Eating animals

Eating animals Markus 5/13/15 4:38 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/30/15 5:26 AM
RE: Eating animals Bagpuss The Gnome 5/19/15 2:24 PM
RE: Eating animals . Jake . 5/20/15 9:43 AM
RE: Eating animals Scott Kinney 5/20/15 9:51 AM
RE: Eating animals . Jake . 5/20/15 10:23 AM
RE: Eating animals Scott Kinney 5/20/15 10:26 AM
RE: Eating animals . Jake . 5/20/15 12:24 PM
RE: Eating animals Scott Kinney 5/20/15 2:28 PM
RE: Eating animals . Jake . 5/20/15 5:11 PM
RE: Eating animals CJMacie 5/21/15 8:11 AM
RE: Eating animals C P M 5/21/15 8:57 AM
RE: Eating animals CJMacie 5/25/15 7:06 AM
RE: Eating animals . Jake . 5/21/15 9:49 AM
RE: Eating animals CJMacie 5/25/15 7:33 AM
killing animals to keep the garden beautiful (in England) CJMacie 5/25/15 7:49 AM
RE: killing animals to keep the garden beautiful (in England) water drop 5/25/15 9:05 AM
RE: killing animals to keep the garden beautiful (in England) Bill F. 5/25/15 11:12 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/25/15 12:35 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/25/15 1:26 PM
RE: Eating animals cian 5/25/15 1:49 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/25/15 2:28 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/25/15 3:01 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/25/15 3:01 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/28/15 12:40 AM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/25/15 3:34 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/28/15 12:39 AM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/25/15 4:45 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 6/4/15 11:20 PM
RE: Eating animals chris mc 6/5/15 1:56 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 6/7/15 12:01 AM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 6/7/15 1:43 AM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 6/7/15 8:27 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 7/21/15 2:13 PM
RE: Eating animals Psi 7/21/15 9:58 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 7/22/15 2:54 AM
RE: Eating animals Psi 7/22/15 10:55 AM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 7/22/15 1:52 PM
RE: Eating animals Psi 7/22/15 3:52 PM
RE: Eating animals Psi 7/22/15 5:11 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 7/22/15 10:18 PM
RE: Eating animals Vuthy Ou 7/23/15 7:48 AM
RE: Eating animals Psi 7/23/15 9:52 AM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 7/23/15 6:27 PM
RE: Eating animals Psi 7/23/15 7:38 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 7/23/15 8:14 PM
RE: Eating animals Yash C 7/26/15 12:48 AM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 7/26/15 1:13 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 9/1/15 3:46 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 7/24/15 10:37 AM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 6/3/15 2:16 PM
RE: Eating animals Scott Kinney 5/13/15 2:56 PM
RE: Eating animals C P M 5/13/15 5:23 PM
RE: Eating animals katy steger,thru11.6.15 with thanks 5/17/15 11:14 AM
RE: Eating animals Dream Walker 5/15/15 12:53 AM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/18/15 8:48 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/19/15 6:55 AM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/19/15 10:38 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/20/15 10:16 AM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/19/15 1:02 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/20/15 2:20 AM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/19/15 1:38 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/19/15 4:37 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 5/24/15 4:44 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/19/15 2:25 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/19/15 4:01 PM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/19/15 7:38 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/20/15 4:03 AM
RE: Eating animals Scott Kinney 5/20/15 5:25 AM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/20/15 1:16 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/20/15 3:11 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/20/15 8:32 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/24/15 7:12 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/24/15 9:29 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/24/15 11:46 PM
RE: Eating animals Vuthy Ou 5/29/15 12:01 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/30/15 3:13 AM
RE: Eating animals Psi 5/29/15 3:44 PM
RE: Eating animals Psi 5/29/15 4:11 PM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/29/15 4:19 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/29/15 4:48 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/30/15 2:09 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/30/15 3:23 AM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/30/15 6:23 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/30/15 7:36 AM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/30/15 8:40 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/30/15 12:20 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 6/4/15 11:04 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/30/15 12:57 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/31/15 8:04 AM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/29/15 4:22 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 6/3/15 2:38 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 6/4/15 9:12 AM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/20/15 6:01 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/20/15 8:58 PM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/21/15 10:00 AM
RE: Eating animals water drop 5/24/15 4:30 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/24/15 4:25 PM
RE: Eating animals katy steger,thru11.6.15 with thanks 5/24/15 4:56 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/24/15 5:03 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 5/24/15 9:24 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/24/15 10:05 PM
RE: Eating animals Eva Nie 5/25/15 1:02 AM
RE: Eating animals CJMacie 5/25/15 7:40 AM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/26/15 6:24 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/27/15 1:57 AM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/27/15 3:30 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/27/15 4:04 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/27/15 5:15 PM
RE: Eating animals Jinxed P 5/27/15 5:27 PM
RE: Eating animals Not Tao 5/27/15 6:05 PM
RE: Eating animals CJMacie 5/20/15 5:59 PM
RE: Eating animals CJMacie 5/19/15 6:45 PM
RE: Eating animals Psi 5/20/15 6:11 PM
RE: Eating animals Noah 5/20/15 6:30 PM
RE: Eating animals Bill F. 5/20/15 7:08 PM
RE: Eating animals Psi 5/20/15 8:13 PM
Markus, modified 9 Years ago at 5/13/15 4:38 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/13/15 4:38 AM

Eating animals

Posts: 24 Join Date: 4/29/15 Recent Posts
I would like to start a discussion on this. We have another thread going here where we talk about this a little but the purpose of that thread was something else and I felt it's better to start fresh. I also feel i came across as a little condescending over there (i was going through some dark night shit) and that is not my intention. I admit that i have some room for development in my communication skills regarding matters such as this. I figured starting this thread is a good way to practise. 

I think it's wrong to eat animals in this day and age. It's unnecessary. I also think its harmful to our health, our environment and ethically speaking, harmful to other sentient life forms. I'm no expert when it comes to the science of these matters but from a philosophical viewpoint i cannot see any fault in the reasoning of wanting to cause minimal harm on our precious time on this earth. I have yet to find a justification that would indicate otherwise. 

Do you agree or disagree with this position?

Now how does this pertain to buddhism? I think it gets to the heart of it. And that is what the first training (morality, 4th noble truth, 8-fold path, etc) is all about. It does not matter so much what buddha or anyone decided to do back in the day. Times have changed. We live in a different world. What matters is what we do now. So yes, it is very crucial i believe to how we live in this world. 

It's also slightly baffling how little regard many practitioners have regarding this even masters of some traditions. In fact, there's even this antagonistic attitude which often appears when these matters are probed further (from my experience). I have noticed this again and again. I would like to understand why this is so. How can we talk about kindness and compassion and then then turn around to practise something entirely opposite. We should at least be able to talk about it freely and open-heartedly. Pursuing enlightenmnet through deep meditation while feeding hot dogs to our children or cooking bacon for our grandma is a clear indication that something has gone amiss in our wisdom. Perhaps we have forgot to think for ourselves and are relying too much on maps and teachings. 

It's foolish to think that just because we cannot do everything (ie. save the world), we should do nothing. It's always better to do something instead of nothing, just as it is when sitting on our make-believe throne of meditation. And making basic food choices is a simple yet immensely powerful and effective vote towards a world where buddhist practises could be spread evermore and developed. 

It's time for a reality check. 

Here are some excellent resources to educate ourselves which have helped me enormously since i began this path many years ago. This powerful information can literally change your life wherever you are with your daily practise. It sure has changed mine. All I ask is that you keep an open mind if this is an area of your life that is sensitive to external inquiry. And if it is, ask yourself why. Your life may depend on it!

films: 
Speciesism: The Movie
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
Earthlings
Forks Over Knives

lectures:
Carnism: The Psychology Of Eating Meat
The World Peace Diet: Being Healthy and Saving The Planet
Best Speech You Will Ever Hear

a good forum for the intellectual folk: http://theveganatheist.com/forum/

Feel free to discuss. 

As for me, its time to meditate and turn off this damn computer!
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 5:26 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/13/15 5:04 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
edit : i want to add two good "movies" which are relavent to my first post  (  best speech you will hear : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ

Or the movie "earthlings"  : http://earthlings.com/?page_id=32  http://earthlings.com/?page_id=32
)

Hi - i just wanted to talk about a spesific issue and its about lineage - theravada is exelent and goes hand in hand with veganism - even if its not a "must"

I practice theravada mahasi sayadaw style meditation - and i think while its not saying you must be vegan it is supporting this idea - but you really need to keep meditating and do resarch to understand this - i thought at start it dosnt support vegansim and only mahayana  does but the more i "advance" i understand how veganism is a plus to the practice
 
Also the example people give fore the least vegan-freindly  sect  is tibetian lineage (vajrayana ect) cause they had to eat meat cause thats what available in tibet  - but than i saw this video  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc#t=923       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc#t=923

In 15:28 minutes its a nice explanation of ven.bikkhu bodhi why there is some kammatic effect in buying chicken
 

  titled "animals and the buddha" - which had tibetian monks talking against eating meat (and also highly respected theravada monk bikkhu bodhi)    

I say all sects that you follow will indirectly support veganism -    you dont have to be vegan in order to be buddhist - but it sure helps --   if only  for practical cold "how do i advance faster in the path" considerations its worth being vegan  ar at least a vegaterian - which is better than eating meat -  just because its hard for some to be vegans dosnt mean they cant at least be vegaterians
It's foolish to think that just because we cannot do everything (ie. save the world), we should do nothing
thats a very "buddhist" saying
 
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Bagpuss The Gnome, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 2:24 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 2:24 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 704 Join Date: 11/2/11 Recent Posts
I love animals. Especially steak. 
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Jake , modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 9:43 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 9:43 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 695 Join Date: 5/22/10 Recent Posts
I just heard this really interesting interview on the radio recently. It was with this guy who has a startup company making meat directly from plants. basically he argues that meat is a certain balance of protein, lipids, water and something else i forget. And he says that traditionally we have let animals turn plants into 'meat' through their metabolism but that we have now reached the point that through temperature, pressure, blending etc. we can take plants and turn them into 'meat'-- the substance that has those four elements in a certain balance. this is different from making chick-pea burgers as he's actually using a pretty intensive processing to extract and recombine the proteins, lipids etc into 'meat'. Anyhow it was really interesting and apparently his machine produces some tasty meat with no animal involvement at all. He strongly makes the case that he is making meat, not meat substitute, but actual meat, and he argues that the definition of meat shouldn't involve having been grown in an animal as that is just one way that veggies can be processed into meat. Pretty neat. I like it. I would totally be down with this becoming a big thing (based on what little I know of it at this point).
Scott Kinney, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 9:51 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 9:51 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 112 Join Date: 4/7/15 Recent Posts
. Jake .:
....He strongly makes the case that he is making meat, not meat substitute, but actual meat, and he argues that the definition of meat shouldn't involve having been grown in an animal as that is just one way that veggies can be processed into meat. 
Does his case involve showing that material resulting from his process can mimic the actions of a muscle (contract, relax, etc.)? 
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Jake , modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 10:23 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 10:17 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 695 Join Date: 5/22/10 Recent Posts
haha no because the nerves don't constitute the 'essence' of meat as he is arguing... he is saying that 'meat' is basicaly a combination of proteins, lipids, water and one other thing i can't remember. I think. Lol. And he says that animals turn plants into meat but we can also just make it directly by arranging matter into that configuration.

ETA: in other words, this is completely different from vat-grown meat or 3d printed meat that uses actual animal cells either cloned or what have you --
Scott Kinney, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 10:26 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 10:26 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 112 Join Date: 4/7/15 Recent Posts
Meat is muscle tissue. Nerves typically supply the impetus for muscles to contract and relax, though they are not the only stimulus source that can do that.

