15: PLANTS AND VEGETABLES

1)Question/attack: "Do you eat plants? Fruit? You are killing anyway./Plants feel pain."

Response: a) This attack implies that the animal activist should not even try to stop exploitation and killing, since it cannot be avoided in all situations. It fails to consider that if killing cannot be avoided, and one should not try to stop it, the spectator is under no obligation to limit their lack of concern to non human living beings. One can say: "well since I can't stop killing why should I care about ANY killing? I might as well look the other way if my neighbor gets killed." Why should a line be drawn at the human level and not a racial, gender, age, religion or some other line of value? People do it anyway.

Response: b) This is an argument fallacy. It is an example of argumentum ad hominem. A changing the subject tactic. Instead of attacking the argument, the opponent attacks the person making the argument. People who use this approach often get hypocrisy confused with consistency. 

Response: c) Plants don't have a central nervous system, so no, they don't feel pain. And a plant doesn't bleed, scream, and struggle to get away when you pick it.

Response: d)if your lawn starts bleeding and screaming when you mow it, give me a call.

Response: e) take a class in biology. when you learn about the central nervous system, we can continue this conversation.

Response: f) The best thing I found for the plants feel pain thing is that meat eaters kill way more plants than us anyway to feed to all the animals they are gonna kill. So if plants do feel pain then vegans are still the kindest lot!!

Response: g) Well.. If you are truly such a sensitive being that your question comes from the heart, then I suggest a deeper look at fruitarianism.. Fruit is the one food that is offered to us "free of charge" in the karmic sense. There is no taking of life, instead the fruit is offered as part of a symbiotic pact between plant, animal and the earth. The plant remains intact and benefits from the interaction. - It gets to reproduce itself. What bliss, what joy! Not only does it get to reproduce through the sowing of it's seed, but also the more delicious the fruit, the more chance that we will nurture that seed and, feed, water and care for it, until and after it brings to bare it's own fruit.
See Mangos Fruit Nut Website for more information on the fruitarian diet.

Response: h) If you are asking the question to find fault in the vegan moral, then I suggest you be honest with yourself, and admit how easy uprooting a carrot is in comparison to wringing the neck of a rabbit.. Look in it's eyes.