I envisage Bill Gates being perpetually beset by a giant paperclip shaped demon - 'I see you're suffering eternal torment. Would you like more torment? YES/OK'
I quite like reading reviews of the Bible. They are very entertaining except for the excessively positive ones which don't really ring true. You can take a joke too far you know.
There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who think that '1' can mean '2', '0' can mean '1' and that presumably '0' doesn't exist at all.
As a follower of the First Church of Raymond (see sig) I am utterly offended by every image in existence, and all the images that don't exist for that matter. I demand they all cease to exist, or in the case of the latter, come into existence, or you'll burn in hell for this, reality!
Any excuse to get on my hobby horse... *ahem* I mean it's a deep-seated religious belief. Whatever.
They were in the atmosphere of Neptune, not in space. The realisation of how nerdy and pedantic I must be to be compelled to point that out is actually making me feel quite ill.
I think I can present that 'special reasoning concerning God', at least for santa claus. I am agnostic but I do not believe in Santa Claus, and I'll explain why. There are arguments for the existence of god that are quite complicated, such as the various ontological arguments (not Anselm's, that one is quite weak). Until I have unpicked them, I will reserve judgement on whether god exists. Note that I do not comment on the nature of god, be it the christian god, FSM, Invisible Pink Unicorn etc., as they are all types of god and therefore not relevant to this argument - when discussing aetheism and agnosticism we are primarily questioning the existence of god, not god's nature. There are no even vaguely convincing arguments for the existence of Santa Claus, and lots of arguments against - the total absence of free presents on Christmas day, for one. Fairies may exist somewhere (not necessarily on earth) so that could well remain unsolved.
Ever tried giving up eating or breathing? It's really not very easy.
Humans need a reason to get out of bed in the morning
Again, you'll find if you stop getting out bed entirely life will become quite unpleasant very quickly. We exist by default and generally select the softest options available. A reason is not required.
We are wired to require greater meaning, whether it exists or not.
That's an assumption. You'd have to check all the humans. Speaking as a potentially evangelical agnostic I can say at the very least that so far I do not appear to be so wired. Although I have been known to make mistakes.
I do consume animal products as I am not sure whether it is wrong or not to do so.
It's possible that I'm now misunderstanding your entire point, here.
Sorry, that was a mistake on my part. I meant to type 'I do not consume...'. Incidentally, whether I consume animal products or not does not alter the argument. It would just make me something of a hypocrite if I did.
They do not have that right, whether people are around or not.
Good, more progress. You contend that animals do not have the right not to be killed 'for some objectively weak reason', and that humaans do have that right.
But "rights" assume some premises, or set of precepts from which they can be derived... I contend that they can be objectively derived from the very nature of our existence... They are what we make of them,
Let us assume this is true - the truth in this matter can be derived from the nature of our existence. No-one has ever come to a concrete conclusion on what facets of our existence they are derived from and what the resulting rights are. There is still debate and the debate may continue forever. You have your opinion, but it is an only an opinion. There is no absolute proof. Can we at least agree that the debate on the basis of rights is still open? It has been discussed by people far intelligent than us for a very long time. To claim that you know for certain what the answer is without a thorough proof would be presumptuous.
the question of hunting animals that aren't threatening your life
So, this isn't really about hunting at all, for you, then, is it?
It isn't, and it never was. As you will recall from my original post it 'hinges on whether animals have rights'. This question is as yet unresolved.
You're rather carefully saying you don't know about these things. But buried behind your frequent protestations of ignorance is the clear shape of an agenda, which you really should just spell out.
I have made my stance quite clear. I do consume animal products as I am not sure whether it is wrong or not to do so. I have no agenda. I am not an animal rights activist. Furthermore, my agenda is irrelevant. My argument would still hold whether I had a hidden agenda or not.
If you choose to kill someone - show the intent, act on it - for some objectively weak reason (meaning, it's not self-defense), then you are through your actions waiving your right to be safe from the same action by someone else. It's that simple.
So, you believe we have a 'right to be safe from the same action by someone else' - that is, you have a right not to be 'kill(ed)... for some objectively weak reason'. Good, we're getting somewhere. I assume you believe the same right does not apply to some of the animals you hunt - that they do not have the right not to be killed for exactly the same 'objectively weak reasons (meaning it's not self-defense)'. Can you confirm this assumption to aid the progress of this discussion?
That's such a straightforward proposition that it pretty much goes without saying, but I'm saying it to refute your notion that we "don't know why" it's not OK to kill other people. Of course we do, and that's it. Case closed.
