I'm not going to repeat myself nor will I take notice of personal attacks. You have a problem with comparing "harvesting of animal products" to human suffering, yet you can't explain why. That's called cognitive dissonance coupled with speciesism. People get touchy about comparing animals with humans as if humans are not animals. Do you not agree that suffering is the same regardless of species? I'm not saying that a human salve is the same as a chicken slave, I'm saying that both have the capacity to feel pain and cruelty and both strive for a free life and both deserve it. My final thought is this; If thanks to science in today's modern western society, we know it is possible to live healthy, comfortable lifestyles where no animals are harmed, why should we still chose to do so?
Can't I explain why? On one side, you have animals processed and harvested for food. The problem of needless cruelty in this process exists. On the other side, you have...human suffering. Poverty, war, rape, crime, etc. I believe that the suffering of humans is of an order of magnitude more important than any suffering an animal could go through. I do not agree that each pain is the same. Both have the capacity to feel pain. I doubt an animal knows what cruelty is, only that it is being hurt. An animal does not strive for a free life any more than a tree wants to be in the sun. It would benefit it, but it does not dream of freedom. That sounds like mumbo-jumbo, but it's the only way I can think to put it. I do have a problem with needless pain in the harvesting process, but I think that food production is a need. There is no such reason for the suffering of humans. If I think humans and animals are different, than apparently I am a "speciesist." It is certainly possible to live without consuming animal products, but why bother?
I'm obviously wasting my time. I'm sorry for wasting yours. Have a nice life....why bother?
Oh, can't explain in return? That's called giving up. "Have a nice life." Glad to see you abandon the hunt as soon as you lose the advantage. Oops, did I trigger you by saying "hunt?" EDIT: What an overly simplistic view of the world. What else could I have expected.
Don't get too worked up about OrganicAnt. They've been a constant, infuriating, stubborn debate partner on this topic for a long time, entering the fray originally by going onto our weekly grubski post and only posting pictures of young animals, as if it would lead to us feeling bad about eating meat, without backing up anything said. If you want to see a full discussion we had on meat and got into rather heated arguments with said poster, refer to this post by TNG so we could all be open. I... went off quite a bit after they decided to equate eating meat to genocide, after an already long rant about the topic at hand.
I believe that the suffering of humans is of an order of magnitude more important than any suffering an animal could go through.
That part really makes me wonder how insensitive to animal suffering people can be. Even if you only consider the physical pain. This is something that most human beings are very afraid of and try to eliminate it from our society almost completely, while leaving billions animals annually to suffer the pains of terrible amounts . Do you really think that animals don't feel the pain or feel it different than we do? In fact we are just another animal. Do you really think that it is alright if a one cow at a 10,000 is skinned alive and concious, just so the costs of meat could be reduced by few cents?
If we are just another animal is more a philosophic kind of question I don't aspire to answer. Still it's easy to see that we are an animal and we have a lot in common with them. And even if you consider human suffering more important than animals', consider the amounts. There are around 60 billions land animals killed every year, that is 10 times more there are people living. Not every human on Earth is suffering dramatic conditions, while more than 90% of those animals do.
Do you mean to imply that one human suffering will always be worth than any number of animal suffering? That would make animal suffering worthless forever.