These reasons are all results of Classical and Operant Conditioning of animals. An animal in the wild would act differently than normal housepets. Humans can undergo the same conditioning and be made to be pets. As unethical as the practice is, if started at an early age, key cognitive processes can be inhibited that would make a human act much like a dog, that is, completely dependent on it's master for survival.

Thus you've only illustrated the effects of conditioning on animals, not anything close to determining the level of rationality.


Your dog has a taste for meat just as other animals have, including humans. I have stated earlier, there is nothing wrong for desiring to eat meat. The contradiction comes when you label it "wrong" to eat human meat. The dog you have that eats the meat and bread has never told you that it is "wrong" to eat dog meat. If you fed it to him or her, he or she may very well eat it. Therefore the dog is not guilty of contradiction.

Contrary to your warrentless claim that man's "basic communal nature" precludes him from eating another man, societies practicing cannibalism have functioned throughout ancient times and in order to survive, men have often been compelled to eat human flesh in modern times.

The flaw here is that you presuppose that a cannibalistic society would be a sort of Dawn of the Dead feeding frenzy where everyone nibbled at everyone else every day at every meal. Certainly you do not eat hamburger everyday of every meal do you? As far as the term civil goes, that is debatable but existence has proven true in many different societies.

Moreover, your argument that man's basic nature is a reason to exclude vegitarianism ignores the idea of a developed conscience. Certainly our basic nature compells us to survive, however we cannot simply shotgun anyone who poses the slightest threat to us, can we? If man has the cognitive ability to higher function, then we should recognize the contradiction in cosuming meat but calling it "wrong" to eat other humans.

Or the alternative, I believe it is wrong to eat humans, because humans are animals too, I believe that it is concurrently wrong to consume other animals. No contradiction.

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"Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike the least." -Robert Byrne-

Have you ever heard of the circle of life?

Deep down we are all just animals and you can't deny that there are animals who eat other animals that are below them in the food chain.

The idea of human eating another human as a justification is ridiculous.

I don't see any justification of vegatarianism as just except maybe for health reasons and thats if anyone has trouble eating meat. I know some people who just don't care for its texture. Fine by me.

i don't know if you have ever been in a dangerous situation and one that was prolonged. if you ever are you will realize that humans have a very good sense of danger and a very self protective nature when it come down to life and death.

another thing that makes humans different when it comes to eating a person is, when we hear eat a person we think about people that we know and have relationships with. i mean i'll bet there is no one here that would eat the family dog. is it because you can't? no the family dog is completely edible. we wont eat it becuase it is our friend. i think this is a reason we don't eat people. i mean the last time i checked i didn't know the cow i was eating personaly.

That reminds me off a Ron White comedy skit.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

I agree, I have no problem with those that choose not to eat meat because they don't like the texture or the taste. I had a friend in high school that wouldn't eat meat because animals are too cute to eat and it isn't nice to kill them to eat.

We got in a heated debate on a band trip about whether it is fair to kill plants to eat if it isn't fair to kill cows to eat. We got into things like plants don't have feelings and I could probably debate that to some point but at the time I was just having fun with her (not in that way), so the next day I brought a CD to school (which surprisingly our school didn't mind that students listened to CDs in class) with the song Carrot Juice is Murder.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

The fact that we won't eat something that shares a common trait with something that we would eat is not a contradiction. You're basing your argument off of what is called the guilt by association fallacy.

For example, I don't have a particular taste for roses. Does this mean that it's hypocritical or contradictory to eat anything that's red? Of course not. I don't like the taste.

People don't eat other people because we've developed an evolutionary or societal aversion to eating the flesh of our own kind.

i think that it is funny that there are people out there that don't eat meat even though we are obviously made to eat both or we wouldn't have k9's. its funny because we are talking about people eating people. what about animals eating people. and let me tell you it happens. where i used to live they had mountin lions. well a lady decided to go out joging on one of the trails that is alittle farther from town then was necesary and se was atacked and eaten by a mountin lion. it ate what it needed at the time and if you know about mountin lions you know that they will hide there prey for latter. well they founder buried under a pile of leaves and brush. just because you are a vegitarian doesn't mean you have left the food chain. that is sarcasm please dont kill me for saying it.

Hopefully this doesn't offend any functioning cannibals who may be reading this, but, desperate times call for desperate measures:

Credit: Monty Python, The Lifeboat Skit, Episode 26, 1970

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"Civilization is mortally wounded and something truly evil is being born to take its place." - Stephen Coonts novel "The Traitor"

Best recent book: - "Protect and Defend" by Vince Flynn

The way I see it is if you want to eat vegies that is fine. Your lean, clean and healthy. So when we run out of meat to eat guess what. Some others won't change over to vegies. So you become the meal. Loooool just joking...... But I don't think other are.

Well is it hard to be a vegetarian? What is the main meal really?