So, the person's argument is that "meat" is the part of the stuff that muscle is composed of, some sort of undifferentiated cell (?). It's sort of like pointing to a pile of sand and saying it's essentially identical to building composed of cinder blocks because sand is a great part of what's in cinder blocks.

I don't doubt that he's created a protein. I'm just not all the way there to agreeing that he's created meat.
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Jake , modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 12:24 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 12:20 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 695 Join Date: 5/22/10 Recent Posts
Here's his site:

http://beyondmeat.com/

It's more like, imagine a giant turtle eats sand and water and a few other things and makes a shell out of concrete. And we kill the turtles for thousands of years to take their shells and build houses. And now this guy comes along and says, hang on, 'shells' are really just a mixture of sand, water and these other things which the turtle's metabolism puts together into the form of a 'shell'.

But with this new machine, we can actually make 'shells' by combining those ingredients and out the other end of the machine pops 'shells' that you can build a house with exactly like you can with the shells that turtles make metabolically. So now we can make 'shells' for building without having to grow them on turtles.

We can just make them right out of the *exact same ingredients* that turtles ingest to make them, by running those ingredients through a *different process than turtle metabolism* but one which *produces the exact same thing*- 'shells'. Shells which work just as well as turtle-shells for building houses. Just, now we can make them directly instead of *growing them on turtles*. Which is much nicer for the turtles ;)

His thinking seems very clear to me, but as with any re-definition (or clarification) of terms, it is bound to be controversial.

ETA: so to clarify, he didn't make a 'protein' he basically extracts all those ingredients out of plants and then recombines them into a pattern that is functionally identical to 'meat' grown on animals. So the raw materials are the same and the end product is nutritionally and sensually the same but the intervening process of transformation is of a different kind- it's technological, not metabolic. One of the examples was a burger which the host ate and said it tasted good and texturally was like meat, and the inventor said, yes, the protein in that is from yellow peas. But the burger didn't look or taste anything like yellow peas. This is not the plant-burger you can make at home with a blender and a crockpot. The processing he is doing is on another level entirely.
Scott Kinney, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 2:28 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 2:28 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 112 Join Date: 4/7/15 Recent Posts
Thanks for the link.

Based on what I've seen there, I might go with nutrionally equivalent, the low fat content notwithstanding. I can only go with "functionally equivalent" within the bounds of their product offerings, which are pre-made, pre-seasoned 'heat and eat' type products.

My frame of reference is that of someone who cooks. None of the "beyond meat" products are things that I can approach the same way I approach raw fish, or raw chicken, beef, venison, etc. for cooking. They are not broadly functionally equivalent, only equivalent within a narrow range.

To borrow your shell analogy; I can make 4 x 3 x 9 bricks, so that should replace all of the building materials and objects you currently get from shells. If that suits your needs, rock on with your bad self.
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Jake , modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 5:11 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 5:11 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 695 Join Date: 5/22/10 Recent Posts
Scott, totes magotes, I feel you there. They talked about it on the show-- they want to be very approachable. I like to cook too! Hopefully they will eventually offer more raw-esque offerings. 
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CJMacie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/21/15 8:11 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/21/15 7:59 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
re: Scott Kinney (5/20/15 10:26 AM as a reply to . Jake ..)

"So, the person's argument is that "meat" is the part of the stuff that muscle is composed of, some sort of undifferentiated cell (?). It's sort of like pointing to a pile of sand and saying it's essentially identical to building composed of cinder blocks because sand is a great part of what's in cinder blocks."

Subtle but crucial point.

AND a central theme in a book relevant to this thread:
Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition by T. Colin Campbell and Howard Jacobson (May 6, 2014)
 (see wikipedia on credentials of  T. Colin Campbell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Colin_Campbell)

A big chunk of the book is a critique of 'reductionist' science (which he was a master of, in his earlier career). Specicially, (for this thread), that if you take things apart (divide and conquer reductionism) – oh, food essentially consists of simply this or that chemical components. All we have todo is figure that out, then synthetically create (pseudo-) food out of analagous components, and we've got control of the situation (we are GOD), and, btw, can make an unlimited amount of profit along the way (and our friends in the medical-industrial complex will also profit hugely off the pandemic chronic disease guaranteed by feeding people this junk.).

That came to mind from Scott Kinney's critique of what .Jake. brought up. In a similar vein, anyone here seen that "Soylent Green" product that's all the rage among millennials, that's similarly constituted?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29

(Anyone heard of the book or movie "Soylent Green"?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
C P M, modified 9 Years ago at 5/21/15 8:57 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/21/15 8:56 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 218 Join Date: 5/23/13 Recent Posts
I worked in a soils and plant nutrition lab as an ongoing summer job. One of my tasks was to perform nutrient deficiency experiments on tobacco plants. For the experiment, plants were deprived of either one macro or micro nutrient.

If a plant was deficient in a particular nutrient, it would show characteristic growth and development problems.

The nutrients were mixed from various compounds (salts) in the concentrations needed by the plants (minus one nutrient). The controls that received all nutrients did fine.

In this case, it was possible to reduce the nutrient needs of a plant to it's base components. It's true that tobacco plants aren't people (spoiler, soylent green is people).
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CJMacie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 7:06 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 7:02 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
re: C P M (5/21/15 8:57 AM as a reply to Chris J Macie.)
"If a plant was deficient in a particular nutrient, it would show characteristic growth and development problems.

The nutrients were mixed from various compounds (salts) in the concentrations needed by the plants (minus one nutrient). The controls that received all nutrients did fine.

In this case, it was possible to reduce the nutrient needs of a plant to it's base components."


This shows how such research provides valid insights into nutritional processes. It's more difficult to determine if what's so discovered is the complete story.

In the case of nutrition for humans, it's more complex, as new aspects – new nutrients, varying needs, etc. – are constantly being discovered. The problem is that science, or rather, commercial enterprises using the science, make practical decisions without recognizing the limits of "what they know". The result has been the trial-and-error history over the last decades. Oh, this is good; that is bad – based on this or that research. Then using this (actually provisional) knowledge to constitute "food", sell and consume it large-scale, it often turns out to have unexpected, often undesirable (from the POV of health) effects.

What T. Colin Campbell discovered in his research (that has been widely collaborated) is that the human body picks and chooses various nutrients from its food, according to a wide range of dynamic criteria – time of year, climate, bodily constitution (both genetically and developmentally conditioned), work/life-style, health condition, etc. To try to micro-program exactly adequate nutrition in this flux of variables would be practically impossible.

So his thesis is that eating whole foods (rich in all possible nutrients), plant-based (mostly), etc. provides the body with what it needs to select from according to momentary needs.

He also notes that attempts to micro-program nutrition from reductionist science, as well as many aspects of bio-medical reductionist based diagnostic and treatment strategies have been, on the whole dismal failures. (At least relative to the hype and expectations.)
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Jake , modified 9 Years ago at 5/21/15 9:49 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/21/15 9:46 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 695 Join Date: 5/22/10 Recent Posts
Chris J Macie:
In a similar vein, anyone here seen that "Soylent Green" product that's all the rage among millennials, that's similarly constituted?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_%28drink%29

(Anyone heard of the book or movie "Soylent Green"?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
Ha! My girlfriend, who was born and raised a vegetarian and now eats fish ocassionally, sent me a link to that stuff and I was like "Umm don't you know what Soylent Green is? I can't beleive they named it that!!' But she was like "Wait what?' because kids these days don't get cultural references from the 70's I guess lol. Oh well.

Also, your points about wholeness and reductionism are well taken, as a matter of principle i am very sympathetic to them. I'm also excited about the possibility of a relatively cruelty free 'meat'. Because meanwhile I am still eating steaks and burgers and from one point of view, sure, there is no excuse for that.

here's one other thing that i wonder about vegetarianism (leaving veganism aside because from my point of view it's so extreme that it's absurd, as animals are harmed in farming plants etc. as has been pointed out above).

The question I have has to do with hunting. I live in rural Vermont. Hunting is big. But more importantly it's ecologically necessary. Deer  cannot exist in balance without a predator preying on them. Without a predator in their environment, deer populations boom and bust because they over-graze, kill off plants, and then starve, and that becomes their cycle. This obviously has ecological effects on plants that are their food which then also boom and bust, which effects birds and squireels which use the plants for habitats and food, etc etc etc throughout the web of life here. Meanwhile during boom phases deer tick populations spike causing more lyme for people and animals. So i wonder how ethical vegetarians who would advocate no meat eating and no human hunting feel about this-- are they comfortable with reintroducing wolves and mountain lions back into the ecosystem in order to acheive this ecological balance?

And if they are comfortable with that-- what, from the deers' point of view, is the preferable way to be predated-- by tooth and claw, or by bullet and arrow? If this is an ethical question and if the ethics of it are grounded in the deers' experience (an arguable point, I grant) then how do we weigh the relative suffering of being predated by wolf vs. by human? Is it possible that being preyed on by humans is more humane than by wolves? Or if this line of thinking is irrelevant, then what are you basing your ethicality on here if not on the expereince and feelings of the deer?

ETA "you" refers in general to the reader in this final paragraph, not to chris.
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CJMacie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 7:33 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 7:11 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
re: . Jake . (5/21/15 9:49 AM as a reply to Chris J Macie.)
"And if they are comfortable with that-- what, from the deers' point of view, is the preferable way to be predated-- by tooth and claw, or by bullet and arrow? If this is an ethical question and if the ethics of it are grounded in the deers' experience (an arguable point, I grant) then how do we weigh the relative suffering of being predated by wolf vs. by human? Is it possible that being preyed on by humans is more humane than by wolves? Or if this line of thinking is irrelevant, then what are you basing your ethicality on here if not on the expereince and feelings of the deer?"

This context is most apropos here. A key element is (similar to the arenas of nutrition and medicine): given a vastly complex system, conditioned over eons, how do we know we fully understand it sufficiently to change it? Particularly to "improve on it"?

"Vastly complex system" – to put in another way, as a former teacher of mine (he's dead now), Sun Bear, used to say, from a Native American perspective: All living beings give their lives so that other beings can live. That's clearly valid in terms of the macrosystem of the food chain.

But let me turn in another direction, to note that in the Buddha's teaching he focused less on universal ethical dictums, and more on individual intention. He did not say all living beings should not kill (e.g. for food) other beings (animals, grasses, bacteria,  yeasts,…). He said that human beings, on the path to liberation, should intend harmlessness. An instructive example was the story of some arahat monk, who was blind, being complained about to the Buddha because the guy was stepping on, killing bugs. The Buddha answered that the monk was blameless by virtue of his intentions – he couldn't see where he was stepping, didn't intend harm.

Now there are other dimensions of belief and teaching across the range of "Buddhisms", more so in later, e.g. Mahayana variants, which adopted more universal abstractions, where earlier (Pali Canon) teachings reflect more a focus on specific, individual action. The Boddhisattva vow being an example. (To over-simplify: earlier Buddhism's virtue-concentration-wisdom became later more wisdom-compassion.)

This historical development parallels the contemporaneous development of Christianity from Judaism (in the early centuries BCE, same time as Mahayana took shape). Judaism has to do with a particular group of people. Christianity extended notions from Judaism to apply to all people, all times, mirroring the extent of the Roman empire.

I read once a provocative article hypothesizing that St. Paul (Paul of Tarsus) shaped his teachings along these lines, extracting comparatively minor teachings of Jesus of Nazarath about brotherly love (which are not really that prominent in the Gospels), to make this a major, central teaching, and universalizing it to all peoples (at least of the Roman Empire). The author took this as an especially astute insight on Paul's part, linking into and taking advantage of the historical context. Sure enough, Rome collapsed after another 300 or so years, but out of it's ashes arose a religious empire that's still going -- the Roman Catholic Church. (Where the word 'catholic' is Greek 'kata-holos',"according to the whole", i.e. universal.)

