Posted by Johnboy at dialup-4.232.138.91.dial1.losangeles1.level3.net on May 02, 2004 at 13:12:25:
In Reply to: right, but are they enough posted by Suplee_Mental on May 02, 2004 at 12:58:15:
You're doing a pretty good job defending this point so I won't get in full bore; but I thought I'd put in a point.
Some of the posters here are going on about principles, which is nice, but what *are* the principles? From an evolutionary standpoint, *all* that matters is that the species survives and prospers.
Meat eating made it possible for early humans to do something other than look for food all day. Vegetarian animals are looking for food all the time because the calorie value of vegetarian foodstuffs is generally low.
The last 100,000 years of human evolution have been about meat eating. Not to exclusion, and our ability to be omnivores has helped; but vegetarian societies have backslid. Just take a look at the world power India used to be and what it is now.
Now, due to our intelligence, we *could* survive, maybe for a long time, without meat. I know some of the smaller women do OK on vegetarian diets for a long time. I tried vegetarianism and got sick pretty fast.
BUT: Our brains and our bodies have evolved to eat and use meat. The synthetics don't do the trick. It's not moral, or immoral, to eat meat. It's just what we are. Now, if you're a meat eater and have moral objections to factory farming, which I do, you can buy organic meat, range free eggs, etc. THAT to me is the moral choice. But vegetarianism goes against 100,000 years of evolution. And so vegetarianism is neither good nor bad, and we are all allowed to make our own choices; but it's against our nature.
John