Doghead's Cosmic Bar

But I've never had a horse. I've never even wanted a horse. So why do I think it's wrong? It's an interesting issue.

I think historically horses were not eaten because they were more useful alive.

Good point. I suppose traditions like that become embedded through the years until we reach the stage where we don't know why we do things apart from the fact that millions of dead people can't be wrong. (I'm still not going to eat a horse though)

I wouldn't eat an endangered animal knowingly...I mean, we ruin the world enough as it is, I don't want to contribute to it.

My mom refuses to eat Peking duck because it still has eyeballs and she feels like it's staring at her.

I bet a lot of us would refuse to eat animals if we had to be the one to kill them. I enjoy a good hamburger as much as anyone, but I don't think I could stand to kill a cow.

And as for horses, I presume another reason they weren't eaten in some cultures was because they were also really valuable. Eating a horse would be sort of like dismantling your nice new BMW and making sculptures out of the parts.

Not all whale-species are endangered.

Most working horses are sent off to the slaughter-house when they get too old or they break a bone or something which makes them incapable of doing their work. Eating the meat of the animal does mean that you're using the available resources more efficiently. It's a bit of a shame to let 100s of pounds of perfectly good meat go to waste because of sentimental reasons.

I think that may be the connection in general: any animal we've made a connection with, we'll be reluctant to eat. Sometimes it may be a personal connection (pets, etc.), but it may also be societal. Horses are usually presented as the stalwart hero's companion.

Well, if we didn't do anything for sentimental reasons, we wouldn't be human anymore. Military commanders have been called monsters for sending out massive amounts of poorly trained troops as "cannon fodder", but to them it's just efficient use of their resources.

Not that I have moral problems with eating horse meat...I really don't care either way. Besides, if nothing else they can make cat food out of it or something.

Yes, and I've never heard of a hero praising his noble steed and pointing to his cow.

Donkeys, yes, if Shrek is anything to go by, but not cows.

Hmm... supposing we applied the same argument to humans? (Not advocating this, btw. Just...food for thought. )

Human meat probably tastes like chicken anyway.

Onyx: You have to admit there's a difference between people and animals. You wouldn't put a person who has to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair to sleep, but you would with most animals.

I grew up on a farm with about 30 sheep. Once there was a lamb that didn't get any milk from his mother, so I had to feed it from a bottle. The lamb followed me around like a dog and I really loved it. Two years later I ate it for x-mas dinner. I had a sentimental connection to that ram, but I didn't feel bad about eating it. It kind of was his purpose.

Maybe growing up somewhere where I helped slaughter a few animals every year has given me a slightly different view on it than people who havn't had such experiences.

But is there really such a difference between people and animals? Do we really know we are more intelligent or somehow 'better' than them? I think it was Descartes who held the view that monkeys and suchlike could actually talk but chose not to in case humans made them work for them.