Case closed? I doubt it. We are agreed that people have a right not to be killed for 'some objectively weak reason'. Allow me to draw your attention to two theoretical bases for rights: natural rights and legal rights. Read these and it will become immediately clear that the argument is not closed. The basis for rights is not known. As the basis for rights is not known, we cannot know if animals have the same rights as us or not. My argument stands.
A grizzly bear is not going to sign onto that social compact.
No it won't. But we're not just talking about grizzly bears are we? We're talking about all hunting, including your hunting of birds, which probably weren't threatening your life. Let's just assume that killing an animal that is trying to kill you is fine. We can now ignore the question of grizzly bears. It still leaves the question of hunting animals that aren't threatening your life.
Then look at the canines and forward-pointing eyes of gorillas, which are herbivores
Sorry, omnivores. Just like you, me, dogs, baboons, etc. Gorillas are observed eating meat, and routinely feast on termites and other forms of protein.
I did a google and it appears you're right. Oh well, it makes no difference to my argument. The debate over the basis for the concept of rights is unlikely to be settled by examining the shape of our teeth.
then they are just as capable of being used for eating human meat, an act generally considered wrong
No, you were talking about killing people, not eating them.
My argument applies to both the killing and/or eating of people and the killing and/or eating animals. Killing and/or eating people is generally considered wrong, killing and/or eating animals generally is not. The reasons why are not known. It is the same problem.
Did you just claim that there is no difference between the two and that there is also difference?
No. Let's boil it down:
1) There is no difference, ethically, between personally choosing to kill someone/something and choosing to pay someone else to do it for you. 2) There IS a difference between choosing to kill something (say, for a meal, where the death of that something is the purpose of the action) and the consumption of a good or service that, in the course of its production, included the accidental death of someone working on it (using your example).
Right. I was talking about point 2, and have been from the beginning, as my indicated by my mention of soybean farming. You agree with me. We can leave this section of the discussion behind.
Driven, as I've mentioned, by as many or more hours observing and interacting with said creatures than many a grad-student biologist. I come by my very considered opinions honestly, and have reinforced (as well as fine-tuned) many such notions through the years.
The extent of your experience with animals makes no difference, as there is no evidence that the manner of your experience is relevant to the discussion at hand. I will clarify my argument:
It is the general opinion that killing people is wrong and I'm sure we can agree, at the very least for the sake of argument, that it is. Why this is the case is not clear. Some people think it is a matter of religion. Some say it is a product of evolved instincts. There are other arguments too, but none of them are conclusive. Nevertheless it is clear that humans possess properties or a property that means we should not kill them. If not, the immorality of killing humans is baseless and can be applied to anything. As we do not know what these properties are, we cannot know if animals also possess them or not. As we cannot know if animals possess them or not, any length of experience of animals is of no relevance to our discussion with our current level of understanding as we do not know what to look for. If we were discussing a lesser matter, such as the importance of mildly inconveniencing animals, then perhaps this would not matter. We are not. We are discussing matters of life and death of those that may have rights and such matters are generally considered too important to ignore.
That's it in a nutshell. It has nothing to do with synapses. There is no proof that brain development is key to this discussion, as explained above. As an aside, I mentioned brain structures and so forth in my original post to hint towards why I do not also avoid consumption of plants and minerals. I may be wrong not to do so, but this would not prove any of your arguments right, it would just make both of us potentially more guilty. It has nothing to do with squeamishness. It has nothing to do with anthropomorphisation. It also has nothing to do with opinion. You are expressing opinions. I am telling you what I don't know. I have not balanced up some facts and come to a tentative conclusion. I don't know whether it is wrong to kill animals or not. Nor do I know whether anyone else does. I do know that no-one has ever presented me with an argument that has convinced me otherwise. If you consider my claim to ignorance to be a matter of my opinion then I would very much like to hear your evidence for this, as it would suggest you know more about me than I do and could be extremely enlightening.
Are you of the opinion that you're protecting animals from a violent end by killing them?
Don't put words in my mouth.
It was not my intent to put words in your mouth nor in my opinion did I do so, as evinced by my use of a question - 'Are you of the opinion...?'. However this too is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
You wrote
whatever urge you have to stop one set of humans from killing another... should likewise transfer to the protection of the morally equal herbivores that are going to be torn apart.... You can't have it both ways
If animals do indeed have rights (unproven, as I have noted) and we have a responsibility to protect them from each other (which I do not claim to be the case) then we are both guilty of a new and separate offence to the one under discussion. If they have rights and we don't have a responsibility to protect them from each other then our discussion is unaltered. Therefore this line of discussion it irrelevant too.
