Re: Why is Neal Stevens a cruel person? (Was: Re: OT - But at least it's about people)

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dr. Jai Maharaj) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, 
>  [EMAIL PROTECTED] (nmstevens) posted: 
> > . . . I am not bothered, in principle, by the 
> > idea of killing for food . . .
> 
> Meat-eating is harmful for human health. Surely, you
> are "bothered" by ingesting harmful substances as "food"?
> 
> Visit the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
> web site for excellent food recommendations:
> 
> http://www.pcrm.org
> 
> Jai Maharaj
> http://www.mantra.com/jai
> Om Shanti


If eating meat were not harmful to human health, would you then, not
find the eating of meat to be objectionable?

I fear that such objections sound much like those practioners of
Kosher laws who talk about how pork and shellfish are "disgusting" to
eat.  As one who eats non-kosher foods, I can tell you that they are
not disgusting -- they are quite tasty.

Obviously, there are diets centered on a lot of meat -- especially red
meat that are extremely unhealthy - but there are also a lot of strict
vegetarian diets (certainly diets devoid of any animal protein can be
quite dangerous if the practitioner doesn't know what he's doing) that
are equally unhealthy.

It seems to me that one can clearly live a healthly life either way --
on a diet that includes meat or on one that doesn't. It is also quite
clear that,  biologically, we, like our nearest relatives, the
chimpanzees, are omnivorous animals, adapted to be able to hunt, eat
and digest both plant and animal protein.

The issue of eating or refraining from eating meat (or animal protein
altogether) or, for that matter, whether one even kills plants or
merely eats shed plant products like fruits or seeds - ultimately, it
seems to me, comes down, at best, only secondarily, to matters of
health -- because one can clearly have a healthy diet consistent both
with eating meat and refraining from eating it. For you to assert that
there are no healthy people who eat meat would simply be an absurdity.

The primary issue has always been a moral one -- how one views other
living things -- both plant and animal, on this earth, and that is not
one, ultimately, that is reducible to arguments of fact.

NMS