 2d angles, you will have a mess. There will be lines over lines, contradictions of positions of corners. Corners will be at multiple places at once, and edges too! And you still don't have the 3d object, you still only have 2d shapes. This is what happens when the mind tries to take relativity into the realm of the rational. The arational is unconstraint, rationality is constraint. So, all of this what you say does not really change anything about what I say. Everything I say functions the same way under your relative paradigm of relativity.

I don't understand why this would make you happy. It seems like you want veganism to be unhealthy. Why would you not want it to be healthy? Aside from that, I take science over random articles on the internet.

This is not correct, Keyhole. I don't think everyone can impose their morality unless that morality matches with mine. There is nothing inconsistent about this. In the context of veganism, I think once we have established a certain majority, it will be perfectly moral to enforce this new moral standard by law, so to protect animals from being murdered at the threat of prison. This is not different from how laws work today. I am not fighting my own sense of morality, you simply have not investigated what my sense of morality is. It seems to me this is the case because you are more interested in poking holes than actually trying to learn anything from me. Next time if you are unsure about what my sense of morality is, just ask. I have put some thought into this Keyhole, so please don't be uncharitable. You are currently arguing with a strawman of your own creation.

Okay my brother, have a nice day.

How is it a bad comparison? I think you will be surprised, because eventually people will view the animal holocaust as far worse than any human holocaust, and any type of human slavery. They will look at your comment and think "How could they have not seen the obvious?". It is precisely because you view animals not as individuals, much like people used to look at other races, that you find it so offensive to compare aimals to humans, to compare what is happening to animals to slavery. This is actually the entire issue, that you do not view them as individuals. “When I see cages crammed with chickens from battery farms thrown on trucks like bundles of trash, I see, with the eyes of my soul, the Umschlagplatz (where Jews were forced onto trains leaving for the death camps). When I go to a restaurant and see people devouring meat, I feel sick. I see a holocaust on their plates.” Georges Metanomski, a Holocaust survivor who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising “I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pains of others by recalling my own sufferings.” Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz, Dachau concentration camp survivor “ ‘Never again’ is not about what others shouldn’t do to us. It’s about what we shouldn’t do to others. ‘Never again’ means that we must never again perpetrate mass atrocities against other living beings. That we must never again raise animals for food or any other form of exploitation.” Dr. Alex Hershaft, Warsaw Ghetto survivor “In the midst of our high-tech, ostentatious, hedonistic lifestyle, among the dazzling monuments to history, art, religion, and commerce, there are the black boxes. These are the biomedical research laboratories, factory farms, and slaughterhouses – faceless compounds where society conducts its dirty business of abusing and killing innocent, feeling beings. These are our Dachaus, our Buchenwalds, our Birkenaus. Like the good German burghers, we have a fair idea of what goes on there, but we don’t want any reality checks.” Dr. Alex Hershaft, Warsaw Ghetto survivor “What do they know-all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world – about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.” Isaac Bashevis Singer – a member of a family perished in the Holocaust and a Nobel Prize winner “As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour towards creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right.” Isaac Bashevis Singer – a member of a family perished in the Holocaust and a Nobel Prize winner

Can you see that your ego mind takes this wonderful realization of relativity and turns it into a tool that it can use to serve it's own purposes? Just notice this right now, because right now it is happening. You sneaky little devil. This is why we seperate spiritual insights from morality, because the devil is always tempted to use anything, no matter what it is, to justify itself and it's own devilry. This kind of behaviour has been described in Spiral Dynamics, you are quite literally showcasing excessive relativism. We have all been there, but you will see it will not lead you anywhere. You will return, and the world will still remain as is, just that you have this new perspective. And you will see how your ego will hate it when someone uses relativity against you, like you are right now. Then you will understand "Aha, it is not appropriate to use relativity to dismiss moral arguments!". And then you will have gained an important new insight. See, it is precisely because reality is relative, that this insight of relativity is meaningful only to the degree you make it meaningful. In the grander sense, reality is not relative nor anti-relative. But again, this is useless in the current environment we are in. In this environment, consistency is imporant. This is how we make moral progess. We ask "Why is it okay to enslave a black person but not a white person?". We generate answers, and if we find those answers to be unsatisfying, we have to change. This is just how things go, otherwise you will be reduced to barbarism.

Contemplate when it is appropriate to use relativity and when it is used as a defense mechansim. When we are in a meditation retreat and we are learning about the nature of reality and mind, talking about relativity is appropriate. When I am raping a child and someone calls me out for it, talking about relativity is not appropriate. This should be obvious. In general, to avoid this kind of devilry, I recommend to seperate spirituality from morality, much like you would seperate it from any other type of imaginary tool, like physics. If we are discussing physics, and you keep telling me that all I am doing is relative, and how I am not seeing that all types of physics are just relative to each perspective, then I am actually not doing anything useful. I am actually disrupting the process. You are doing the same when you bring this up in terms of morality. You are just muddying the waters, please google this term.

Yes, morality is enforced by force. If you want to rape a child, you go to prison. If you resist prison, you will be forced to go to prison. This, as always, is only controversial if you really, really want it to be.

What moral implications did the abolishment of slavery have?

