Vegetarians and Vegans

[TiSteamo]

At a glance I would have said Tiziano Terzani.
But then I went looking and I read Leonardo Da Vinci. The inventor of the famous vaporizer.

 

[Tranquility]

I do not know, I do not think so.
Very good, you took the quote. You surprised me!
Film culture or google?

My best friend's son is an attempting filmmaker after his master's degree. We have a group of men who have Sunday breakfast together and he was included the last few months and there's been a lot of film talk over...um...potatoes. That's it, hash brown potatoes.

Fellini has come up in past months and I have used the Google to find out more--including the quote. But, I did Google it again before writing to make sure it was not linked to an older source. (And, to find anything having to do with him and vegetarianism.) Since he died at 73 from a heart attack (after having a stroke earlier), I'm thinking it is some lifestyle choice that did him in. Having seen multiple pictures of him smoking, I have a guess. But, it might be diet instead. (Or, as well.)

Telling you - Italians are way ahead of the curve on this one. Can you identify the author of this quote?

Well, except for all the Italians that are Catholic or otherwise Christian. Those would believe that Man is special.

 

[TiSteamo]

My best friend's son is an attempting filmmaker after his master's degree. We have a group of men who have Sunday breakfast together and he was included the last few months and there's been a lot of film talk over...um...potatoes. That's it, hash brown potatoes.

Fellini has come up in past months and I have used the Google to find out more--including the quote. But, I did Google it again before writing to make sure it was not linked to an older source. (And, to find anything having to do with him and vegetarianism.) Since he died at 73 from a heart attack (after having a stroke earlier), I'm thinking it is some lifestyle choice that did him in. Having seen multiple pictures of him smoking, I have a guess. But, it might be diet instead. (Or, as well.)

Fellini is my favourite director. A Genius.

Well, except for all the Italians that are Catholic or otherwise Christian. Those would believe that Man is special.

Why? Is not man special?

Who does not give the right importance to human life, could pay dearly.

 

[Tranquility]

Fellini is my favourite director. A Genius.

My favorite was Stanley Kubrick. He said of Fellini: (https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/polls-surveys/stanley-kubrick-cinephile)

In the 1960s, Kubrick said:

“I believe Bergman, De Sica and Fellini are the only three filmmakers in the world who are not just artistic opportunists. By this I mean they don’t just sit and wait for a good story to come along and then make it. They have a point of view which is expressed over and over and over again in their films, and they themselves write or have original material written for them.”

Another rare comment, this time from 1966:

“There are very few directors, about whom you’d say you automatically have to see everything they do. I’d put Fellini, Bergman and David Lean at the head of my first list, and Truffaut at the head of the next level.”
​

So, he agrees with you as well. (Although, to be fair, I've not been able to sit all the way through a Bergman movie.)

Why? Is not man special?

Who does not give the right importance to human life, could pay dearly.

I agree in general and, being a Christian, agree specifically. But, the quote I was addressing was:

The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.​

While many who go to law school make an error on their first essay on criminal law by defining homocide (Killing of a cow?) rather than homicide (the killing of a human being by another human being), few would ever make the mistake you can murder anything but a human. Since I support the prudent use of antibiotics when one has a bacterial infection, I'm glad they changed their classification from being in the animal kingdom. Else, catastrophe if the day envisioned by the quote ever came.

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

Searching for the quote in Italian, learned that the above is a common mis-attribution. It's from a fictional work about Da Vinci. Sorry about that.

Can't get over this series of documented, full length videos on veganism through history. Haven't watched it all, but what Da Vinci did say and do brought tears to the eyes of this vegan. The bit about him starts at 5:41.

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

While this thread may well be left on the second page, had to update - no longer vegan. Now Pegan = paleo + vegan! Seems to be best for gout. Enjoying avocados.

@TiSteamo - the beard looks good.

 

[TiSteamo]

I was thinking that there are several similarities between being a vegetarian and quitting smoking.
In both cases I never thought I could do it.
Instead I discovered that we can live without it.
And most importantly, you live better.
This happens when you decide to follow your conscience and fight mental laziness.

@Accept - Do you know who this man is?

