Not to butt in to your conversation with earthcubed, but I don't, and I agree with your premise that Earthcubed is holding atheists to an unreasonable standard in the way he is framing his argument, though your quoting Peter Singer has also reminded me that retarded ideas are not limited to Evangelical preachers demanding unrealistic donations from the working middle class.

People who don't even occasionally treat themselves to something from the fruits of their labors tend to not be very productive, and I'll use the lack of productivity in Dictatorial/Communist countries as an example, since their tax codes tend to reflect this secular-monastic view on life, so we'd have less surplus funds to share and potentially a higher suicide rate for it. Buying CDs and songs on iTunes is plenty moral, and Mr. Singer can kiss my theistic, 3 times a week Old Catholic Church Sedevacantist ass if he thinks he's any more of a moral person than anyone else, of any ideological persuasion, because of his self-gratifying and very much public gestures of philantrophy.

I fully agree, but I don't think Peter Singer supports communist regimes; he merely argues that if one accepts certain basic premises, his conclusions follow. I wrote an essay in an ethics class arguing against him (somewhat successfully: I got an A), but his argument is strong. Also, a very practical objection is that sending money to charity is extremely inefficient and may be counterproductive with regard to a country's long-term well-being. Anyway, my main point was that Earthcubed's reasoning follows the same format as Singer's: that money spent in this particular instance could be better used for charity purposes and then singles out atheists as wasting money on uncharitable endeavors when we are all roughly equally guilty (not that it makes me feel guilty).

Now, you seem to be suggesting that people who live a comfortable lifestyle not buying $50 of extra junk/things not directly related to standard of living per month would lead to higher suicide rates. That's not a very strong objection. He'd argue that relieving suffering is morally obligatory (you'd agree that saving someone drowning in a lake is morally obligatory: you'd be an asshole to just walk by and ignore it) whereas merely increasing happiness through the purchase of unnecessary entertainment that one can easily go without grants a lesser marginal utility. Since distance is an arbitrary distinction, you are equally on the hook for helping out people on the other side of the globe as the person drowning in a lake.

I wrote an essay in an ethics class arguing against him (somewhat successfully: I got an A), but his argument is strong.

We had imagined that dumpstering would retrieve only old or blemished food and were astonished by the non-perishable items in perfect condition we found in dumpster bins; later we discovered that our gleanings were typical of what is thrown out in many countries. A New York dumpster diver recounts finding dumpsters full of expensive packages of gourment nuts and dried fruit, luxury chocolates, three or four 50-pound bags of bagels regularly thrown out by a single deli, and large quantities of non-perishable food like rice pilaf mixes and instant soups.

Some of this waste is easily explained. Bakeries, donut stores, delis, and salad bars often advertise that they bake fresh, or get freshly made food every day, and they also like to keep their racks and salad bowls full, so that customers don't get the impression that they are buying the dregs after other customers have picked them over. This combination ensures that at the end of the day a lot of perfectly good food gets thrown out. A small fraction of it may be donated to food banks or shelters for homeless people, but most of it is simply put in the bin, probably because the stores are worried about undermining their own sales - if word gets around that you can get something for free at 10 pm, fewer people will buy it at 8 pm. But the reasons for trashing non-perishable goods are more mysterious. On some products, stores get lower prices for ordering large quantities, so it can be cheaper for them to order more and put what they don't sell in the trash than to buy only what they can sell. Perhaps more improtantly, shelf space is a limited resource, and stores regularly clear out shelves for new deliveries. The store may have a long-term contract with a supplier to provide a specified quantity of a product each week. If an item has not sold as well as expected, the old stock will be dumped, even if it is not out of date, to make way for the new stock.

Many dumpster divers began as vegans but became convinced that boycotting animal products is not radical enough. Even products that contain no animal ingredients can hurt animals, when land is cleared to grow crops or when oil companies go into wilderness areas to provide the fuel needed to truck the goods around the country. Some of them began calling themselves "freegans," a term that is a deliberate play on "vegans." An anonymous vegan has said that being a freegan means that "you are boycotting EVERYTHING!...That should help you get to sleep at night." While freegans are more radical than vegans in refusing to purchase any kind of food at all, they are also more flexible, in that they see no ethical objection to eating animal products that have been thrown out. They want to avoid giving their money to those who exploit animals. Once a product has been dumped, whether it gets eaten or turned into landfill can make no difference to the producer. Some freegans still don't like the idea of dining on a corpse, and - although they are prepared to eat food from dumpsters - they know about fecal contamination on meat and see health risks in eating anything that has passed through a slaughterhouse. But their reasoning is impeccably consequentalist: If you oppose the abuse of animals, but enjoy eating meat, cheese, or eggs - get it from a dumpster.

Besides, veganism is more preference than reason.

veganism is not something that I can see as arguable from a logical standpoint either, mostly given the makeup of our teeth, which are specifically constructed to aid in the consumption of both animals and plants.

veganism is not something that I can see as arguable from a logical standpoint either, mostly given the makeup of our teeth, which are specifically constructed to aid in the consumption of both animals and plants.

Right, but our hands are also quite well-constructed for the strangling of disobedient mates, but from that it does not follow that we are justified in doing so.

This brings us back to the teleology question which I'll address one of these years...

Right, but our hands are also quite well-constructed for the strangling of disobedient mates, but from that it does not follow that we are justified in doing so.

This is the first time in the history of this subforum that you're being a bit silly, Osmium. If our hands weren't capable of strangling a mate, we could still beat them to death once every decade or so before finding a new one, and in complete absense of arms, push them off a cliff if necessary. But we'd still need to chew our food every day.

Not to mention that natural selection would punish both a set of teeth incapable of chewing the most effective available sources of nutrients AND a habit of strangling a mate every once in a while.

I don't agree. The reasons are very simple, actually. Animal products are not nutritionally necessary given the existence of plant-based alternatives and supplements. For a person who is aware of this fact, and for whom the purchase of vegan-friendly products would not be overwhelmingly inconvenient, the choice to consume animal products would be a choice based on what else but the preference for their taste (and the preference not to be seen as a pussy by certain people)?

The availability of animal products, in all but the most extraordinary of cases perhaps, requires the animals to endure pain at the hands of their owners; therefore, to purchase animal products is to support cruel practices - I say "cruel" because they inflict pain needlessly, and I say "needlessly" because of the plant-based alternatives.

Veganism is also less harmful to the environment, but I'm not as familiar with that aspect of it.

Here's how Tolstoy puts it: "A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."



That we have the physical endowment to do X is not moral justifaction for our doing X.

As hells_unicorn established, there is obvious anatomical evidence that shows human animals have consumed other animals for ample time to allow evolution to aid in the development of suited physiological features.

That aside, it is also clear that animals are not subject to the same ethics as man - they are not capable of rational or sentient thought, and so are incapable of interacting with man as he does amongst himself, and so not subject to the same rules.

As for Tolstoy's quote, it's a baseless claim. Without any proof or evidence, you're merely frolicking in a sentiment, not presenting an honest philosophy, or at least not one which is well defended.

However, one cannot naturally receive all nutrients from vegetation alone, from natural, non-animal foodstuffs. If you're arguing that meat is somehow more artificial or synthetic than vegetables, then you are wrong on a fundamental level.