Vegetarianism. Seriously? (A Debate)

OP, after reading through this thread you seem like a pretty reasonable and personable guy, just to get that out of the way. I'll also include the obligatory "I'm not one of those BAD EVIL PUSHY type vegans who wants EVERYONE TO BE JUST LIKE THEM", because it's true. I'm really not. But I'm also not going to pretend that this is just a "to each their own" kind of issue like a lot of people in the thread are, because I don't really think it is for most people who sincerely take the time to try to think about and answer it.

I think when it comes down to it and all joking aside, most people subscribe at least generally to the notion that we as individuals shouldn't be the cause of unnecessary harm in the world. We just don't like to think of the things we personally like to do as causing harm or as unnecessary.

The basic ethical argument is that just because we might /like/ to dominate fellow animals that are capable of thinking and suffering (though for the most part obviously not approaching humans' degree of rationality or self-awareness), kill them, and use their bodies to make food, clothing, cell phone cases, etc doesn't mean we /ought/ to, especially in a first world country in the 21st century where we don't /need/ to. We need to use living things for at least some of those purposes, sure, but we live in a time and place where we can choose plant or mineral based materials made from things that are demonstrably incapable of thinking or suffering in the way that animals are.

It does seem plausible to say that at some point in the past and/or in some parts of the world having meat and dairy in one's diet might be a nutritional necessity for humans because of geographical limitations, resource scarcity, limited knowledge about nutrition, etc, but I would guess that it has never been the case for a single person posting in this thread for as long as they've lived. It can be legitimately hard to internalize after a lifetime of having animal-eating reinforced by everything and everyone around you, but just because we've evolved this far as omnivores doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't individually adjust our "natural" behaviors for cultural or ethical reasons. There are many "natural" parts of our evolutionary heritage that we have found reason to broadly reject as unacceptable: genocide, rape, people as property, cannibalism, random aggression, theft, and kicking puppies, just to name a few.

And, by the way, that antibiotic-laced, ammonia-cleaned, and growth-hormone-engineered machine-shaped frozen burger patty, cut from from a test-tube-bred cow fed via conveyer belt with genetically modified corn husks, on a refined white bread bun made with hydrogenated oil and sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, sitting next to fries made from a potato that is legally regulated as a pesticide? Not exactly "natural" either.

Without the nature/necessity argument, it seems that the only remaining reasons to eat meat are (1) social convention and/or habit dictate that we should (i.e. it's more convenient for us in our specific time and place) and (2) because we enjoy the taste (though for most people it seems like just not eating meat for awhile makes the thought of doing so pretty repellant). Both of those frankly seem like pretty shaky reasons when weighed against the killing and/or suffering of literally billions of animals, shady meat and dairy industry practices, heart disease, colon and prostate cancer, etc.

Just my two cents, you know, since you asked.

so when the day comes that its economical to grow cows, chickens etc.. without brains that will take away the ethical reasons right? since they wont think/feel pain.

Question for you - out of all the posts where vegetarians have very politely and eloquently discussed their reasons for being vegetarian, with only a handful of 'meat is murder' type posts and a few actually debating the issue (politely), why the statement that many vegetarians are angry and defensive?

Question for you - out of all the posts where vegetarians have very politely and eloquently discussed their reasons for being vegetarian, with only a handful of 'meat is murder' type posts and a few actually debating the issue (politely), why the statement that many vegetarians are angry and defensive?

I skipped over this one... on Page 8 alone, one Veggie questioned my competency as an attorney. And another one explained that I take steroids, and would likely die soon of heart failure.

Point - but I would not call that many compared to the folks who were not.