Oh, what I meant to say was that Alpro are the only soya supplier to guarantee that none of their products are grown on cleared rainforest, so to help the environment, buy their products.

She states: “It has been said that only to an atheist is death the ultimate injury.”

I believe she is confusing death with murder. Most vegans implicitly express their view (and most people’s view) that a quick, painless death is prefereable to severe, prolonged suffering, when they euthanize their companion animals. I imagine many support “right to die” laws also. But even the most pious believer in God and heaven does not want to be murdered, or have their loved ones shot down. I doubt that a gunman’s defense of “Well, I was only hastening their delivereance to the afterlife” would be very convincing to a jury or comforting to survivors.

Not only do we kill animals by the billions each year, we breed them expressly to have them killed as soon as profitable – which is a profound devaluation of their intrinsic worth and intentional violation of their interests – and we do so arbitrarily, for pleasure.

She says: “We are born into a bewildering world where everything feeds off of everything else. If only we could be like plants, which live primarily on pure chemicals, we could finally escape all the ethical dilemmas we must face by the simple fact that we must eat to live.”

We can more like plants – that is, decreasing the amount of killing and suffering on our behalf – by eating a plant-based diet and earnestly looking for and subsequently implementing practical ways to reduce our impact on the earth and its inhabitants. We may not be able to completely escape all our ethical dilemmas caused by having to eat to live, but by doing the best we can to peacefully coexist with the other species of the world (as well as members of our own species), we can go a long way toward removing those dilemmas and bringing our lifestyle more in line with our basic moral principles, including the Golden Rule and acting with compassion; we are not helpless in this respect.

She says: “A vegetarian diet engenders poor health in every individual I’ve met.”

I invite her to meet my wife and me. Or any of the dozens of vegetarians I know. Then we can head over to the cardiac ward and see how many vegetarians and heavy meat-eaters there are. I have to really wonder about statements like this. Where does she live? There are healthy vegetarians at every veg- or animal protection-related gathering in every medium and large town in the country – and in many countries. How can I ascribe any credibility to any of her arguments when she makes statements that are so blatantly, empirically disproved?

She says: “It does benefit the vegetarian, however, in that it confers a sense of moral superiority and allows for the creation of a sense of “us” versus “them”, one of the most basic of human instincts.”

Speaking for myself, and I’m quite sure for many other vegans, when I act in accordance with my conscience, and advocate treating nonhumans with respect and kindness through a vegan diet, I do so because I am compelled to help the victims of cruelty and injustice, and because I believe vegansim is one step toward a far more peaceful world. I would gladly – in a heartbeat – give up any presumed “moral superiority” and “us vs. them” mindset in return for the developed world adopting a vegan diet and including animals in their moral universe. I would shut down my blog and throw out my leaflets and sit on the porch and play guitar, to anyone who walked by, and quite possiby to the squirrels racing up and down the tree, or as an accompaniment to the songbirds’ joyous singing.

Does she see no difference between sawing the limb off a dogwood and sawing the limb off of a dog? Is she saying if she had to make the choice between those two options, she would flip a coin?

Would she swerve to run over the chicken and spare the carrot?

Does she posit that there’s no difference between slicing into a tomato and sticking a knife in the side of a live lamb?

Is that what gets her through her omnivorous day?

There are two common, self-serving, convenient psuedo-metaphysical constructs that remain popular among omnivores as means to rationalize their daily participation in eating flesh and in creating beings just to be killed and eaten.

One is basically “animals have no feelings.” No interest in living, no emotions, no capacity for joy and fear, elation and despair. That has been thoroughly disproven, and it’s also obviously not true from simple observation and common sense. But some die-hard omnis hang onto to it.

The other branch of omni feel-good-ology is “everything is equally sentient and equally capable of feeling.” When taken to its logical conclusion, killing a human and smashing a rock are equivalent. But again this defies not only science but common sense and observation. Can anyone look at the pig mentioned earlier, writhing in pain, screaming, defecating, as he hangs on a hook, and then thrashing wildly as he is dunked into scalding water, still alive and conscious – and compare that to the “suffering” of a plant pulled from the ground?

If plants do feel pain – through some as-yet-undetected mechanism, as they have no nervous system and no detectable pain receptors, then God, or the gods, or evolution, or all three are playing some kind of sick cosmic joke, as the plants have no way of escaping their presumed torment.

Heeding the Occam’s Razor rule, it is far easier to be as compassionate as possible, and to attempt to follow the Golden Rule, and admit when you’re not, than to think up wildly implausible schemes to excuse easily avoidable cruelty. Among its many other virtues, veganism is easy on the conscience.

I’ll respond to Cattleman’s contributions down the road a piece.

I’ve heard & researched all sides (vegan, vegetarianism, omnivore) & Veganism is the most compelling, ethical, & compassionate way to live life. And for the record, I am not vegan but am on a path to be there within the year. It’s amazing how far removed Americans have gotten from their food sources & de-sensitized toward killing others that its become 2nd nature to accept the status quo.

Is there “modern-scientific proof” that you possess a soul? (Do you assume every living being does not have a soul unless proven otherwise?)

Isn’t “their polytheism” vs. “my monotheism” a case of “us” vs. “them” and therefore aren’t you doing the same thing you suggest vegetarians are doing, i.e, contributing towards human blood spilling?

