Something I Quite Don't Get About Vegans, Help Me Understand Please..?

Question

One of the main arguments about veganism is that they believe humans should not use and exploit animals, be it for food, clothing etc.. They also believe that no animals are higher and lower than each other and humans are just as equal in their right to life as any other animal.

Now, animals don't care about eating other animals. A lot of them do.. they do not question what they eat. Now if animals can go and eat other animals in the wild then how come us a humans, or fellow animals, cannot eat them? After we all we are animals too and therefor since other animals eat meat then how come humans cannot?

Answer 1

An animal has claws and big fangs to take their prey down and kill it instinctually, and QUICKLY, just as nature intended. Animals will also(for the most part) eat the entire animal and leave little waste (except for the skin and hair and they even eat that sometimes). We as humans have flat round teeth and small hands with brittle, thin nails. We don't catch or eat meat with our fingers. If we still needed large teeth and nails, evolution would have provided us with these (infact, our larger teeth and molars have been proven to no longer be necessary, just as our appendix and tonsils are). Each animal has its own set of physical tools to eat what they need. Humans don't have these physical tools like other animals in the wild. The animals we kill do not die instantly, they are poked and proded and have their legs ripped off, eyes gauged out, private parts removed, and broomsticks shoved down their throats and in their butts. It is a horrible, disgusting, disturbing industry. Millions of animals are not just killed, they are tortured and abused! Not to mention the antibiotics, hormones, and steroids that the animals are fed while they are alive. This is not at all what nature intended. If there were better, stricter laws, more USDA inspectors who did their jobs properly, and a country who was not more interested in money than animal and human welfare, maybe some vegetarians would be omnivores. We live in a cruel, man-made world, and many people waste meat and throw it in the garbage if it is not completely eaten... but an animal died for them to eat that meat and they don't seem to be aware of or appreciate what that means.
That is why I believe, at this point in time in America, I should not eat meat and others shouldn't either but everyone has their own choice and I'm not about to make a decision for anyone.

From a website:
"A typical slaughterhouse kills up to 1,100 pigs every hour, which makes it impossible for them to be given humane, painless deaths. The U.S. Department of Agriculture documented 14 humane slaughter violations at one processing plant, where inspectors found hogs who “were walking and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.” Because of improper stunning methods and extremely fast line speeds, many pigs are still alive when they are dumped into scalding-hot hair-removal tanks—they literally drown in scalding-hot water. "

Go to youtube.com or peta.com and check out the videos about factory farming. You might then understand.

Answer 2

Well, there is a big difference between a lioness going after a gazelle for the pride's dinner and a what humans do billions to get meat. I mean, yeah, it's sad the gazelle has to die, but at least she had a pretty good life before being taken down, so that's not exploitation, now, is it? The cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, etc. bred, mutilated, and killed for their flesh, their eggs, and their milk suffer from the day they are born to the day the are brutally slaughtered.

Furthermore, humans have a conscience, something that has not been conclusively proven to exist in nonhuman animals. Many vegans recognize that some animals must eat meat to survive, but humans are not in that category, so there's no reason for us to eat them.

Answer 3

I personally don't think that humans shouldn't eat animals. What I have a problem with is humans RAISING animals to eat, making them grow up in artificial conditions, and then slaughtering them on an assembly line. That is entirely different from going out in the wild and catching animals, like other animals do.

Answer 4

I think that the masses of animals that are cruelly treated, over stimulated with hormones and killed so that you and I can have meat in sterile containers at the ready is the real problem that vegans have with eating meat and using animal products. We can buy these products without thinking of it as a a creature that was alive. I know if I had to kill an animal to eat meat I'd be vegetarian too.

Answer 5

I'm a vegetarian, but I'll answer your question.
For your first point- I don't think vegans consider animals equal to humans precisely, they just have a higher regard for the lives of all sentient beings.
Second- animals certainly do eat animals.
A) They may need meat to survive- which we don't
B) They don't have the intellectual capabilities to question whether or not to eat other animals (we do)
Humans can eat meat, but we also can choose not to.

Answer 6

I never thought about the animals. It's all about me me me. Number one in my life is ME. That said, I want to eat the healthiest food possible for me.

So, I studied nutrition, biology, food, etc. and quickly learnt that humans are actually herbivores. No, not omnivores, and definitely not carnivores.

I was brought up in a society that doesn't give a second, or even a first, though about what they put in their mouth, as long as they think it tastes good or is fun etc. But, I also found that what I thought tasted good, actually didn't at all. I had been programmed to eat it all my life and all that salt, sugar, meat, fat, junk food, etc. just ruined my ability to taste anything that was not bursting with flavour. Everyone putting salt, ketchup, sauces, on everything... because they cannot taste their food.

So, I eventually learnt about other things that affected my health... pollution, chemicals in my drinking water, medical industry run by pill pushers... I learnt about the abuse of animals, the pollution the industry creates, the environmental destruction... The NO. 1 think that shapes our world of destruction is food. What we choose to eat affects the world around us. No other think on the planet has as huge an impact as what we put on our plate. Agriculture is the biggest industry in the world and it shapes the human world.

So, even if you don't care about the animals, eating them, or their abuse, etc. they are affecting your health in other ways, whether you eat them or not. Besides, we are pigging out on meat today in N. America -- that's the problem. Moderation is what we need. Most people on the planet that use meat, use it as a *condiment*. One piece of meat (that an American eats at one meal) will last a whole family a week in most other places in the world. My wife is from China, and they grew up rich, and still didn't pig out on meat like Americans, but stuck to traditional meals; a little meat added to a dish was just for flavour, nothing more.

Answer 7

I think 'We were "designed" to be adaptable' sums it up. We evolved eating meat as well as plants, but just as most people no longer NEED to live in caves or kill animals in order to wear their skins as clothing, so we no longer NEED to kill animals for food.

It's a choice.

You are wrong in supposing that vegans believe animal life to be equal to human life; I don't and I don't know any vegans who do.

Answer 8

Humans *can* but vegans choose not to. The difference between me and a lion is twofold: the lion HAS to eat meat to survive whereas I don't, and the lion has no responsibility to weigh its decisions against a code of ethics whereas I do. My decision to live vegan is a decision to live according to my personal ethics. Nobody's asking you to make the same choice.

Answer 9

Actually vegan people know that we are the most advanced species on Earth, that is why we are able to respect the rights of lower species, even if they taste good.

Isn't the point of being human to have the ability to feel compassion for others and think outside of primitive needs and desires?

I choose to live by the Golden Rule or "ethic of reciprocity".
I view it as hypocritical to live by this rule and insert words or twist the meaning into something that only applies to human to human interaction when most versions make no mention of any specific species.

Answer 10

Becuase were not eating them in the wild. Were genetically engineering them , trapping them in confined cages with fecies & urine at thier feet (and blood) and then feeding them hormones & antibiotics and then slaughtering them in a most cruel way. its not even closer to the same thing as a wild animal eating aohter in the wild.