Back to Buddhism. An interesting example of Mahayana-type universalism being the Parable of the Banyan Deer – a myth of a Buddha-like deer teaching a king to abolish, out of compassion, all hunting of animals, birds, fish, etc. (http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/jt/jt14.htm)

Another parallel, in Western modernist Buddhism, is extending Buddha's ethics in the direction of instigating social change, social activism; e.g. B.Bodhi's Buddhist Global Relief organization. (Arguably transferring a Judeo-Christian evangelical impulse into Buddhism.)

So, this discussion (mine here and this DhO thread) lies somewhere on the continuum between shaping the individual's ethics of intentionality, on the one hand, and a crusade to save the planet and abolish samsara, on the other hand.
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CJMacie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 7:49 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 7:49 AM

killing animals to keep the garden beautiful (in England)

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 9:05 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 9:02 AM

RE: killing animals to keep the garden beautiful (in England)

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
I again want to say i really recommand  pepople here watch the full speech from start to finish :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ

About grass fed cows  (and like the link says chickens are fed grains - and dont forget milk cows - pepole dont forget its not all about beef thats just a small part of the problem)  

48 . In Australia, grass-fed beef is more ethical than eating wheat
First of all, do you live in Australia? Because if you don't then this argument is entirely irrelevant to your situation.


Secondly, hi Australians who are still reading!


Thirdly, the whole argument being made here is that more animals
die specifically in wheat harvesting than if you just ate grass-fed
beef. The argument ignores the fact that there are other things to eat
besides wheat on a plant-based diet. You could indeed not eat any wheat
at all if you wanted, there are many people who already do that for
whatever reason, health, allergies or indeed ethics. But on top of this,
it's pretty ridiculous to suggest that you'd just be eating grass-fed
beef and nothing else. Chickens, turkeys, pigs etc are fed on grains,
not on grass, so you'd be just eating beef and no other animal products,
and you'd not be eating wheat. Nobody does this in reality, so the
claim falls flat. You don't need to eat wheat if you really are
concerned with the practices. You can eat anything else, it doesn't have
to be beef.
http://www.vegansidekick.com/guide
http://www.vegansidekick.com/guide




 grass fed beef usually gets killed in the same industrialised slouther house regular cows are killed  :

http://modernfarmer.com/2013/04/this-is-what-humane-slaughter-looks-like-is-it-good-enough/
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/04/this-is-what-humane-slaughter-looks-like-is-it-good-enough/
 

How much animals really die in farming ? :

http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans
http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans


 
(Better to read at the link cause my quoting seems to damage the text a bit)

http://www.care2.com/causes/5-myths-about-grass-fed-beef.html

http://www.care2.com/causes/5-myths-about-grass-fed-beef.html


better read the links i gave above cause the quoting ditorts the text a little

  Five Myths About Grass-Fed Beef 
Myth #1: Grass-fed beef is good for the environment.False. Raising animals for food, especially
cattle, is one of the leading causes of global climate change. In 2006,
the UN release a study called Livestock’s Long Shadow which made the
point that raising animals for food is the largest contributor to global
climate change. The biggest environmental problem with raising animals
for food is the greenhouse gases that they produce–methane and carbon
dioxide. Feeding cattle grass instead of corn or soy is somewhat of a
reduction of resources, but does not address the issue of greenhouse
gases. It does not matter whether the cattle are located on a giant
mega-factory-farm or on a small farm in Central Massachusetts, each cow
still produce a huge amount of greenhouse gases.

Myth #2: Animals on grass-fed farms are happy.
False. There is certainly a gradient in the
ways in which animals are treated in the meat and dairy industry, but
even small operations are far from kind to animals. Cows are forcibly
impregnated–a grotesque and cruel procedure. Many calves are taken from
their mothers shortly after birth, to be sold to a veal farm or used as
dairy cows. Did you know that many small farms send their animals to the
exact same slaughterhouses as factory farms? In the slaughterhouse,
animals are shocked with electric prods, hung upside-down and are slowly
bleed to death.

Myth #3: Grass-fed beef is safer.
False. If you eat meat, you are increasing
your risk of developing E. Coli. There is no evidence to suggest that
grass-fed beef has a lower risk of contamination than factory-farmed
meat. E. Coli is transmitted through contact with fecal matter and all
meat has fecal matter contamination. Some prominent supporters of
grass-fed beef have said that the stomachs of cows who eat grass are
more resistant to E. Coli, which is a claim that has never been backed
up by facts. This myth seems to have started with Nina Plank and became commonly known because of Michael Pollan’s writing. Slate recently published a piece, Beware the Myth of Grass-Fed Beef, which explodes the myth that grass-fed beef is safer.

Myth #4: Grass-fed beef is good for your health.False. Grass-fed beef is still full of
saturated-fat, cholesterol and growth hormones. It may be true that beef
from cattle who are fed grass is somewhat better for your health than meat from animals who live their entire lives confined on feed-lots. However, eating a plant-based diet is even better for your health. 
We’ve known for years that beef consumption is linked to the major
killers: cancer and heart-attack. Furthermore, it’s a myth that beef
from grass-fed cattle does not contain hormones. It is common knowledge
that all animal products contain hormones, but you might be surprised to
hear that grass-fed beef can also contain added artificial hormones. A
short time before being slaughtered, grass-fed cattle are often
fatten-up with by being fed corn, soy, and given unnatural growth
hormones. If you eat meat, those hormones go right into your body.

Myth #5: If everyone ate grass-fed beef factory-farming would end.
False. Eating grass-fed beef does not
challenge factory-farming, because it is not a viable alternative. It is
expensive and there is not nearly enough grassland in America to raise
that many cattle. Every year in the United States, over 10 billion land animals are raised and killed for human consumption.
There is a reason why factory-farming persists: Americans continue to
eat meat. There simply is not enough grassland to raise that many
animals on pastures. Plus, ordinary people cannot afford the high
price-tag of grass-fed beef. A small operation based in Hardwick, MA
sells grass-fed ground beef for $9 per pound and $23 for rib-eye.
Working people cannot afford that.

So what can we do? 
Eating Vegan Helps Animals, the Planet, and is HealthyTrue. Eating vegetarian foods is
inexpensive and accessible. Eating vegan dramatically reduces your
carbon-footprint. It’s the best thing you can do to help animals, and it
is great for your health! Plus it’s easy. Every grocery store in
America now offers a selection of vegan foods–including vegetarian
analogs like mock meats and soy milks. So don’t buy the myth. Avoid
expensive grass-fed meats and opt for tasty vegan fare.

The grass fed cow industry also hurts many animals on the way (and of course add that number to the cows  killed)


The sobering reality is that cattle grazing in the U.S. is already
taking a tremendous toll on the environment.  Even with almost all U.S.
beef cattle spending much of their lives in feedlots, seventy percent of
the land area of the American West is currently used for grazing
livestock. More than two-thirds of the entire land area of Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho is used
for rangeland. In the American West, virtually every place that can be
grazed, is grazed. The results aren’t pretty. As one environmental
author put it, “Cattle grazing in the West has polluted more water,
eroded more topsoil, killed more fish, displaced more wildlife, and
destroyed more vegetation than any other land use.”Western rangelands have been devastated under the impact of the
current system, in which cattle typically spend only six months or so on
the range, and the rest of their lives in feedlots. To bring cows to
market weight on rangeland alone would require each animal to spend not
six months foraging, but several years, greatly multiplying the damage
to western ecosystems.The USDA’s taxpayer-funded Animal Damage Control (ADC) program was
established in 1931 for a single purpose—to eradicate, suppress, and
control wildlife considered to be detrimental to the western livestock
industry. The program has not been popular with its opponents. They have
called the ADC by a variety of names, including, “All the Dead
Critters” and “Aid to Dependent Cowboys.”In 1997, following the advice of public relations and image
consultants, the federal government gave a new name to the ADC—“Wildlife
Services.” And they came up with a new motto—“Living with Wildlife.”But the agency does not exactly “live with” wildlife. What it
actually does is kill any creature that might compete with or threaten
livestock. Its methods include poisoning, trapping, snaring, denning,
shooting, and aerial gunning. In “denning” wildlife, government agents
pour kerosene into the den and then set it on fire, burning the young
alive in their nests.Among the animals Wildlife Services agents intentionally kill are
badgers, black bears, bobcats, coyotes, gray fox, red fox, mountain
lions, opossum, raccoons, striped skunks, beavers, nutrias, porcupines,
prairie dogs, black birds, cattle egrets, and starlings. Animals
unintentionally killed by Wildlife Services agents include domestic dogs
and cats, and several threatened and endangered species.All told, Wildlife Services intentionally kills more than 1.5 million

wild animals annually. This is done at public expense, to protect the
private financial interests of ranchers who graze their livestock on
public lands, and who pay almost nothing for the privilege.The price that western lands and wildlife are paying for grazing
cattle is hard to exaggerate. Conscientious management of rangelands can
certainly reduce the damage, but widespread production of grassfed beef
would only multiply this already devastating toll.
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 11:12 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 11:12 AM

RE: killing animals to keep the garden beautiful (in England)

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Water Drop,

        That is at least the third time I've seen you post that video with that link. All your sources are from vegan websites, with names like "the flaming vegan". Why not just let people decide whether or not they want to view the video rather than reposting it? It feels like you are trying to force your feelings onto others. I find it hard to believe anyone would take such biased information seriously except for those waiting to be led. Also, it would be great if you could provide scientific journal articles or studies corroborating the claims made on the links. Can you? I am searching for something more balanced, and would actually appreciate it. I read the one link about farm animals killed. The language is clearly emotional propaganda and not objective or balanced. The article also makes no mention of how many mice are killed to harvest animals, but gives you a percentage. Anyone who has taken an introductory statistics course knows that percentages are often the language of propaganda and can be altered to reflect what the writer wants the reader to believe. Further, the article states that 1/17 mice in one study -any valid research method must be tested and retested with different variables to confirm its validity- were killed by farming. Ignoring the validity of the source and the study, this number means nothing but that in that one study most mice were not killed. However, if there are 33,000 mice in the field, that means 1,000 mice (and that ignores all other species) were killed to harvest the product. Further many rice die because they are poisoned by grain feeders ( Poisoning kills at least 80% of the mice.. Therefore, at least 55 sentient animals die to produce 100kg of useable plant protein: 25 times more than for the same amount of rangelands beef.). I've read more than one article from non-political sources suggesting a much higher number than the one given, but that's sort of a boring game of competing sources. Still, I am much more likely to be swayed if you can provide information from a study, and not a vegan website. I won't even respond to the copy and pasted portion because anyone with an eye for bullshit can see that it simply emotional pandering, confirming only what the the reader wants to hear.


But on top of this,
it's pretty ridiculous to suggest that you'd just be eating grass-fed 
beef and nothing else. Chickens, turkeys, pigs etc are fed on grains, 
not on grass, so you'd be just eating beef and no other animal products,
and you'd not be eating wheat. Nobody does this in reality, so the 
claim falls flat- Water Drop

This is actually my diet. The diet above that you claim no one eats in reality. I eat grass fed beef and lamb, raised and slaughtered in local farms. I don't eat chicken, turkey or pigs. I don't eat grains. For starches I eat sweet potatoes, yuca, or taro. Again, what does it suggest about your beliefs that you affirm "nobody does this in reality", and yet here I am, and this is how I eat? Clearly you are wrong, and have strong beliefs that are wrong, but what else is implied?

