Whether they can feel emotional pain or not, (and i suspect they do to some degree) if somebody starts tearing them to pieces while they are still alive, i guarantee they are suffering and not just in a emotional way.
Right. You can guarantee they are in pain in a physical way...
What you cannot guarantee is if its in an emotional way.


You say animals serve a purpose and from what i gather, apperently you think that purpose is to be food and/or slaves. Does that include us? If some being from outer space decided that it was far more advanced than you and just for the sake of debate, lets say you even agree that it is more advanced than you, does that give it the right to kill and eat you and yours? After all, you would be serving a purpose.
Well, if it served his people to do that, then yeah, it probably does give him right. Will I like it? No. Did I serve a purpose? Yes.

Yes I believe that living off the suffering of other sentient beings is wrong if it's not required, that's one of my core beliefs. Therefore i recognize that I am a sinner and dont try to tell me otherwise. I dont base my beliefs on fairy tales or whims, i base them on science, experience, and observation. I know other animals and people are much alike, and based on that knowledge, I know that there is a good chance that humans and other animals feel many of the same things.
So now you feel you have a right to impose your beliefs on me and judge me, if I dont embrace them as you do, all because you have your "feeling" about animals and their "feelings" which you created in your own head? So now I must change my whole way of thinking and my diet all because you "feel" that we are the same as animals and that eating animals is immoral? Forget history, forget instinct, forget everything I know...all because of your feeling?

Uh, no.