@Keyhole Look at how you focus and nitpick at my behaviour when literally the majority of the posts from the owner of this forum are demeaning, belittleling, dismissive and full "ineffective" advocacy. Yet, I bet you didn't point that out a single time. Of course you would not, because all of this is just an oppurtunity for you to shit on vegans. This is why you are here, in every single thread that is about veganism. I have a reason to be here, I advocate for veganism. Why do you keep coming into these threads to belittle and attack vegans? As I said, you are nothing but a gaslighting bad faith actor.

Yes, I love how you nitpick the literal worst days I have within the entirety of of multiple months or years to then point out how bad I am at this. Sure I will admit my heart is closed today, there are reasons for this I will not go into detail. But the fact that you are so dishonest and weasely that you will focus on this, but not on literally 95% of my conduct, is just insane to me. And then you come with snarky comments about how I am a bad advocate and how the animals are unhappy about it. You know what they are truly unhappy about? That you are paying so that they get gassed to death. You are nothing but a gaslighting, bad faith actor.

Nothing you said is relevant though. You can arrive at veganism with the values people already hold, if you apply them consistently it is an inevitability. This is the entire reason why people get so triggered about this topic, because their cognitive dissonance is revealed. I don't actually have to change your morality at all, unless you are a sociopath. I can simply show you were your already present values will lead you to. If this is not successful, I have to use force to impose my morality onto you, in terms of a law or otherwise. Again you are not even engaging with what I am saying, this conversation is completley fruitless. You are failing to grasp the content of what I am saying.

@Keyhole Also, the irony of calling others a failure of advocacy while you are doing nothing but ego attacks is hilarious. But as always, you guys just thrive in hypocrisy. The fact that morality is relative has nothing to do with what we are talking about. Infact, the fact that it is relative makes it so much more important to do honest rational inquiries and remain consistent. This is quite literally the reason why you can enjoy to sit here and write on a computer instead of running away from a maniac trying to murder you and then rape your wife. But apparently you don't understand the importance of this technology we call morality. Your idea of morality is completely self-serving, and because it serves no purpose for you anymore, you just throw it away. This is very easy to do when you are not the one being gassed to death.

You are incredible at gaslighting people, I will refrain from engaging with you again.

Funny how this is such an obvious fallacy that we came up with the same response.

Oh, so it is okay to kill and enslave individuals if I want to lower my horniness levels and adjust my hormones. You must really feel bad for all the pedophiles who are not allowed to live out their own perspectives. It's not at all like you are using spirituality like a devil. No, you are not using it to justify behaviours at all.

It's not possible to engage with you guys, you literally ignore any substantive point and gloss over it. You don't actually even take them time to even attempt to understand and wrestle with what is being said you. Whenver we point something out, you simply ignore the fact that it was pointed out and you move on to some unrelated tangent that requires new arguments. But what to even argue for if you will just ignore it again and move to another tangent. It is incredibly furstrating to have a conversation like this. It is bad faith, which I guess should have been clear from the very beginning since the nature of this topic is someone admitting that they have certained biases. It is incredible that people can talk such nonsense and when it is pointed out they simply don't care. It is so obvious that you say only to actually make yourself out to be the more reasonable person rather than it being actual advice. I have tried both approaches, I have had success with both approaches, and I have had failures with both approaches. Especially certain individuals in here I tried both approaches with and both of them are completely unsuccessful. Most older people will not change, they will die with this kind of speciesism in their heart. This has been the case with literal human slaves, and it certainly will be the case with animal slaves. You actually know nothing about what is effective vegan advocacy, the reason why you are pointing this out is because you don't like when we point out your deeds. You will use any opportunity, including literal virtue signalling, to somehow sneak your way out of this.

If that's what it takes for you to sleep better at night. The mental gymnastics here is unreal.

This is so ironic when it is actually people who consume animals products who have all kinds of diseases and put the entire health care system under stress because they eat at mcdonalds every day. I never had to have a blood test for veganism, I take vitamins that pretty much everyone should take (and animal products are supplemented with those vitamins anyways, you are just consuming them second hand). The food volume consumption is lower with vegans because there is not an entire cow that is eating food so they can eat the cow. Why don't you look at yourself instead of appealling to people who according to you will literally starve to death if they don't consume pigs. I don't see vegans walking around in siberia telling people to starve. I am seeing them walking around in first world countries telling people to stop consuming flesh for nothing but pleasure and convinience. The discussion of whether your brother truly needs to consume pigs to survive is another one, but it is completely besides the point and has nothing to do with what we are talking about here.

So let's reiterate this. Those vegan youtubers who do everything for money and cannot be trusted, when they jump on the anti-vegan trend which generates huge clicks, they suddenly are trustworthy? But the actual science on the matter is irrelevant I guess. Actual valid information comes from youtube videos... How do you feel about the kids who are born to be slaughtered because people like to eat hamburgers?

Why is it that this has not been shown in any study yet? Any deficiency that was found usually was due to some sort of negligence like not taking supplements (B12 for example). And it is the goal of vegans to maximize health, it's just that they have a more unified understanding of health. You always have to consider the health of the animals and the planet as a whole, not just your own. So far the science is showing that a properly planned vegan diet is more healthy than a standard diet. What kind of evidence outside of anecdotal evidence do you have that a properply planned plant based diet would be somehow detrimental for the majority of people?