[oilywater]

If one wants to embark on a moral argument present in the theory of evolution, where no organism is more special than the other, then you'd probably avoid consumption of food coming from animals, or you'd be setting yourself up to some contradiction in the brain. :D

Or, if one wants to embark on a moral argument that humans are special and that life is worth conserving. Then, you'd probably also want to not include animal products, due to high pollution implicitly killing off humans, and animal agriculture being one of the causes of global warming.

Or, if one feels he's compassionate, good, then murder is not the way, or maybe humane murder is? Is there such a thing as humane murder?

Or, one wants to embark on a moral argument that in this universe that is so vast, it's entirely meaningless to ponder over ethics, and morality, and that you just want to maximize your utility function, which includes enjoying the flavor of baked flesh, cooked embryos and sweet vomit. Then, it doesn't matter at all what you eat, if you feel great.

[DrScump]

The viewpoint of dairy-as-unnatural gets tricky, as there are parallels in the animal kingdom.

For example, ants keep aphids for honeydew just as humans keep animals for dairy products.

[oilywater]

Honeydew isn't tit secretion, it's vomit/shit. And how can a symbiosis of ants and aphids be a parallel for humans and cows. We do not protect cows from their predators, we slit their throats and they know that that's coming. We also do not eat cow's shit. Hilarious parallel.

When did we ever in history of our evolution have a need for another mammal's milk? From an evolutionary perspective, from a perspective of natural parallels, it makes no sense.

The milk you need is the milk your mother gives you. If you seek calcium there's more of it in parsley, basil, origano per mass than is in milk. If you want iron it's also there, more than there is in some of the available animal flesh.

There are also many parallels in the diets of other mammals, 75% of species are herbivore on this planet. If we are seeking parallels in nature to mirror, why are we cherrypicking?

75% herbivores means that genes for plant-based diets are all over the place.

[DrScump]

  Honeydew isn't tit secretion, it's vomit/shit

Choose one phony analogy at a time, willya? Point being, ants keep aphids as livestock: they are captives, herded, controlled, denied free will and their preferred environment, and exploited for food products. The ethical questions are exactly parallel.

  We do not protect cows from their predators

In your universe, sheepdogs, cattle dogs, and other shepherd dogs don't exist, and cattlemen from the gauchos of the Pampas to the Masai don't protect their stock? For the rest of us: http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/s/shepherds.htm

  we slit their throats & they know that it's coming

Again, make up your mind what to rant about. In this thread, you raised global warming; slaughter stops that in its tracks. Would you prefer to switch back to the anti-dairy rant again? In any case, humane slaughter is the goal, and new experts in that field like Temple Grandin have helped that.

  (dairy) makes no sense

yet indigenous peoples all over the world independently developed diets with dairy, from central Africa to Mongolia to neolithic Britain to Sinai to Mesopotamia and India.

[oilywater]

I never mentioned dairy. You mentioned a half-assed parallel, and it is, and I pointed out every single bit that stinks in it, I do not give a damn about slaughter. I wasn't sure if aphids shit honeydew, or if they vomit it out through mouth. So, pick an analogy you know that makes sense to you, because you've obviously capable of equating an ant with a human and raise a silly ethical question.

I asked you what about 75% herbivores, you cherry picked.

> yet indigenous peoples all over the world independently developed diets with dairy, from central Africa to Mongolia to neolithic Britain to Sinai to Mesopotamia and India.

Yeah, people are known to be very smart and very natural. Lets cherry pick again, people have developed weapons to hunt animals with, but then used them to kill humans. People developed technology to kill animal efficiently with it, then they used the same techniques on humans. I guess we are so smart and natural and it makes sense to do it because everyone did it. We all know what they did when they did that, they raised their utility function. At some point it was a rational decision, at another it stopped being.

Sorry, but this discussion is over, if you aren't kind and compassionate, if you do not value human life, if you do not think that values of the theory of evolution matter, then go keep raising that utility function, I entirely understand your viewpoint and with that there's nothing to discuss.