"The experiements are controversial because they have been able to be replicated in some cases, and not in others. It's called the Backster Effect. If true, then your plants suffer just as much as any animal when used for food."

Guess what is NOT controversial? The fact that animals and humans both have central nervous systems, and plants do NOT. Heres something else that is NOT controversial. No nerve cells = no pain. Its quite easily demonstrated. No controversy involved. Plants, nuts, fruits, vegetables do NOT contain nerve cells. So feel free to explain exactly (or even vaguely) a plant feels pain IN ANY WAY CLOSE to that of a fish or mammal. The Backster effect seems to work sometimes, and sometimes not? Well, when I slit the throat of a cow it **ALWAYS** cries and yelps. Every time.

"We evolved to eat meat, as it provides a higher dose of nutrients. If there wasn't the effort/reward mechanism for this type of consumption, it would not have become and evolutionary necessity for our species."

Oh really? We did? Why do you have to cook it (controlled burn...) first or risk getting sick? Unlike ANY OTHER carnivore on the planet. Lions don't use refrigerators, either. Furthermore, demonstrate this effort/reward mechanism. I can't wait to hear it. Many primates (incuding the strongest,) are vegetarian. A Gorilla doesn't need to eat a steak to beat either of us to a bloody pulp.
An 'evolutionary necessity'? Again, there are LITERALLY MILLIONS of human beings walking the earth RIGHT NOW who do not eat flesh. So much for your bit about 'evolutionary necessity.'


"Would it even be possible to feed the whole world on plants, if overnight we eliminated the consumption of animal flesh?"

Oh yes. And THEM SOME. The primary reason (but not only reason) that food resources are scare IS BECAUSE we feed what we grow to animals, then kill them and eat them.

"Yes, it does destory the host, and prevents reproduction. What happens to a corn stalk once all the ears have been picked? It dies. What happens to the bean stalk? It dies. Not only does it die, but you have prevented it from reproducing. It is in effect no different than the husbandry of animals."

No, picking the fruits/nuts doesn't kill a bean or corn stalk..... The weather does. Every year. Planting seeds is a lot easier than growing a cow. And if you are really worried about the plant not reproducing (despite that fact that they do when we plant the seeds on their behalf) you can leave a few beans/ears on it and rest your conscience. I really have to wonder how much thought you've put into your position.....

"Do you honestly believe that ANY life form, on the most intrinsic level imaginable, does not value its existence?"

I honestly don't see a shred of evidence that an orange, a pecan, or a kidney bean have ANY IOTA OF CONSCIOUNESS AT ALL. Zero. But, those are fruits. They fall off the plant host ANYWAY. That's their whole purpose. Don't try to draw parallels where none exist.

"I try to restrict it, to find alternative when I can. I have no guilt, just as you do not have any guilt for eating the lifeforce of plants, and in your own way betraying them."


If you really don't think that theres a difference between plants and animals, I have to wonder how you got out of elementary school. It is absurd. Why do you think that seeds have evolved to survive the intestinal tract? So when animals eat them and shit in the woods, more plants grow. This has been so for millions of years. Plants EXPECT other things to eat them. It is part of their reproductive cycle. How many mammals REQUIRE other mammals to eat them in order to propagate? None.

"The cow does convert cellulose into protiens, fats, etc. This is a more concentrated level of nutrients than you get from plant material. It eats something that we cannot, and converts it into something we can. What is the caloric value of a kilo of beef? How many kilos of lettuce would you need to eat in order to achieve the same amount of energy?"

5% fat meat is 621 calories per pound. Obviously the more fat, the more kilocalories.
Pound of Romaine lettuce = around 75.

But nobody is advocating eating lettuce all day, so lets take something more realistic. Like soybeans.

There are 1460 kcal in a pound of soy protein isolate. That's more than twice as much as your lb. of beef. And lets talk about what the SPI does NOT have. Saturated fat and cholesterol.


"I respect vegetarians immensely. I wish I could do it, I have tried, and it didn't work for me for the reasons I mentioned above."

Those being, in essence, you didn't feel like it. You just 'enjoy' meat. Your biology is no different than mine in any meaningful sense. You do not possess some "meatlusting" things in your brain that I do NOT have.

