Im Callum Dodsworth age 14 and all my life I have been vegetarian/vegan. I was born a vegan for 5 years then I became a vegetarian at 5 and then after my own choice a year ago I became a vegan again. My dad has been a vegan since he was 18 and has done alot of protests against battery hens and hunting. He has converted my mother into a vegetarian and both of my little sisters are vegetarians and have been for all their lifes. My half sister is also a vegetarian and my dads ex is now a vegan. My aunty is also a vegetarian and so is my dads mum after my dad showed her. We might sound very hippyish to you but its nothing like that, we live in a small quiet village on the outskirts of Bristol in England. We have the same sorts of ideas of hippies but we are totally different. Now to get to the point, I have always and think that I always will believe that no animal products should be used for mans sake. All my life I have argued this case. Alot of you will think “well hes been brought up like this hes bound to think it” and you are right but there is nothing wrong with this because I believe the way we are brought up usually determines the type of person we are. Such as the type of music we listen to and the clothes we wear.
People also say “Its not fair that you are brought up not to eat meat or dairy products you should be able to make youre own choice.” well how am I to make my own choice when I am that young. My parents have never said you cant eat this without giveing me the reason I choose to believe today. I can eat meat if I wont I can eat anything but I choose to not eat those things. Then they might say “Yes but you only think that because you were brought up without any meat or dairy products so your gonna choose not to, your parents should of brought you up as a meat eater and then gave you the choice.” well I say bringing me up with meat is just as restricting and as unfair. I am happy that I was brought up as a vegan because I have discovered that I have never ever had eczema but both of my sisters who have been brought up as vegetarians have had it frequently. All my life I have also discovered that I am hardley ever ill sometimes I have the odd sniff sniff cold but never something severe. I put this down to my diet as my sisters suffer illnesses more then I do.
To start this arguement of I say this, we shouldnt eat animals or any animal products. Please reply on why we should and I will be quiet happy to combat your arguments.
Why should humans take prioraty over animals because we are animals as well.
I’m sorry, is your argument in support of vegetarianism/veganism that we shouldn’t eat animals because we are also animals?
Well what I am saying is that why should we be the controllers of the earth, we are all animals in our own right. Us humans come along and start killing the animals for our own sellfish reasons, people always say that its the natural order and that other animals do it, well whats natural is our choice it becomes natural after millions of years and our brains have developed enough to make us realise that we dont have to eat meat to survive.
first off do you grow your own food or buy it from the store?and why not eat cheese or eggs?
I buy my food from a store, why would it make a difference? Well I dont consume dairy products or eggs because first of all for both of the foods to be produced the animals have to be kept and manipulated which I think is unfair. Imagine if us humans were kept for breast milk, the woman would have to be made pregnant over and over again and the babies would just have to be sent away and killed or the mother would have to be intoxicated with aload of drugs, they would be kept inside tight spaces with machines up to their nipples. Not very nice. Alot of people say that it is ok to eat free range eggs but it isnt. The hens run about for 10 minutes, still in an enclosed area, never truely free. When the chicks are raised they are raised on the giant factory floor amongst a million other yellow balls of fluff. If I were to describe the conditions of such a place as if this were happening to a human you would be appalled and think i were describing the holocaust. 
do you know how many animals are killed harvesting your crops for your food
Should we stop other animals following the course of nature as well? If we are all animals then we should all be subject to the same laws. Why should lions be allowed to eat gazelles and i’m not allowed to eat a burger? That just doesn’t seem fair. I don’t think arguing from a “natural” point of view is a very persuasive one. Naturally we should be eating meat since it was what we were designed for.
I think a more persuasive argument for veganism is an ethical one put forward by the likes of Peter Singer et al. on which we have had a few threads. It is also based on the suffering of animals but it puts the onus on us because we have conscioucness and are morally obligated which sets us apart from the animal kingdom. It doesn’t say we should stop eating meat because we are all animals in the end and therefore we shouldn’t be at the top of the pile. That just doesn’t follow.
For what it’s worth, I admire your principled commitment to veganism 
- ben
Well the accidental killing of animals from the harvesting of crops can not be helped. It is not purposefull so it is not as bad. Giving up meat, fish, dairy products and eggs is still better than nothing.
