Amends (2018-05-23)

If you're going to go all biblical to make us feel bad then you have to acknowledge how the bible also says all the animals are here for us specifically.

I'm not religious and even I know it says that.

Funnily enough there's actually wording in Genesis that could be taken imply humans are just supposed to eat plants, with humans just ruling the animal kingdom and not devouring it.
Feel free to look up Genesis 1:25-31 to see what I mean, though of course translations are..
Very variable.
Regardless, most interpretations agree that what humans absolutely shouldn't be doing is causing a mass extinction that is set to kill just about every complex life form on Earth.
- That's really interesting! I'd be curious to see what other translations read as (especially ancient languages, if I were smart enough to read them), but in the NIV translation, you could absolutely read that as a call to eat only plants, and to care for the animals.
  It could also be taken another, slightly more terrifying way, too.
  If we assume what we're doing is right, farming and killing animals for food, and work backwards from there, the verses say that God made the animals, and gave us dominion over them. If we assume the way we currently treat animals and view them is how that dominion works, then when it goes on to say that God made man in God's image, it could be implied to say that man is to animal as God is to man.
  Which could mean God is farming and killing us for God's sustenance. We're nothing but chickens in cages.
- 25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
  26 God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 God said, “Behold,[a] I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.
  31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
  Footnotes
  1:29 “Behold”, from “הִנֵּה”, means look at, take notice, observe, see, or gaze at. It is often used as an interjection.
  Public domain, WEB translation.

ffs Joe, did you kill a fucking elephant?

Yeah I thought this was a carnivore joke, but some of those animals do NOT check out 😨
- Could be saying he is liable for ivory trade.
- Climate change? I don't know.
I was a bit worried about the bat

Is it just the ones I personally killed or do you have to say sorry to like five cows for every burger you ate? Also do clams count? because they barely have a nervous system

It's randomly decided in proportion to how much you ate. A clams casino.
Also other indirect murders like the calfs killed because they are considered a by-product of milk production and waste.
you don't need to kill give cows for one burger. one cow makes many burgers
- Yeah but the minced meat burgers are made from is probably mixed up from different cows.

The black in the background are all the bacteria.

it's all the bugs from the zapper
- Don't forget the plants!

Lots of interesting points at various levels of the comments.

I'd like to offer the idea of, just because we can and have eaten meat as a species, should we continue to?

Why not try something different?

Maybe because we are omnivores and require what meat provides us in order to thrive?
Love how vegans/vegetarians will stand in complete ignorance of how the world works just for some misguided empathy towards our food supply. Grow up from the little child crying over the idea of eating some animal you saw looking "cute" or behaving "humanlike".
- I'm not even vegetarian/ vegan, but you just come off as a giant asshole.
  It is a well known fact that it's entirely possible to thrive on a non meat diet. So your argument that we need meat to thrive is a really bad one.
  The world works the way we make it work. Imagine wanting to end slavery, and there you go "Grow up from the little child crying over the idea of slaves deserving their own lives, you just don't understand how the world works!"
  You don't have to justify wanting to eat meat for sustenance. And you also don't need to be an asshole about it when engaging in civil conversations.
- I hope you find peace 😎
What if this isn't a statement on eating meat. What if this guy just loved to kill things? There are turtles and elephants in there.
Since the Japanese soldier is the first person he meets, that means he didn't kill anything until after the soldier. Either he was a vegan (and very careful) before that, or he killed a japanese soldier as a baby, at the start of his reign of terror.
- There's always the worse answer 😬
  I hope not.

is he like an oil baron, wtf is this shit

Holy hell he ate an elephant?
- I don't think he ate the japanese soldier either

There gonna be a lot of mosquitos for me

I'd just kill them again
- "I've already made peace with it, thank you."

Went to war and only killed one dude?

For a Vietnam vet, statistically it was more likely to be his CO than an enemy combatant
- what's CO
- As it should be.
Thats not unusual i would think. If you get injured in your first encounter then thats a pretty likely outcome.
The average soldier kill rate (of other soldiers) can't exceed 1; if one side does really well with a high average, the other side necessarily did poorly.
- Put it another way - imagine a super bloody war with 1 million soldiers who all killed each other. You have 1 million kills, divided by the 1 million soldiers, creating a 1.0 soldier kill rate.
  If any soldiers survived, the rate drops. Obviously you can get a number above 1 if you place civilian deaths in the numerator but not denominator; but in the "ideal" war where civilians are safe it can't exceed 1.
Aka an infinite k/d and we don't know his assists

There are many problems associated with being alive. This is one of them. But it annoys me that vegans seem bent on proselytizing their viewpoint. It always seems self serving to me.