Again, feel free to indulge in whatever delusions and rationalizations you wish. Your mind is your own domain. But its clear to me that the spirits I sense and the spirits you sense are very different things.

"Calling the use of flesh in order to keep us alive murder is a bit beyond the pale for me. "

You do NOT eat flesh to keep yourself alive. You eat it because you want to, and no other reason.....I really have to wonder if you've been following the conversation close enough. Again, we DO NOT require the ingestion of flesh to live, be it weightlifters, olympic athletes, MMA fighters, or any other area of human endeavor. This is fact.

So what do you call it, if not murder? You are killing a living, breathing, feeling, central nervous system-possessing, sentient being. And not because you have to, but because you WANT to. Its perfectly fine if its 'beyond the pale' for you. It doesn't alter the reality of the situation despite where your 'pale threshold' lies.

The whole of your argument boils down to "plants = animals," and "I like meat."

Works for me. How about you?

Yep, pretty much, with a healthy dose of respect for all life (especially those who choose to follow a different path) thrown into the mix. I will always sleep fine with a belly full of flesh...just wish I could find a nice Chianti

Works for me. How about...doh!

Out to get some food, and actually planning on having a vege pizza. Obviously this topic is very important to you, thus I will comment upon your passionate response later.

So plants are not electo-chemical organisms? Does one need a central nervous system to be conscious? You don't believe that plants have their own level of consciousness or awareness? You don't belive that a plant is "harmed" when we take a leaf, or break a stalk? Does a plant not "bleed" when we cut it? Pain is pain, you are just using your own reasoning to qualify that pain and make it relevant for your belief system.



Yes, it was evolutionary necessity. Why, because it is part of our history. We have tens of thousands of years, if not hundreds or million where we have been meat eaters. If it hadn't been necessary for our survival, we wouldn't have done it. Early man probably didn't cook their meat either, as they were probably hunting before the discovery of fire. So that argument of yours is pointless. We also don't need to cook it. We can smoke it, we can dry it, we can salt it.

Now, do we need meat to survive in this day and age? No. I agree with that. This has been the case for only a very short period of time in our history, probably only since the industrial revolution. But to deny that it was part of our evolutionary history is to be blind to the truth.




And for how long has this been possible? No more than the last 30-40 years, with the advent of globalization. Food resources aren't scarce because we feed them to animals, food sources are scarce because there is NO PROFIT in feeding the world. Scarcity is a contrived fallacity in todays world.



Does your skin have consciousness? Your toenail? But you do, and they are a part of you. The fruit may not, but I see plenty of evidence for a tree or a plant being consious. I am sorry if you cannot. Granted fruits that fall to the ground, as well as any reproductive mechanism that entails such things are a different story. As mentioned above, from a particular moral perspective, these should be the only food stuffs we should consume, and we should wait for them to fall from the tree as is meant. This is about as far out as you can get on that side of the spectrum. Cannabilism being the other end....as with everything the middle is where the balance lies.




LOL! Personal attacks reflect only upon yourself and show a lack of rational thinking. Your world view is being challenged and the first reaction is to lash out. Understand your own thought processes. You are being ruled by emotion and your ability to reason is impaired.

What I have been saying, which you continue failing to grasp, is that plants and animals both have equal intrinsic value. You are using your own SUBJECTIVE value judgements to impose a state of order where none exists. You a judging which form of life is more important than another. That judgement is valid for you and you alone, and meaningless as all life, ALL LIFE, has equal value.



Hmm...strange numbers...
For a kilo (2.2 pounds) of lean beef, I get ~ 2500
For a kilo (2.2 pounds) of Romaine lettuce I get ~ 235
For a kilo (2.2 pounds) of raw soy beans I get ~ 1469
For a kilo of soy bean isolate I get ~ 3392 (the question here is how many kilos of raw soybeans does it take to make 1 kilo of isolate?)

Saturated fat and cholesterol consideration are important for the average person. They are meaningless to me, as I have never had a problem, and there is no history of high cholesterol/heart disease/obesity in my family.



