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Recent Break Up Over Hunting... - Page 4

post #91 of 106
5/2/12 at 10:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joan Kennedy View Post

SomebodyElse, do you believe there are very few on this board who ever caught a fish back when they used to eat meat? I would be surprised if you were right about that.

Most of the people on here don't even seem to know how to boil water*, so I would be surprised if the majority were regular fishers for food or sport. Only way to get an idea is to start a poll, but that still wouldn't give an accurate idea, since polls aren't usually answered by a large enough fraction of the membership to have any real meaning. I don't think a one-off experience that makes a person unhappy enough that they will never do it again counts a person as being a hunter or a fisher though. "Ever caught a fish" doesn't make you a fisher.

I for one did used to spend hours lying on boat docks catching glass shrimp in cups so I could look at them, when I was a child. I never removed them from the water though. I just wanted to say "hi". And we used to go to Pine Lake in San Francisco with bamboo poles with string attached, and wadded up bread balls tied to the ends, to catch crawdads. They would pinch them with their claws and we would pull them out and put them in a bucket for a while, so we could see them. We used to dig up tiny crabs from the mud too, for the same reason. That's the extent of my own experience "fishing".


*Mostly teasing, but I have been surprised at how many people on here rely on pre-packaged microwaveable meals and eating out.
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post #92 of 106
5/2/12 at 11:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Forster View Post

There are many different levels of morality when it come to eating meat. On one hand I would say either you are morally opposed to using animals for food or not, I don't see any difference between hunters or grocery shoppers in this case. Another morality is how are the animals are treated and live their lives before being killed for food, imo hunters have the higher moral ground on this one. There still can be empathy and respect for an animal (even though one is going to kill and eat it), granted it's pretty easy to argue that there is something wrong inherently wrong with someone who can kill an animal. It could also be argued their is something wrong with people who understand how meat is produced in this country and don't care and continue to buy it.

It's a difference between moral justification on the one hand, and moral psychology on the other. Grocery store omnis are no more justified in their actions than hunters are, and in terms of consequences, hunting causes less harm than animal agriculture. But in terms of moral psychology, there is a difference between some omnis and some hunters, and that difference explains why, if I wanted to convert a bunch of random 100 people to veg*nism, I would find my chances better with 100 random grocery store shoppers than with 100 random hunters.

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post #93 of 106
5/2/12 at 1:15pm
I went through the same thing kind of. My bf was a hunter when i met him. I was never ok with it from the time we started dating. Ive never been ok with hunting ever. Killing things for sport is sick. After i went veg it bothered me 10 times more. Ass ridiculous as this sounds i gave him an automatum. Stay with me and quit hunting or hunt every day and be single. I dont care if that sounds selfish. I couldnt be with someone hat was out murdering animals for fun. Fortunately he likes me more than dead animals. I agree that if you werent comfortable in the relationship because of hunting and she didnt really care how you felt than you made the right decission.
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post #94 of 106
5/2/12 at 1:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by krispex22 View Post

I went through the same thing kind of. My bf was a hunter when i met him. I was never ok with it from the time we started dating. Ive never been ok with hunting ever. Killing things for sport is sick. After i went veg it bothered me 10 times more. Ass ridiculous as this sounds i gave him an automatum. Stay with me and quit hunting or hunt every day and be single. I dont care if that sounds selfish. I couldnt be with someone hat was out murdering animals for fun. Fortunately he likes me more than dead animals. I agree that if you werent comfortable in the relationship because of hunting and she didnt really care how you felt than you made the right decission.

Don't answer if it's too personal but even though he was a hunter does he have any empathy for animals even those he used to kill?
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post #95 of 106
5/2/12 at 1:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Forster View Post

Don't answer if it's too personal but even though he was a hunter does he have any empathy for animals even those he used to kill?