A meat-based diet causes more health problems than a vegetarian one, all other things being equal. A pregnant human is recommened bigger portions of vegetables and fruits and asked to restrict intake of animal products like fish and liver.

However, I don’t see the difference between consuming a chicken and consuming a carrot. Plants are every bit as alive as mammals. I suppose the most non-violent means of harvest would be taking only the fruit and seeds of plants, which does not harm the generating organism and in fact confers it some benefits, namely that of being tended and protected. Still, one is destroying, by it through one’s digestive tract, the ultimate purpose of those seeds, which is to create more of itself.

We are born into a bewildering world where everything feeds off of everything else. If only we could be like plants, which live primarily on pure chemicals, we could finally escape all the ethical dilemmas we must face by the simple fact that we must eat to live.

The designer of our universe is difficult if not impossible to interrogate. we don’t know why things are the way they are. in the face of this frustration, made even stronger by the lack of coherent faith expressed by most vegetarians, which in my experience seems to consist primarily of a naive nature-based polytheism, the vegetarians re-direct their discomfort with a universe that is drenched with blood and pain onto their fellow humans, as if we meat eaters were responsible for a nature “red in tooth and claw.”

Perhaps I am too generous in ascribing any kind of faith to most vegetarians. It has been said that only to an atheist is death the ultimate injury. I don’t think drawing artificial lines between what it is “right” to eat makes the world any better. A vegetarian diet engenders poor health in every individual I’ve met, and, as Cattleman points out, it is far less efficient to get one’s calories completely through plants than through meat.

It does benefit the vegetarian, however, in that it confers a sense of moral superiority and allows for the creation of a sense of “us” versus “them”, one of the most basic of human instincts. It could be argued that this instinct has caused far more blood to be spilled than the practice of eating meat: far more human blood. Instincts can be reshaped, modified by dint of our complex brains. But creating a world in which we do not have to consume to survive is still beyond the horizon of our current abilities.

“Livestock production preserves open spaces, the cleaness of our water, and the biodiveristy of our wildlife.”

What??? Last time I checked, livestock production in the U.S. as it currently stands (ie, factory farms) encourages the overuse of open spaces, pollutes the water supply and the air (ever been downwind of a big pig farm?), and decreases the wildlife population through the conversion of their natural habitat into more places to cram in more livestock. I’m not saying that meat production is the only cause of these problems (because urban sprawl has a big hand in these issues as well), but I would say it’s one of the causes.

A couple of other thoughts:
1. You made a comment that Ryan’s site is a place for him to “justify his actions.” But it seems like the person who seems to feel a need to justify his actions and push his viewpoint is you, not him. Otherwise, why would you come back and post here multiple times? It doesn’t seem like you really want to have a discussion, you want to try to tell someone why you think they are wrong.
2. You said meat consumption is an integral part of a balanced diet and also necessary to our survival. Speak for yourself. I’ve been a vegetarian for over 10 years and a vegan for four of those years, and not only am I still standing, I feel better than I ever did when I ate meat and have become open to a much greater variety of foods than most Americans eat. So I think a more accurate statement would be that you feel meat is necessary to your survival. But it’s not necessary to mine.

If being a compassionate person and having concern for the environment and the other species we share it with is having an “overactive conscience,” than may mine overreact for the rest of my life.

This is to say that I have seen videos from Peta and not from Peta and they both displayed the same thing happening in factory farms. I don’t think a conspiracy to stage cow slaughtering and supply the inhumane footage to Peta to boost the vegeterian foods industry is in order. You seem to insinuate that.

Honestly, how do you expect me to reply with a statement like that? Referring to animals as “soulless brutes?” How are they any less likely to have souls than humans? And does that somehow imply that they don’t feel pain, or kinship, or loss, or fear? Absurd and disproven many times over.

This is a common problem with liberals. Since your arguments are based on emotion and not reason, when they are questioned, liberals take it personally.

Not true. And making a blanket statement like that is just ill-informed. I can’t speak for all “liberals,” but I make all of my decisions based on emotions and facts. There’s plenty of reason behind my decisions, though they may be different from your reasons. Doesn’t make them any less valid.

discussion, which you seem incapable of fostering.

And where are the personal attacks coming from, again?

OK, fine. Let’s back it up a bit.

These animals are treated humanely and have a very high quality of life.

I’d *love* to see where you can find any information to justify this statement. I, on the other hand, have seen plenty of footage, read plenty of literature, and talked to people who have first-hand knowledge of the brutal torture that goes on in factory farms. Tell me how a pig being hung from its feet and having its throat slit without anesthesa is humane. Tell me how a cow getting a bolt in the head (which rarely kills it on the first try) is humane. Tell me how a chicken forced to live in a space too small to even allow it to spread its wings or turn around is humane. Tell me how living in a feces and urine-infested factory is humane. Tell me how chickens getting their beaks cut off without any anestetic is humane. Tell me how a calf being torn from its mother after hours or days and then being made purposely anemic just to make a more palatable skin color is humane.

Folks need a dose of reality.

You’re telling me.

I’m not trying to justify anything, and I’m not quite sure what leads you to believe so.

These animals are treated humanely and have a very high quality of life.

You have got to be kidding me. Seriously, you’re joking, right?

That’s pretty good for a soulless dumb brute.

Wow. Just… wow.