For a long time humans did not breed animals for the sake of eating them, they used to hunt (just like a lion). No one was guilt-tripping anyone in those days (I hope), as we had to survive (not thrive).
The situation has changed completely in the modern world. We have created meat factories, forcefully torturing millions of animals daily, and have somehow agreed upon what animals to kill and not to kill.
A lion will kill anything that moves (as long as it is not poisonous), are you willing to kill (and eat) any animal under the sky?
What about pets? Do you think they suffer any kind of pain and suffering ? If yes, that's the same way any other animal you eat (regardless of intelligence) feels when being slaughtered.
One more question to think about:
A young child (in a modern urban world) will be more comfortable plucking and eating fruits from a tree ?
OR
killing a pig -> draining blood -> cutting it into pieces -> cooking it to eat it ?
Having seem children play I think many in would be quite comfortable killing a pig and draining it's blood if they could. You see children chasing pigeons - and I don't think it's just to hug them if they catch one.
I say this without commenting in favor of either side of this debate which I am undecided on and reading with interest.
But I think it's important not to shy away from the reality that cruelty and the desire to kill are very much a part of human nature from the beginning. And that applies no matter where or how we are brought up.
What you mention is a typical destructive behavior noticed in kids and a tendency of violence/killing which even adults have. Key point here is: will they also eat the bird after killing it? Is the killing done here for the sake of eating ? or for the sake of enjoyment/destruction (whatever other reason).
i spent part of my childhood on a farm. i watched rabbits and pigs being slaughtered. and of course we ate them.
recently our neighbors slaughtered a goat that my kids had seen alive just before, and we all ate it. we also eat the chicken from the kids grandparents village home that they saw being slaughtered there.
kids killing animals for no reason are an exception, as are kids refusing to eat animals that they saw alive.
if they weren't we'd all have become vegetarians centuries or even millennia ago.
(slightly related: it bothers me that some people think kids should be protected from experiencing how meat is produced. if you eat it, you should know where it came from)
The situation has changed completely in the modern world. We have created meat factories, forcefully torturing millions of animals daily, and have somehow agreed upon what animals to kill and not to kill.
A lion will kill anything that moves (as long as it is not poisonous), are you willing to kill (and eat) any animal under the sky?
What about pets? Do you think they suffer any kind of pain and suffering ? If yes, that's the same way any other animal you eat (regardless of intelligence) feels when being slaughtered.
One more question to think about: A young child (in a modern urban world) will be more comfortable plucking and eating fruits from a tree ? OR killing a pig -> draining blood -> cutting it into pieces -> cooking it to eat it ?