now convinced "it's in our nature"

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If you've seen the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, you'll know what I'm talking about.

I truly believe now that destruction is in our genes. Take any toddler. They'll rip apart anything you give them. They'll hit and slap and bite and lie all without ever being taught to. We've never taught Olivia to hit or kick or bite but she will if she doesn't get her way. She'll tear apart something we give her that, by itself is nice and meant for her to learn with but what's she do with it? Tear it apart and leave it in pieces or throw it across the room or something.

I've always thought that lying is a learned behavior. Same with hitting and kicking. When she won't go to bed at night, she'll claim to have "poo" (that means she's got a poopy diaper). We'll check her and she's not even wet. We'll lay her down when she doesn't want to go go bed and she'll flail her legs to kick mommy or even when mommy is holding her, she'll (Olivia) actually hit her (mommy).

Is there hope for humanity?

good parenting is the only hope for humanity, digger. It is all up to you!

Puppies rip, tear and shred.

Cats kill mice and birds.

Plants kill other plants.

To live is to kill and to kill is to live.

It doesn't matter if you're vegan, you're still killing life and you're still inflicting a lot of pain - it doesn't go away simply because you can register it.

If you dwell on it, you'll get nowhere.

G.K.Chesterton once said something to the effect that Original Sin was the only Christian doctrine that could be empirically proven.

I was called sad and pathetic in this forum once for saying that children were barbarians and needed to be civilized. I still think that, but it's not like I hold it against them or try to beat the devil out of them. I thought I was just stating a fact. I've raised five kids and most of them turned out civilized. The grandkids are turning out nicely civilized also.

There are many kids however that pick up not to do those things the first time or two they are done back to them. I'm not saying hit, kick, bite, hair pull back. They'll run into another kid that will do that for you. I think a lot of really young kids just flat out don't realize it hurts, just that it works. Coping and control skills are usually learned, but the basic instinct is to lash out or escape in some way (I think lying can fall into escape attempts in a way). Patients is another skill that kids have to learn because it goes against survival instinct in a lot of ways. Young children and babies scream and cry for needs to ensure they are met. Of course knowing that does no good when a kid is in full blown tantrum mode.

I think it is because we have a brain built upon a lizard brain. Seriously, the same brain as a crocodile at the core. This gives us our feral responses. I know plenty of people who think with nothing BUT that brain.

Quite right. Kicking, screaming, lying, etc. are natural human responses, moral values and the concept of proper behaviour are something needed to be imposed on kids while growing up which they would learn such things, the 'good' behaviour seems something learned from outside sources, artificially if you will, and the 'bad' behaviour something within naturally, so yeah, pretty much the thing is just as the title of your thread says.


From the perspective of The Day The Earth Stood Still, I hope it isn't, the earth would probably be better off without humans. Anyway, I concur with you on this, humanity is not that great.


Interestingly enough, that's part of the problem, and I doubt the level of hope to be enough.

There's a big difference between killing carrots and potatoes compared to killing cows and pigs.

Plants have no central nervous system. They have no physical structures with which to consciously interpret their surrounding, they can neither think nor feel, they have no personal interests, they can neither fear death nor mourn the loss of loved ones, as they have none. They cannot comprehend their own existence. Yet non-human animals like cows and pigs can do all of these things: non-human animals have thoughts, feelings, interests, they have friends and lovers, the mothers nurture their children. They want to live their lives without pain and suffering, just as humans do. There is simply no comparison between confining thinking, feeling creatures and subjecting them to a life of torture, and raising, killing, and eating plant life. The plants never know the difference.

Of course it is virtually impossible to avoid inflicting 100% of the suffering you might cause by living. Does this mean that we should throw up our hands in defeat and cease all efforts to avoid causing suffering? Does our inability to achieve perfection mean that we have the right to cause physical or emotional suffering wherever we go, whenever the mood strikes? No, of course not. Our inability to be perfect does not exempt us from the necessity of trying to be good.

Our current world is very violent: people die from hunger, illness, exposure, war, every day. The backdrop against which you're judging a baseline level of suffering-that-we-all-cannot-avoid-causing is very much skewed toward the violent. Imagine if we were all much more intelligent and compassionate (as we may well evolve to be if we can avoid annihilating our own species). Imagine how much easier it would be to avoid causing suffering in a world that promotes and supports compassion, on the interpersonal, social and global levels. Imagine if compassion were built in to our governments, our industries, our education systems, our societies, our art. How do you think we might get there? I think we get there by making compassionate choices, by doing our best and helping others to do their best. Going vegan is one easy way to put a huge, measurable dent in the amount of suffering that you, yourself cause.



Or you'll go vegan.

Who died and made you king of the plants.

How do you know what they can and can't feel.

They have Kirlian auras and other (crap) stuff.... maybe they're just the protrusions of multi-dimensional pan-galactic beings.

Just because you don't think something feels pain - doesn't mean that it doesn't feel pain.

That's what people felt about dogs and autistic people in the 1800s..

Actually plants do feel. There is a reaction to "pain" so to speak and there have been a few studies that observed this. Many plants also react to their surrounding. Carnivorous plants do this very obviously, but many flowers follow the sun as it moves, release chemicals in reaction to a threat, and are even stimulated by sound (such as talking or music). Fungus (although not technically plants, still fall into vegan friendly food category so apply here) are extremely responsive to their surrounds. I'm right there with you on torturing a create just because it is a food source is totally wrong. We do not yet really understand how plants communicate, but there is clear indication that they do. There is a lot wrong with how animals that are used for food are often raised, but raising, killing, then eating both plants and animals is part of our life cycle. Just because you opt for one over the other does not make the one you are ok with eating any less alive before you needed to eat it.

Sorry for continuing the tangent. I just really dislike people who get mad that others still eat meat and justify it by the same means they criticize the meat eaters for. I'm cool with the whole animal's rights thing, but don't try to force your choice on someone else please by making them to be a monster for eating what we are built to eat.

This first dawned on me too, when my twin sons, just under a year old, started biting each other viciously if one got in the other's way, had a toy the other wanted etc. I was horrified! My sweet innocent little children, who had never been exposed to one drop of violence, were instinctively inflicting harm on another person just to get what they wanted! Before then, I had wrongly assumed that something like violence was mostly a learned behaviour, and that careful screening of what media they were exposed to and good examples set by the adults around them would just naturally produce peaceful, gentle children. Uh huh. Right. It's more like a primal blood lust programmed right in, that a parent has to carefully train a child to master.

The study to which you were referring was discredited:

"The most famous effect of Kirlian photography occurred when a plant leaf was “photographed,” then a section was torn away and the leaf was rephotographed. A faint image of the torn-out section was still seen in the second photo. Since the same glass plates had been used, it is believed that moisture from the missing portion was providing the ghostly image. Since the glass plates used as dielectric material would tend to break down along the edges of the object, allowing easier passage of the discharge, that may also account for the effect. The observed “phantom leaf” effect was not found again in better-controlled experiments, but has continued to serve as a point of argument for the believers.

Regardless, Kirlian photography does not demonstrate that plants are sentient or can sense pain.



This is an unreasonable comparison. In most cases, there is observable evidence that animals and autistic people can feel pain. This means that people had to ignore the plainly observable reactions of animals and people (such as cowering in fear, whimpering, etc) that these individuals make when subjected to pain. Later scientific study produced evidence that upholds these observations.

In contrast, there is no evidence whatsoever that plants can engage in conscious interpretation of sensory signals. They have no nerves, they have no brain. There is no physical location at which (or mechanism by which) plants can be demonstrated to process sensation. There is no evidence to ignore.

However, let's pretend, for a moment, that I am completely wrong about plant sentience. Let us accept the ridiculous proposal that plants can sense pain. Even if that were true, that still compels people who are concerned about reducing suffering to become vegans. Animals require many more times the amount of protein in plant food than they produce in protein from their flesh and bodily fluids. Therefore, a person who eats animals kills more plants in total than a person who simply eat the plants.



Sources, please.



None of this is evidence for the proposal that plants have a conscious experience of their surroundings. Plants lack the consciousness, the sentience that is the seat of a being's ability to sense and interpret pain or other stimuli. Plants lack the physical structures which make these experiences possible.



Again, please provide sources for the claim that plants consciously "communicate".



"Part of our life cycle"? What do you mean by this? That it's just "what we do"? There are entire cultures which eschew the killing of animals for food: Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and quite a few more. (There are over a billion Hindus in the world, alone; clearly their "life cycle" has not been interrupted.)



Do you mean to argue that animals and plants are "equally alive"? Are you saying that there is no moral difference between slaughtering a cow and eating an apple, despite the fact that cows have thoughts, emotions, preferences, and can feel pain, when apples have none of these faculties?

Could you explain why you think should we regard the food's "aliveness" as the attribute to measure when determining the morality of dietary choices, rather than the food's ability to suffer?



That is not true. Vegans demonstrate that there is a clear, demonstrable difference between eating a non-sentient plant and killing a thinking, feeling, sentient animal in order to eat its flesh.



We are not "built to eat flesh". The China Study, a 20-year study conducted by Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine produced more than 8000 statistically significant associations between various dietary factors and disease. The researchers found: “People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease … People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease. These results could not be ignored." Eating animal-derived protein is extremely bad for your health: the more you eat, the sicker you get.

Also, livestock production is destroying the environment: the livestock sector is "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global", according to a UN report titled Livestock's Long Shadow. Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report, reported: “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.” Even if you believe that we are "built to eat" flesh, if flesh-eating people continue eating anywhere near as much as they are currently eating, we're going to destroy our planet's ability to sustain us as a species. If this comes to pass, our livestock-fueled annihilation will render our "design" moot.

While "morality" of dietary choice I believe is simply a mater of opinion, the comparision of an apple to a cow is a bit silly. A better matching in that case would be a cow's milk to an apple tree's apple. Both are the source of nutrients for it's young. Now if we actually ate the apple tree you could compare the two (or maybe replace apple with say a carrot since that is a major structure of the plant itself). I do fully believe cutting down a tree is equal to that of killing a cow. As I said before, the morality of such an opinion is just that, an opinion.



Do not forget that the concept of animals being sentient is relatively new to being widely accepted. In the next 100 years I would not be the least surprised if the same occurs for plants. This is still just a moral opinion until proven one way or another.



You are over looking that very key word in this study to justify that it is proof against meat eating. Anything in excess is unhealthy. Yes a more plant heavy diet is healthier than a meat heavy one, but we are still omnivores, not herbivores. Someone who does a vegan diet incorrectly will get ill.

Yes there are cultures and individuals who opt for removing meat from their diet. There are also cultures who survive on a very high meat content diet (those native to arctic and extreme desert regions for example). That still does not mean everyone has to, which was my entire point. I don't have anything against vegans. What I have a problem with are vegans, who like I said, make meat eaters out to be monsters for eating something we are naturally built to eat. We have canines, we have a digestive system that breaks down meat and pulls necessary things from it. And the argument that you are not hurting something by eating a plant is just ridiculous. The only people that are going to win an argument that they hurt nothing to eat are those who live solely of what has died naturally or has been discarded by the creature or plant naturally (which get total props in my book). I have the same opinion of religious, political, whatever zealots who insist there way is the only right way. Vegan is a healthy for many but isn't for everyone, the same as a religion isn't the right for everyone.

By the way. Sources abound on the topic of whether a not a plant can feel or communicate. If you actually interested in learning about the topic feel free to Google it. However I believe very strongly that a demand for sources during an argument on a medium that allows you access to limitless sources on any given topic is a cop out in hopes the other side is bluffing.

Anyways, if you would like to continue the debate we should probably take it to private messages because we have totally hijacked this post.

All kids do this sort of thing in those early years you don't have a anything to unusal on your hands. It's all about them not yet knowing how to deal with their feeling or they right ways to show they are upset. Normal for a kid on the specturm add in all the stuff that goes with that and you've got your hands full. Keep the rules to the point and easy to follow never ever not matter what change the rules you'll be right back at square one. Do a this is for that for kids 18mos to 3 years , i.e. you can not hit your mom but you can hit this boopie bag. Time outs are for punishment but more for the need time chill out and gather herself. They shouldn't be too long or in her bed or she won't want to sleep there anymore. I hope some of this is of more help then the debait over what a tomato feels.

well, the China Study seems highly biased and I can saftely say that it mainly serves to promote and feed a vegan's agenda, so I would take that source to be highly unreliable, not to mention that the author may seem to promote the idea of some sort of conspiracy theory from governments and universities?, apparentely, in any case, it seems questionable enough to give it so much credit, in other words gbollard can fairly reject The China Study as a reputable source and argue to be crap.