To you Ben I say that in order to convince you I must cover all arguments and apects whether they are strong or not. Other animals dont have the intelligence to realise that we shouldnt eat meat and alot of other animals cant live without meat but we can. So we should just leave the other animals. A world without meat would be better, you would be less likely to get food poisoning from undercooked food, you wouldnt catch any diseases such as C.J.D, people would be less fat and more healthy, people would live longer, with the right diet people can be extremely strong ( the triatholon champion was a vegan), being a vegan also reduces chances of getting cancer, asthma and eczama. I have already explained that nature is what we make it. People always say well what about the small fangs in our dentures well what use do you find in them, after all these years of eating meat theyve realy helped havnt they(not). Thats why we have knifes and forks. Our bodies evolve around what we do, so if we eat meat then logically we will evolve around that, so if we all didnt eat meat then we would evolve around that, its not as if we are designed like that we evolve. We choose whats natural and at the moment all were making natural is war, pollution and suffering. Why dont we change that?
callumdodsworth, you live under the deluded fantasy that there is something intrinsically good about animals living a long or pain free life. There isn’t really, they have no intelligence to appreciate these things, they are no more than dumb automatons.
What little consciousness they have does afford them the luxury of a few concessions to this stance, we shoudn’t unnecessarily harm them or cause them pain because of the automatic responses it generates in their brains.
But other than that your whole argument rests on the delusional premise that they appreciate life, which they don’t, they instinctively strive for it. You are placing a level of conscious thought on them which they don’t have. They can’t think, so it doesn’t matter how long they live or what we do with their bodies.
I know that all sounds a little extreme, but in the end that’s all it’s really about, can they appreciate life? No. End of argument. In terms of that level of consciousness they are on the same level as plants, so you commit the same atrocities when you eat a carrott. It is a proven fact that blades of grass “scream” when they are cut. But that depends on your definition of scream!
Though I must admit your arguments relating to the benefits of a vegan/vegetarian diet are compelling arguments.
Actually, they are not on the same level as grass. Grass does not have a central nervous system, and therefore can not experience pain in the same way as an animal.
However, I work with people with learning difficulties, and I have worked with many people who operate on a very low level of cognitive ability, if they do think it is probably at a lower level than the average pig (disclaimer: In no way am I comparing people with learning difficulties with a pig, or any other animal, or commenting on their intrinsic worth).
Therefore, consciousness, intelligence or ability to appreciate life is entirely irrelevant, I presume you would not advocate eating other humans.
So why would you advocate eating an animal which may have the the same or superior cognitive powers to a human?
Purely on the basis of it’s species, humans obviously showing a marked preference for their own species.
Thankyou guest.6 that is exactley right. Matt to you I say just because they may not be as intelligent as us this does not give us the right to do with them as we wish. I always tell people to look at it as if it was them that were being killed for food, you would not like to be killed would you. Animals can not help it if they are not as intelligent as us so why should they be killed just because their brains havnt developed as fast. Its not fair.
its also not fair to say that we caint eat meat just becuse our brains have devloped faster.
ohh and the accadental death of animals during crop harvisting can be helped all you have to do is grow your own food. now why dont you grow your own food?
You can never compare any animal to a human, our brains work in a completely different way. Animals are not conscious in the same way as us, just look into a bit of the science involved.
They are not aware of self, every human is. Any humans who are not aware of self (including upto about 6 month old babies) would technically fall under the same classification of irrelevant as I gave above. The only difference is that there is the psychological resemblance to other humans and that 6 month old abies will develop self consciousness in the future.
If you could create a human looking automaton which seemed to breathe, etc. but felt absolutely no pain etc. you could not start killing and maimiing them at will purely because of the psychological attachment other people would give them.
You both happen to fall in to a class of people who think that animals have some sort of cognitive process that resembles ours when they patently do not.
Re: The central nervous system, what has that got to do with it? A central nervous system is just that, a system, it does not mean that they are any better or worse than plants, they have just evolved a different way of reacting to external stimuli, centrally guided instead of cell level guidence. Are you going to deny that a tree is a discrete entity in itself just because it hasn’t got a central processing centre? A nervous system is just a means to an end, it is what it is attached to that is important.
A computer could be said to have a central nervous system, i.e. keyboard/mouse, but I don’t hear you crying for their rights when one is scrapped.
You claim that you don’t eat any meat or animal products. But, you back this up by saying that you don’t eat it because animals were slaughtered and manipulated to get the food for you. So you’re saying that because you, or you and your family, in this case, don’t eat meat or animal products, those animals aren’t killed? Animals and their products are slaughtered up to one week before they are ordered and/or sold. It’s not like, “The Jones’ want some beef, go kill Bessy.” and “The Jones’ don’t want any more beef, they are vegans, let all of the cows and bulls be free!” it’s more like, “Let’s kill Bessy, the Jones’ might buy her in a week, otherwise she goes to the dump.” So, can you back up your side at all now?
