Results 1 to 34 of 34

Thread: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

  1. #1
    Howlek
    Guest

    Default In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    I've noticed that many people on this forum are particularly concerned about pain being rendered upon any living creature which they deem has a nervous system capable of making them feel pain. IMO Inflicting unecessary pain on animals shows a disregard for life and ourselves. Factory farming is abhorrent, and its amazing anyone can work in that kind of environment and not start to feel a disregard for themselves and other life-froms.

    But I'm not a vegan because I think eating organisms with nervous systems is wrong. If I lived 6,000 years ago when the environment was still pristine, and there were no factory farms, I would probably be eating at least a little meat. In the end, pain is only an evolutionary adaption that has been particularly essential to mobile organisms. All organisms are "designed" to perpetuate their genes. (that is they perpetuate their genes, because if they didn't, no organisms would exist). Plants in general are just as capable at perpetuating themselves as animals are. In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage. A cow necessarily feels pain to survive, a cabbage does not have that need, but in the end there is no difference. I am primarily a vegan because of the health and environmental benifits and because factory farming shows a disregard ourselves and other life-forms.

    What is pain really? electro-chemical signaling that produces a reaction.
    I hope most of you don't think a cow deserves better treatment than a cabbage because it is controled by this mechanism in order to ensure that it passes its genes on to the next generation.

    What are the primary reasons you are a vegan?
    Last edited by Korn; May 20th, 2005 at 02:15 PM. Reason: Thread renamed and moved to the Not-A-Vegan-Yet forum

  2. #2
    Stu
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    I must say, I found that bizarre.

    You seem to be thinking from an overly-scientific perspective. To relegate pain to the status of a mere 'mechanism' really belittles the feelings of humans and other animals.

    You're right - it is a mechanism. But that doesn't mean we should just disregard it! It's a mechanism that has very severe implications for sentient beings.

    You describe factory farming as "abhorrent", so surely you can see pain as being more than a mere 'mechanism'. I agree with you that pain serves a necessary function for the survival of any sentient being/race.

    But feelings are surely the most important thing in the universe. Cabbages don't have feelings; animals do. And that's what we're concerned about. Those feelings can be emotional or physical. If we didn't have such feelings, nothing would matter. Nobody could experience anything at all - no pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness - nothing. So existence would be rendered pointless.

    I agree that vegatables etc have mechanisms for survival, and these are important. But the fact that animals have feelings, makes them infinitely more worthy than cabbages, as far as I'm concerned.

  3. #3
    tails4wagging
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    A friend of mine is a RSPCA inspector and part of his training was attending a slaughterhouse to see animals slaughtered. He still has nightmares about what he saw and refuses to discuss it with his wife or friends because he said we all would have the nightmares!!.

    .

    Think about it and read 'Meet your Meat' from VIVA then discuss pain!!!!

  4. #4
    Mozbee
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    My reasoning has always been non-human sentients have as much right to a full life as I (a human sentient) do.
    By being vegan I can minimize the affect I have on other sentients lives and certainly not knowingly condone any sentients to abuse or death.

  5. #5

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Wow, what a weird and skewed perspective. Are you actually serious, or are you just taking the mickey? This is my serious question. The first question that popped into my mind was what had you been smoking, but that of course is just silly... Mind you, my fellah saw the green goblin last year when he was in hospital on morphine, so anything is possible!

  6. #6
    Kim[ba]'s Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    United States
    Posts
    111

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Pain is not just a mechanism to ensure cow's continue getting laid. It's a physical sensation that they feel which is associated with an emotional state of mind and spirit. Now, I don't doubt that plants are mindful, but surely it is wise to help alleviate the suffering of animals.

    What you are discussing, as I understand it, is the reason that some people are fruitarian. Fruitarians believe that not killing anything for food apply's to not killing plants as well. The thing is though if your going to eat an apple you might as well eat a block of cheese. We have to eat to survive, and being mindful about what we're eating, where it came from, if we deserve it, transportation efforts, etc can only evolve us. I actually believe that plants are spirits, and it is ok to eat them. They do not scream when they die, but they are transformed into human cells, thus enlightening all who eat them.