Yes yes the people that care about others dont actually its just virtue-signalling no need to critically engage with what they are saying 🥱
- Look at all these doctors and union workers proselytizing their viewpoints!
Because it is. It is just a lifestyle people use to feel like they are better people than meat eaters. Despite the fact that our bodies are literally made for digesting both plants and animal products. Meanwhile, the majority of them still wear clothes made in sweatshops, wear makeup by brands that actively contribute to animal and human cruelty, eat chocolate made with slave labor, buy from stores that carry animal products, and have no issue with cruelty towards people. Idk. If it isn't a self-serving ideology, it definitely cosplays as one very convincingly.
- Is there any altruistic act that you couldn't apply that logic to?
- Do you expect people to somehow be able to avoid all suffering? There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and often people don't recognize the ethical problems with their choices. People purchase clothes they can afford at the shops available to them, and availability of stores that don't carry animal products is essentially zero. What I find more odd is defending something we know is causing great suffering, simply because vegetarians/Vegans also do end up participating in the perpetuation of different suffering. I'm not better than you because I'm vegan, and most Vegans/vegetarians do not believe that. It's a take I only hear from people that eat animals.
- Ah yes let’s aim for the impossible perfection and refuse to improve somewhat.
Because their viewpoint reduces the most harm and is the most sustainable.
- It doesn’t. No one ever alters their life or actions due to someone else’s lofty pronouncements and virtue signaling. The argument is valid but the method is self serving and the message is clear. “We have no desire to change hearts and minds but to increase social standing within our in-group by demonizing those outside of it.” Be a vegan no is stopping you. But using these methods to “promote” it is unhealthy cult behavior.

No. Having the main cause of death in the world demanding a mere mortal to ask forgiveness for killing to satisfy a basic need is really a tall order.

And why are plants exempt from being asked for forgiveness? It has been shown plants show stress and resonate with their surroundings.

A life is a life.

And why are plants exempt from being asked for forgiveness? It has been shown plants show stress and resonate with their surroundings. A life is a life.
Do you truly believe that harvesting some potatoes or mowing a lawn is on a similar level to cutting the throat of dogs, pigs, or cows? Like, for real?
Then there's the elefant in the room that animals literally have to eat tons and tons of animal feed each before being slaughtered, so eating meat is the worst choice of food in terms of both animal suffering and plant suffering, which means industrial animal farming is even more fucked up than it already is.
So the implication of this argument can't be the consideration of suffering, the only interpretation that is somewhat coherent is "you can't be perfect, so causing as much violence towards animals as you want is fine." which would be an exceedingly cynical and cruel position to take.
- No.
I think it's a joke.
- And, like many others, is capable of sparking conversations
does chemotaxis count as stress? if so we are fucked.
- Yes.

These angels are just trying to create a top ranked list so god can see how much of a lead he has on any one person.

~~Ok, but do I wish to do this.~~

Edit, typo:

Ok, but I do wish to do this.

I do. It's about dignity, respect, and our place in the universe. There's only so much you can do in life. I just butchered a few more birds last weekend. You always do your best, it's never easy, but if you want to eat meat as ethically as possible it's best to do it yourself. Thank the animal. Give it dignity and respect in death.
- Omg, wtf - I explicitly wanted to write:
  Ok, but I do wish to do this.
  And yes, what you said.
  \ But also other animals (I don't even know how many bugs I wronged by walking over them without realising), other life, even non-alive things I've had an effect on directly or indirectly.
  I do tend to say a lil thank you to the food I eat. But also to some objects I used.

Doug Fawcett made this comic

I'm sure those vegetarians will be shocked at the number of non plant based creatures they will have to make amends with. Just living causes the death of other creatures. I'm sure they don't see it that way.

Plants can’t feel pain stop making excuses for animal abuse.
- you can't prove this
- It has been proven that some plants can communicate with others.