Those being...I tried it, and it did not suit my dietary needs very well. I like the taste of meat, in all its forms. Those are reasons enough for me. I don't need to justify what is meaningful in my life to you or anyone else. In a perfect world, would I like to see everyone become a vegetarian? Sure I would. Slaughter the animals one last time, as letting them go in the wild would just be cruel and unusual punishment for most of them, to die of starvation or disease, or preyed upon by wolves, ferrets, and other animals that will use their lifeforce to survive without the overarching guilt that many feel over this form of sustenance.



You are too funny. My mind is my own domain, and I sleep very well thank you. We all rationalize our choices in life, we are all delusional to one degree or another. Hold up a mirror and what do you see? We do see differernt spirits. I see the ones you see, but you are unable to see mine. Whose perceptions are narrowed, eh? You have a greater respect for one strata of life, I have a greater respect for all life.

To bring it full circle back to the Original post. The Plaedians are on my side. And since they are advanced extra-terresterials, millions of years more advanced than us, I find their perspective more enlightened.

Since the discussion here have taken a different direction, SWIM has opened a new topic here:
https://dmt-nexus.me/for...aspx?g=posts&t=12761

There you can also download the book "Bringers of the Dawn, Teachings from the Pleiadians" by Barbara Marciniak. The YouTube videos is an upload of the audio book (you may use keepvid.com to download these videos from YouTube).

There doesn't seem to be any desire to work toward a middle ground here. Personally, I can't see what anyone gains from these type of arguments, where one party seeks to contradict the other. I don't enjoy threads like this.

Insert your put down and polar opposite view to mine here: ____________________________________________

True, sorry for hijacking your thread. I've listened to the first 6 or so parts of the video posted, and there is some really good information in there.



I was coming from the middle ground. I said I respected his choices immensely, just that they were not the right choices for me. I tried to approach the topic respectfully, but maybe wasn't totatlly able to with the personal attacks against me. I don't think I put him down, maybe that last line, but the "winks" were meant to show sarcasm.

Simple solution, if you don't like a thread, don't read it.

fine, I won't then. (1664 runs out of the room, slams the door, sits in the corner & sulks)

I found the topic(s) interesting, I just prefer reading a friendly discussion over point proving

Hehe.

Fair enough. But with discussions coming from differing points of view, one often has to show where anothers logic fails. Proving/disproving ones point is how we can come to concensus on what truth actually is, and it always lies somewhere in the middle.

Discussions should always be friendly and respectful, of that I most certainly agree.

Good debate. You both bring up some excellent points and counterpoints.

A counterpoint to humans not being able to eat meat raw is to look at the traditional Inuit diet. They were actually left with no choice. They needed to eat whale skin in order to get vitamin c. Much of their diet is raw. Apparently raw seal blubber is a good way to keep warm.

The strongest argument against eating meat is definitely the resources consumed. That is, the strongest argument that could apply to everyone.

Not everyone cares if animals suffer or not. Alot of people don't even care if other humans suffer.

I think it's good to have a reasonable empathy. Logicaly, there's no way I can say that only animals with nervous systems feel pain and fear and other negative waveforms. It's entirely possible that plant life, has a mechanism that allows for a passive sentience -- just because maple trees don't cry and scream while their sap is being juiced doesn't mean they don't feel it. Going further, just because my old socks don't sob 'noooooo, I don't want to go!' when I throw them in the waste basket, doesn't mean they don't think it. At some point true empathy breaks down and it's basically open to interpretation and random conjecture. At other points, it's very straight forward to know what the most humane thing to do is. I was shown how to kill a chicken by first picking it up and calming it down, then holding it upside down. It gets a little agitated by being held upside down but that passes quickly and the blod rush to its head makes it nearly pass out, at which point the head is swiftly removed with a sharp instrument. What happens next from my perspective is that the chickens body starts making screaming throat noise and flapping. The head is nonplussed. What happens from the chickens perspective is up for interpretation. My ability to empathize with a decapitated chicken is sketchy at best.

..derail.. but I am on Saidin's side of this debate personally..

We are mere monkeys. There is truly no right or wrong.