Very few? What were they? Is none "very few"?
I don't recall the argument that meat was a necessity being put forth. When did I miss that?
I have the same need to reduce human suffering yet not buying Nike's won't bring that about so why should not eating meat be any different?
I agree with Chris that the idea that animals don't suffer is beyond silly. We have no reason to assume that animals can't suffer. They are evolutionarily similar to us, have similar brain chemistry and structure, and engage in behaviors that can more readily support than deny the idea that they suffer. What reason do we have for claiming that humans underwent some amazing change that is so significant it separates us from animals in a fundamental way yet cannot be shown to exist in any physical or behavioral manner? I don't know that when I adult human claims something hurts they aren't engaging in anything more than the same conditioned response some claim for animals yet no one here would ever make that claim in any seriousness would they?. The differences between humans and other animals are ones of degrees. Animals eating each other is part of a completely natural cycle. Some anti-vegetarians like to claim that humans alone suffer or have consciousness but vegetarians put forth a similar claim when they say humans alone should remove themselves from the hunting/eating life-cycle. It's wrong for a human to kill a gazelle and eat it but it's alright for a lion for what reason exactly? That humans alone can suffer and/or have consciousness? How can the same argument, that humans alone have special cognitive abilities that are different in kind rather than degree from other animals, be used simultaneously to support conflicting arguments?
John Thornton