Survival of the Fittest / Natural Selection:
Man > Cow. This gives us the right to slaughter cow, if cow don't like it - why doesn't cow do something about it?
It can't, because it isn't on the top of the food chain. Too fucking bad, now go eat some grass so I can have my daily steak!

EDIT: Wait - the OP doesn't eat meat because he LOVES animals? Do you even realize that pigs serve no purpose on this planet (except meat supply)?
If we'd all stop eating meat, they'd all be killed since they are only helping the pollution of our planet... So you want the pig to go extinct? This counts for a lot of farm animals we're eating right now. What do chickens add if we stop eating eggs/chicken meat?

If we want to speak to the ethicality of eating, then eating plants is quite literally the worst thing you could do. Plants don't disturb anyone, they don't take up much space (individually, anyhow). They produce oxygen, prevent erosion, naturally replenish soil, and (with  the exception of carnivorous plants) don't do direct harm to any other creature. 
 
 Animals on the other hand universally live only via the destruction of other living things. Pigs, dogs, cats, whales, fish, cows and so on survive through the MURDER of other species.  This is of course the origin of the problem that vegetarian animal lovers face- they implore us to not eat meat, yet they embrace animals which survive through the massacre of others.  
 
If you want to be truly ethical you should eat ONLY animals, as each animal is by its very nature guilty of the murder of other plants and animals. This puts us ethically on the same plane as carnivores, but higher than herbivores, which kill the most defenseless of all living things to survive. 

Isn't eating meat just...kind of a dick move?   

That's where I stopped reading

@Devwil: I appreciate the fact that you're trying to open people's minds, but the truth is, you're making the rest of us vegetarians look like sel-righteous dipshits, and now the forums are getting "is being a vegetarian dumb" threads. This is not fair, and I hold you accountable for weakening my respect as a vegetarian on this site. I'm disappointed in you sir.

I have never understood being a vegetarian and not going full blown vegan. If you're not going to eat animals because it's wrong to kill and torture animals, then it shouldn't be right to steal a cows milk or eat a chicken egg. These things are not made organically, as chances are the milk you're drinking is from tortured cows who are being pumped full of god knows what to produce that milk for you. 
 
There's nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or anything else in my opinion, but by starting off your argument by calling a huge percentage of the population a dick really hurts the validity of said argument.

I like to eat meat 
You do not like to eat meat 
Basically, fuck meat

" Cereal, bagel, pizza, ice cream. These things are not meant for you. All these foods have eggs or milk in them. Milk comes from cows. Said cows are on a farm. On this farm, the cows are artificially inseminated and, after however long a cows gestation period happens to be, gives birth to a calf. This calf is soon taken away to be bred as another dairy cow or used for veal. The calf is replaced with a machine.  It's fairly similar when it comes to chickens as well.  To an intelligent being, this would be considered torture. I don't really see a distinction between torture or death. I am not a vegan, I love meat. As for me, I can live with it. But it annoys me greatly when vegetarians think they're saving the animals.  Also, do you really want to take away roughly half of the worlds food supply when we're so close to finishing off world hunger? If everyone became a vegetarian over night, we would soon starve. It is unsustainable, if only because we are heavily set in our ways.  By the way, I'm in no ways a humanitarian, just playing the part of one for sake of argument. Sorry if this has already been said, I'm not reading 8 pages of this shit. "  

" Survival of the Fittest / Natural Selection:Man > Cow. This gives us the right to slaughter cow, if cow don't like it - why doesn't cow do something about it?It can't, because it isn't on the top of the food chain. Too fucking bad, now go eat some grass so I can have my daily steak!EDIT: Wait - the OP doesn't eat meat because he LOVES animals? Do you even realize that pigs serve no purpose on this planet (except meat supply)?If we'd all stop eating meat, they'd all be killed since they are only helping the pollution of our planet... So you want the pig to go extinct? This counts for a lot of farm animals we're eating right now. What do chickens add if we stop eating eggs/chicken meat? "  