  7. #7
    Stephanie Peas'nHominy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    196

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage



    I care about their pain because I care about them. And I'm glad there are people in my life who care about me.

    The whole is greater than the parts. Take in the entire picture of a creature, not just the chemical make-up and design. There is so much more to life. So you have studied science, but what about philosophy? spirituality? phsychology? something?

  8. #8
    John's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    NJ USA
    Posts
    714

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    No offence, but I could tell approximately how old you are by your post there. I know that you really feel bad for the animals and don't believe that their suffering is equal to a vegetable. You are a vegan, correct?

  9. #9
    Mozbee
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    I'm guessing Howlek that your primary reasons for going vegan was people & the planet.
    Are you an ethical animal?

  10. #10
    Seaside
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    I can go along with you, Howlek, as far as the idea that the life force which animates the forms of cow and cabbage is the same, and deserves respect.
    However, mother plants do not bond with their seed; in fact, most annuals die when they have produced enough seed to guarantee the continued existence of that particular species of plant. Animals, however, form all kinds of emotional bonds. Right now, where I live and work, the terns are performing their complicated mating rituals. All that silly looking dancing around and posturing and the crazy sounds they make are how they form bonds between partners before the actual business of mating and nesting take place. The mallard ducks are mating and nesting, and raising babies. I saw a pair of mallards in the street not too long ago. The female had been mercilessly squashed by a car, and the surviving male was waiting by her corpse. I had to chase him away to keep him from being hit too. I also have, from time to time, to help the tiny ducklings up over the curb when their mothers try to get them across the street. I have also had to replace a few baby birds who were blown out of their nests by the terrible high winds we have been having recently.
    My point in relating all this is that I have seen these things myself, and in each instance I have witnessed behavior on the part of these animals that is an indication that they are living emotional lives as well as physical ones, and that they are capable of experiencing and expressing emotional as well as physical suffering. Try helping baby ducks across the street or putting baby birds back in their nests and see the thanks you get! Those mothers and fathers think I am threatening their babies and they want to attack! I don't think it matters that this is hard-wired into them genetically in order to ensure continuation of the species. The ability of animals to form emotional bonds with each other can be a source of emotional suffering for them when these bonds are broken, and I do not want to be the cause of this because of my food choices.
    Nothing lives but at the expense of another life. Even plants live on the remains of other organisms, plant and animal, that have decomposed into the soil. Life itself is the constant: the forms it animates are what change. My choice to be vegan is partly to reduce the apparent suffering of my fellow creatures as much as possible, and plants do not appear to suffer in the way that animals most definitely do.

  11. #11
    Ex-admin Korn's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Europe
    Posts
    4,830

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Howlek
    But I'm not a vegan because I think eating organisms with nervous systems is wrong. If I lived 6,000 years ago when the environment was still pristine, and there were no factory farms, I would probably be eating at least a little meat.
    Veganism and vegetarianism has never been about just avoiding farms from factories. Human animals, for example, don't live in factory farms, and didn't 6000 years ago either – would you eat them too? If not, what is it that you think animals less worthy than humans?
    What is pain really?
    Most of all, its a feeling.

    Whatever reason you come up with for killing non-factory animals, don't you think that the physical pain they feel is as strong as the pain we feel?

    What gives you the right to make them suffer?

    What or who gives you the right to decide over their life and death?

    Do other humans or animals have the right to kill or harm you the same way?

    If you think that there is nothing that makes one organism 'better' than another, there must still be a reason that you eat plant food instead of catching wild birds, your own friends – or your left hand? If pain is only 'electro-chemical signaling that produces a reaction', and feelings and emotions are not important, why bother if it hurts a little?
    I will not eat anything that walks, swims, flies, runs, skips, hops or crawls.

