So many things I want to say. I am a white, nonhomosexual, Southern Baptist man. Eating meat is a personal choice. So is being a homosexual woman. The letters I read in your rag telling me that eating meat is bad seem to come from those kinds of people.
I live in Leicester in the Newfound community across the street from a now-defunct slaughterhouse. If I had lots of money, I would buy it and refurbish it to its former glory. At present, I must transport my animals over an hour away to slaughter. Thank goodness I am allowed to harvest my chickens at home.
Humans will never look back in time and say, “Why did Granny eat meat?” The answer is because it tastes good.
It is very inappropriate to compare eating meat to killing Jewish people. God has given man dominion over the animals. We are to care for them, fatten them up and eat them.
I have purchased the book [The Ethical Meat Handbook] and use it almost daily. I eat vegetables, also. There are those who say that plants have feelings, also. Am I to stop eating them?
— Clifford Andrew King III
Leicester
RE: Humans will never look back in time and say, “Why did Granny eat meat?” The answer is because it tastes good.
Eating dog meat might taste good, too, but we do draw ethical lines. Even Andy Rooney thinks so!
Most of us think of vegetarians as nuts and I’m not a vegetarian but I wouldn’t be surprised if we came to a time in 50 or 100 years when civilized people everywhere refused to eat animals. I could be one of them. Of course, I’d be pretty old by then.”
Andy Rooney
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/28/60minutes/rooney/main2048965.shtml
In the US not eating dog meat is a matter of emotional attachment, not ethics or morality.
There’s nothing “personal” is the world! EVERYTHING that you do affects everyone else. Many of the first world problems are because people think that they can do whatever gratifies them without an effect on anyone else. That is patently not realistic, but egocentric thinking.
Egocentric? Like trying to conform others to your beliefs?
Pot? Meet Kettle.
Aw yea, here we go again.
think critically, it is considered gauche to merely cut and paste the same comment you made from the last time this non issue appeared in the Mtn X to this article. Try your hand at writing a new piece.
For reading Andy Rooney’s memoirs about being a reporter for the Allies in WWII and having to see the death camps for one of the first in after they were liberated, I’ll go out o a limb and say eating meat was not the first thing he thought about as Jews were exterminated, not raised for food.
The author who claims God gave Man dominion over animals has some issues to get over too, namely believing in fairy tales but If that’s the worst of it…
at least he values the sacrifice other animals make for the Circle of Life.
In order to truly play the Devil’s Advocate (a personality flaw on my part to be sure), the point about plants feeling pain is oft raised but never addressed.
Hmmmmm.
Boatrocker,
The point about Andy Rooney is that he evolved, and believed that humankind would evolve, too.
If you think plants feel pain, and you want to mitigate that pain, you should:
1). eat fewer animals, since animals consume huge quantities of plant food in order to produce meat.
2). put aspirin on the lawn before mowing.
Okay, #2 sounds sarcastic, but I say it to make a point. Plants don’t try to run away when you go to kill them, and they don’t have similar nervous systems, pain receptors, etc. Are you really equating gouging out a dog’s eye with pulling a carrot out of the ground?
Really, why not just admit that animals suffer and die for you food, and while it isn’t necessary, you just don’t care about animals? No need to throw up silly arguments about plants feeling pain, just own up to your beliefs. That would make sense and be consistent with your behavior.
Really? You obviously never tuned in every Sunday for Andy Rooney.
Boatrocker rocks! Love your higher insights!
I eat meat and I enjoy it.
I don’t care if other people do or don’t eat meat.
I _do_ care if other people are jerks and try to preach to me about whether I should be a vegetarian. That only makes me more committed to eating meat.
The assertion that “god has given man dominion over animals” is a lame justification for eating meat. Christianity is just a belief and the bible is just a book. There are over 4,200 different religions out there. There’s nothing worse when people act like there belief is the only one.
There are other interpretations of the bible. That’s not how I interpret it and I trust inner guidance and what is most compassionate over any book! Dominion, to me, is a responsibility to care for other living things! I don’t preach to others about their food choices but I choose to live a life with as little harm to fellow living beings. Never missed eating meat for over 35 years and so many delicious vegan options!
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