I'll leave you with the following from Lierre Keith, vegan activist for 20 years who decided to honestly explore her feelings about veganism and research food supply:

This book is written to further those passions, that hunger. It is not an attempt to mock the concept of animal rights or to sneer at the people who want a gentler world. Instead, this book is an effort to honor our deepest longings for a just world. And those longings—for compassion, for sustainability, for an equitable distribution of resources—are not served by the philosophy or practice of vegetarianism. We have been led astray. The vegetarian Pied Pipers have the best of intentions. I’ll state right now what I’ll be repeating later: everything they say about factory farming is true. It is cruel, wasteful, and destructive. Nothing in this book is meant to excuse or promote the practices of industrial food production on any level.But the first mistake is in assuming that factory farming—a practice that is barely fifty years old—is the only way to raise animals. Their calculations on energy used, calories consumed, humans unfed, are all based on the notion that animals eat grain.

This misunderstanding is born of ignorance, an ignorance that runs the length and breadth of the vegetarian myth, through the nature of agriculture and ending in the nature of life. We are urban industrialists, and we don’t know the origins of our food. This includes vegetarians, despite their claims to the truth. It included me, too, for twenty years. Anyone who ate meat was in denial; only I had faced the facts. Certainly, most people who consume factory-farmed meat have never asked what died and how it died. But frankly, neither have most vegetarians.

The truth is that agriculture is the most destructive thing humans have done to the planet, and more of the same won’t save us. The truth is that agriculture requires the wholesale destruction of entire ecosystems. The truth is also that life isn’t possible without death, that no matter what you eat, someone has to die to feed you.I want a full accounting, an accounting that goes way beyond what’s dead on your plate. I’m asking about everything that died in the process, everything that was killed to get that food onto your plate. That’s the more radical question, and it’s the only question that will produce the truth. How many rivers were dammed and drained, how many prairies plowed and forests pulled down, how much topsoil turned to dust and blown into ghosts? I want to know about all the species—not just the individuals, but the entire species—the chinook, the bison, the grasshopper sparrows, the grey wolves. And I want more than just the number of dead and gone. I want them back.

In his book Long Life, Honey in the Heart, Martin Pretchel writes of the Mayan people and their concept of kas-limaal, which translates roughly as “mutual indebtedness, mutual insparkedness.” “The knowledge that every animal, plant, person, wind, and season is indebted to the fruit of everything else is an adult knowledge. To get out of debt means you don’t want to be part of life, and you don’t want to grow into an adult,” one of the elders explains to Pretchel.

The only way out of the vegetarian myth is through the pursuit of kas-limaal, of adult knowledge. This is a concept we need, especially those of us who are impassioned by injustice. I know I needed it. In the narrative of my life, the first bite of meat after my twenty year hiatus marks the end of my youth, the moment when I assumed the responsibilities of adulthood. It was the moment I stopped fighting the basic algebra of embodiment: for someone to live, someone else has to die. In that acceptance, with all its suffering and sorrow, is the ability to choose a different way, a better way.

The activist-farmers have a very different plan then the polemicist-writers to carry us from destruction to sustainability. The farmers are starting with completely different information. I’ve heard vegetarian activists claims that an acre of land can only support two chickens. Joel Salatin, one of the High Priests of sustainable farming and someone who actually raises chickens, puts that figure at 250 an acre. Who do you believe? How many of us know enough to even have an opinion? Frances Moore Lappe says it takes twelve to sixteen pounds of grain to make one pound of beef. Meanwhile, Salatin raises cattle with no grain at all, rotating ruminants on perennial polycultures, building topsoil year by year. Inhabitants of urban industrial cultures have no point of contact with grain, chickens, cows, or, for that matter, with topsoil. We have no basis of experience to outweigh the arguments of political vegetarians.
We have no idea what plants, animals, or soil eat, or how much. Which means we have no idea what we ourselves are eating.Confronting the truth about factory farming—its torturous treatment of animals, its environmental toll—was for me at age sixteen an act of profound importance. I knew the earth was dying.

It was a daily emergency I had lived against forever. I was born in 1964. “Silent” and “spring” were inseparable: three syllables, not two words. Hell was here, in the oil refineries of northern New Jersey , the asphalt inferno of suburban sprawl, in the swelling tide of humans drowning the planet. I cried with Iron Eyes Cody, longed for his silent canoe and an unmolested continent of rivers and marshes, birds and fish. My brother and I would climb an ancient crabapple tree at the local park and dream about somehow buying a whole mountain. No people allowed, no discussion needed. Who would live there? Squirrels, was all I could come up with. Reader, don’t laugh. Besides Bobby, our pet hamster, squirrels were the only animals I ever saw. My brother, well-socialized into masculinity, went on to torture insects and aim slingshots at sparrows. I became a vegan.

Okay, it’s funny. But I can’t laugh at the pain I felt over my powerless witnessing of the destruction of my planet. That was real and it overwhelmed me. And the political vegetarians offered a compelling salve. With no understanding of the nature of agriculture, the nature of nature, or ultimately the nature of life, I had no way to know that however honorable their impulses, their prescription was a dead end into the same destruction I burned to stop.

Those impulses and ignorances are inherent to the vegetarian myth. For two years after I returned to eating meat, I was compelled to read vegan message boards online. I don’t know why. I wasn’t looking for a fight. I never posted anything myself. Lots of small, intense subcultures have cult-like elements, and veganism is no exception. Maybe the compulsion had to do with my own confusion, spiritual, political, personal. Maybe I was revisiting the sight of an accident: this was where I had destroyed my body.

Maybe I had questions and I wanted to see if I could hold my own against the answers that I had once held tight, answers that had felt righteous, but now felt empty. Maybe I don’t know why. It left me anxious, angry, and desperate each time.
But one post marked a turning point.

A vegan flushed out his idea to keep animals from being killed—not by humans, but by other animals. Someone should build a fence down the middle of the Serengeti, and divide the predators from the prey. Killing is wrong and no animals should ever have to die, so the big cats and wild canines would go on one side, while the wildebeests and zebras would live on the other. He knew the carnivores would be okay because they didn’t need to be carnivores. That was a lie the meat industry told. He’d seen his dog eat grass: therefore, dogs could live on grass.
No one objected. In fact, others chimed in. My cat eats grass, too, one woman added, all enthusiasm. So does mine! someone else posted. Everyone agreed that fencing was the solution to animal death.

Note well that the site for this liberatory project was Africa. No one mentioned the North American prairie, where carnivores and ruminants alike have been extirpated for the annual grains that vegetarians embrace. But I’ll return to that in Chapter 3.I knew enough to know that this was insane. But no one else on the message board could see anything wrong with the scheme.

So, on the theory that many readers lack the knowledge to judge this plan, I’m going to walk you through this.
Carnivores cannot survive on cellulose. They may on occasion eat grass, but they use it medicinally, usually as a purgative to clear their digestive tracts of parasites. Ruminants, on the other hand, have evolved to eat grass. They have a rumen (hence, ruminant), the first in a series of multiple stomachs that acts as a fermentative vat. What’s actually happening inside a cow or a wildebeest is that bacteria eat the grass, and the animals eat the bacteria.Lions and hyenas and humans don’t have a ruminant’s digestive system. Literally from our teeth to our rectums we are designed for meat. We have no mechanism to digest cellulose.So on the carnivore side of the fence, starvation will take every animal. Some will last longer than others, and those some will end their days as cannibals. The scavengers will have a Fat Tuesday party, but when the bones are picked clean, they’ll starve as well. The graveyard won’t end there. Without grazers to eat the grass, the land will eventually turn to desert.Why? Because without grazers to literally level the playing field, the perennial plants mature, and shade out the basal growth point at the plant’s base. In a brittle environment like the Serengeti, decay is mostly physical (weathering) and chemical (oxidative), not bacterial and biological as in a moist environment. In fact, the ruminants take over most of the biological functions of soil by digesting the cellulose and returning the nutrients, once again available, in the form of urine and feces.But without ruminants, the plant matter will pile up, reducing growth, and begin killing the plants. The bare earth is now exposed to wind, sun, and rain, the minerals leech away, and the soil structure is destroyed. In our attempt to save animals, we’ve killed everything.On the ruminant side of the fence, the wildebeests and friends will reproduce as effectively as ever. But without the check of predators, there will quickly be more grazers than grass. The animals will outstrip their food source, eat the plants down to the ground, and then starve to death, leaving behind a seriously degraded landscape.

The lesson here is obvious, though it is profound enough to inspire a religion: we need to be eaten as much as we need to eat. The grazers need their daily cellulose, but the grass also needs the animals. It needs the manure, with its nitrogen, minerals, and bacteria; it needs the mechanical check of grazing activity; and it needs the resources stored in animal bodies and freed up by degraders when animals die.The grass and the grazers need each other as much as predators and prey.

These are not one-way relationships, not arrangements of dominance and subordination. We aren’t exploiting each other by eating. We are only taking turns.That was my last visit to the vegan message boards.

I realized then that people so deeply ignorant of the nature of life, with its mineral cycle and carbon trade, its balance points around an ancient circle of producers, consumers, and degraders, weren’t going to be able to guide me or, indeed, make any useful decisions about sustainable human culture. By turning from adult knowledge, the knowledge that death is embedded in every creature’s sustenance, from bacteria to grizzly bears, they would never be able to feed the emotional and spiritual hunger that ached in me from accepting that knowledge. Maybe in the end this book is an attempt to soothe that ache myself.

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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 12:35 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 11:40 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
This is actually my diet. The diet above
that you claim no one eats in reality. I eat grass fed beef and lamb,
raised and slaughtered in local farms. I don't eat chicken, turkey or
pigs. I don't eat grains. For starches I eat sweet potatoes, yuca, or
taro. Again, what does it suggest about your beliefs that you affirm
"nobody does this in reality", and yet here I am, and this is how I eat?
Clearly you are wrong, and have strong beliefs that are wrong, but what
else is implied?


 1 . Bill i dont aim my words spesifcally for you or your spesifc exact diet or lifestyle - many people read this threads and the posts have a lot of impact - they create a lot of kamma  ( i wouldnt type so much just to debate ) lots of the grass fed are killed in regular industirialized slaughterhouse  where the cows are moved while hearing other cows scream(dont know the correct word is) they see the blood and when they are killed they are not always killed in a fast manner (cause of the nature of the industry) sometimes there are malfunctions and the cows are alive for some time after sloughter - while im against killing in general -  lets say you found some nice tiny farm where cows graze peacfully they can grow thier offsprings ect ect and one day someone shots them in the head and does it perfectly .... that doesnt mean all grass fed cows are living like this - and many people who read your words think that where you get your meat is the same as theirs and that the fact their meat is labeld "grass fed" it means its ok   - and again i still say that eating meat is not moral  not wholsome 

  2 . and i never said that "nobody does this in reality" - thats a quote from an article and honestly not even the reason i posted that quote thats just an extra - and even the author of that put it there made to make a point - that people look for excuses - its about the fact that many people can debate on the fact that eating grass fed cows saves lives (which it dont) cause animals are killed in grain felids - while eating chickens that are grain fed - so clearly they dont really care about the animals who lives in the grain fields but its just an excuse for them -  obviusly its not connected to you and not talking about you and i didnt say you make excuses

its a small part of a quote not meant for you spesifcally and that exmaple was given by the article just to make a point - and like i said before dont focus on some single part cause everything can be find as a fault if you look close enoguh  

It doesnt matter what waterdrop thinks or says or how he says it - look at the substance - most people eat meat that is labeld "grass fed" and the animals are getting abused and treated badly most people here do eat chicken and do drink milk and do eat eggs most people didnt watch the speech or really care about being moral (yes that "reason" to eat meat was even given in this thread)  so you found some great grass fed animal farm and you dont drink milk or eat eggs but most people  do and they think that the"grass fed" marking means its ok to eat that meat

they didnt put the effort to watch the video "animals and the buddha" :


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc#t=923    
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc#t=923  

Or the "best speech you will ever hear" :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ

 
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 1:26 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 1:14 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Water Drop,

       I would like you to honestly answer the following questions. When I have posed them to you before you have evaded by saying things like "I don't like to debate" but then endlessly reposting propaganda after that. So, here goes:

You wrote: and again i still say that eating meat is not moral  not wholsome  

I imagine that you are aware that some animals were killed to bring you food. If you eat grains I would estimate many more animals die to feed you than me, but that's debatable and I don't know that for certain. Since we agree that some animals were killed so you could eat, and since you spend your money for the food that continues this process, you are responsible for the deaths of more animals. Your choice to buy the food reinforces the process through which more animals will die so you can eat. I am assuming that up to this point we are good. Continuing, since animals are killed to bring you food, why is that food wholesome while meat is unwholesome? In both cases of food production, animals died for human nourishment. In one case the animal that died was sustenance, while in the other it was not. Since in both cases animals are killed so that humans may eat, the difference is one of sustenance. In this case veganism is not actually about not killing animals, since everyone agrees (I assume) that animals are killed to bring us vegan food, but about eating animals rather than eating the product the processing of which killed animals. I find nothing above that could be debatable. I think it also demonstrates pretty clearly that veganism is arbitrary as an ethical diet. I invite any vegans to challenge any of the above in a coherent way that does not become a game of moral relativism in which you are just over the dividing line that makes you an ethical eater despite the fact that animals died that you might eat.