  12. #12
    spo
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Stu
    I must say, I found that bizarre.
    Totally agree, Stu
    Quote Stu
    But feelings are surely the most important thing in the universe. Cabbages don't have feelings; animals do. And that's what we're concerned about. Those feelings can be emotional or physical. If we didn't have such feelings, nothing would matter. Nobody could experience anything at all - no pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness - nothing. So existence would be rendered pointless.
    Exactly to the point, again, Stu

    Quote Stu
    I agree that vegatables etc have mechanisms for survival, and these are important. But the fact that animals have feelings, makes them infinitely more worthy than cabbages, as far as I'm concerned.
    But, their "mechanisms" for survival do not include: interacting with other animals and people, screaming in pain, showing fear, bleeding, attempting to escape, loving and protecting their offspring. Plants exhibit none of these EMOTIONS, as Stu pointed out. They can't express emotions because they do not have 5 senses and a central nervous system. Plants have a life force and I respect that life force, but surely eating a plant can not be compared to KILLING an animal by any reasoning individual!

    Quote Korn
    Do other humans or animals have the right to kill or harm you the same way?
    If you think that there is nothing that makes one organism 'better' than another, there must still be a reason that you eat plant food instead of catching wild birds, your own friends – or your left hand? If pain is only 'electro-chemical signaling that produces a reaction', and feelings and emotions are not important, why bother if it hurts a little?
    Really, Howlek, Korn brings up a very good point. What is the difference between a cabbage and a human? So, why not eat some humans?

    After all, if they scream and try to escape or bleed when we try to slaughter a human for food, isn't it just an "electro-chemical signaling that produces a reaction" to use your words.
    Quote Howlek
    I hope most of you don't think a cow deserves better treatment than a cabbage because it is controled by this mechanism in order to ensure that it passes its genes on to the next generation.
    What you say here absolutely applies to human beings, too. By your logic, humans don't deserve better treatment than a cabbage!

    Consider this:
    How pitiful, and what poverty of mind, to have said that the animals are machines deprived of understanding and feeling. . Has Nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel? Has he nerves that he may be incapable of suffering? People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines
    . . . It appears to me, besides, that [such people] can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections.
    It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel. . . . They are endowed with life, as we are, because they have the same principles of life, the same feelings, the same ideas, memory, industry as we.
    Voltaire (1694-1778)
    Voltaire was not talking about cabbages!
    To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.
    Buddha
    The Buddha, a most moral and ethical individual, felt that eating vegetables was more compassionate than eating animals.
    spo

  13. #13
    Mozbee
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Howlek
    All organisms are "designed" to perpetuate their genes. (that is they perpetuate their genes, because if they didn't, no organisms would exist). Plants in general are just as capable at perpetuating themselves as animals are.
    What is pain really? electro-chemical signaling that produces a reaction.
    Do you take your feelings & emotions seriously Howlek?
    Afterall in your opinion, your feelings are merely a response caused by "electro-chemical signaling".

  14. #14
    Seaside
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Posted by spo:
    By your logic, humans don't deserve better treatment than a cabbage!
    Posted by Mozbee:
    Do you take your feelings & emotions seriously Howlek?
    Afterall in your opinion, your feelings are merely a response caused by "electro-chemical signaling".

  15. #15
    Robin
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Howlek
    But I'm not a vegan because I think eating organisms with nervous systems is wrong. If I lived 6,000 years ago when the environment was still pristine, and there were no factory farms, I would probably be eating at least a little meat.

    I seriously never understood this "but back in the stone-age we ate meat" type of argument. This isn't 6.000 yars ago. Now is now, it's the year 2005 A.C. How people ate and lived 6.000 years has no rellevance for how we eat today, the world of today is such a different matter that we might as well have gone to a different dimension in comparison.

    This type of arguments are often followed by the "it's not natural" argument which has no rellevance either. The houses and apartmens we live in isn't natural, the cars we drive aren't natural, nuclear bombs aren't natural, the fact that people doesn't die from a cold ISN'T "natural"

    I just find it odd, people speak about nature like it's a religion, or God. They talk about nature like She has an intent. But Nature doesn't intend anything. Nature simply is.

