1. Religious point of view: Every religion has it as an allowed option in our diets.

2. Scientific point of view: Our bodies have evolved to not only have meat as part of our natural diet, but its required otherwise you could go blind or have many other deficiencies as certain things ONLY come from meat protein. Furthermore, a simple study of our ancestors proves that the species with healthy amounts of meat in its diet had the biggest evolutionary changes to larger brains... obviously an important part our current physiology. (If you try to argue a case for Vegans, then you don't know shit as they are required to take vitamins to make up for what is lost in not eating any meat products and taking medicines is not natural... just eat an appropriate meal.)

3. Nature point of view: There is simply no case on this planet (and probably others we'll eventually find) where there exists entire biosphere where one species does not eats/consumes another. Its simply the natural factor of life. Its also a very important driver of evolution as well as population control.

I've thought about this recently, and the thing here is that to have a serious moral code, you must make sure that the code is at the very least consistent, even if it's not complete.

However, there is moral absolutism. There is an answer to this question, even if it's really complex and even if we may never find it. Opinions are simply opinions and are of no value but to the person who holds such opinion. To come to a consensus, we must think of these types of moral problems rationally. In a way, it's like constructing a mathematical theory.

As another person already pointed out, people feeling bad for hurting the animals but who still think it's ok to raise them and eat them are very confused and don't think about this well enough. I have not been presented with a reasonable and logical explanation of how this can be.

So I'm not concerned with the treatment of animals, since the answer to this problem follows directly from the answer to the following one: I am mainly concerned with whether it's fine to raise, enslave, and then eat and exploit animals. This is a very difficult question with far reaching implications with the answer being yes or no. In my post in the mentally challenged abortion topic, I assumed the answer to be "yes, it's fine to do all this", because that is what I personally believe at the moment while I haven't sorted out the details of the problem yet. If the answer is "yes" to this problem, as well as a few other reasonable assumptions, then I firmly think logic demands that it's fine to abort mentally challenged individuals. An answer of "no" to this problem, however, would invalidate my conclusion, and in fact, the contrary would follow, since it makes sense that the most mentally challenged humans are probably still more capable than the average mammals.

But I have thought about the implications of saying "yes" to the problem. If it is indeed fine to raise and kill the animals, then there must be a reasonable explanation to conclude this to be fine. Either:

1. Animals have no conciousness

2. Specism is fine (i.e. thinking that morals only assign rights to individuals of your own species)

3. Animals do have some form of conciousness, but their level of intelligence is so low compared to us that they can not be thought of as valuable in any intellectual sense (here, intellectual broadly refers to at the level of human activities) .

But I don't think 1 and 2 are the case, not in the way that conciousness should be defined. 2 empathically cannot make sense because that implies it would be morally negligible at worst to mass murder intelligent beings of other species, which I have a problem with (here, intelligent is taken to mean "as intelligent as us in average"). I think 3 makes the most sense.

But if 3 is true, we also have that if there exists an alien species with a much higher intelligence level (a level where the best of us can't keep up with the worst of them), then they can rule over us and eat some of us if that's what they wish. At first, this appears immoral. I believe it's not so though, since the alien species are much, much more intelligent than us (think of the difference between a worm and a human) and therefore their happiness is more important than ours, in average.

This may sound like I'm a very twisted individual, but I also believe that there can be no such alien species. This is a belief though, and I base it on the idea that I can't conceive of an individual with a thought process that is so much more capable than a smart human's that a smart human is considered worthless intellectually.

Anyways, that is all for today, I'm tired and I have to sleep now. In the meantime, I believe the answer is "yes" to this question, but I still have this stinging feeling that my reasoning is being used to rationalize my actions as opposed to the other way around, reasoning dictating my actions.

Nothing wrong with it.

Meat taste good, so we should be able to eat meat. Animal cruelty should stop, just as much as human cruelty. But I do not think either will go away any time soon.

I'm a heavy meat-eater and that's probably not going to change in the near future, but lately, I've been thinking of if my lifestyle is right or wrong. My view is becoming shaken for the following three reasons.

1. We use our power to enslave and force animals to be our food. I'm pretty sure no animal wants to be killed to be served as human food. It's safe to say that cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are all converted to food against their own will. Obviously, this is not fair to the animal. What makes it right to force another creature to be our food? Because we have power? Intelligence? I don't think these really are justified reasons to enslave other species.

Response: Yes while i agree that animals dont want to become food i believe that stems from the fact that they dont have desires and wants but rather instinct. You could equally say that most animals dont desire to go on living as there intelligence is to low to consider what life means.

2. The treatment of most farmed animals is inhumane. The first reason doesn't really convince me much, but this one does. I don't feel sorry when animals have decent lives and are killed painlessly, but that's not the case most of the time. Animals are typically put in dangerously crowded areas with very little room to walk around in. In some case, animals are killed brutally too. For example, there's been a few videos that showed chickens being slaughtered by having their necks cracked before being thrown aside. There's plenty of examples like this, but I don't think you might me to list them all (though I will if you ask). This is not how animals are supposed to be treated and it really makes me sick to to know I support this madness.

