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From: robert@arizona.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.veg
Subject: Re: Vegetable Morality and Request for Recipes
Message-ID: <7067@arizona.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 5-Jan-84 10:00:00 EST
Article-I.D.: arizona.7067
Posted: Thu Jan  5 10:00:00 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Jan-84 04:27:04 EST
References: <130@hou2f.UUCP> Why are religous and health reasons the only ones acceptable
Organization: CS Dept, U of Arizona, Tucson
Lines: 59

for being vegetarian?  That seems likes a rather narrow vision you
have there.  And how does the avoidence of killing animals come out
to be "poop"?

    Addressing the religous point, Christians and Jews are not the
only people in "this part of the world" (and this part of the world
doesn't seem too significant anyway), and these groups are certainly
not the leading lights of morality today.  My experience with them
leads me to see them as bloody and perfectly happy to kill not only
other animals, but their own kind as well.  All they need is a slight
irritation such as a different skin color or belief, and they're out
after you until you believe their way or you're dead.

    Non-denominational religions (i.e., your own personal feelings about
yourself and other beings) may tie together the lives of various
groups in some way such that avoiding terminating others is a primary
goal.  The argument that vegetation doesn't have the means to communicate
and therefore we don't really know that they aren't sentient is a bit
weak, but I won't bother arguing it since if I lost the argument I
would then have to give up my own life (I can't live on minerals, and
even then how do you know the rocks aren't sentient?).

    So the point is, you and I know that a dog, cow, or trout are feeling
creatures which require some protection from our baser instincts.  Some
"animals" which humans currently use as food are probably more feeling than
many of our most terrible fellow humans - do you propose that we cut
these people up and use them at our table?  And why don't you propose that we
eat our kin after they die?  Certainly if you are looking for cheap
protein, it's there; and no outrageous funeral costs!

    Perhaps if you had the choice of eating plants or killing your meat
yourself (living with that animal as it grew into maturity and looking
it in the eye as the knife slides into the neck), you would make a
decision towards a vegetarian diet.  Going to the grocery and picking
out a slab of another creature's flesh divorces you so nicely from
the reality.

    ........................................................

    I don't know why I am trying to argue these points with you.  It is
like what happens on net.women and net.motss.  People who are offended
by these ideas waste the patience of others with their diatribes.  The
purpose of this group is not to exchange recipes, we could have created a 
net.cooks.veg, but to support and gently discuss in a positive light
our feelings concerning the subject, the nutritional consequences of our
diets, and probably even exchange some good recipes.

   Perhaps we should have called it net.veg.only to keep the flesh eaters
on their side of the table.  So, please, let's move the arguments against
vegetarianism  to a place where they will be appreciated, and let us
folk discuss what we want here.

    I suggest that you form your own group net.meat(flesh, blood&guts, or
what-have-you) in which you can argue for your own cause; and I promise
that the vegetarians will keep our noses out of your business.


Robert J. Drabek
University of Arizona