The issue related to cancer seems to be wether a myth or a miscorrelation, most likely a tool to argue in favor of removing meat completely from your diet, given that cancer can be prevented with a diet that includes meat, which there are sources of it that I remember, I don't have one right now to support it, thoug I doubt that can do anything, someone else might care, for now I'll stick eating some juicy meat for dinner, which I am having

As with the "we are not built to eat flesh" thing, the issue is that we are not exclusive hervibores nor exclusive carnivores either, so that doesn't seem to do anything for or against any position, just that humans can benefit nutritionally from eating meat, probably a vegetarian diet could do good but I see it as you would have to put some effort to it, vegan diets have been stated to have been problematic, frankly, I wouldn't recommend such diet to small children.

The tree is not even aware that it has "young". No component of the tree is aware of its existence, neither tree nor apple. Compare this situation with that of a cow, who has emotions, who can solve problems, who can feel physical pain just as you or I, who and will moo herself hoarse if separated from her baby. This comparison is baseless and preposterous.



It is not necessary to cut down a tree in order to eat. Let's try a different comparison: do you believe that pulling up a carrot and driving a captive bolt into a cow's brain in order to kill it are morally equivalent actions? If yes, why?



Modern science demonstrates the validity of what Hindus, Buddhist, Jains, and others have observed for thousands of years: that animals are sentient and can suffer, while plants are not and cannot.



There is no "opinion" involved in the science of animal sentience and animal pain sensation. No reputable scientific organization disputes that higher animals like mammals and birds are sentient and able to feel pain. Evidence for sentience and pain sensation among reptiles and fish is emerging, based on the fact that these animals also have central nervous systems. The scientific consensus is that animals that people typically use as resources (including cows, pigs, and chickens) are sentient, can feel physical and emotional pain, and have a personal, individual interest in staying alive.

In contrast, there is no body of evidence to suggest any comparable facilities in plants. If you disagree, please provide references that substantiate your claims about plants, sentience, and suffering.



No, actually, the study indicates that any ingestion of animal protein is correlated with an increase in damaging, often fatal conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. There is no "safe amount" of animal protein to ingest; any amount is correlated with an increase in disease.



The reason I pointed out that there are vegetarian cultures was to demonstrate that it's false to say that human ingestion of animals is some inevitable part of all human lives (as you alluded by saying that doing so was "part of the life cycle"). Clearly there are long-standing cultures for whom flesh ingestion is not part of their "life cycle". The presence of flesh-eating cultures does not disprove this, so I don't know what you thought you were proving or even why you brought this up.

As far as "surviving" goes, people can survive on McDonalds, fried chicken, and soda. Whether someone can survive on a given food is not an indicator of whether it is a good thing to eat.



See my reference to the China Study. We are not "naturally built" to ingest flesh; it's something that people force their bodies to do because 1) they like the flavor 2) the multi-million-dollar beef, pork, chicken, turkey, egg, and dairy industries have exposed them to highly-successful advertising campaigns. The results are increased rates of ill health and early death.



The human body is optimized to process plant foods. See Are Humans Carnivores or Herbivores? (short) and Meat in the Human Diet (long).

Regardless, clearly people can "survive" on many things: a more important question than "what did we evolve to eat" is "what should we eat, now?" Clearly, eating animals destroys the environment, damages our health, and causes animals to suffer. A vegan diet is good for the environment, good for our health, and good for the animals. It's a win-win-win.



You have failed to provide any evidence for your claim that plants can experience "hurt" in any respect.



I'm copping out? Seriously? You're telling me that I should spend my time substantiating your arguments for you, and that my failure to do so proves the veracity of your arguments? Wow. That's kind of amazing.



Debates involve evidence: you'd have to actually provide some in order for this to become one. I've provided quite a few. Feel free to PM me if you have some to share.