~After Death~
Yes animals are killed during harvesting but animals are killed accidentely all the time, as you are walking along they are killed but it cannot be helped. In being a vegan I am not trying to become ethicaly pure which is impossible, im just doing the best I can to reduce animal suffering.
When our society takes the concept of animal rights seriously, we will have to reform the way in which we harvest crops so as to try to reduce the number of animals killed, however, this is not going to occur as long as our society continues to view animals as just a food source. Animals will always die on accident from human activities just as people will always die in car crashes or be run over on accident this dosnt mean that its ok to run them over on purpose. If I were to grow my own food it would be impossible for me to live a healthy life, the diet I eat at the moment gives me enough protein and calcium mainly from products of soya, this means I would have to grow my own beans and it would be impossible for me to grow enough to last all year in my small back garden. I try to buy alot of special organic stuff though which has been safly grown for animals and without chemicals.
Oh no you wouldnt be able to eat meat boo hoo hoo thats one of the most sellfish things ive ever heard, “its so unfair how you cant eat meat” how about its so unfair that thousands of animals are killed everyday just for your precious meat.
Yes Matt animals brains are different from ours well done 
and I never said they werent! That argument about them looking like humans dosnt combat the argument your just stating a fact because it is true that no one would kill them because they look like humans. But that isnt a good argument at all.
“You both happen to fall in to a class of people who think that animals have some sort of cognitive process that resembles ours when they patently do not.”
Guest.No6 didnt say that at all and neither did I, you try and find that in our argument and I fully apologise but I think your just making it up arnt you cus your gonna loose! Well a central nervous system causes an animal to feel pain, and pain hurts it is the worst kind of feeling an animal can feel because an animal dosnt feel the other bad human emotions, imagine the worst ever human emotion being inflicted on you pointlessly. Animals do not like pain just as humans dont. Get me?
Well X_post_mortem_X there is no direct change visible but still a change. Eventualy and hopefully everyone will be a vegan then it will make a larger difference. In being a vegan I am setting an example to others, I have made friends vegetarians and I will make my children vegans and my friends will make their friends vegetarians and so on
until eventually everyone will be a vegan or vegetarian. I also believe that giving it all up is better than not giving it all up wouldnt you say?
Yes, it does make a change. But not one that can go to the extent as to keeping animals from being killed. There are many, many people whom will never change their mind about this subject. You may think that you will make a change, but you won’t. Too many families in the United States are just not persuadable. The ratio of non-persuadable vegans; to persuadable vegans; to persuadable non-vegans; to non-persuadable non-vegans isn’t even close to enough to make any sort of change. The ration, by the way, if my memory serves me correctly, is 2:1:9:8. And, as for your last comment:
Firstly, you can believe anything you want, I can’t technically say that what you think is wrong. But, I am thinking that you mean:
Or, the infamous:
In essence, I am saying that your last sentence wasn’t worded correctly, and I think you worded it backwards. If you are asking if I think it is better to try than not to try, yes, I do think that. But, trying without any possible outcome isn’t worth it. If you try to keep animals alive by not eating them, sure, you’re trying, but it won’t have any affect at all, ever.
~After Death~
Great ideas you have but unachievable as there is so many people and animals on this world today that mankind has not got the resources or the land available to grow food to feed, not only all the people but also all the animals as well. Its a fact of life that mankind could not survive at this present time without eating animal products.
Yes there are people who will never change their minds about this subject but you will find that alot of people already think that it is wrong but they are just to lazy and/or accustemed to the taste to give it up. I understand thsi. The way i see it is that when people become vegans and vegetarians they will tell their friends they might make their spouses ones and then their children and their children will tell their children and they will all tell their freinds who will tell their friends who will tell their children and so on so on. Eventually it may spread to the whole world, well hopefully. The more people that become vegetarians the easier it is for other people to become vegetarians because more things are made available to vegetarians, this is already apparent because as a child I remember that labelling was alot worst but now almost every food has a vegetarian or non vegetarian label on it. So alot of people would be a vegetarian if it was easier.
As a society we decide and believe what is wrong, take stealing, we believe that that is wrong and that we shouldnt do it. Most of us believe that it is wrong but other just follow the rules incase they get in trouble. But we generally tend not to steal because it is wrong. We dont expect to be congratulated for our non-stealing or we dont state that our non-stealing will encourage others, we just dont steal because its wrong. We do not give up on other moral imperatives, such as stealing, simply because there will always be thieves so why shouldnt it be the same for vegetarianism. It would be the same as saying, “If I can’t stop all the evils of the world, I may as well give up and engage in them myself." The world will follow when it is ready.
Yes I made grammer mistakes because I was not making an effort to make them spotless I was infact writeing in a rush in the morning before school.