In regards to eating meat

[Bring4th_Austin]

At any rate, unless some farmers add the label "killed at night while in their docile state" to their packaging, it's moot, because most farm animals aren't slaughtered in their docile state.

No doubt, and I completely agree with you that the mainly corporate animal food industry today is horrible and heartless. I do not support it at all!

By that logic, a rapist would get a more lenient sentence if he raped only drunk women, who are awake by less likely to say no. Yet, rapists who rape drunk women are considered even more heinous, because they are taking advantage of the woman's vulnerability.

Good point! Leading to...

I see where you're going with this.

Apparently, on some level, we have all chosen to incarnate in positions of vulnerability, suffering, being victimized, etc. Human victims of murder, rape, war, etc. have all chosen those experiences as catalyst.

But no one here will say that it's ok to murder or rape another human.

"There's no such thing as a victim, only a willing participant." I totally subscribe to that theory in the same sense as you. I feel I've bridged a gap that probably shouldn't be bridged...of course the soul of the food animal understands what it is incarnating into, but it doesn't mean the physical animal will feel at peace being put into that situation.

Contrary to the opinions of vegans, who refuse to use any animal products at all, I consider the use of eggs produced by chickens so raised, to be a power-packed and humanely produced food. I have no issues with the use of eggs from free-ranging hens. What a wonderful protein food! Perfect for filling in the nutritional blanks for those who might feel they require animal protein, but no animal suffered.

Eggs are incredible! Strange note, too...if the chickens see a cracked egg they will devour it immediately! They'll even knock over the basket of eggs to break them and go to town on the buffet. Kind of weird, but I feel it supports your point in a way...eggs from happy chickens are perfectly okay to eat for people who abstain from eating meat due to treatment of animals (since they indulge in them themselves!).

Where I disagree is in the act of slaughter itself. I consider the term humane slaughter an oxymoron.

The devil's advocate in me wants to point out that you could consider uprooting a carrot slaughter...you are effectively ending that entities dance with its reality. Chickens are 2D entities much more similar to us than carrots, but just because there is no blood doesn't mean you aren't causing that entity's physical vehicle to become inviable. This is where I was trying to draw similarities between killing a chicken at night and uprooting a carrot; they're both seemingly peaceful, but do we know what's going on beyond our perception? Since the debated topic is whether this carrot is okay with being uprooted, I'm guessing you would not consider this slaughter, while an opposing viewpoint would. I suppose that fact will remain to be decided by personal opinion.