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

Of course, it's Thoreau, American patriot and personal hero! It's so sad to read about the vanishing wild animals in Walden. And didn't he recount Walden Pond being harvested for ice? What would he think of global warming?

 

[TiSteamo]

I did not know about these things !!!

What would he say? The words with which he attacked the men of his time could still apply to the men of today.


We have not made much progress. On the contrary, we "progressively" got worse!...

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

You must read Walden immediately. New England, mid-19th century. Industry advanced and wilderness retreated. Thoreau chronicled a pivotal time in the the young United States.

Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others. - Henry David Thoreau

Few men feel any shame today. These words led directly to the raw, pegan diet.

Thoreau was also an inspiration to the homesteaders Helen and Scott Nearing. A rich thread in our vegetarian heritage.

 

[TiSteamo]

I read Walden several years ago. One of my favorite books. I'm starting to read Civil Disobedience. A book that I gave to many people. It's always like that, when I like something I try to spread it.

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

I'm starting to read Civil Disobedience.

In the 1970's, Civil Disobedience was required reading for many high school students in the US. Hope it still is, but not so sure. We devoted some time to the Transcendentalists, in general. The ideal age to introduce young people to radical ideas.

 

[Tranquility]

In the 1970's, Civil Disobedience was required reading for many high school students in the US. Hope it still is, but not so sure. We devoted some time to the Transcendentalists, in general. The ideal age to introduce young people to radical ideas.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER2/thoreau/civil.html

 

[TiSteamo]

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER2/thoreau/civil.html

Um ... My book is much longer ...

 

[Tranquility]

Um ... My book is much longer ...

Must be the margins.

More seriously, while the "book" is only 28 pages (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Civil-Disobedience-Henry-David-Thoreau/dp/1505383935), you can find some anthologies out there that include other essays. Perhaps they grouped writings on civil disobedience and started with Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

@OldNewbie - forgot to mention, the video above includes references, beginning around 12:50, to 17th century Christian theologians (Thomas Bushell and John Pettus) who extolled vegetarianism as a return to humans' diet before the fall. Came across similar ideas from Andrew Linzey in the 1990s.

As this thread amply shows, arguments for and against vegetarianism haven't changed much in at least 400 years.

 

[TiSteamo]

Must be the margins.

More seriously, while the "book" is only 28 pages (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Civil-Disobedience-Henry-David-Thoreau/dp/1505383935), you can find some anthologies out there that include other essays. Perhaps they grouped writings on civil disobedience and started with Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.

You are right. In my book there is also a text called "In Defense of Captain John Brown". As I said, I just started reading it.



Today I was listening to a guy. It made me think.
He says: we humans are the species that adapts less easily to the planet.
We have no fur, we have no claws, we have no fangs.
Any environment is inhospitable for us and we would not live very long, as we are.
But we have intelligence.
If we had not subjugated the other animals, the big and ferocious ones, if we had not adapted the environment to us, we would have died out soon.

It's true, he might be right.

But I think that we have reached such a point that there is no longer this danger.
On the contrary, WE have become the danger. Also for ourselves.
Because we continue to poison the environment in which we live.
It is useless to look for other planets with the same environmental conditions as the Earth, if WE DO NOT CHANGE our mentality.
Otherwise, as mentioned in Matrix, we will Always behave like "virus with shoes".

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

Any environment is inhospitable for us and we would not live very long, as we are.

Sure we would have, there just wouldn't be 7.6 billion of us. It all sounds very speculative.

The book reviewed below further advances the idea that humans and other animals are more alike than different in every way that matters. Followed by the video of the scene described.

Frans de Waal Embraces Animal Emotions in ‘Mama’s Last Hug’

By Sy Montgomery

MAMA’S LAST HUG
Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves
By Frans de Waal

The two old friends hadn’t seen each other lately. Now one of them was on her deathbed, crippled with arthritis, refusing food and drink, dying of old age. Her friend had come to say goodbye. At first she didn’t seem to notice him. But when she realized he was there, her reaction was unmistakable: Her face broke into an ecstatic grin. She cried out in delight. She reached for her visitor’s head and stroked his hair. As he caressed her face, she draped her arm around his neck and pulled him closer.