You've also posted the same video again. I guess that was a response to my pointing out that you already posted it three times, now three in this thread alone. That strikes me as immature. And it strikes me that such immature behavior comes from a man who believes so firmly he is ethical.
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cian, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 1:49 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 1:49 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 62 Join Date: 5/22/15 Recent Posts
Just to add a spanner into a seemingly already flaming debate ;)  ...

Anyone checked out this sort of stuff about the sentience of plants?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Primary-Perception-Biocommunication-Cleve-Backster/dp/0966435435/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1432579488&sr=8-2&keywords=primary+perception


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Life-Plants-Peter-Tompkins/dp/0060915870/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432579509&sr=8-1&keywords=secret+life+of+plants

seems to me that with a lot of the ethical reasons people go veggie the logical conclusion would be to not eat plants either.
(which would leave one in quite a bind)
How come nobody ever considers the poor plants in these debates!?
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 2:28 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 2:28 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Water Drop,

       Please answer the questions I posed. I take your refusal to do as a lack of valid answer, the evasion I referenced earlier. And I mean in your own words. It is not a question that requires research since the facts are agreed upon.

Bill
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 3:01 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 2:37 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
Im not a a native english speaker so its hard for me to explain in a convincing way - thats another reason i use links


We kill over 7.7 billion land animals each year for our food - thats a very conservative estimate



numbers are, the larger scandal is not in how many animals we eat but in
how much suffering we impose
on them during their lives and during slaughter. On factory farms for
chickens and pigs and on factory farms for fish, the animals live a
dreary existence weighted by both physical and mental suffering. The
vegetarian, by withdrawing her contribution to this grim industry, saves
her conscience too.
!!!  A vegetarian saves between 371 and 582 animals per year !!!


http://www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/
http://www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/

Bill i just want some points to to be clear :  i have nothing against you and im not looking to make you look bad or find somewhere you are mistaken and im not saying your an un-moral person (cause there is no such thing there are only unmoral actions)  and by reading your dog thread you do seem to care and i dont think your trolling
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 3:01 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 3:01 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Haha. It's not a language issue. You are clearly able to express yourself, and the question is rather straightforward.

Since we agree that some animals were killed so you could eat, and since you spend your money for the food that continues this process, you are responsible for the deaths of more animals. Your choice to buy the food reinforces the process through which more animals will die so you can eat. I am assuming that up to this point we are good. Continuing, since animals are killed to bring you food, why is that food wholesome while meat is unwholesome? 

You have still not answered that simple question upon which your diet, and sense of being an ethical eater rests.

Also, I found a link that says vegans kill 25x more animals than grass fed beef eaters. We could each post those things. Some sources are more reputable. Ignoring sources please answer the above question in your own words, based on your personal thoughts and feelings.
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/28/15 12:40 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 3:05 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
The language issue is that i dont enjoy writing this posts and i dont think that im clear in convaying the messages im trying to say :

Clear answer : i kill less animals with a vegan diet - i cause  less suffering on a vegan diet than other diets 

i dont know if i save 371-582 animals a year   or 1 animal -  even 1 animal life is worth me changing my diet - more than that even reducing the amount of suffering in the world is worth changing my diet

reducing suffering is one of the main points of buddhism - reducing the suffering of yourself and others

and note this from  the link i gave   :

http://www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/
http://www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/
The table does not include cows used for dairy, hens used for their eggs or the male chicks killed by the egg industry because we are trying to find the number of animals saved by a vegetarian, not a vegan

So a vegan diet (which is what im talking about not a vegeterian diet) is even better at reducing suffering  - note that maybe a vegeterian who eats milk and eggs causes more damage than someone who eat tiny amounts of meat - avoiding animal products completly does reduce animal deaths 

Im out of this disscusion for some days  cause i belive my posts do more harm than good - i will just post the usual links for the general public  : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc#t=923    
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc#t=923  
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ

 and "animals and the buddha" with the highly respected scholar and monk ven.bikkhu bodhi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc#t=923     
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc#t=923


I will give this spesific referens to you bill F: put aside all the disliking you have for me and how annoying i am : its a question you should ask yourself i dont want an answer (rhetorical question) its a very very deep question which is much bigger than the question itself (its deep in the snese it has different levels to it)  : bill F would you really be vegan if you come to the conclusion that its better for the animals ? 
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 3:34 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 3:34 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
I think from here it's going to just be a source war so I'll just let it die. And yes, totally, if I thought a vegan diet were healthy and ethical I would definitely adapt it. I've already radically altered my diet.
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/28/15 12:39 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 3:38 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
I think your a good person bill F

I am sure you will make an honest choice - when your kamma will be ripe

(OK im out for now)
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 4:45 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 4:45 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Peace bro.
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 6/4/15 11:20 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/4/15 11:20 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
cian:
Just to add a spanner into a seemingly already flaming debate ;)  ...

Anyone checked out this sort of stuff about the sentience of plants?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Primary-Perception-Biocommunication-Cleve-Backster/dp/0966435435/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1432579488&sr=8-2&keywords=primary+perception
Yes, some very interesting data on sentience of plants and some of it has been around since the 70s or earlier.  I heard it when I was a wee tot and it caused me to change my behavior and be more respectful of plants.  Morally, fruit is probably the best for eating since the plant creates those for the sole purpose of getting them eaten, as long as you spit out or poop out the seeds, then the plant has accomplished its desired mission.  Fruit is actually the thing I feel the most comfortable about eating.   Whenever I look at something like an onion, I can't help but think I could  easily 'save' it by sticking it back in the ground and letting it grow..  ;-P  When I grow garden crops, I only grow fruit, tomatoes, etc. I think it's because I enjoy the harvest much more with those.   
-Eva
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chris mc, modified 9 Years ago at 6/5/15 1:56 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/5/15 1:56 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 57 Join Date: 5/31/12 Recent Posts
I'm surprised at the amount of generalization in this thread, on this message board, which I thought was an open-minded and rational place.

> The body just can not handle an excess of meat all the time, if you eat meat alot, and want to be healthy, you will have to fast also to clear out all the grease.

This is just incorrect, it could be correct for some people, but who are any of us to say that it's the case for everyone? 

I can't handle grains, legumes (lentils, soy), and garlic/onions, I tried a vegetarian diet and it simply didn't work for me, for my physiological makeup.  I eat a lot of meat and veggies, along with other saturated fats like coconut oils and my blood lipid numbers are excellent, my cholesterol/HDL ratio is 2.5 (doctor says anything under 5.3 is great.)  But somehow you think I'm not healthy?

My ancestors grew up getting most of their calories from meat.  Why would they have evolved to a point where the main staple of their diet caused them harm?  Sugar and grains, not meat, are the main causes of disease and health problems for most of us.

I eat grass-fed pasture raised chicken, and wild fish.  (And bacon.)  I have compassion for the animals that I eat, but shit happens, millions of moles and rats are slaughtered in commercial corn and wheat production, I read a paper that suggested that a vegetarian diet - using commercial products - is almost as harmful to animals as a balanced omnivore diet is.
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 6/7/15 12:01 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/7/15 12:01 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
chris .:
I'm surprised at the amount of generalization in this thread, on this message board, which I thought was an open-minded and rational place.

> The body just can not handle an excess of meat all the time, if you eat meat alot, and want to be healthy, you will have to fast also to clear out all the grease.

This is just incorrect, it could be correct for some people, but who are any of us to say that it's the case for everyone? 
There are numerous tribes like inuit and Masai that are very healthy eating a meat heavy diet, Masai eat only milk, meat and blood from cows for a large portion of their lives.  When the get older, they are then allowed to eat other foods.  Interesting data suggest they are very healthy up until other foods are allowed in: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/06/masai-and-atherosclerosis.html (although still very healthy compared to Americans).  Lots of data I have seen suggest the main culprits of disease are recent western foods like grains and processed foods.  Whereas I have yet to find any groups with a lot of these diseases if they are eating traditional omnivorous diets of meats, vegetables, and fruits, or even of almost pure meat diets like the Masai and Inuit.  (there are no natural eating tribes that are vegetarian so no comparisons available there)
I can't handle grains, legumes (lentils, soy), and garlic/onions, I tried a vegetarian diet and it simply didn't work for me, for my physiological makeup.  I eat a lot of meat and veggies, along with other saturated fats like coconut oils and my blood lipid numbers are excellent, my cholesterol/HDL ratio is 2.5 (doctor says anything under 5.3 is great.)  But somehow you think I'm not healthy?

My ancestors grew up getting most of their calories from meat.  Why would they have evolved to a point where the main staple of their diet caused them harm?  Sugar and grains, not meat, are the main causes of disease and health problems for most of us.

I eat grass-fed pasture raised chicken, and wild fish.  (And bacon.)  I have compassion for the animals that I eat, but shit happens, millions of moles and rats are slaughtered in commercial corn and wheat production, I read a paper that suggested that a vegetarian diet - using commercial products - is almost as harmful to animals as a balanced omnivore diet is.
So far, I don't think anyone has either mentioned the mass hoards of pesticides and chemicals used in modern crop production.  Hawaii is trying to ban GMO crops.  Ironically, they are not against the plants themselves but the tons and tons of chemical run off that is poisoning streams and lakes.  Hawaii is a favorite testing ground for GMO crops due to the warm weather allowing faster growth and harvest cycles.  The amount of chemicals used on all these GMO crops is particularly intense in Hawaii.  How many animals die from the poison runoff?  How many bees die, they suspect now from pesticides and GMOs?  The GMO pollen goes on to contaminate the natural plants as well.  Some GMOs product their own pesticide, that is how they are bug resistant, the poison is made by the plant itself, if that genetics mixes with natural plants, those new seedlings will make their own poison as well, in many cases totally novel poisons that did not exist in nature previously.  When an area is prepared for crops, the ground is flattened and every living thing on it is either killed or driven off, it's obviously not just one or two mice.  Once the water is piped in, the many poisons applied and the plants grow, the illegal immigrants are then brought in to work the poisoned land in the heat for wages too low for the legal residents to tolerate and potentially get cancer from the poisons later.  Even so called 'organic' foods can be legally grown using a wide variety of chemicals and have a wide variety of chemicals added: http://www.cornucopia.org/USDA/OrganicWatergateWhitePaper.pdf .  Both meat production and vegetable production have serious current issues for the environment and human health. 
-Eva 
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 6/7/15 1:43 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/7/15 1:43 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Eva,

Most grain production goes to feed cattle, chicken, and pigs.  The reason they need so much of it (and thus, need to genetically modify it to create higher yeilds and resist the poisonous chemicals) is because people eat so much meat.  The argument I was making against Bill's argument is that you guys are simply ignoring the big picture, and you're saying your specific diet kills less animals.  The truth is that consumption of animal products is the reason factory farming has to exist.  The world will never be able to eat meat on a mass scale without factory farming (or humanity cuts its population way down).