  16. #16
    Mozbee
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Continuing your sensible theme, there's a great read by Jim Mason called "An Unnatural Order" - after reading it you get pretty convinced we were foragers (majority of the time) and if it wasn't for farming who knows maybe women would still be seen as figures of worship! There's some of it here.

    Love Mozbee

  17. #17

    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Nottinghamshire, UK
    Posts
    166

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Robin
    I seriously never understood this "but back in the stone-age we ate meat" type of argument. This isn't 6.000 yars ago. Now is now, it's the year 2005 A.C. How people ate and lived 6.000 years has no rellevance for how we eat today, the world of today is such a different matter that we might as well have gone to a different dimension in comparison.

    That's so true, and we have the physical evolution to prove it.
    More and more people are simply not having wisdom teeth, the primary function of which was to chew meat, and those of us that do get them often need to have them removed as they cause so many problems.

    Our digestive systems too have evolved. Once upon a time we could happily chomp on raw meat, and some inuit tribes still can, but in general, if the average person was to eat many raw meats they'd have monsterous food poisoning at worst, or at best, it would take forever to move through their systems.

    Our bodies digest fruit best of all the things out there, what does that tell you?
    (Apparently, Carl Lewis is a complete fruitarian whilst competing)

  18. #18
    Mozbee
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Nivvie
    That's so true, and we have the physical evolution to prove it.
    More and more people are simply not having wisdom teeth, the primary function of which was to chew meat, and those of us that do get them often need to have them removed as they cause so many problems.
    My wisdom teeth started trying to push through nearly ten years ago! After a lot of pain my top ones made it, but my bottom ones are still at the semi-erupted stage (one's even got a little gum flap!)
    "Wisdom" teeth I wonder who gave 'em the name?

  19. #19

    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Nottinghamshire, UK
    Posts
    166

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Ahh! Mozbee! I feel your pain!

    Mine had hooks on the roots, and had to be taken out in hospital, but not until after they's infected the surrounding teeth and I had to have a load of root canals.

    Damn those cavemen!
    Damn them!

  20. #20
    puffin's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2004
    Location
    Cambridgeshire
    Posts
    1,193

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Mozbee
    Sympathy flowing
    just throwing some sympathy over for you
    Dont like the sound of that gum flap thing, sounds a bit

  21. #21
    Mozbee
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    My main mouth problem is my tonsils, they're big & food bits get stuck around 'em!
    Do you think they will gradually disappear from the our species anatomy Nivvie?

  22. #22

    Join Date
    May 2005
    Location
    Nottinghamshire, UK
    Posts
    166

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    I'm sorry Mozbee. Even though they cause problems, they serve quite an important function. They 'test' incoming oral germs so anti-bodies can be made before the germs get too far into the system.

    However, as you know, you can do fine without them, especially if food gets stuck around them! Ew!

    Ask you doctor if you can have them out, and if not, you could always try the old fashioned way of pulling teeth, tie a bit of cotton around them and a door handle and slam.
    Haha! there it is right there, the stupidist thing I've ever typed!
    Where's my trophy?....

  23. #23
    ai4i
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    If a cow is no more valuable than a cabbage because her CNS is insignificant, then we might also devalue the chemical functions of a cabbage and say that it is no more valuable than a rock. I used to have a pet rock, back in the seventies! Some day when people can synthesize food, vegans might be considered barbaric murderers of helpless defenseless plants, but not today.

  24. #24
    Seaside
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote ai4i
    If a cow is no more valuable than a cabbage because her CNS is insignificant, then we might also devalue the chemical functions of a cabbage and say that it is no more valuable than a rock. I used to have a pet rock, back in the seventies! Some day when people can synthesize food, vegans might be considered barbaric murderers of helpless defenseless plants, but not today.
    They are not likely to synthesize plant foods, though, are they? They will be synthesizing flesh products. Suffering of animals will cease, and then we vegans probably will be considered ruthless plant killers. Sounds like a good, twisted plot for a science fiction story!