The mutual emotion so evident in this deathbed reunion was especially moving and remarkable because the visitor, Dr. Jan Van Hooff, was a Dutch biologist, and his friend, Mama, was a chimpanzee. The event — recorded on a cellphone, shown on TV and widely shared on the internet — provides the opening story and title for the ethologist Frans de Waal’s game-changing new book, “Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves.”

 

[TiSteamo]

You did not understand. I said we could not survive "as we are", that is, naked. We have no fur, we do not have the adaptability of other animals. We have the intelligence that has enabled us to survive. Did I explain myself better?

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

You did not understand. I said we could not survive "as we are", that is, naked. We have no fur, we do not have the adaptability of other animals. We have the intelligence that has enabled us to survive. Did I explain myself better?

Understand, but disagree to an extent. The differences between humans and other animals are frequently exaggerated, and this goes both ways. We're learning both that other animals are more like humans AND that humans are more like other animals. Failing to acknowledge this is part of the problem.

Just as at least some animals possess the rudiments of language, culture, etc., humans are more adaptable than we might think. Absent our development of such traits, we'd just have a more limited range of conditions to which we could adapt. For example, our lack of fur might limit our range to equatorial regions. We might well be able to flourish within a more circumscribed ecological niche, but we'd have a more difficult time colonizing environments to which we're less suited. Many neolithic cultures exist in which humans thrive using minimal tools and other adaptations made possible through our presumably greater intelligence.

 

[Krazy]

This thread reminds me of why I avoid other vegetarians.

YEP. Not so much this thread but the sentiment.

 

[Tranquility]

When those animals that possess the rudiments of language, culture, etc. band together and create an international network of devices, treaties, educational achievement, language compatibility that lets a handful of processed oil and sand communicate with other such handfuls most anywhere in the world, I'll accept the premise our intelligence is only "presumably" greater.

While it has been a long time since I've read on the matter so am just going by memory, a few areas where humans excel as animals other than in intelligence and pack/group social identity, include the ability to see color well and the ability to do work for long periods of time. Not only do we group to create an apex predator, we can run longer than anything. (Some used to claim running was what drove our evolutionary climb.)

Yes, we're animals. But, by luck, evolution, God, happenstance, kismet or karma; nothing else is even close.

That does not mean dogs wouldn't be far better than the current crop of politicians. At least they'd be more popular:

 

[TiSteamo]

We need to ask where the Cro Magnon man came from.
It seems from nowhere.
Nobody explains this to us.
At school they say, "Well, yes, we were monkeys, and then suddenly we started to build tools.
The discovery of fire? A lightning bolt on a tree.
We were monkeys, and now we can break down the atom. Ok. and the other little monkeys are still monkeys, how is that possible?

 

[Deleted Member 1643]

When those animals that possess the rudiments of language, culture, etc. band together and create an international network of devices, treaties, educational achievement, language compatibility that lets a handful of processed oil and sand communicate with other such handfuls most anywhere in the world, I'll accept the premise our intelligence is only "presumably" greater.

Okay, but does it follow that we can do whatever we please to individuals of lesser intelligence? Can't find the exact quote, but based on similar logic, C. S. Lewis wondered if it would be justified for angels (or big-headed aliens) to experiment on humans. Intelligence may also come in more than one variety with each best suited to different tasks.

We need to ask where the Cro Magnon man came from.
It seems from nowhere.
Nobody explains this to us.

Ah, the missing link. Long ago, read one theory that humans evolved from aquatic apes. Supposedly, this would explain our unique ability to swim, downward curving noses, and hair only on the top of our heads - as well as gaps in the fossil record. But there can be many explanations. The missing link(s) was probably very few in number and therefore difficult to find a million years later.

We were monkeys, and now we can break down the atom. Ok. and the other little monkeys are still monkeys, how is that possible?

Perhaps there was no selective pressure to evolve more than one especially intelligent ape species from our common ancestor. Or if there was, maybe the different intelligent species competed for the same niche, and one became extinct or evolved to occupy a different niche in which intelligence wasn't as much of an advantage. It's not so difficult to theorize about.

 

[Ramahs]

http://www.talkorigins.org/

^ Their archive is a very robust library of information on the subject this conversation has swung into.