I cant really answer that because im not in his head. I know that my bf loves domesticated animals as most people do. He would never shoot a cat or dog or hamster. So he has empathy for domesticated animals. And i dont like defend hunters but indo know that he ate what he killed so he wasnt just shooting stuff to shoot and watch it die. He had friends that he hunted with that just wanted to kill there limit just to do it and my bf would take there killings so it didnt get wasted. I guess that would be empathy. I do not condone hunting though. That wasnt my point. But inwould say that my bf was empathetic and he was a "good sportsman" about it.
Please fellow veggies dont start arguing with me. This thread wasnt started for me
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post #96 of 106
5/2/12 at 1:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by krispex22 View Post

I cant really answer that because im not in his head. I know that my bf loves domesticated animals as most people do. He would never shoot a cat or dog or hamster. So he has empathy for domesticated animals. And i dont like defend hunters but indo know that he ate what he killed so he wasnt just shooting stuff to shoot and watch it die. He had friends that he hunted with that just wanted to kill there limit just to do it and my bf would take there killings so it didnt get wasted. I guess that would be empathy. I do not condone hunting though. That wasnt my point. But inwould say that my bf was empathetic and he was a "good sportsman" about it.
Please fellow veggies dont start arguing with me. This thread wasnt started for me

Oh I hope they don't.

Seriously I know lots of people who hunt, my experience is that they can and do have empathy for animals, even those they kill and eat and there is nothing more "wrong" with them mentally than your average human. I understand completely how someone with a vegan mindset would find hunting repugnant, objectionable and morally wrong, but one would think the way hunters were described that they are all budding serial killers.
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post #97 of 106
5/5/12 at 7:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SomebodyElse View Post

Is anyone arguing about this from a moral viewpoint? The difference between your average grocery-store carnists and hunters is a difference of empathy, not morality. People who can look an animal in the eye and take his life with their own hands either have zero empathy and zero remorse, or there is some psychological factor at play that enables them to disregard any vesitge of empathy or remorse in order to serve their own desire to kill. I don't argue in terms of good and evil. I would call this a psychotic lack of ability to empathize with others though.

And I do not understand why so many insist on equating animal killers with meat eaters, on any level. I would hazard a guess that the overwhelming majority of vegetarians and vegans here on VB for instance used to be meat eaters. I bet almost none used to be killers as well.


You never know. I used to fish with my dad as a kid, and I've been vegetarian for almost 3 years. I always felt bad about doing it. I'm sure I'm not alone on this either.
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post #98 of 106
5/5/12 at 8:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pirate Huntress View Post

You never know. I used to fish with my dad as a kid, and I've been vegetarian for almost 3 years. I always felt bad about doing it. I'm sure I'm not alone on this either.

I think people here are far more likely to have fished before than to have hunted before. More people fish than hunt. I've been fishing three or four times in my life, all as an omni and all voluntarily. If a fish had ever wound up on my hook maybe I would have felt horrible, but it didn't happen. I didn't feel horrible when a fish wound up thrashing around on my companion's hook. I think as far as "psychotic lack of empathy" is concerned, a lot of people (not SE) react far more strongly to hunting than to fishing. This thread is not about what we ourselves do but what we can and can't tolerate in an omni partner. Hunting has connotations of violence and noise, while fishing has connotations of peaceful quiet. It's easier to empathize with warm-blooded creatures that we have seen nuzzle, suckle and defend their young. Any nurturing behavior fish display is out of our sight unless we go out of our way to study their ways, and their faces don't give much away.
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post #99 of 106
5/5/12 at 9:36am
~~~~~

Edited by whisper - 6/5/12 at 9:57am

‎"One meal, soon forgotten, in exchange for a whole life." Author Unknown
"Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people"
 

WTF - meat cookbooks on a veg*n site??
(3 items)
  
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‎"One meal, soon forgotten, in exchange for a whole life." Author Unknown
"Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people"
 

WTF - meat cookbooks on a veg*n site??
(3 items)
  
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post #100 of 106
5/5/12 at 10:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by whisper View Post

Boy, did that bring back a bad memory.
Long ago I went with a (now ex) b/f to his mother's house and she had a stock pond ( I think that's what they are called). I had no idea what it was until they 'fished' their dinner out of it.

When I saw that fish struggling on his line, it took everything I had not to throw up then and there. I was sick for the rest of the day. I couldn't understand how they were okay with that and how it didn't bother them in the least. I lost a huge amount of respect for them that day.

Whisper, I think you've hit on something. Since being vegetarian, I have witnessed people catch fish from their own stock pond and didn't have anything close to the reaction you had. And the difference between us is probably a difference in empathy, a degree of sensitivity that some have stronger than others. I have that gut reaction to anything to do with companion animals. I feel easily and naturally for them, and I extend the thoughts that proceed from those feelings to livestock and fish. But that's very different from feeling directly for the fish, as you do. I was already in my fifties when I stopped eating meat and fish. People who have that stronger gut sense probably tend to stop much younger than I did.
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post #101 of 106
5/9/12 at 4:37pm
Without reading the thread, my two cents:
It's wrong and unrealistic to expect someone to behave according to your beliefs. However, if you feel you can not be with someone who does not share such core values, it is understandable to end the relationship. I'm curious how this never came up in four years, though.
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post #102 of 106
5/9/12 at 5:51pm
~~~~~

