This here is the very crux of the issue. organicAnt, your argument is appealing to an emotional response within the listener. If the listener doesn't have that same emotional foreground as you, you literally having nothing to back up your points. Wouldn't cows prefer to live? Don't I feel sorry for factory farmed animals? Why and do I need to eat meat? Is there scientific reason to eat meat? All irrelevant. You must provide at least some objective, scientific grounding or formal argument for your statement, otherwise you're just expressing emotion based opinions. Which, as subjective opinions, are very messy to formally debate.On hubski, feelings aren't as good as facts, and appeals to emotion in debate without anything to back them up are going to get you nowhere.