Basically, my feeling about it is that animals have no rights and the very idea is silly to me.

And how would you feel if a more powerful species than humans (i.e. aliens) descended upon us, decided we had no rights, then proceeded to butcher us, abandon us in animal shelters, hunt us for sport, and perform various medical experiments on us? I'm guessing you wouldn't find the idea of human rights silly. What truly separates us from the animals? Not a whole lot. sure, we're smarter, but then if you want to take that argument then it would be OK to hunt retarded people because they're not as smart as us and therefore have no rights. Shall I go on?. . .



If it benefits mankind in some way, I see no problem with harming some animals.

A rather egocentric viewpoint. What's the difference between that statement and someone saying "if killing you benefits me, there's nothing wrong with it?"



>
> Take hunting for example. I don't hunt and never will for two reasons: one, I don't like guns very much and wouldn't feel very safe holding one in my hand; and two, deer or birds or things that one might hunt are animals that I enjoy observing, and I would feel sad knowing I killed one.

Your argument seems to be stemmed around one central issue. If it gives you pleasure, you show it mercy. Otherwise, screw it. This isn't a very stable platform from which to make an argument.


But I don't think hunting is wrong or unethical.

You don't think it's unethical to go out and shoot dozens of deer just for fun? Well, I suppose Dahmer didn't think it was unethical to eat people. Does that make it right?


> I enjoy going fishing, because fish taste good >and I don't feel bad about killing them.

Ahh. So now animals have two conditions to meet in order for you to be benevolent with them: They must please you, and they must not taste good.


The only way I would object to hunting is if it were an endangered species, because that actually affects the entire ecosystem, which of course includes people.

Again, something which benefits you is the only thing that you show mercy to.

>
> Also, another thing that bugs me is that I've heard from time to time something like this: "If you were to kill off all the gnats in the world, the entire ecosystem would collapse; but if you were to kill off all the people, things would only get better." First off, the entire ecosystem wouldn't collapse, but yes, it would get worse, and people do in general pollute the environment and make it worse, so I get the general point. But to me, making this point as one defending environmentalism seems to be missing the point. I do my part to keep the environment clean, but for the reason that a poor environment harms mankind. To me, environmentalism purely for the environment's sake seems silly.

Again, this is rather egocentric and unlikely to gain much respect for your argument if you try it on people.




Bran"stirring up the controversy even more"don