I do not know how your sentience affects whether you can accept pain. There is no proof that you can feel pain that I can see. You could just be no different from a machine. Therefore, I should be able to eat you.
This is true: if you don't value human life, then you're free to try and eat me, much like since I don't value animal life, I eat animals. You'll be facing jail time, however, since more people agree with me!
this is where my rape analogy is useful again. I don't have to be worried about something happening to me to realize that it would suck. I don't want to be raped. I don't want to be eaten. I don't want my throat slit. I won't do it to anything else!
But your reasoning falls apart. I'm a tall, fairly strong guy, so if I applied your reasoning about animals to rape, it'd look something like this: "I don't rape girls because I wouldn't want to be raped!" Ridiculous- I run no realistic chance of getting raped. I don't rape women because I care about women and the suffering of people in general, not because of some fringe possibility that I get raped too.
They don't have to be expensive, though. Like I said, if people would feed people instead of feeding cows to feed people, we would be feeding more people.
Yeah, this is simply false. The feed needed to raise cattle is much less than the pounds upon pounds of meet you get- not to mention milk and other animal products. It's a simple inductive claim: if raising animals provided a negative net food result, then we wouldn't have raised animals in the first place.
I'm bored. I am going to go and kill someone on the street that nobody cares about, and who doesn't really have much of a desire to live. His or her suffering might be less than the pleasure derived from me killing him or her. Does this make it moral?
I wouldn't say so; then again, I value human life. If you don't particularly care about homeless people (or jail time), then there's nothing stopping you.
At this moment, my body is killing lots of harmful bacteria, and that is required for me to live. Not all life is worth the same to me. My life is more valuable to me than yours.
Glad you recognize this.
Still, I wouldn't kill and eat you if there's some other way to nourish myself. It is the same thing with animals. I have the ability to eat plants rather than animals, so I do. If I were in some situation where I had to eat animals or nothing at all, I would eat animals. If I were in a situation where I had to eat you or die, I would eat you.
Alright, so *why not*? You've already established that not all life is worth the same; where do you draw the line? I personally draw a clear line between people and animals- what about you?
There is no hope for me to convince you of anything.
I'm sorry if my consistency is frustrating you!
The same thing would happen if I ate nothing but celery for months.
So I'm not sure if you're trying to demonstrate your ignorance, or anything, but cannibalistic tribes don't only eat people.
Vegetarian diets are cheaper, at least in my experience.
Not if you consider the amount of time you need to invest!
Why are you guys even still arguing. It's a losing argument on both sides.
Uh, what? I'm pretty sure my side is winning!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBpfwpOPXNc&NR=1&feature=fvwp
I watch Planet Chasers Starlight Excellent all day, every day.