@Bill: I did read a bit of the book you posted, but I wasn't very convinced. I skimmed the rest of it and didn't think I was going to find anything to change my mind.  I think the main place we're butting heads is that I'm looking for a more pragmatic, societal solution, and you are arguing for your diet in particular.
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 6/7/15 8:27 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/7/15 8:27 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
 The truth is that consumption of animal products is the reason factory farming has to exist.  The world will never be able to eat meat on a mass scale without factory farming (or humanity cuts its population way down).

Factory farming is a recent invention beginning about fifty years ago. This statement is not true since we know that humans ate meat before fifty years ago. The diet I am suggesting, and eat, is as much a response to the cruelty of factory farming as yours. I would add in the large scale industrial production of grains as being equally terrible. I think research supports that it is more ethical, and less harmful, than the typically carb (grain) heavy vegan diet. But most people aren't ready to go there, which is fine. I respect the intention behind veganism/vegetarianism. I think the decision to go vegan/vegetarian is rooted in compassion, but the diet itself is actually not ethical to the extent the vegan relies on industrially processed agriculture, and harms their own body.

@Bill: I did read a bit of the book you posted, but I wasn't very convinced. I skimmed the rest of it and didn't think I was going to find anything to change my mind.  I think the main place we're butting heads is that I'm looking for a more pragmatic, societal solution, and you are arguing for your diet in particular.

What didn't you find convincing, and why? There's a plethora of sources at the back that informed the book. If you want to discuss, discuss and support, but this sort of criticism is not useful. 



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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 7/21/15 2:13 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/21/15 2:13 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
1 . Its important to note that this is about grass fed animals which i say is wrong also - people who eat milk dairy and eggs from factory farming have no excuse 

also note that many "Free range eggs" also get their chickens from places who grind male chicks or choke them in a bag --- some chicks survive the grinding machine and die from their wounds - and from the bags - which chicks die from chocking or juse pressure from chicks on the top -- many survive as well and they die very very slowly from hunger thirst heat and cold

and again this is on top of farm animal killed - and because most agricultre today is grown purley to feed farm animals moving to a vegan diet will save also many field animals as well  - very good kamma (karma)

2 .  and about grass fed i ran into this article and its nice so i wanted to add it here :

http://www.bitesizevegan.com/environmental-societal-impact/do-vegans-kill-more-animals-than-meat-eaters/
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 7/21/15 9:58 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/21/15 9:58 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
water drop:
Why is a puppy mill and dog fighting considered to be bad, and even illegal, yet a slaughterhouse so accepted, and legal?  Rhetorical question, of course.
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 2:54 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 2:54 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Psi:
water drop:
Why is a puppy mill and dog fighting considered to be bad, and even illegal, yet a slaughterhouse so accepted, and legal?  Rhetorical question, of course.
If you wanted to know the answer, it is logical and obvious.  There is a diff between dog fighting and slaughter house because  the slaughter house is supposed to try to keep suffering to a minimum whereas dog fighting is the reverse and revels in the fighting with no benefits as a food source.  One is basic survival, the other is sport.  Do people call the bobcat immoral when it eats the rabbit?  If you have 300 ants in your kitchen with more on the way, do you carry each one outside carefully so as not to kill any of them?  Even as you ask the question, you must know that although both involve death, they have differences and are not the same thing, just as euthanasia is often considered humane,  yet still is illegal in America for humans even if some humans desperately want it.  Euthanasia, killing to eat and killing for sport, all involve death, 2 are illegal in the United States (but not elsewhere) and one is not.  Legality is really a moot point as law can never replicate any system of justice or morality and laws also change over time and geography, just as morality does.  If you are really being honest, then you already know the answer if you choose to try, but if your goal is to impose your version of morality on others by pretending you don't know the difference and/or implying there isn't one, then that is another issue altogether.

Anyway, taken from a different perspect even then that, your body is not you and the dog's body is not the dog.  And the cow's body is not the cow.  None of them really die.  Dieing is an illusion. Each creature sets its own path.  You choose if you want to get sucked into the drama or not.  The Earth game is designed such that creatures eat other creatures. Better get used to it because nature is probably not going to change any.  That's the way this Earth game is designed.  A better question might be why is it designed the way it is designed?  If you play Dungeons and Dragons, do you have your character run around with a 'Save the Dragons' sign?   Why not?   It's because there is no real death, you can resurrect the dragon at any time with your mind or you can let it go back to where it came from.  Dieing in the Dungeons and Dragons is an illusion.  But dieing in the Earth game is also an illusion.
-Eva
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 10:55 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 10:55 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Eva M Nie:
Psi:
water drop:
Why is a puppy mill and dog fighting considered to be bad, and even illegal, yet a slaughterhouse so accepted, and legal?  Rhetorical question, of course.
 If you are really being honest, then you already know the answer if you choose to try, but if your goal is to impose your version of morality on others by pretending you don't know the difference and/or implying there isn't one, then that is another issue altogether.
Maybe I eat puppies and go to cock fights, maybe. :-P  Are you trying to impose your own moral values?


Anyway, taken from a different perspect even then that, your body is not you and the dog's body is not the dog.  And the cow's body is not the cow.  None of them really die.  Dieing is an illusion. Each creature sets its own path.  You choose if you want to get sucked into the drama or not.  The Earth game is designed such that creatures eat other creatures. Better get used to it because nature is probably not going to change any.  That's the way this Earth game is designed.  A better question might be why is it designed the way it is designed? 
Why is it designed, uh, because we do what comes up in our thoughts.  We can just as well eat oatmeal, fruits, nuts and vegetables, take a Vegan Vitamin supplement in case anyone is worried. 9 cents a day and your B12 and all that is covered.

http://smile.amazon.com/Deva-Vegan-Multivitamin-Mineral-Supplement/dp/B002F86LNK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437578719&sr=8-1&keywords=vegan+vitamin




If you play Dungeons and Dragons, do you have your character run around with a 'Save the Dragons' sign?   Why not?   It's because there is no real death, you can resurrect the dragon at any time with your mind or you can let it go back to where it came from.  Dieing in the Dungeons and Dragons is an illusion.  But dieing in the Earth game is also an illusion.
-Eva

I only kill Evil Dragons, then heap the piles of silver upon the peasants, the gold I keep to by a Ring of Three Wishes that I keep hearing rumours about.  

Alternately, I like to subdue the Dragons, yeah old school player here, but subduing Dragons gives one that little edge when arriving in a new town, the General shop usually gives a discount.  Plus, Dragons are great for pulling my Warships, for instance, when the Seas Winds have calmed.

As for Death being an illusion, hmmm, it looks more like a fact.  But, I do get what you are saying about Death being an illusion.

Suffering seems real, it seems we can suffer, and cause suffering.  So, why cause suffering?  Of course there is always suffering on some level or another, plow a field and kill some worms and all that.  But, I gernerally do not eat worms.

 Now, eating worms, there is a good example of eating for survival.  Eating Orange Chicken is not relly survival oriented, that is eating for taste.  Like eating bait.  There is a difference between being caught and eating food as bait, and eating food for nutrition to keep the body and mind going.

Bait or Nutrition.  So, what does meat have, protein, maybe some, iron, B12. But zero Vitamin C, zero carbs , zero fiber, zero alot of stuff.  Cholesterol, it has that.

Anyone is welcome to eat what they want, I am not here to impose any Moral values, or try to get anyone to get defensive of being a eat eater, I have eaten my fair share of animals.  There is a fairly long chain of dead left in the wake of my passing through this Earthly Realm.  I have devoured many a sentinent being , mostly just to satisfy my  greedy craving for taste sensations and for the temprorary  alleviation of the hunger sensation.

But, I do not really eat meat anymore, and less and less do thoughts arise about eating fleshy substances.

 But, it used to, I remember craving a good burger and fries, a sizzling steak, fried chicken, Bacon at the Shoney's Breakfast Bar, All You can Eat !!!!  Oinky Oink

Guess things change, some cravings just fade away with time....

No Big Deal

Eva , you will probably serve this post up on your BBQ pit, and roast me alive!!  You are smart like that, I do enjoy your posts.

Hope you enjoy your day, and eat what you want, I know I do, it is all good....

Psi
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 1:52 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 1:52 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Psi:
Eva M Nie:
Psi:

Maybe I eat puppies and go to cock fights, maybe. :-P  Are you trying to impose your own moral values?
I think realistically, such a thing probably can't be done much or well.  IMO, people will in the end do what they feel a strong urge to do, regardless of what my opinions of it may be and even regardless of what society's opinions at large may be about it.  Either in light of day or in the dark of night when no one is looking, people will follow their desires, be in in an honest way or via uses excuses even to hide the activity from themselves, they will tend to follow it. Finger wagging, IMO does not work very well.  Although rarely, exposing someone do different perspectives may cause them to think about things in new ways, but what happens after that is hard to predict.  

Anyway, taken from a different perspect even then that, your body is not you and the dog's body is not the dog.  And the cow's body is not the cow.  None of them really die.  Dieing is an illusion. Each creature sets its own path.  You choose if you want to get sucked into the drama or not.  The Earth game is designed such that creatures eat other creatures. Better get used to it because nature is probably not going to change any.  That's the way this Earth game is designed.  A better question might be why is it designed the way it is designed? 
Why is it designed, uh, because we do what comes up in our thoughts. 
Who knew it was so simple that the answer could be stated in just one sentence!  Glad we got that all cleared up. 


Eva , you will probably serve this post up on your BBQ pit, and roast me alive!!  You are smart like that, I do enjoy your posts.
People tend to make assumptions about others but the map is not the territory and the internet is a poor conductor of nuance.  I would not do as you suggest.  I don't know for sure what is right or how it works or why we are the way we are.  I do question when others think they are sure as to how they know.  Most of the creatures on this Earth have urges that lead to competition and often to consumption of others.  When they follow their urges, we call it 'natural.'  We on the other hand have conflicting urges.  If we are not supposed to eat meat, then why does it taste good to so many?  Why do we have a protein taste receptor on your tongue?  (recently discovered and named umame).  Why do we have urges to question our urges and conflict with other urges in us?  The urge to eat meat, the urge to not eat meat, etc. 

All creatures on this Earth have taste buds that encourage them to eat certain things and those are the things they naturally eat and their bodies are designed to process those things.  A spider does not go down to the flower and try to eat the nectar and a honey bee does not try to steal the spider's trapped fly while the spider is away.  Yet some imply that humans are not supposed to eat things they find taste good and that eating things according to taste is bad.  From one perspective, that is obviously highly illogical.  If a food is not natural for us then why do we like the taste?  If it is natural for us, then why is it bad?  Why are some urges labeled bad and some good and why is the labeling different for us than for all the other creatures?  In creatures of the Earth, taste bud reward mechanisms are strongly canted towards the very foods that the body is designed to eat.  We call that 'natural,' except apparently when humans do it.   