Response: Yes while the treatment of some animals i farms in inhumane that is more an argument for buying products such as free range eggs and the like if you believe that animals appreciate comfort of life the dame way humans do.

3. We have other alternatives. Number 1 and Number 2 would be acceptable if they were our only options to survive. But that's not the case. There are plenty of vegans with extremely healthy and capable bodies. One of my track team members didn't eat meat and he was in excellent shape. I've never heard of someone going vegan and experiencing any health issues as a result of it. One the other hand, one of the leading causes of death, heart disease, is can be caused by a surplus of fat from meaty foods. If we have a perfectly reasonable option to not put animals (and ourselves, in some cases) through unnecesary suffering, then why not choose those options? 

Response: It is believed that the cooked meat eaten by our early ancestors is responsible for providing us with the nutrients to evolve into the intelligent beings we are today.

- - - Here are some responses that I know I'm bound to hear, so I'll reply to them beforehand.

It's natural for humans to eat meat. Firstly, this is debatable as many believe that humans were meant to be solely plant-eaters. I personally don't think it's natural for humans to eat maet. Regardless though, that doesn't warrant anything. Plenty of *natural* actions have been abandoned as humans developed civilizations and used their intelligence to decide what's right and wrong. So saying something is natural is not an excuse for a being capable of higher order thought.

Response: As stated eating meat is partialy responsible for us becoming the intelligent beings we our today as well as the fact that we have canines strongly indicating that we as humans were meant to eat meat. 

Animals have inferior intelligence, therefore, their lives are not valuable. This really could be a subjective thing I guess. For me though, inferior intelligence does not warrant slautering of other animals. If some super-intelligent alien race invaded our planet and decided to enslave and eat us, I'm pretty sure most people would think that's wrong. What's the difference with animals? After reading this, some people might respond with the following...

Response: My answer to this is contained in the answer of the following as they are linked.

PS: I seriously dont think people belive its just a gap in intelligence rather than having enough intelligence to appreciate living.

There's a certain level of conscoiusness that dictates whether a life is valuable or not. To that, my question would be: What is this level based off of? I can understand creatures with very liittle consciousness like insects, rodents, etc. being considered unvaluable. They have a very low sense of awareness. However, what about the more intelligent animals, specifically mammals like cows or pigs? They are aware of their surroundings, they feel pain (especially the pain from being cramped in most modern farms. What level of consciousness is necessary for a life to be valuable

Response: Animals dont have a future in the way that humans do. Pigs and cows dont reminice about the past or look forward to the future the way humans do and without both of them what would people be? Just a bunch of creatures experiencing things one by one not knowing who we are or what purpose we may have or had for ourselves? Pigs and cows would not care one way or the other if they could know that they were going to die the next day because they function on instinct rather than emotion. Without emotions life would not be worth living. At best the only purpose animals could achive with their life would be to provide food for beings that could properly appreciate it like humans.

Also a new Question. Youre looking at this glass half empty rather than half full. Assuming people in the future raised cows and pigs with the highest living standards for animals would you rather the cows and pigs not be bread and used for food having at least some life before dying rather than them not being bread at all? Seems better to live for a day than not at all doesnt it? Dont forget that many of these animals could not survive in the wild or breed at the same levels they do on farms.

Then dont make it part of your argument if you think it doesnt matter.

Also while humans may have to avoid following there natural instincts for our civilized society why would this apply to animals? Animals are a part of nature and therefore there is no need for humans to avoid their natural instincts when dealing with animals such as cows and pigs.

Eating meat is just as natural to humans as eating vegetables as it helped us evolve and we have canines.

Wrong implies that the animal would fell bad about losing their future from being killed but animals dont have the mental capacity for that or even experiencing happiness. 

How do you know that?

Were you not saying that determining the consciousness of living beings was ambiguos?

No, but we shouldn't treat cattle like we do. I don't know how eating meat is wrong, most animals eat other just not on the scale we do

Why is it ok for animals to do the natural thing and eat meat but not humans?

Does it not have the same outcome for both of them with animals dying?

Why not kill off all the animals who eat meat to save the vegetearing animals?

Because that would lead to other animals overpopulating and messing up the environment!

How do you not know that but fore there use as food for people chickens, cows and pigs would have gone extict or will go extinct in the future?

Is it not better to live a short life and be made food rather than to have been wiped out centuries age?

While the living conditions of animals need to be improved there is no evidence that they experience emotions (that cant be explained by instincts) or desire a future which are essential when determining the worth of a creatures life to itself.

PS: As far as science goes in the next couple of decades we will be able to produce meat without any awarness or intelligence at all. In my opinion this is bad as then the animals wont even have a short life to live as they will no longer be bred at all. There are billions of pigs in the world and barely any Polar bears. Which one do we eat again?