Hey, valid points. I agree with you. But I just can not support my lifestyle without eating meat - tried being a vegetarian three years ago. Felt very anemic and lost a lot of weight over the course of three months. Ate meat again and sharpened right the fuck up again.
Have thought acquiring a hunter's license - I'm a massive fan of moose and venison, plus I have zero qualms with killing what you eat yourself. It's a fucking fact of life.
Don't get me wrong, meat is the most delicious thing there is, it's great. If you function bad without it, that can also be another reason why to eat it. How you feel is very important - not saying that it's necessarily the right thing to emphasize in your life, but that's simply the way it is, it's very important.
I think killing an animal yourself, is very different, and when I imagine it, it just doesn't feel nearly as evil. I'm not even sure why, but it just feels that way. Some different morals come into play when you are trying to justify hunting and then killing an animal - I'm not sure whether it's some sort of respect for freedom of other beings, or whether it's the fact that it's more "natural".
Not sure whether anyone here played any video games, but in one particular rpg called Morrowind (it's the prequel to Oblivion, Elder Scrolls, which is quite famous I think), when you were choosing your character and it's skills in the beginning of the game, you also had a choice of answering some predetermined questions, and the game would choose a character for you, depending on your answers. First question was:
On a clear day you chance upon a strange animal, its leg trapped in a hunter's clawsnare. Judging from the bleeding it will not survive long. What will you do?
1,Draw your dagger, mercifully ending its life with a single thrust.
2,Use herbs from your pack to put it to sleep.
3,Do not interfere in the natural evolution of events, but rather take the opportunity to learn more about a strange animal you have never seen before.
Rationally, 3 really makes the most sense. There's probably another x animals right now trapped somewhere. Since I did not choose it as my life's goal to help all of these and avoid their pain, is there really any point doing so in this particular situation? Then again, not doing so makes you feel evil. But helping makes you realize, how much of an irrational being you are, and how you only care about things that you see. That's not necessarily bad as it's pretty natural, but it's not something that I like to remind myself, as it's a conflicting thought for me.
Miaou, yeah, things that you don't do yourself are just different. It really all comes down to how "ethical" (in the same sense it is used in the video) you are. Eating meat in today's situation is not something that can be justified ethically... all that matters is just how much you personally care.
It's the sort of thing where the simple redneck answer is pretty much correct imo - "I know that the animals are treated very cruelly (hope that word exists), but I just don't care enough about that to not eat them".