Anyway if reality is empty and not us and temporary, then what is it that we are attempting to impose our morality on in the first place?  Just doesn't seem that simple to me.  And since it's not simple, it does not surpirse me that people pick different paths and answers for themselves.  What does surprise me is that so many people feel so sure about what they picked.  When what I see when I look at it is that none of the arguments on any of the sides are without holes.  People just seem to pick one side or the other and not see the logic holes of that side that they picked, that may be what amazes me the most really, that people can feel so sure of their side without seeing the logical holes and shifting inconsistancies.  It does not surprise me when people choose a diff path than me, there are so many jillions of paths and it all seems so much dependent on perspective, but what does surprise me is why so many people feel so sure their path and perspective is the one best path. (by the way, not saying that is you specifically, I don't even know you enough to make such a judgement either way, just saying in general that seems to be how it is with a lot of people)
-Eva 
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 3:52 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 3:52 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Eva M Nie:
[quote=  When they follow their urges, we call it 'natural.'  We on the other hand have conflicting urges.  If we are not supposed to eat meat, then why does it taste good to so many?  Why do we have a protein taste receptor on your tongue?  (recently discovered and named umame).  Why do we have urges to question our urges and conflict with other urges in us?  The urge to eat meat, the urge to not eat meat, etc.  
]
Okay, sure, then why do we not eat worms, worms have 76 percent  protein, mammal meat is 65 percent protein, and fish at 50 percent protein.  Why is not eating worms natural?

Why is eating a raw apple or a banana natural, but not eating raw flesh.  Nobody Iknow of naturally has an urge to eat raw flesh.  So, by that logic eating flesh is not natural, eating flesh is not an evolutionary byproduct.  Eating flesh is a thought creation by product, though was used to combine heat with meat, to create something new, cooked meat.  

Though it could be said that the brain and thoughts are part of evolution, that point I concede, but still does not answer why humans do not naturally or unaturally eat meat and flesh as it is found in the naturally in the environment, raw.  So, eating meat therefore, must be a product of thought formation, and therefore eating meat must then be part of some illusion that one should or has to eat meat.

This type of thinking all goes back to only knowing what has been known, past, history.  Take all of that away, look at raw meat on the plate, where is the urge to eat such a thing?

Put some grapes in a bowl, wait until you are hungry, do you naturally have an urge to eat the grapes?


These are just suggestions, to investigate this meat eating phenomenon with an open , lucid objective mind.




All creatures on this Earth have taste buds that encourage them to eat certain things and those are the things they naturally eat and their bodies are designed to process those things.  A spider does not go down to the flower and try to eat the nectar and a honey bee does not try to steal the spider's trapped fly while the spider is away.  Yet some imply that humans are not supposed to eat things they find taste good and that eating things according to taste is bad.  From one perspective, that is obviously highly illogical.  If a food is not natural for us then why do we like the taste?  If it is natural for us, then why is it bad?  Why are some urges labeled bad and some good and why is the labeling different for us than for all the other creatures?  In creatures of the Earth, taste bud reward mechanisms are strongly canted towards the very foods that the body is designed to eat.  We call that 'natural,' except apparently when humans do it.   
We eat bad things for us because the thought system in humans, while good for survival as an apex predator, is also a delusion making machine.  Yes, the mind has flaws.  Think of it, the mind makes up symbols, such as the ones we are using now, letters, words, then the mind, in its delusion takes these words and symbols to be reality.  Think of it, the mind actually believes that words and symbols are reality itself!!
So, the mind takes up many things as good, what tastes good, what feels good, but that does not make the mind correct in following this natural sense pleasing path.  For example the mind likes to flow naturally towards many harmful things, ice crem makes us fat, heroin kills us, meth destroys us, alcohol scars our liver, cigarettes tar up lungs organs, bacon causes atheroscleosis, sugar causes diabetes.  We know all of these phenomenon, these are facts.  Fact on the table, yet the mind finds all of the above enjoyable.  So the mind is then, naturally deluded.
Once someone realizes this fact, then what is one going to do about it?  Most will do nothing.


Anyway if reality is empty and not us and temporary, then what is it that we are attempting to impose our morality on in the first place?  Just doesn't seem that simple to me.  And since it's not simple, it does not surpirse me that people pick different paths and answers for themselves.  What does surprise me is that so many people feel so sure about what they picked.  When what I see when I look at it is that none of the arguments on any of the sides are without holes.  People just seem to pick one side or the other and not see the logic holes of that side that they picked, that may be what amazes me the most really, that people can feel so sure of their side without seeing the logical holes and shifting inconsistancies.  It does not surprise me when people choose a diff path than me, there are so many jillions of paths and it all seems so much dependent on perspective, but what does surprise me is why so many people feel so sure their path and perspective is the one best path. (by the way, not saying that is you specifically, I don't even know you enough to make such a judgement either way, just saying in general that seems to be how it is with a lot of people)
-Eva 
Yes, yes, throw away all judgment, throw out ideas of morality , and all that nonsense, just look at the facts.  Strip all that judgenment and criticizing , blaming, moral codes, etc. cast it all aside.  Throw out perspectives, throw out sides, throw out ideas about feeling sure of things, or thinking people think they feel sure of things. 

Then what is left?  Compassion, maybe, compassion for you, Eva, compassion for other beings.  

But no judgement, no, no judgements.

Psi
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 5:11 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 5:08 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
To all, 


I want to add, that , from an evolutionary and survival perspective, it does seem rather obvious that humans are omnivores.

But, an excess consumption of meat is harmful, as studies show.

Personally I will probably still eat meat on rare occasions. I still have some dairy products.  I am not trying to be a hypocrite.

I  want to add that not eating meat does not come so much from a conscious wish or moral consideration to not eat meat.

Not eating meat comes more from living in the present moment, sans thought.  And in this mode the desire to eat meat does not arise, therefore I do not eat meat.

A handful of peanuts usually does the trick. Not to mention eating just half a handful of nuts everyday lowers the risk of many illness, including cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/06/11/eating-nuts-peanuts-daily-could-lower-risk-death-study-finds/

These study titles always crack me up, you can not lower the risk of death, duh, death is inevitavble...

So, not eating meat is not from thinking about how bad it is to eat meat, but rather from not thinking about eating meat.  And I suppose, in my current view,  the other food choices out there provide a better variety of protein, amino acids, vitamins, fiber and minerals than meat.

 I do consciously steer away from anything with alot of sugar, zero fiber, high carb, and high sodium.

Personally this has not affected me physically in an adverse way, I have run two marathons, two half marathons,my current training goal is to hit a 5k PR early October, and I consistently do HIIT workouts, pullups, pushups, dips, squats, deadlifts, G2OH, T2B, running, row machines, situps, etc. Crossfit Style, but not Crossfit, I can not afford it... I am just adding this in here , in case anyone thinks cutting meat out of your diet will make you wimpy.

I am not saying,do not eat meat, eat meat if you want, that is up to each individual.  

What I am saying is no one HAS to eat meat, there are other alternatives.

And I am saying, just look at the whole thing objectively and fresh, new.  

We do not have to do things just because we are conditioned by culture, past history, family, society, religion, holidays, etc.

Pragmatism over Dogmatism.


On and on, sorry for the sheets of words.

Let us look at Bacon versus Peanuts, screw the morality crap for a second.

Bacon 12 slices cooked , 22.2 grams of protein , 1392 mg of sodium, 25.8 grams of fat,24 mg cholesterol,  no carbs, no fiber, no vitamins, no minerals. 6 hours to digest, and who knows how long to actually poop it out...

Peanuts, 3 oz, oil and salted to be fair, 24 g protein, 9g fiber, 3g sugar, 270 mg sodium, 12 g carbs, 6 percent iron and calcium, 45 grams fat, zero cholesterol, 2 to 3 hours to digest, poop factor good

One could scientifically compare any plant based food with any meat, and come up with similar types of results.

Meat just does not have much to bring to the table, lol

98 percent Vegan Pic

Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 10:18 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 10:18 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Psi:

Okay, sure, then why do we not eat worms, worms have 76 percent  protein, mammal meat is 65 percent protein, and fish at 50 percent protein.  Why is not eating worms natural?
It's cultural and IMO natural to eat worms, I had a Chinese friend when I was in school and the area he came from had large worms that where commonly cooked on a pan for breakfast.  He said they were yellow and tasted similar to scrambled eggs. Many tribes eat worms and grubs.  They ARE a good source of protein as well as fat.  Americans are just not raised that way.  

Why is eating a raw apple or a banana natural, but not eating raw flesh.  
Cultural again, some tribes did and do eat flesh, some of their enemies and some of loved ones that died.

Nobody Iknow of naturally has an urge to eat raw flesh.  
Cultural again, you were raised to believe that way, if you were raised in a different group or tribe, you might find raw flesh tasty.  I actually personally like sashimi, even though I was not raised to it.  Even a cat who eats canned food all it's life will often refuse fresh tuna, habit means a lot, that's why I look to the most natural of groups I can to try to understand 'natural' better.  Americans are the worse candidates for that kind of thing.  But if you take a baby and offer it a variety of things, it will like meat and sugary things, less likely to want the veggies as much though. 

So, by that logic eating flesh is not natural, eating flesh is not an evolutionary byproduct.  Eating flesh is a thought creation by product, though was used to combine heat with meat, to create something new, cooked meat.  
Not buying it for above reasons, I coud buy an argument for moral superiority above animals as having some kind of logic, but eating meat is clearly natural for humans, we are omnivores, if we were meant to be vegetarians, we'd be better at digesting bark and other crap food sources like the great apes are (although the great apes are canibals too).  But all tribes eat meat and digest it well, probably because calories and especially fat and protein are scare in most wild plant sources.  To feed the big brain, we need a lot of calories, but our digestion is set up only for nutrient dense foods like tubors, fruit and MEAT.  On the cavemen wall paintings, you see depictions of the hunt!

Though it could be said that the brain and thoughts are part of evolution, that point I concede, but still does not answer why humans do not naturally or unaturally eat meat and flesh as it is found in the naturally in the environment, raw.  
Cultural again.  Many tribes eat raw meat, especially fresh liver from a freshly killed animal.  Inuit eat a lot of raw and raw meat is easy to digest, much easier than most raw vegetable matter.  But cooking does cut way back on parasite transfer and also makes the food easier to digest, this is true for both meat and vegetable sources.  But for digestion purposes, vegetable matter is what more often must be cooked, much more than meat.  Ever tried eating natural raw rice seeds?  Ever get a taste for those?  They will pass through undigested, humans, unlike herbivores, do not produce enough phytase and other enzymes to break down tough cellulose.  The sashimi or raw oysters taste WAY better than raw wheat powder or raw potatoes.  Taste for raw in not a logical argument against meat because many plant sources suck worse or are even poisonous when raw. The only thing I can think of that really tastes good raw is fruit and the original fruits were super tiny and most tart and yucky compared to what is in the grocery store in modern times after a LOT of cultivated breeding.  

Put some grapes in a bowl, wait until you are hungry, do you naturally have an urge to eat the grapes?
Actually, I crave pastries when hungry, something I obviously have to not cave to often, especially since wheat gives me asthma.  But having fruit available all year is unnatural to most regions, what did people naturally eat the rest of the time?  Meat is available even in heavy snow, that is probably why adaptation to eating meat was beneficial to evolution of humans. 


These are just suggestions, to investigate this meat eating phenomenon with an open , lucid objective mind.
If openmindedness is to be the case, then you must apply the same standards to vegetarian foods as you do to meat.  Many of the vegetarian foods require cooking more than meat does. For instance raw potato contains natural poisons, fresh raw meat does not. 
-Eva


For example the mind likes to flow naturally towards many harmful things, ice crem makes us fat, heroin kills us, meth destroys us, alcohol scars our liver, cigarettes tar up lungs organs, bacon causes atheroscleosis, sugar causes diabetes.  We know all of these phenomenon, these are facts. 
Those are all unnatural foods recently invented, that's why they can more easily override the natural balances of the body.   


