If those crows didn't eat that possum, deadly bacteria would grow inside it's carcass and a child might touch it, a dog could eat it, livestock could eat grass poisoned by it. You should thank crows and vultures for being able to get rid of dead bodies and eliminating the threat of potentially lethal pathogens.

Though I guess I don't really have a right to say this...as I got mad at the crows for picking at the lifeless body of a possum-roadkill.

it really is jus the food chain. it's all just apart of the big ol' ecosystem. We eat them, or they eat us, someone dies, and worms pick at the carcass, bacteria do their thing, trees suck it up... and so on and so forth, and life goes on.

Doc it's true you need to run for political office or something

Christ guys cut it out I'm blushing.

yup Doc said it best as usual

I think along the same lines as DrS. He was able to put it a little more succintly than I could, as per usual.

exactly as soon as some one can convince a polar bear (largest land carnivore) or a grizzly (largest omnivore but eats primarlily meat) to go veggie is the day I'll go veggie

Do bears have the right to eat salmon? If so, we have the right to eat chicken. It's the food-chain.

I think you missed the point of this thread. This thread is not about animal cruelty. It is about whether or not humans have the "right" to eat meat.

I think a lot of you are forgetting a very important reason why some people don't eat meat. In fact, I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned.

The reason why I don't eat a lot of meat isn't because I think it's cruel to kill animals for food, it's because I don't believe in the inhumane killing methods that are practiced on livestock these days.

I don't have a problem eating meat from an animal that live like true prey (running around, acting natural, etc).

Free-range, yummy.

-e

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But honestly, are chickens anywhere near danger of extinction? Are they rare animals? Do they majorly contribute to the ecosystem? No. So I really have no regret when I eat chicken.

That wasn't really my point.

Your points are well taken, Glove. That's the best explanation that I've heard.

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Originally posted by bluedemocrat:
Animals learn "right and wrong" through conditioning. They never stop and think "is this right (or wrong)?" before they act.

The same, in large part, is also true for humans. Our "right and wrong" are a product of our social conditioning. The consistency of morality across the world, I believe, is the product of a logical progression of mutually beneficial social pacts and systems that we've made. The ones that are universal are the ones that are inherently good and generally fitting with human nature. Survival of the fittest applies to societies also.

One thing, I might add, is that animal consumption is virtually universally a-ok, barring specific religous biases towards or against certain animals.

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Then why didn't Hitler have the right to experiment on the mentally retarded? I see no difference really.

Simply put, because the rest of us vehemently disagreed with him. And we also had the collective power to put him down. Had the tables been turned, experiments on the retarded would most likely be common today. Although, as I said before, if this somehow goes against human nature (possibly instinctual protection of kin or species), it might not hold up in the long run. That would be an interesting sociological question.

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Don't we often kill animals when they attack/kill humans? To me, that's like executing an insane person.

They're not the equivilant of an insane person though. They're natural predators, and humans can be prey. We, as the prey, kill the animal that is a threat to us. We don't excute an insane person who may be a threat because they are still a human and thus fall under the mutual pacts of human society. They do not have a rational or normally operating mind, and thus are not really accountable for thier actions a normal person would be. This differs from a normal person who realizes that they are breaking societies codes when they commit murder.

Animals, on the other hand, possess no reasoning, and therefore are removed from our societal pacts against murder. They're completely under natural law, and in natural law, there is no protection or garuntee of life. Thus, if something is a threat or a resource, you can kill it. Our concepts of conservation are a product of our rational mind, not an inherent "natural balance".

So basically, it goes like this: If we somehow become the food source for some higher being, they have a "right" to eat us. It is up to us to communicate our reasoning to them and integrate them into a mutally beneficial pact. If we fail at that, then the relationship between us and the predator is entirely under natural law. We either organize and fight, or we get eaten. We don't nessessarily *want* to be eaten, but we would have no right to live. If you can't do anything about that, well, too bad.

According to the Bible, we can eat meat.

...Like I ever cared what the Bible said...

But honestly, are chickens anywhere near danger of extinction? Are they rare animals? Do they majorly contribute to the ecosystem? No. So I really have no regret when I eat chicken.

Animals learn "right and wrong" through conditioning. They never stop and think "is this right (or wrong)?" before they act.

A dog's concept of right and wrong is different from ours. We have to train it to follow what we feel is right.

A dog with a litter has to teach its children what is right and what is wrong. When a playful puppy bites its mother too hard, the mother will quickly bite back to show the puppy that what it did was wrong, and the puppy will learn that biting mom has consequences. In a wolf pack, the lower ranking wolves know it is wrong to mess with the Alphas. These things are taught. Just like the rights and wrongs of human society are taught. It's not automatic.

No they don't EG. Anyone who owns a dog can tell you that.

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They do not have a sense of what is right or wrong.

Yes they do.

That's because survival of the fittest is involuntary, clpo. Which is why we, as humans, are incapable of it.

The lion does not kill the sick lion with the intent of weeding out a stupid gene. The lion does this because that lion is a liability, and he doesn't want to feed it anymore. Very simple.

The human kills off a human it considers inferior because of complex social and genetic reasons. Such is the case of Hitler's experiments on the mentally retarded, and extermination of Jews, homosexuals, minorities, etc. They weren't sickly or incapable of contributing to society, like the sick lion.

Of course, no one said absolute relativity was flawless...