Where's your outrage?
I have no outrage in this matter. I do not condemn those that kill animals or eat meat as I do not know whether it is right or wrong
No, it's not like killing a man vs some farmer died cropping your food, it's more like killing someone with your bare hands versus paying someone to kill him.
No it isn't. Both murdering someone yourself and paying someone to commit murder are deliberate, unnecessary, a direct and predictable consequence of your actions and entirely your fault. When someone is killed by production of goods it is neither deliberate (being the product of accident, negligence or indifference), nor unnecessary (assuming the goods are basics and not luxuries, i.e. the original example, soybeans) nor a direct consequence (being the result of many complicated processes, any number of which are impossible to make completely safe) nor entirely your fault (being a matter of shared responsibility). You mention butchers - I never made any mention of this. I wasn't talking about eating meat. You may have misunderstood the original argument.
There is still the fact that they kill them, and it's probably fair to say a lot them enjoy it.
I can tell that you've never been hunting. Only a broken person takes actual pleasure in the death of the animal. Again, I know nobody like that.
OK, we'll assume as well that hunters don't enjoy killing. They still do it. This does not affect the main part of my post - the 'hinges on animal rights' part. N.B. I have never been hunting.
However this hinges on whether animals have rights and feelings as humans do.
I'm comfortable saying that the animals I hunt don't have the same capacity for abstract dread that you and I have.
With regard to their feelings you clearly have developed strong opinions. However, as I mentioned, they are just opinions. You do not know for sure. Nobody does. It is an unanswered question, and may be unanswerable. No-one is even close to providing an answer. You could lay the 'don't have the capacity for abstract dread' claim on anyone or anything. They could have stronger feelings than you for all you know. You are taking a chance by assuming they don't.
Animals rights? If protecting them from a violent end is just as compelling to you as protecting a fellow human from a violent end
Are you of the opinion that you're protecting animals from a violent end by killing them? Shooting things is generally considered violent. You are applying a different standard to them than you are to us. I'm not claiming that doing so is wrong. I'm claiming it is not known whether it is wrong or not.
why aren't you out feeding coyotes your table scraps so that they won't kill deer? If you convey rights on those animals, you're conveying responsibility, as well. That's another entire discussion.
There is a difference between actively killing and failing to prevent death. If we have a responsibility to actively preserve the lives of all those with rights to the best of our ability then our obvious failure to do so would clearly indicate we are all mass murderers. Is that really what you're claiming?
there's a big difference between actively killing and 'killing by proxy' as it were
No, there isn't. And if you really mean that, then you have absolutely no business discussing ethics at all. Come on, think it through.
Let's look at some hypothetical examples:
1: You, and many more like you (such as myself), consume goods and continue to consume these goods. Eventually this leads to the death of someone involved in the production process, be it by accident or negligence. 2: You murder someone.
Are you seriously telling me that you are of the opinion that these two are identical? As you claim 'if you really mean that, then you have absolutely no business discussing ethics at all', a strongly worded statement, then presumably your proof is conclusive. I would like to hear it. As it is likely that you are linked to someone's death somewhere down the line by consumption, please provide your proof before you sentence yourself to whatever punishment you think is appropriate for the murderer you consider yourself to be. Incidentally, if you support the death penalty, I would ask you to end your life humanely.
In closing, I offer you an opinion of mine. It's unsubstantiated. I sometimes get the impression that people often formulate their reasoning to excuse their existing behaviour and not the other way round. Did you weigh up the arguments involved before becoming a hunter, or formulate them after? You mention your experience with animals quite a lot, and draw conclusions upon them. Was the substantial part of this experience of animals gained before you started killing them?
Everyone here is jumping on the misleading article concerning this game. The fact is that killing is strongly discouraged in this game.
If their spirit score is below 40, they are the enemy and will try to kill or subvert you.
'Subvert'? This game is promoting the idea that anyone of substanitally different opinion to yours that tries to convert you to their point of view can be killed? That's not discouraging killing. Furthermore it's a game where sooner or later you'll have to kill someone, self-defence or not. It's not tetris. Killing people is an integral part of the gameplay. It was deliberately created that way. Again, that's not what I'd call discouragement.
As far as the Crusades, Inquisition, etc., if you actually look at what transpired there, it had very little to do with true Christianity.
They claimed they were Christians and presumably believed they were and for the rest of us that's enough. If claiming you are of a religion has no impact on whether you really are of that religion then everyone that lives, has ever lived and will ever live is now a member of Raymond whether they like it or not. That's fine by me but you'll probably disagree. Or perhaps you are suggesting they're not christians because they did wrong? If that's the case then there must be very few christians indeed - 'he who is without sin' and all that. Or maybe it's the extent of their wrongdoing? Are you suggesting some people are automatically disbarred from being christian by the extent of their immorality? That doesn't sound very christ-like to me. In short, the fact that some christians disown the behaviour of other christians is no consolation at all to the rest of us.
I came close recently. I was going to visit a friend abroad and was taking some tins of baked beans as you can't get them in her neck of the woods and she likes them. My vile and treasonous attempt of course immediately alerted the terrr police and I was forbidden from doing so. Not that they had anything against the beans themselves, it was the sauce they came in that was a threat to civilisation. Since I couldn't take them with me I briefly considered eating them before realising this would make me a cheapskate, an idiot and quite possibly, a couple of hours into the flight, the first ass bomber. Instead I left them with them, so a friendly but obstructive Heathrow customs officer is now the happy owner of three free tins of Tesco own brand baked beans (assuming they didn't have to blow them up to neutralise the threat). Every job has its perks I guess.
Um, just to clarify things, people who hunt are sadists.
Never met one. Every hunter I know goes to a lot of trouble to make sure that the animals they eat - which live in the wild and pretty much never die of old age - meet a rather instantaneous end.
The original poster may not be spot on but they could well be in the right ballpark. Sadists are those that enjoy inflicting pain. Let's assume that all hunters are like you and kill their prey painlessly. There is still the fact that they kill them, and it's probably fair to say a lot them enjoy it. There isn't a word for this that I know of. The etymology of 'sadism' is with the Marquis de Sade. Therefore I suppose one that enjoys killing could be, what, a Bundyist? A Shipmanist? Something like that.
However this hinges on whether animals have rights and feelings as humans do. If they do, then arguments like 'every hunter I know goes to a lot of trouble to make sure that the animals... meet a rather instantaneous end' are irrelevant. Saying 'I do kill people but I'm very careful they don't suffer' wouldn't wash, and that is what your original argument would be a tantamount to if animals do have the same rights as us. The same logic applies to 'we're putting them out of their misery' and 'it's good for the environment' arguments. If animals have no rights, similar to inanimate objects or automatons, then you can do what you like - hunt them, set fire to them, torture them (if 'torture' is an appropriate word for something that would feel no pain), whatever. Many people sit somewhere in the middle, depending on what the animal is. They believe you can kill some animals (e.g. cattle) as long you don't draw it out, but killing some others (e.g. pet dogs) is a no-no. There is also the possibility that animals have greater rights than humans, or even alternative rights, but this is usually dismissed out of hand. The problem is that no-one has ever seemed to provided a concrete answer to the question of animal rights. There is a spectrum of opinion but it is only opinion. Some religious people will claim we have a god-given right to kill animals, but this is a matter of belief (as many religious people will admit when pressed) and has never been proven to the best of my knowledge. Animal rights activists will claim they suffer just as we would, but they too have no real proof - you can't even tell for certain if the person next to you is definitely capable of suffering, let alone whether an animal is.
My personal leaning? As there is an element of doubt, and most animals we consume share many traits with us (complex central nervous system, various brain structures, certain behaviours etc.) I take the safe option and neither hunt nor consciously consume animal products. True, the farmer that grows my soybeans may kill some animals but there's a big difference between actively killing and 'killing by proxy' as it were. There may be children suffering in sweatshops to make the clothes you wear but if you were to go and find them and make them suffer with your own hands then people would start to regard you in a very different light, no matter what your reasoning.
I have read obituaries that have been more positive than slashdotters' comments on the Iraq War.
Considering the number of deaths involved, slashdotters' comments reading like obituaries is quite appropriate. 50,000 or so obituaries would be about right.
Or both.:) I joke. This doesn't refute the original idea. Let's assume that all members of congress are intelligent. If it were true that religious people are less intelligent (whether this is the case or not I couldn't tell you) you would expect there to be a greater proportion of atheists in congress than in the population at large - if they were randomly selected from the intelligent. They are not randomly selected, they're elected. This brings other factors into play. What these factors might be I will leave you to think on. I will say this though: is it really inconceivable that an amibitious person - a politician even - would lie about their personal opinions in order to gain popularity?
So let me get this straight, it's not okay to say that atheists, as a group, are immoral
I don't recall ever claiming any such thing. However, if there were evidence for such a claim then it might be fair. I can't imagine such evidence existing, as morality is a highly debatable matter with the arguments for various stances not always being firmly rooted in reason. The nature of intelligence is also a highly debatable matter, but possibly less so than morality.
he's still better than the nasty right-wing fucker who immediately preceded him... Can't say that about Bush and his predecessor.
Hmm, that's debatable - much as it pains me to say so as, notwithstanding the fact that I'm English, I lean more towards the Democrats than the Republicans. The attack on the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan during the Clinton administration may have caused more deaths than Bush has managed throughout his entire term. Without the medicine the factory produced tens or hundreds of thousands are thought to have died. It may also have destabilised the area and lead to many deaths through conflict.
It would be nice to dream that independent farmers would be growing these crops and that a Grange-like grassroots organization would be behind them. All the little farmers joined into the happy collective.
I will have to take your word for it. I made no such suggestion. You are aware that not all globally available crops are distributed from the one single place? There are many crops that are grown in the countries they are consumed without being from a 'grange-like grassroots organization'.
Don't you think your parents would sue the mega-corporation if you died from an overdose?
The way people don't sue when their relatives OD on alcohol?
Think about cigarettes and the liability lawsuits there.
But their replacemsnts would be at least as bad, if not worse.
Now I would suggest that was 'very funny' if it wasn't so perverse. They surely can't be worse than the thousands of people that have been killed whilst distributing or trying to prevent the distribution of drugs. Or worse than the support for the smuggling of guns and people that the existing drug transport routes create. Surely not worse than all the people that have been imprisoned for possessing something that is almost entirely harmful only to themselves, the deaths from dangerously cut drugs that would be eliminated by a properly regulated market, the endless waste of taxpayers money and government resources enforcing unjust and impractical laws or the failure to treat addicts brought about by social stigma and legal risk.
Slashdot Mirror
I envisage Bill Gates being perpetually beset by a giant paperclip shaped demon - 'I see you're suffering eternal torment. Would you like more torment? YES/OK'
I quite like reading reviews of the Bible. They are very entertaining except for the excessively positive ones which don't really ring true. You can take a joke too far you know.
http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Bible-English-Standard-Version/dp/1581345968/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291975710&sr=1-3
I think you'll find that's 'midgit' not 'midgets'. Heathen.
Lo:
http://www.venganza.org/him2.jpg
There are 10 types of people in this world. Those who understand binary, and those who think that '1' can mean '2', '0' can mean '1' and that presumably '0' doesn't exist at all.
The first group of people are correct.
As a follower of the First Church of Raymond (see sig) I am utterly offended by every image in existence, and all the images that don't exist for that matter. I demand they all cease to exist, or in the case of the latter, come into existence, or you'll burn in hell for this, reality!
Any excuse to get on my hobby horse... *ahem* I mean it's a deep-seated religious belief. Whatever.
They were in the atmosphere of Neptune, not in space. The realisation of how nerdy and pedantic I must be to be compelled to point that out is actually making me feel quite ill.
FYI Atlas was supposed to have held up the sky, not the earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(mythology)
I think I can present that 'special reasoning concerning God', at least for santa claus. I am agnostic but I do not believe in Santa Claus, and I'll explain why. There are arguments for the existence of god that are quite complicated, such as the various ontological arguments (not Anselm's, that one is quite weak). Until I have unpicked them, I will reserve judgement on whether god exists. Note that I do not comment on the nature of god, be it the christian god, FSM, Invisible Pink Unicorn etc., as they are all types of god and therefore not relevant to this argument - when discussing aetheism and agnosticism we are primarily questioning the existence of god, not god's nature. There are no even vaguely convincing arguments for the existence of Santa Claus, and lots of arguments against - the total absence of free presents on Christmas day, for one. Fairies may exist somewhere (not necessarily on earth) so that could well remain unsolved.
Why even eat or breathe?
Ever tried giving up eating or breathing? It's really not very easy.
Humans need a reason to get out of bed in the morning
Again, you'll find if you stop getting out bed entirely life will become quite unpleasant very quickly. We exist by default and generally select the softest options available. A reason is not required.
We are wired to require greater meaning, whether it exists or not.
That's an assumption. You'd have to check all the humans. Speaking as a potentially evangelical agnostic I can say at the very least that so far I do not appear to be so wired. Although I have been known to make mistakes.
Sorry, that was a mistake on my part. I meant to type 'I do not consume...'. Incidentally, whether I consume animal products or not does not alter the argument. It would just make me something of a hypocrite if I did.
Good, more progress. You contend that animals do not have the right not to be killed 'for some objectively weak reason', and that humaans do have that right.
Let us assume this is true - the truth in this matter can be derived from the nature of our existence. No-one has ever come to a concrete conclusion on what facets of our existence they are derived from and what the resulting rights are. There is still debate and the debate may continue forever. You have your opinion, but it is an only an opinion. There is no absolute proof. Can we at least agree that the debate on the basis of rights is still open? It has been discussed by people far intelligent than us for a very long time. To claim that you know for certain what the answer is without a thorough proof would be presumptuous.
It isn't, and it never was. As you will recall from my original post it 'hinges on whether animals have rights'. This question is as yet unresolved.
I have made my stance quite clear. I do consume animal products as I am not sure whether it is wrong or not to do so. I have no agenda. I am not an animal rights activist. Furthermore, my agenda is irrelevant. My argument would still hold whether I had a hidden agenda or not.
So, you believe we have a 'right to be safe from the same action by someone else' - that is, you have a right not to be 'kill(ed)... for some objectively weak reason'. Good, we're getting somewhere. I assume you believe the same right does not apply to some of the animals you hunt - that they do not have the right not to be killed for exactly the same 'objectively weak reasons (meaning it's not self-defense)'. Can you confirm this assumption to aid the progress of this discussion?
Case closed? I doubt it. We are agreed that people have a right not to be killed for 'some objectively weak reason'. Allow me to draw your attention to two theoretical bases for rights: natural rights and legal rights. Read these and it will become immediately clear that the argument is not closed. The basis for rights is not known. As the basis for rights is not known, we cannot know if animals have the same rights as us or not. My argument stands.
No it won't. But we're not just talking about grizzly bears are we? We're talking about all hunting, including your hunting of birds, which probably weren't threatening your life. Let's just assume that killing an animal that is trying to kill you is fine. We can now ignore the question of grizzly bears. It still leaves the question of hunting animals that aren't threatening your life.
I did a google and it appears you're right. Oh well, it makes no difference to my argument. The debate over the basis for the concept of rights is unlikely to be settled by examining the shape of our teeth.
My argument applies to both the killing and/or eating of people and the killing and/or eating animals. Killing and/or eating people is generally considered wrong, killing and/or eating animals generally is not. The reasons why are not known. It is the same problem.
Right. I was talking about point 2, and have been from the beginning, as my indicated by my mention of soybean farming. You agree with me. We can leave this section of the discussion behind.
The extent of your experience with animals makes no difference, as there is no evidence that the manner of your experience is relevant to the discussion at hand. I will clarify my argument:
It is the general opinion that killing people is wrong and I'm sure we can agree, at the very least for the sake of argument, that it is. Why this is the case is not clear. Some people think it is a matter of religion. Some say it is a product of evolved instincts. There are other arguments too, but none of them are conclusive. Nevertheless it is clear that humans possess properties or a property that means we should not kill them. If not, the immorality of killing humans is baseless and can be applied to anything. As we do not know what these properties are, we cannot know if animals also possess them or not. As we cannot know if animals possess them or not, any length of experience of animals is of no relevance to our discussion with our current level of understanding as we do not know what to look for. If we were discussing a lesser matter, such as the importance of mildly inconveniencing animals, then perhaps this would not matter. We are not. We are discussing matters of life and death of those that may have rights and such matters are generally considered too important to ignore.
That's it in a nutshell. It has nothing to do with synapses. There is no proof that brain development is key to this discussion, as explained above. As an aside, I mentioned brain structures and so forth in my original post to hint towards why I do not also avoid consumption of plants and minerals. I may be wrong not to do so, but this would not prove any of your arguments right, it would just make both of us potentially more guilty. It has nothing to do with squeamishness. It has nothing to do with anthropomorphisation. It also has nothing to do with opinion. You are expressing opinions. I am telling you what I don't know. I have not balanced up some facts and come to a tentative conclusion. I don't know whether it is wrong to kill animals or not. Nor do I know whether anyone else does. I do know that no-one has ever presented me with an argument that has convinced me otherwise. If you consider my claim to ignorance to be a matter of my opinion then I would very much like to hear your evidence for this, as it would suggest you know more about me than I do and could be extremely enlightening.
It was not my intent to put words in your mouth nor in my opinion did I do so, as evinced by my use of a question - 'Are you of the opinion...?'. However this too is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
You wrote
If animals do indeed have rights (unproven, as I have noted) and we have a responsibility to protect them from each other (which I do not claim to be the case) then we are both guilty of a new and separate offence to the one under discussion. If they have rights and we don't have a responsibility to protect them from each other then our discussion is unaltered. Therefore this line of discussion it irrelevant too.
I have no outrage in this matter. I do not condemn those that kill animals or eat meat as I do not know whether it is right or wrong
No it isn't. Both murdering someone yourself and paying someone to commit murder are deliberate, unnecessary, a direct and predictable consequence of your actions and entirely your fault. When someone is killed by production of goods it is neither deliberate (being the product of accident, negligence or indifference), nor unnecessary (assuming the goods are basics and not luxuries, i.e. the original example, soybeans) nor a direct consequence (being the result of many complicated processes, any number of which are impossible to make completely safe) nor entirely your fault (being a matter of shared responsibility). You mention butchers - I never made any mention of this. I wasn't talking about eating meat. You may have misunderstood the original argument.
OK, we'll assume as well that hunters don't enjoy killing. They still do it. This does not affect the main part of my post - the 'hinges on animal rights' part. N.B. I have never been hunting.
With regard to their feelings you clearly have developed strong opinions. However, as I mentioned, they are just opinions. You do not know for sure. Nobody does. It is an unanswered question, and may be unanswerable. No-one is even close to providing an answer. You could lay the 'don't have the capacity for abstract dread' claim on anyone or anything. They could have stronger feelings than you for all you know. You are taking a chance by assuming they don't.
Are you of the opinion that you're protecting animals from a violent end by killing them? Shooting things is generally considered violent. You are applying a different standard to them than you are to us. I'm not claiming that doing so is wrong. I'm claiming it is not known whether it is wrong or not.
There is a difference between actively killing and failing to prevent death. If we have a responsibility to actively preserve the lives of all those with rights to the best of our ability then our obvious failure to do so would clearly indicate we are all mass murderers. Is that really what you're claiming?
Let's look at some hypothetical examples:
1: You, and many more like you (such as myself), consume goods and continue to consume these goods. Eventually this leads to the death of someone involved in the production process, be it by accident or negligence.
2: You murder someone.
Are you seriously telling me that you are of the opinion that these two are identical? As you claim 'if you really mean that, then you have absolutely no business discussing ethics at all', a strongly worded statement, then presumably your proof is conclusive. I would like to hear it. As it is likely that you are linked to someone's death somewhere down the line by consumption, please provide your proof before you sentence yourself to whatever punishment you think is appropriate for the murderer you consider yourself to be. Incidentally, if you support the death penalty, I would ask you to end your life humanely.
In closing, I offer you an opinion of mine. It's unsubstantiated. I sometimes get the impression that people often formulate their reasoning to excuse their existing behaviour and not the other way round. Did you weigh up the arguments involved before becoming a hunter, or formulate them after? You mention your experience with animals quite a lot, and draw conclusions upon them. Was the substantial part of this experience of animals gained before you started killing them?
'Subvert'? This game is promoting the idea that anyone of substanitally different opinion to yours that tries to convert you to their point of view can be killed? That's not discouraging killing. Furthermore it's a game where sooner or later you'll have to kill someone, self-defence or not. It's not tetris. Killing people is an integral part of the gameplay. It was deliberately created that way. Again, that's not what I'd call discouragement.
They claimed they were Christians and presumably believed they were and for the rest of us that's enough. If claiming you are of a religion has no impact on whether you really are of that religion then everyone that lives, has ever lived and will ever live is now a member of Raymond whether they like it or not. That's fine by me but you'll probably disagree. Or perhaps you are suggesting they're not christians because they did wrong? If that's the case then there must be very few christians indeed - 'he who is without sin' and all that. Or maybe it's the extent of their wrongdoing? Are you suggesting some people are automatically disbarred from being christian by the extent of their immorality? That doesn't sound very christ-like to me. In short, the fact that some christians disown the behaviour of other christians is no consolation at all to the rest of us.
I came close recently. I was going to visit a friend abroad and was taking some tins of baked beans as you can't get them in her neck of the woods and she likes them. My vile and treasonous attempt of course immediately alerted the terrr police and I was forbidden from doing so. Not that they had anything against the beans themselves, it was the sauce they came in that was a threat to civilisation. Since I couldn't take them with me I briefly considered eating them before realising this would make me a cheapskate, an idiot and quite possibly, a couple of hours into the flight, the first ass bomber. Instead I left them with them, so a friendly but obstructive Heathrow customs officer is now the happy owner of three free tins of Tesco own brand baked beans (assuming they didn't have to blow them up to neutralise the threat). Every job has its perks I guess.
The original poster may not be spot on but they could well be in the right ballpark. Sadists are those that enjoy inflicting pain. Let's assume that all hunters are like you and kill their prey painlessly. There is still the fact that they kill them, and it's probably fair to say a lot them enjoy it. There isn't a word for this that I know of. The etymology of 'sadism' is with the Marquis de Sade. Therefore I suppose one that enjoys killing could be, what, a Bundyist? A Shipmanist? Something like that.
However this hinges on whether animals have rights and feelings as humans do. If they do, then arguments like 'every hunter I know goes to a lot of trouble to make sure that the animals... meet a rather instantaneous end' are irrelevant. Saying 'I do kill people but I'm very careful they don't suffer' wouldn't wash, and that is what your original argument would be a tantamount to if animals do have the same rights as us. The same logic applies to 'we're putting them out of their misery' and 'it's good for the environment' arguments. If animals have no rights, similar to inanimate objects or automatons, then you can do what you like - hunt them, set fire to them, torture them (if 'torture' is an appropriate word for something that would feel no pain), whatever. Many people sit somewhere in the middle, depending on what the animal is. They believe you can kill some animals (e.g. cattle) as long you don't draw it out, but killing some others (e.g. pet dogs) is a no-no. There is also the possibility that animals have greater rights than humans, or even alternative rights, but this is usually dismissed out of hand. The problem is that no-one has ever seemed to provided a concrete answer to the question of animal rights. There is a spectrum of opinion but it is only opinion. Some religious people will claim we have a god-given right to kill animals, but this is a matter of belief (as many religious people will admit when pressed) and has never been proven to the best of my knowledge. Animal rights activists will claim they suffer just as we would, but they too have no real proof - you can't even tell for certain if the person next to you is definitely capable of suffering, let alone whether an animal is.
My personal leaning? As there is an element of doubt, and most animals we consume share many traits with us (complex central nervous system, various brain structures, certain behaviours etc.) I take the safe option and neither hunt nor consciously consume animal products. True, the farmer that grows my soybeans may kill some animals but there's a big difference between actively killing and 'killing by proxy' as it were. There may be children suffering in sweatshops to make the clothes you wear but if you were to go and find them and make them suffer with your own hands then people would start to regard you in a very different light, no matter what your reasoning.
Considering the number of deaths involved, slashdotters' comments reading like obituaries is quite appropriate. 50,000 or so obituaries would be about right.
Or both. :) I joke. This doesn't refute the original idea. Let's assume that all members of congress are intelligent. If it were true that religious people are less intelligent (whether this is the case or not I couldn't tell you) you would expect there to be a greater proportion of atheists in congress than in the population at large - if they were randomly selected from the intelligent. They are not randomly selected, they're elected. This brings other factors into play. What these factors might be I will leave you to think on. I will say this though: is it really inconceivable that an amibitious person - a politician even - would lie about their personal opinions in order to gain popularity?
I don't recall ever claiming any such thing. However, if there were evidence for such a claim then it might be fair. I can't imagine such evidence existing, as morality is a highly debatable matter with the arguments for various stances not always being firmly rooted in reason. The nature of intelligence is also a highly debatable matter, but possibly less so than morality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intel ligence#Religiosity_and_education_in_the_United_St ates
Hmm, that's debatable - much as it pains me to say so as, notwithstanding the fact that I'm English, I lean more towards the Democrats than the Republicans. The attack on the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan during the Clinton administration may have caused more deaths than Bush has managed throughout his entire term. Without the medicine the factory produced tens or hundreds of thousands are thought to have died. It may also have destabilised the area and lead to many deaths through conflict.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shifa_pharmaceutiNor mine (see sig)!
It would be nice to dream that independent farmers would be growing these crops and that a Grange-like grassroots organization would be behind them. All the little farmers joined into the happy collective.
I will have to take your word for it. I made no such suggestion. You are aware that not all globally available crops are distributed from the one single place? There are many crops that are grown in the countries they are consumed without being from a 'grange-like grassroots organization'.
Don't you think your parents would sue the mega-corporation if you died from an overdose?
The way people don't sue when their relatives OD on alcohol?
Think about cigarettes and the liability lawsuits there.
Those court cases were brought about because tobacco companies didn't admit to their knowledge of the dangers of smoking, not because smoking is dangerous.
But their replacemsnts would be at least as bad, if not worse.
Now I would suggest that was 'very funny' if it wasn't so perverse. They surely can't be worse than the thousands of people that have been killed whilst distributing or trying to prevent the distribution of drugs. Or worse than the support for the smuggling of guns and people that the existing drug transport routes create. Surely not worse than all the people that have been imprisoned for possessing something that is almost entirely harmful only to themselves, the deaths from dangerously cut drugs that would be eliminated by a properly regulated market, the endless waste of taxpayers money and government resources enforcing unjust and impractical laws or the failure to treat addicts brought about by social stigma and legal risk.