" If we want to speak to the ethicality of eating, then eating plants is quite literally the worst thing you could do. Plants don't disturb anyone, they don't take up much space (individually, anyhow). They produce oxygen, prevent erosion, naturally replenish soil, and (with  the exception of carnivorous plants) don't do direct harm to any other creature.   Animals on the other hand universally live only via the destruction of other living things. Pigs, dogs, cats, whales, fish, cows and so on survive through the MURDER of other species.  This is of course the origin of the problem that vegetarian animal lovers face- they implore us to not eat meat, yet they embrace animals which survive through the massacre of others.   If you want to be truly ethical you should eat ONLY animals, as each animal is by its very nature guilty of the murder of other plants and animals. This puts us ethically on the same plane as carnivores, but higher than herbivores, which kill the most defenseless of all living things to survive.  "  

" @DevWil:  Nope, being hypocritical is not right, but yet here we are. We are all hypocrites. We just try not to be hypocrites. I'm trying not to be one, but yet I still am.  I've read an article a couple of years back, and it was really fascinating. It was mentioning how Buddhists make food that resemble meat. The whole thing about Buddhism is not to have earthly desires or something like that, and yet here we are. Buddhists wanting to eat something that resembles meat.  I understand your concerns about killing animals. I have Buddhists reelatives who are pretty close with me. I know how some of you think, about how taking a life is bad for karma, how much is a life worth and it shouldn't be up to us to decide on their rights to live. But perhaps I'm just a heartless Catholic, I don't feel the same way some of you do. I think killing animals is part of ourselves. It's like a natural instinct in other animals which consume meat. It's inborn and it's the way of the world. We all hate those soccer players in England who get paid a bunch for their gifts and talents. They don't even work half as hard as Kobe Bryant and yet they make much more than us in a month than we do in a year.  It's fucked up, but it's how the Earth spins.And while it's true that we don't eat that much amount of meat, but there will be a void lareger than most expected when we give it up. I mean, it's like TV to me. I don't watch that much TV anymore, but yet it feels like something is missing when the TV is gone.   By the way, one of the problems with the way you argue is how you make people who eat meat look wrong. You may not be trying to but the post just somehow ended up that way. If you really want people to follow your lifestyle, make people want to follow your lifestyle instead of making them want to give up their current one. "  

" @DevWil: yep. you're a fucking idiot.  get a life you retarded troll. go fuck a tree. no one gives a shit what you say and you're making yourself look like a giant douche. /thread "  

" @sddi: By that reasoning, I should put my cat on a diet of vegetables as well since he doesn't have to hunt for his meat. But guess what: he doesn't eat vegetables.   And if we don't need meat, why are there so many things to substitute it? Obviously there's things in meat that the human body needs, otherwise we wouldn't need those substitutes if we stopped eating it.   I don't know where you get the idea from that all those animals are cooped up and pumped full of chemicals, but you're absolutely wrong. Yes, it does happen, and still too often. But you can choose to buy meat products of animals that were allowed to roam free, and had no contact with chemicals whatsoever, which is what I do. I'd say that the way I acquire my meat is a lot more humane than the way a crocodile does it.  "

 plants tend not to bother anybody, but they also don't have nervous systems.  also, plenty of plants are left undisturbed by vegetarians.  i don't eat pine trees.
 
and, again, animals are not held morally responsible. 
   

@ DevWil 
 
Why make the decision to promote vegetarianism and create this thread when you have already agreed that you can't change some people's values. Forums are made of ignorant and illogical people, the exact people you have come to terms with the reality that you could never change their mind. 
 
This thing is just a fucking waste of time. Stop crapping up the forums.

" @DevWil said:

 plants tend not to bother anybody, but they also don't have nervous systems.  also, plenty of plants are left undisturbed by vegetarians.  i don't eat pine trees.
 
and, again, animals are not held morally responsible. 
   

 The capacity to suffer doesn't change the issue of guilt. Killing something which doesn't kill to live is obviously more unethical than killing something which does kill other living things to survive. The idea that capacity for suffering produces guilt necessarily results in arbitrary line drawing about when the capacity to feel no longer constitutes something worth worrying about. Do yeast suffer? Do we have the capacity to tell whether they suffer?  
 
I will also remind you that we humans are also animals.  
 

 also, plenty of plants are left undisturbed by vegetarians.  i don't eat pine trees.

   And omnivores don't necessarily eat every animal that exists, either. What was your point here? "

" @ DevWil  Why make the decision to promote vegetarianism and create this thread when you have already agreed that you can't change some people's values. Forums are made of ignorant and illogical people, the exact people you have come to terms with the reality that you could never change their mind.  This thing is just a fucking waste of time. Stop crapping up the forums. "

I would eat a dog.

" @DevWil: So you're trying to convert the self admitting hypocrites.  Seriously dude though, what did you expect other than you to be shutdown by almost everyone when you start off your argument with saying that doing what you don't do is a dick move?   Also I feel considering you are not a Vegan that you shouldn't really be taking the complete moral high ground. Regardless of whether they are being killed or not, we are harassing the animals in ways that aren't natural to get what we want from them (meat, eggs etc.)  And it is hard to change from being an omnivore to a vegetarian is tough. Meat gives us plenty of vital nutrients and to get them from vegetables is a lot tougher and requires much more effort (especially to find in America I would think).    To say you still eat pizza means you are other not telling us what else you eat or you are living a very unhealthy lifestyle. "

i hesitated to bump my own blog, but here's some dumb-ass doctors saying that you can be perfectly healthy without eating meat: 
 
http://www.adajournal.org/article/PIIS0002822303002943/fulltext

"i hesitated to bump my own blog, but here's some dumb-ass doctors saying that you can be perfectly healthy without eating meat: 
 
http://www.adajournal.org/article/PIIS0002822303002943/fulltext "

• vegan diet isn't necessarily healthier.

• vegan diet doesn't help a cause that much.

 I'm always amazed how meat eaters react when the topic gets around to "So Ed, you're a vegatarian".
it's like talking to a cult member, they get very defensive and come out with rubbish like "you're not gonna change me".Instead of actually thinking.
 
For me the immorality comes from how easy it is not to eat meat. I loved meat..I mean I really LOVED MEAT. But Morrissey with one line not a paticularly deep line changed me.
"This beautiful creature must die" 
and also "a death for no reason, and death for no reason is murder"
Eating meat  has no reason beyond its tasty. A point I wont deny, but it involves being complicit in causing suffering,pain and death as well as stress and discomfort during transport to innocent beautiful creatures. Doing something as bad  as eating meat just because you enjoy it is very immoral to me.
 
 " It's not "natural","normal" or "kind",
The flesh you so fancifully fry.

The meat in your mouth,
As you savour the flavour of murder."

" @DevWil: Other animals kill each other for food constantly.  It's how the ecosystem works.  Human's overconsumption of animals due to such a large population would be the exact same for plants if we all stopped eating meat and made roomo for the whole world to be covered by farmland.  "

Dude, plants do a lot more for us than animals.  Why kill them?  All living things have to eat other living things to survive.  Including plants having to take in decayed material (ie. compost and fertilizer).  We get oxygen from plants and they dont take a shit in the backyard.  Our increased brain mass and therefore ability to be more awesome than other animals comes form eating meat.

" @DevWil: Fuck You. Take your hippy vegetarian bullshit elsewhere.  People are supposed to eat meat. Its a scientific FACT. Don't push your fucking douchebag eletist ways on people who aren't like you. "

 
@TheHBK

" Dude, plants do a lot more for us than animals.  Why kill them?  All living things have to eat other living things to survive.  Including plants having to take in decayed material (ie. compost and fertilizer).  We get oxygen from plants and they dont take a shit in the backyard.  Our increased brain mass and therefore ability to be more awesome than other animals comes form eating meat. "

People may have legitimate religious or health-related reasons for being vegetarian, but the "ethical" argument doesn't hold water. Why? Because just as many animals are crushed in combines while harvesting grains each year as are killed in slaughterhouses. Maddox breaks it down nicely for you here.

" People may have legitimate religious or health-related reasons for being vegetarian, but the "ethical" argument doesn't hold water. Why? Because just as many animals are crushed in combines while harvesting grains each year as are killed in slaughterhouses. Maddox breaks it down nicely for you here.
"

I is a farmer.  
 
We are animals. And we are the most intelligentanimal 
 
therefore we have control of the planet and can do what we like with it. 
 Animals (less humans) are our bitch.

" @DevWil: LONG THREAD IS LONG.  Seriously, just give up dude. I respect you, in fact I haven't had meat in about 2 weeks (not because of you, I just can't afford it right now, yay college) but man, this isn't the place for intense idiololigical debates like this. No one cares about your choices and you should know that by now. Sorry if it's frusterating but life tends to be that way, your best plan is to just accept and move on.   People will always eat meat, they always have. You may not like it, I may not like it. I feel sick as shit when I watch documentaries on the matter, when I see pigs thrown and tossed by their legs into holding areas way past their limit (not that I eat pork anyway, too dirty) but I still accept that others will eat it.   Would you go to a 3rd world country and ask the residents of said country to stop eating meat? No because they NEED it.   tl;dr  I'm sorry you hate so much, but get used to it. Or kill yourself (no don't, that's silly). "

Haha, DevWil! I can't believe this thread is still going on! Keep on standing up for your beliefs, man!

" @DevWil: 
 Before I start, let me say this. I am going to refute every one of your claims and prove that nearly every form of Vegetarianism is ultimately futile and completely self-fufilling 
 
I expect a reply.
 
Ok first off, being a vegetarian because "eating animals is wrong" is stupid. That isn't why a lot of vegetarians are vegetartians. They are vegetarians because they don't approve of the inhumane treatment that animals recieve in the slaughter house or before hand. You see, eating meat it nature. That's just how it works. This happens every day: 

  

  
  
Now obviously if you are a vegetarian becuase you want to protest the meat packing industry, then I also don't care because you aren't actually doing something to stop it. Eating vegetables does not "Stick it to the Man." You aren't doing anything to help those animals, in fact you are still being as complicit as you were when you ate meat.
 
Let me restate that. 
  
VEGETARIANISM DOESN'T HELP ANIMALS 
 
Finally, plants are fucking intelligent. This isn't news, it's been known for quite awhile. Just because you can look at the face of an animal and see some similarity to your own being, that doesn't mean it has the same brain processes as you. Most animals aren't even aware of their own existence, it is a rare few that actually have even rudimentary consciousness. 
 
If you want to help animals then put down the damn veggy burger and actually do something. "

" People killing animals for food is what it is man.   I wish people would stop killing people for no good reason. One of my former class mates just got gunned down outside of his house, no reason.... humans should be smart enough to stop that kind of violence.   I dont know what diet is better for people. I dont know the morality of eating meat. For now, the only killing that bothers me is human on human.   "

Oh beat it to fucking death, stop bumping this hopeless shit 
 
wait

This thread is shit, vegetarians are preachy pussies, lock it already.

" This thread is shit, vegetarians are preachy pussies, lock it already. "

This thread has led to nothing but anger from vegetarians, and this is coming from someone who hates veggies. This has gone on for way too long. This should be locked.

" This thread has led to nothing but anger from vegetarians, and this is coming from someone who hates veggies. This has gone on for way too long. This should be locked. "

" @ninjakiller said:

" This thread is shit, vegetarians are preachy pussies, lock it already. "

i'm sure Georges Laraque would have an interesting reaction if you called him a pussy.  considering he made a video for PETA, you could call him preachy, too!
 
if this thread is locked, i'll be very disappointed in the GB mods.  it's a real, constructive debate that i think i've kept respectful for the most part.  if it devolves into "you're a shit person, meat eater" and "you're a pussy faggot, veggieboy", sure, consider locking it down.  it's not even in the wrong forum like the thread that someone made in response to this, and that one isn't locked.  this one has gone hundreds of comments without a lock or warning, and i hope for the sake of responsible discourse that doesn't change.  also, if you really want this thread to die, don't comment on it.  except for posting a link to a medical journal explaining how vegetarians can be perfectly healthy, i haven't bumped this blog once.  i've simply been reacting to other users' comments. "

Where would all those cows live if we didn't eat meat?  WHERE?!!  They would be everywhere, and they would want revenge. BLOOD THIRSTY COWS MAN!  It would be like the fucking zombie apocalypse except with cows!  OH MY GOD! I'll be right back I'm going to go buy as much steak as I can.

" @DevWil: May  I say, your ignorance of basic human biology is pretty astounding. Humans are built to eat meat. That is a fact. If we were meant to not eat meat we wouldn't have a set of canine teeth and our bodies would reject flesh. My logic is completely sound, your thinly vield excuse is akin to the work of a mad evangelist.   Oh, and please feel free to insult me all you like when it comes to my refrencing, but I figured you'd be clever enough to find the larger article on your own.  First off, plants actively try to survive. They react to their evirnoments and communicate with each other. That's about all a majority of animals do. Intelligence by your description is something that has only been observed in primates and some other mammals. If you want to talk about emotions, then I care even less. Even our emtions are simply chemical reactions brought about by the events we experience. What seperates us from animals is cognition, as I said before, and it is a very rare occurence and definetly does not occur with the common barn yard crew like cows, pigs, and chickens.  Also, plants do have a nervous system.They couldn't respond to the environment without one. It is actually far more sensitive than the human nervous system, and while it may not be as complex as our own plants are capable of feeling a sesnation similar to pain.  Another point, meat-eaters like myself are hurting animals just as much as you. Even if I stopped today, nothing would change. If 1,000 people stopped today, nothing would change. I can keep eating meat and still fight for humane treatment of animals if I want to, being a vegetarian is just a self-fuffling excuse to make people feel better instead of getting up and doing something. Trying to convince people to be Vegetarian isn't helping any animals.   Another thing, you wouldn't even be alive if your ancestors hadn't eaten meat. Vegetarianism is a phenomenon that only occurs within a civilization of at least rudimentary status. Vegitarians cannot even exist without agriculutre and food surpluses, this is a fact. All humans were at one point hunter-gathers and we had to kill animals to survive. That is instinct, that is nature. Let's just face facts, because this is what it comes down to; there is absolutely no scientific or historic basis that justifies Vegetarianism. Vegetarians are people that throw out scientific concepts they only have a loose understanding of because they like to play make believe and pretend that animals can operate on a similar mental and emotional level that we do.  That is complete and total horse shit.  You said it yourself, it makes you feel better, and tha'ts all it is.  Vegetarianism goes against nature, goes against science, and it contributes nothing but bullshit fanatics to soceity. It's a disease that has consumed this new wave of liberal ignorance who use shit like Vegetarianism to take a moral high ground on issues they know nothing about so that they can feel smarter than any one else.  I'm a human, and I eat meat. I'm a person, and I care about animal cruelty. I can be both of those things because I have dedicated the time and energy to actually learning about the world I live in instead of grabbing on to the closest feel good wagon.  And for the record, I read the fucking thread. "

I'm not really wanting to jump into this conversation I just want to correct a misconception I've seen in said this thread a few times now.  

I've seen a lot of people on both sides use bears as an example of carnivores but in fact most bears (polar bears are mainly carnivorous but barren tundra will do that) are omnivores eating plants (mainly berries if I remember correctly), bugs, honey, and yes of course meat. Their diet changes depending of course on season and region and during their preparation for hibernation the eat mainly meat because they need to store fat but the point remains that they are not strict carnivores but rather omnivores. 
 
As for my own preference well I like meat and always have but that choice is mine and I can definitely understand where others are coming from with their own dietary habits.

I like steak so rare, it moos at me. 
 
 
You're not going to change that.