Quote Originally Posted by Sharla
Why Bilbo are you vegetarian?

Taking pleasure in the pain caused to an animal is different from enjoying a nice roast when the animal is no longer alive.

Humanely killing an animal means killing it as quickly and painlessly as possible. It's not a myth. There are more and less painful ways to die.

Humans eat meat because we're meant to physically. It's difficult especially if you're female to be a healthy vegetarian because we're meant to eat meat.

The same can be said for many carnivorous animals. Killing for fun though - killing for killing is a completely different thing.

I don't wear fur either. I like to think anything I own which is leather came from a cow which was killed humanely for food.

Quote Originally Posted by Bilbo

I like to imagine if there was a superior species to us that enslaved us would we differentiate between our captives who fed us well and let us exercise to get us in perfect condition for eating and those captives who just threw us all in a skanky cell together and then took us out and shot us one by one?

To be honest I'd find the former more sinister.
We should differentiate because we'd spend more time alive than being killed especially if it's done humanely by a butcher off the farming property.

You can buy freerange chickens and nobody ever said they die of natural causes.

Anyway if you don't like animals being killed for food you shouldn't like animals being killed for fun either. It's still not right!
My own sensabilities agree with you entirely. I do eat meat, I will buy leather shoes, sofa's etc but I wouldn't wear fur and I certainly wouldn't get an enjoyment out of watching an animal get tortured and killed.

But I grew up in a small urban town where the only prolongoed exposure to animals I've ever had is as pets, and watching nice animated Disney movies where all the little animals have nice personalities and are fluffy and cute.

But not everyone grows up like that. I must admit I don't know Vick's background, I had never heard of him before this thread but I know this has been said about Gerlad McCllelan in the past so I can talk about this as it applies to him even if it may not apply directly to Vick (or may I don't know)

Anyway the G man was brought up in gangs, on the mean streets where violence was commonplace. You fought each other, you might even kill or be killed. There are drugs, gang fights, drive by's, and violent crime. Living in that harsh, violent world it might be just natural to have your animals live in that hash world too. I'm not saying it's right, and I'm not saying I aprove, it's just all of this violence goes hand in hand.

I just find it ironic that people like Bernard Hopkins, Sugar Ray Robinson, Diego Coralles etc are all revered and respected (and by me too) by most people in this board, their misdemenours excused, yet a guy like Mclellen, and now Vick is labelled as the scourge of the whole earth as they are incomparably evil, without good points and beyond redemption.

Do I think dog fighting, bull fighting, fox hunting etc is cruel, yes I think it's horrible

Do I think it automatically makes anyone who participates in it evil and wicked, no, I don't live in their world and I don't know them personally to judge.

That's all I'm saying, I agree entirely with you in principal, it's just I don't think animal cruelty is the worst crime in the world, contrary to many on here it seems.