Where do you draw the line?

[AllIveEverTouched]

Please give reasons in a post as to why you will or won't kill these things. If possible use websites, books or quotations to back up your reasoning.

[loveliberate]

I avoid knowingly doing any harm to any living being, except in self-defense or in the case of plants that I intend to eat or otherwise use. Realistically of course, the life cycle includes death and there is no way to completely avoid harming or killing bugs or something... The more modern and technological our lives become the greater the impact we tend to have on the world.

[Kathryn]

Since yeast doesn't have a brain or a nervous system, I don't consider it to be 'living' in the same way that insects and fish are. (And I would have no qualms of killing it if I were to get a yeast infection!).

 

As for insects, I will kill certain insects that pose a threat to the health of me or my pets or risk destroying my garden. I prefer to repel them.

 

On the list of insects I will kill: fleas, lice, ticks, mosquitos (in all circumstances); roaches (if they are in my house), japanese beetles (if they are destroying my plants).

[veganmonk]

All things in this world are living, including air, water, trees, plants, soil, dirt, you name it.

 

We just do not conceive things properly.

 

The answer lies in instinct, and following our physical design by intent, in order to carry out natures balance.

 

There are herbivores, carnivores, bacteria and micro-organisms, natural and environmental shifts and changes, etc, etc, that allow this planet to be sustainable, and not have one species grow out of proportion. However, man has become a bit of a parasite that has managed so far to defeat this balance, but it won't be for long. Disease, natural disaster, or our own species, will result in our own fate, if we do not reconnect with this inner instinct and learn our place once again.

 

Everything must be consumed, and die, and life must be re-created. This is how this planet works.

[Guest]

Yeast is a nervous system free cell much like algae. Plus it grows everywhere so you can't even bite your nails without eating any.

Personally I would never kill an insect but I think its ok for humans to kill insects for food. I think humans are natural omnivores but not in the sense of eating meat...but veggies and bugs. The closer the primate is to a human the less flesh and more insects and plantlife he/she eats. So if a human eats all plants and hunts his own insects I'll leave him alone kinda like seeing a wolf going after a young deer.

[fudgam]

Veganism isnt about not killing, its about causing as little harm as possible (ethically anyways). Plants feel no harm, hence I have no remorse for plants. Yeast feels no pain, I eat yeast. Insect and fish feel pain, I dont kill them.

[AllIveEverTouched]

An article about insects:

 

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/pain/microsite/culture2.html

 

An article about fish:

 

http://www.cotrout.org/do_fish_feel_pain.htm

[karlhubris]

I always seem to disagree with veganpotter, (which I hate because he's one of my favorite people here, and he's been very helpful)...but...

Chimpanzees are pretty brutal and they are the closeset to humans...they eat more meat than other primates...my minor is anthropology so one of the things I've had to study was primates...

Chimps hunt and even wage war...yes, you read that right...at Gombe Jane Goodall documented a four year period where two rival groups fought what can only be called a prolonged war...one group systematically hunted down and killed all the adults of their rivals...they also commit deliberate murder for status, even jealousy...

(interesting side fact: of chimps, bonobo chimps are the most human-they've been observed making and using toilet paper from vegetation and also are the most like humans in their sexual behaviour...they are the only primates observed to have various sexual positions and have the most human like sexual pairings, i.e. homosexual relationships...so much for it not being natural!)