Is cannibalism always wrong?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. No...in extreme cases I could see it. Like the movie/book Alive.

I don't really think they had a choice. I could never partake though. :hi:

[madmax]

3. I read the book years ago

I don't think I could read it now. Weaker stomach.

[hlthe2b]

12. for any that don't remember, "ALIVE"

was based on the story of the Uruguayan rugby team, whose plane crashed in the Andes. The survivors waited for rescue, but eventually they realize that rescue efforts have been called off and they have NO food-except the dead bodies of their friends...

They did not kill to survive, but consumed the remains of their dead friends, which was apparently very difficult for them as devout Catholics. To my knowledge though, their country rallied behind them and they were not subject to second guessing based on religious or other moral beliefs...

They survived and I think that many of us would have done the same thing.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

17. What if you were alone? Could you chop off your leg and eat that?

to keep from starving?

[hlthe2b]

18. Is that question for real?

Surely not! :eyes:

[Feanorcurufinwe]

20. What do you mean?

I guess so. I mean, I wonder if you could survive that way. It's seems like you could... first one leg, then the other, then one of your arms... after that it would get tricky.

[hlthe2b]

21. I really did think you were kidding and did not want

to make what might have been misinterpreted as a condescending reply. Allow me to explain. The short answer is that for one that is truly starving and not just feeling the initial pain of food deprivation, the body is in such a precarious state that the loss of a limb would be almost certainly fatal--even if done surgically.

The loss of a limb, beyond putting one at extreme risk of bleeding out, also requires intense physiological resources to allow for healing (prevent infection, provide the nutrients needed to allow for the wound itself to heal, recover from traumatic shock). Those who are starving enter a catabolic state (starvation causes the body to start consuming muscle protein at the cellular level as a source of fuel and to maintain blood glucose, which if continues long enough can cause multiple organ failure). As such, they would be very unlikely to survive such a dramatic traumatic injury, much less be able to digest the flesh, which would be needed in order for the limb to be useable as a source of fuel.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

23. So it sounds like

as long as you did it before you became weakened by hunger, it might work.

[hlthe2b]

24. Well...

You would stand a better chance of surviving the amputation if done earlier, but there would not be any net energy gain. If anything, it would only aid in diminishing the hunger pains and nothing else. In other words, it would not be advantageous in improving survival chances, but, like eating dirt or roots, it might make you feel a little less hungry.

[theivoryqueen]

2. not if you are eating republicans n/t

[markbark]

4. Eat the rich!

.... the poor are tough and stringy! ;) :evilgrin:


--MAB

[mike_c]

5. eeeeeyyyyyoooooooo....

That's ugly. How hungry would you have to be...?

[madmax]

6. Ewww, yuck

They need to be heavily marinated first. :evilgrin:

[m-jean03]

7. Yuck.

I would not like to eat Republicans, thank you. I firmly believe in the adage "You are what you eat."

[theivoryqueen]

11. heh heh n/t

[politicat]

8. Eew. Poisonous. All those heavy metals and toxins. EOM

.

[bleedingheart]

22. what kind of wine would you serve with republican...

[m-jean03]

26. Cheap stuff if you were serving the poor--

Expensive if you had robbed from the poor, and were eating your own.

[JVS]

9. Definitely a culinary faux pas

[Feanorcurufinwe]

10. Don't order the 'long pig'

[pacifictiger]

14. for last chance survival yes

but only if the person had already succumbed naturally.
There are stories also in the pioneer American West during harsh winter blizzard strandings.

[hlthe2b]

19. Yup.. most infamously, the Donner Party...

For a century, the debate has raged whether or not they ate only the dead to survive or killed and consumed...

[m-jean03]

13. Anyone see "Keep the River on Your Right"?

That was about the bad kind of cannibalism.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

15. Let's say you ended up on some remote island

and the locals offered you a stew made from people. Would it be wrong to eat it?

[m-jean03]

29. That is what happened in "Keep the River on your right"

A true story about an anthropologist.

He was fucked up for life. Talk about post traumatic stress.

I don't think I could do it, honestly. Unless I was totally starving.

[ScreamingMeemie]

16. Are you watching Hannibal? It's on tonight. Which is why I am

online downstairs. That movie grosses me out.

[Ignis]

25. Try this book on the subject:

Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society
by Beth A. Conklin
( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0292712367/qid=1084071155/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4945368-1749755?v=glance&s=books )

It's a bit saturated with detail, but it's still a great ethnography of a culture that practiced funerary endocannibalism up until about 50 years ago.

[baldguy]

27. "Take this bread and eat it, for this is My body..."

"...which is given up for you and for all men so that sins may be for given. Take this cup and drink from it, for this is a cup of My blood which has been shed for you and for all men, so that sins may be forgiven..."

Happens every Sunday in every Catholic church.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

28. Christianity is a cannibalism cult?

[baldguy]

30. I don't know about Protestants.

But in the Catholic Church, when the priest offers communion to the congregation, he blesses the Eucharist - the bread & wine he hands out. According to Catholic doctrine, when he does IT IS LITERALLY TRANSFORMED INTO THE BODY & BLOOD OF CHRIST. This is called the Miracle of Transubstantiation.

One of the reasons I stopped going is that I realized Catholicism is WEIRD!

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm

[Rowdyboy]

31. Stephen King wrote a short story about a drug runner who was

shipwrecked on an deserted isle in the Caribbean. He saved lots of heroin but no food. He would do heroin until he was starving, then cut off a piece of himself to ward off starvation. Literally consumed himself as he degenerated into madness.

One of his weirder pieces.

[ThoughtCriminal]

32. You are what you eat

Cannibals eat what they are.

[Donkeyboy75]

33. Once humans die, they're just meat too.

Couldn't kill a person to eat them, though. And wouldn't be able to do it unless I was knocking on death's door.