Edited by whisper - 6/5/12 at 9:56am

‎"One meal, soon forgotten, in exchange for a whole life." Author Unknown
"Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people"
 

WTF - meat cookbooks on a veg*n site??
(3 items)
  
Reply

‎"One meal, soon forgotten, in exchange for a whole life." Author Unknown
"Fur is worn by beautiful animals and ugly people"
 

WTF - meat cookbooks on a veg*n site??
(3 items)
  
Reply
post #103 of 106
5/12/12 at 2:16pm
It sounds to me like there was far more involved in the hunting and the breakup, and then the subsequent behavior of your ex-girlfriend, than can be derived from the OP. For starters, where did she even get a picture of herself holding a taxidermy deer head that quickly? It reeks of a disconnect (recognized, at the very least, by your girlfriend) between your values from far earlier than your argument.

Sevenseas is correct in his assessment of your breakup. There was an excellent potential reason for your breakup that you missed by a few degrees. It is important to define your expectations of a partner before you enter a relationship so committed. Doing so will prevent you for making a breakup that should be about morals actually be about control and personal preference.

On the empathy topic, many people who can experience empathy with other humans can do so because of facial expressions. Animals have different signs that they give off. To me, even calm fish look very frightened because of the large eyes. It's easy to look the other way and tell ourselves that no fish are frightened as a way of offsetting that handicap in assessing fish mood.
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post #104 of 106
5/14/12 at 8:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Christofu View Post

Well I appreciate the honest opinion. The whole reason I joined the forum was because I wanted the opinion of people who had similar values. Can't say that was the warmest welcome... And no she didn't kill anything but she would do it again which means that she doesn't respect how I feel about it.

We can't control what other people do. I am very staunch on this view point. What if she feels that you are not respecting her right to hunt? I just don't think that it is right to expect other people's opinions and beliefs to follow yours and get angry when they don't. I think it's a immature and controlling view to take that we have a right to get angry with people because they have different beliefs than we do. With that said, I do think that you will both be better off with people who share your beliefs. First and foremost, if she isn't a veg*n, then you should expect disagreements over animals, meat, etc... That is just part of dating someone who doesn't share that lifestyle with you. If you want someone who will agree with your views, then date a veg*n. Also focus more on yourself and controlling you. Relationships are not about getting what you want all of the time.
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post #105 of 106
5/25/12 at 9:03pm

If Veganism/Animal Rights is important to you, you will not be happy long-term in a relationship with someone who does not share your beliefs. Even if they are willing to do things for you, if they don't agree with your moral values, chances are your relationship will crumble. I would never even consider dating a non-Vegan (even aside from the fact that I am not single).

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post #106 of 106
5/28/12 at 8:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadowVegan View Post

If Veganism/Animal Rights is important to you, you will not be happy long-term in a relationship with someone who does not share your beliefs. Even if they are willing to do things for you, if they don't agree with your moral values, chances are your relationship will crumble. I would never even consider dating a non-Vegan (even aside from the fact that I am not single).

That's a silly generalization. Not everyone who is passionate about animal rights/veganism would be unhappy with a non-vegan. There are plenty of members here married to meat eaters. Are you saying they aren't passionate about their beliefs, or that they are unhappy in their marriage? 

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