    But what is CNS?

  25. #25
    ai4i
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Seaside
    But what is CNS?
    Central Nervous System

  26. #26
    Seaside
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote ai4i
    Central Nervous System
    Duh!

    I took forever for me to figure out what LOL was.

  27. #27
    together
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    nervous system is not only for pain perception,
    we have CNS so we have emotions like feelin' well,
    and that is why i don't wanna eat meat,
    cause i don't wanna deprive animals from emotions just like that !

  28. #28
    leedsveg
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Thinking of the old scenario where there's me, a cabbage and a cow in a life-boat and one of us has to go overboard to save the other two, I'd get rid of the cow. My reasoning is that the cow would get frightened and panic, causing the life-boat to become unstable and sink.

    (It would be interesting if this scenario could be incorporated in the film Titanic 2 for which I understand, shooting starts next year.)

    lv

  29. #29
    cobweb
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    I think it was an actual Cabbage who first started this thread. Pro-Cabbage propaganda, that's what it is!. Obviously Cabbages are extremely worthy, not to mention sophisticated, I will certainly be re-thinking my treatment of Cabbages henceforth.

  30. #30

    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    South Coast
    Posts
    34

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    animals can also experience emotional pain.

    But reducing "pain" the way you did to just a survival mechanism is like reducing a painting to just pigment on a canvas.

    And in the old days, many evidence shows that we didn't eat meat! Anyway, even if we did, the fact that we physically don't need any animal product for any reason shows me that we should all be evolving to a more modern, sustainable diet, the way mother nature intends

  31. #31
    Bad Buddhist Clueless Git's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Milton Keynes
    Posts
    1,089

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    My personal tuppence worth is this ...

    Unless the OP (is this a new record for the oldest resurected thread, btw?) see's no difference in me sticking pins in his/her eyes against me sticking pins in a cabbage then the OP's claimed indifference to pain is a pile of old bollox.
    All done in the best possible taste ...

  32. #32
    leedsveg
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Cupid Stunt View Post
    My personal tuppence worth is this ...

    Unless the OP (is this a new record for the oldest resurected thread, btw?) see's no difference in me sticking pins in his/her eyes against me sticking pins in a cabbage then the OP's claimed indifference to pain is a pile of old bollox.
    CS

    I've had a boring festive season. Can I attack your eyeballs and the cabbage with pins before I come to a conclusion?

    lv

  33. #33
    Bad Buddhist Clueless Git's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Milton Keynes
    Posts
    1,089

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote leedsveg View Post
    CS

    I've had a boring festive season. Can I attack your eyeballs and the cabbage with pins before I come to a conclusion?

    lv
    Lol! No LV, you may blurdy well not!

    Minds me of how I got kicked out of the local greengrocers when I was a kid that does, though ..

    "M'mum says have you got any potatoes with plenty of 'eyes' in them, please?"

    "What???"

    "She needs them to see us through the week ... BOOM-BOOM!"

    Got the right hump over that the greengrocer did. Humourless old git
    All done in the best possible taste ...

  34. #34
    leedsveg
    Guest

    Default Re: In my mind, nothing makes a cow more worthy than a cabbage

    Quote Cupid Stunt View Post
    Humourless old git
    Tut tut CS

    If I was judge-mental, I'd pronounce you guilty of ageism and gitism (and perhaps even humourism). Shame on you.

    lv

Similar Threads

  1. What do do with red cabbage?
    By sugarmouse in forum Breakfast, lunch & dinner
    Replies: 21
    Last Post: Jun 6th, 2007, 05:01 PM
  2. Cabbage Anyone?
    By WolfRain in forum VEGAN FOOD
    Replies: 30
    Last Post: Oct 10th, 2006, 03:54 AM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •