What privileges us vs a crow, catfish or lion?
Animals go out and kill other animals for food, have to deal with the family and friends of the animal it just killed, compete with other animals for the meat, etc. Much more vulnerable and involved.
Everything has to eat something. Humans are omnivorous. We have a choice and some choose to base their diets on plant consumption while others eat a little meat and still others eat mostly meat. It's all okay. The universe is working as intended. Villifying those who choose a different diet than yours seems like a petty exercise by people who need to invent a reason to feel better about themselves.
If you enjoy and love the foods that you eat then you are doing it right. There is no requirement and no need to proselytize about your choices. We have enough other religions who have forgotten the main message to deal with. It will be just as easy for people to tune yours out.
Cannibalism, eating your young, rape, etc.
I’m not sure why killing for food is the one place we should choose to define our values and ethics based on what animals in the wild do.
Even if you could, you would also need to explain all of the evolutionary problems that could come from some humans going vegetarian while others don't.
What if being vegetarian makes you smaller and weaker physically (perhaps the case in some vegetarian countries now). If you had the answer, and it was clear a diet consisting of vegetables causes reduction in physical size, then I have to ask:
Would you want your kids to be shorter and physically weaker than you are?
> you can't prove that it's actually healthier, because the current state of dietary science is pretty poor.
Almost every decision in life must be made without proof, but with evidence and judgment. We know a lot about nutrition, and a lot of evidence points toward health benefits in eating more vegetables and less meat. We can also see lots of vegetarians in our communities and they don't seem sickly or shorter, etc. - we also see elite athletes in public who are vegetarians.
> a diet consisting of vegetables
Vegetarianim is much more than vegetables; it's everything but meat - legumes (generally beans), vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts - plus eggs and cheese. Vegans cut out the latter two items.
> What if being vegetarian makes you smaller and weaker physically (perhaps the case in some vegetarian countries now).
Where?
> evolutionary problems that could come from some humans going vegetarian while others don't.
What problems? How does diet affect evolution? We'll lose our hunting muscles over the next 500,000 years? Remember humans haven't changed much biologically in 200,000+ years.
Taiwan — 12-13% vegetarian — 174 cm avg male height
Mexico — 10-19% vegetarian — 170 cm avg male height
Italy — ~10% vegetarian — 174 cm avg male height
Brazil — 8-14% vegetarian — 176 cm avg male height
UK — ~7% vegetarian — 178 cm avg male height
Australia — 5-6% vegetarian — 179 cm avg male height
Switzerland — 5-9% vegetarian — 179 cm avg male height
Austria — 5-9% vegetarian — 179 cm avg male height
Germany — 4-8% vegetarian — 180 cm avg male height
I mean, if you think height doesn't matter for men, I think you may want to think about it.
Also, height is determined early in life. Many people become vegetarian in adulthood. Becoming vegetarian at 30 won't affect your height, I'm pretty sure.
As someone who eats meat, that's probably one of the worse arguments against vegetarianism/veganism I've heard. If eating animals is immoral, sure why not? If pillaging your neighbors makes your society better off, do you think a good objection to "maybe we shouldn't pillage our neighbors" is "Would you want your kids to be shorter and physically weaker than you are"?
Do you also have a problem with red meat?
What about raising cows or chickens, then consuming their milk and eggs?
What do you do with the cow when its milk yield drops after several pregnancies? what do you do with the male calves? Just keep them all as pets?
I think there are situations I could contrive where I'd say yeah its fine ethically to eat these things, but the general case still has victims.
And again, since maybe the first week without them, I truly haven't missed milk or eggs or anything else after eliminating them from my diet. Plant options are pretty good too and there are plenty of plants.
Why is okay to kill a tree to build a home, kill a plant to eat, but not okay to kill an animal to eat?
Is it okay to kill a cockroach or a rat in your home?
Does the biological complexity of the organism make it more or less okay to kill it?
The ability to suffer is the distinguishing/relevant factor. We all know what suffering feels like and we know that animals have the capacity to suffer. We don't really know that trees do. I want to reduce the suffering I am responsible for.
> Is it okay to kill a cockroach or a rat in your home?
I probably would get rid of infestations in my home and feel bad about it.
It's not about having a 100% perfect record with not killing animals. It's about striving to minimize animal suffering as much as practicable. You're never going to reduce this to 0 animals. But you can get to 95% better than the average human pretty easily if you want.
Sheep get castrated, ears notched and tail docked. Then they get set out to pasture.
A bull is selected to be your herd bull and any cows either get milked as you described or pastured to be mama cows for building a herd. Any bull calves either get sold off to be someone else's herd bulls if the genetics are good enough or they get castrated, notched ears and in at least one herd I have seen, their tails are docked.
As the old ag teacher in high school explained, you castrate them to keep their minds off of the ass and put 'em on the grass.
The other animals in nature are not my standard of behavior. In a sense, the point of any culture is to exceed nature and by as much as possible.
Don't get me wrong, I eat meat, but I also understand that the grand majority of fellow meat-eaters have never hunted or reared livestock. Instead they are complete soyboys (ironic isn't it) who merely consume the output from the machine. These same beta cucks will open their mouths to screech "but animals eat animals in the wild!" Completely missing how unnatural an industrialized slaughter machine is.
The only reason they are enslaved is that they lack organization and understanding. Had they those two, they could kill us all.