Animals eat each other so why shouldn't we eat them?

That's not actually what he said, according to his autobiography. He was actually vegetarian for much of his life. He was running away from home at the time, leaving Boston, heading for what he thought was going to be New York, which would be his new home. It turned out to be Philadelphia. But the ship was becalmed about halfway there. And so he ran out of provision. And he watched while everybody else was eating fish. They were throwing a line over the side and pulling up the cod and slicing up the cod and having a wonderful fried cod dinner. And Franklin got hungrier and hungrier. And part of his vegetarianism was--you could call it a moral version--where he felt that humans shouldn't eat other animals because they had done no harm to any other creatures. And then he was watching the cook slice open one of these fish and only--and then discovered, to his amazement, that inside the stomach of one of these fish was a smaller fish. Whereupon his hunger and his weakening of his will got the better of him and he says to himself--he's relating this in his autobiography--he says that--sort of speaking to the fish, `Well, if you eat other fish, I don't see why I shouldn't eat you.' So you see, people throughout history have used some of the most ridiculous excuses & "interesting logical arguments" to justify their backward, barbaric filthy old habits. Of course, in this case, the guy was really hungry. Of course, if you wanted to use this line of thinking to use famous people in history to endorse the human consumption of flesh, why not pick Jonathon Swift? During the Irish Famine he published papers explaining to people why it is really very fine & good to kill & eat babies!!! There are a great many reasons why humans should not breed, kill & eat animals. Some off the top of my head include: reasons of animal suffering, environmental impact, saving money, better taste, spiritual aspects, a world hunger solution & of course human health. We were not originally designed to eat animal flesh, raw like animals do, cooked or otherwise. We are not omnivores - our entire make up from our teeth, through to our stomachs, through to our intestines, etc are all very similar to herbivores & humans have bastardized this. We were designed to only take plants as food, as you may see from the earliest points of any scriptures in any of the world's major religions. Nor are we animals, we are humans of the human standard & are here to accompany & teach the animals so they too may evolve to the human standard & beyond. We should not learn from them nor imitate them & their behavior - which is ultimately a reflection of our own messed up behavior.

Animals don't wear cloths but why do we? webearn99. Why in this beautiful world do we need to equate ourselves with animals? We are what we are and animals are animals. If you want to eat animals, go ahead and do it. Justification this way, I think, is a bit far fetched.

Hi Dear Gorillafootprints! As I have responded in one of your previous discussion that in this nature there is always a struggle for existence for every species and in the species between every individual. The survival of the fittest is the basic law of he nature! The powerful species take over the weaker one for their survival! We are also part and parcel of the nature and we also follow the same rule! We are domesticating weak animals for our benefiting like for getting milk, eggs and other products from them and killing them to have the flesh from them for our survival! This is the way the nature has been designed like! Thanks !

maybe its out of the context. This phrase/quote looks anti-vegan for me.

hi, everything in the world have meaning and destination,as we remember the old age before Christ is born,and human is in the age of stone and fire,animals was there foods to live and to survive,thats why God create them to eat them.