Anyway if reality is empty and not us and temporary, then what is it that we are attempting to impose our morality on in the first place?  Just doesn't seem that simple to me.  And since it's not simple, it does not surpirse me that people pick different paths and answers for themselves.  What does surprise me is that so many people feel so sure about what they picked.  When what I see when I look at it is that none of the arguments on any of the sides are without holes.  People just seem to pick one side or the other and not see the logic holes of that side that they picked, that may be what amazes me the most really, that people can feel so sure of their side without seeing the logical holes and shifting inconsistancies.  It does not surprise me when people choose a diff path than me, there are so many jillions of paths and it all seems so much dependent on perspective, but what does surprise me is why so many people feel so sure their path and perspective is the one best path. (by the way, not saying that is you specifically, I don't even know you enough to make such a judgement either way, just saying in general that seems to be how it is with a lot of people)
-Eva 
Yes, yes, throw away all judgment, throw out ideas of morality , and all that nonsense, just look at the facts.  Strip all that judgenment and criticizing , blaming, moral codes, etc. cast it all aside.  Throw out perspectives, throw out sides, throw out ideas about feeling sure of things, or thinking people think they feel sure of things. 
I didnt' say to do that, that is just where your mind took it.  But the one does not automatically lead to another.  I can look at things objectively and explore avenues of thought without taking that to mean something should, must, or will be thrown out. 
-Eva
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Vuthy Ou, modified 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 7:48 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 7:48 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 24 Join Date: 3/8/15 Recent Posts
First off - I do plenty of harm and am plenty deluded. This is how horrible a person I am:
  • I drive when I don't have to, could bike and/or take public trans. Global warming is because of me.
  • I use electronics - smart phones, computers, TVs, etc. - the components of which were almost certainly mined by child slaves, the production and disposal of which is certainly wrecking the planet.
  • I buy various consumer products made in countries with little to no regulation, employing slave labor and wrecking the environment.
  • I am well aware of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, human rights abuses, environmental destruction - and I do almost nothing about it. Literally almost nothing.
Moral of the story - I ain't no angel, no where near perfect. But why shouldn't I try to minimize the harm that I do? It's a tradeoff thing.

  • Benefit of driving. A major convenience. It takes me 15 minutes to drive to work/rehearsal - 40-60 minute bike ride - same for public trans. I do my best to reduce emissions in other ways - windmill power, small house. efficient car.
  • Benefit of electronics. I get to live/participate/conduct business in a first world country and modern society.
  • Benefits of participating in consumerism - I get to live/participate/conduct business in a first world country and modern society.
  • Benefits of not actively trying to save the world. - More time to try awake up, dance, make money, and love friends/family/all beings.
Now what would be the benefit of me consuming animal products?
  • Social acceptance (I guess?) - Everybody else buys leather and eats animal products, and I wouldn''t have to defend anything - except to vegans - and they're crackpots anyway.
  • Nutrition/protein (I guess?) - though there are plenty of very tasty/cheap/easy vegetable sources for all required nutrients.
  • Taste (I guess?) - though meat doesn't really taste like much. I find that most of the flavor is in the spices and the breading - which is always vegetable-based.
  • Style (I guess?) - Leather sure does look good. But I look good enough as is homie.
  • Human nature (I guess?) - But it's also in my nature to use violence and physical force to get what I want - hence all the war, rape, and genocide in our history. It's in my nature to see some lives/groups as being inferior to my own group. It's in my nature to fear/hate those diffeerent from me. It's also probably natural to believe there is a permanent, independent, abiding self - considering almost everyone does that too.
Now how about the cost of consuming animal products? Direct, knowing partcipation in the torture, rape, and slaughter of 56 bllion sentient beings each year - these beings have vairous levels of intelligence (most around the level of a cat/dog), but they are all fully capable of suffering. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a humane animal industry. The closest thing would be wild game that is hunted/killed instantly. Maybe local pasture-raised animals that are killed instantly. Seeing as the systematic torture and slaughter of these "lesser" beings is mostly about money - I would count these exeptions as extremely rare (and extremely expensive). Burden of proof goes to people making fantastic claims - find proof of food/leather/research animals raised, used, and slaugthered with less suffering than I experience by refraining from the use of animal products and I may start using them again. On the other hand, I have seen much much evidence of systematic torture. 

I can't reconcile the idea of compassion with the systematic torture of all these sentient beings in exchange for convenience, taste, and social acceptance. How can I show compassion to my greatest source of anguish (myself) when I can't muster up enough to show towards beings that have literally done me - literally zero - harm? The mental gymnastics are just too tiresome. I think most people are unaware of the IMMENSE amount of suffering that occurs, or just compartmentalize it out. 

I am not a "good" person. I have plenty of blood on my hands (all the mice that die from the production of grain/fruits/veggies, child slaves, etc.). Hell, I'm not even saying that there is such a thing as good and bad. There is, however, a physical/mental/emotional/spiritual price that we pay and consequence that we reap for any behavior -  whether we know it or not. (Willful) ignorance, love, apathy, kindness, cruelty, compassion, rationalization, selfishness, compartmentalization, righteousness, openess, whatever - they all have their consequences.

For sustinance, I'm willing to pay the price for being cruel and apathetic. I am not willing to pay that price for taste, convenience, and entertainment. 

I'm not trying to accuse anyone of anything. Again, I'm not even sure good/bad and right/wrong are particularly useful as concepts. Kindness is kindness. Killing is killing. Love is love. Torture is torture. Things are what they are. No good or bad, right or wrong about it. Just pointing out that there are a lot of sentient beings suffering greatly for what is, essentially, our amusement and that all actions have consequences.

Just trying to reduce the amount of suffering experienced in the world - human and non-human alike.

Best to all.
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 9:52 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 9:52 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Eva M Nie:
[quote=
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Some very interesting knowledge you have brought to light in your previous post, thank you.

So, here we are today, humanity, we can cook vegetables and meat, we can synthesize vitamins.  We can survive on vegetables and on meat.
But, we do not have to eat meat, we are no longer cave dwellers scrabbling around tundras and hills.  For example, I am sure cave dwellers had inadequate ventilation in their caves when they made fires, bandages wounds with old furs, drank dirty water, and probably killed , raped, and stole from their neighbors.

 But, just because things are done a certain way in the past does not mean that is or was the best way.  I would hope we could all agree on that point.

So, sure, evolution has brought us to where we are today.  We can digest meat, we can all understand that.  We can also digest other foods.  We can cook foods to make it safe to eat , and to make food more digestible.

But is it necessary to eat meat, given the modern level of technology at our disposal?

Is it necessary to continue to be violent, to stay with the way our ancestors have done things?

Is there a better, saner way to live than by harvesting flesh?

Just some ideas to ponder. 

Psi
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 6:27 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 6:27 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
So, here we are today, humanity, we can cook vegetables and meat, we can synthesize vitamins.  We can survive on vegetables and on meat.
But, we do not have to eat meat, we are no longer cave dwellers scrabbling around tundras and hills.  

-Nutrition brings up issues that other aspects of cave dwelling in general does not. The main problem is the study on nutrition for anything other than coming up with new medications has been slow because there is no money in it.  For instance, not much research goes into the hunt for new vitamins tthat exist in foods and that our bodies may need and want.  It's not that we found them all, just that we mostly stopped looking and the ones that you will die from lack very quickly appear to have been found (maybe).  PLus I am sure you have heard about the latest frontier of gut bacteria research.  Much of the actual vitamins we need may even be synthesized by gut bacteria, there is good evidence that at least some of them are. It is also well researched that artificial foods yield very very differerent gut bacteria populations than do natural foods.  We may and probably are not yet at a point where we can synthesize foods to be as healthy as real foods.  Many vitamins come in forms that are not easily digested by all either.  For instance, a rusty nail has iron but eating one will not yield health as you can't digest it.  Vitamin manufacturers are not required to prove digestability so they typically use the cheapest source available, bioavailability can be as low as 3% in some cases.    It's not as simple as poppiong a pill, you may not be able to digest it in that synthetic form or it may disrupt ideal gut bacteria.  Research shows that more than half of many important hormones are produced in the gut and that natural tribal groups that eat all natural foods have a vastly different and more diverse gut bacteria than do us 1st worlders.  My advice from current evidence, which I think if fairly strong, is that nutrients should be gotten from real unprocessed whole foods as much as possible.  With the exception of a few extra pills, vegetarians could still do that for the most part, but only if they understand the need for it.  No, IMO, humans cannot currently synthesize what we need to eat.  We don't understand it well.  Vitamins and minerals and enzymes have a complex dance with eachother, interacting with eachother as well as gut bacteria in ways we mostly still do not understand.   

For example, I am sure cave dwellers had inadequate ventilation in their caves when they made fires, bandages wounds with old furs, drank dirty water, and probably killed , raped, and stole from their neighbors.

Sadly that's still true in many places or in America where we have all kinds of chemicals in the home and water and still kill rape and steal from neighbors.  ONly the bandaids have changed substantially.  ;-P 

 But, just because things are done a certain way in the past does not mean that is or was the best way.  I would hope we could all agree on that point.

Certainly.

But is it necessary to eat meat, given the modern level of technology at our disposal?

For most people, they could get by without it, but if it would be equally healthy is still hotly contended.  Certainly there are many that currently eat paleo style (more natural style and includes meat), that tried in the past to eat a very healthy vegetarian diet but could not find health or felt much better with healthy diet plus meat vs healthy diet minus meat.  Could be others feel better without meat, not sure, but you'd really have to try both diets to be sure.  As I mentioned, we still really don't understand nutrition well at all.  Asthma, metabolic syndrome, diabeties, weight probs, etc are skyrocketing and the exact mechanisms aren't understood.  Because sugar and animal fat were around in the 50s and 60s but they weren't killing us so much then so just blaming it on those does not make much sense. 

Is it necessary to continue to be violent, to stay with the way our ancestors have done things?

Is there a better, saner way to live than by harvesting flesh?

Just some ideas to ponder. 

I have no prob with people choosing a vegetarian lifestyle for moral reasons, that they think that being directly responsible for killing the larger animals is wrong, however, I will tend to argue if inaccurate other arguments are used to support it.  Many of the nutrition arguments for it are not that good.  And as we've already discussed, environmental damage also occurs with growing crops that in some cases (but not all cases) is worse than cows grazing on natural range for instance.  It's just not a cut and dry situation.  I think people tend to pick a side based on emotion and then dont' want to see any evidence that goes against what they want to believe.  It's a form of lieing to self by hiding from info that conflicts with current beliefs.  That is something I think is not good for people.  However, if people consider all evidence fairly and then still say they choose a particular way but are not lieing to self or others about the evidence to support it, then you will not hear any complaints from me.  ;-P 
-Eva

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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 7:38 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 7:38 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Eva M Nie:
Yet another interesting post, thank you.

Here is my solution, like it really matters.

Rather my wish.  I wish to be done with even using energy to have to consider and ponder about what to eat, what is healthy, or even moral, or best for future generations.  This wish is really not a a wish or a craving , but maybe could be seen as a plan to relieve one from using the burden of mental energy being used up to constantly decide what to eat or not to eat, what is going to make me fat, or cause cancer, or cause the body to lose hard earned muscle mass, etc, etc.

So, a solution, after all, what good is discussion with no solutions?

With modern science and all this technology, surely we can invent a tasty, nutritious health bar, or tube of paste, that will provide a human with all of necessary ingerdients to live a healthy lifestyle, precooked, prepackaged, environmetally safe, helps ones maintain weight, fight off cancer and diseases.  And if made correctly will even help clean the teeth, maintain bacterial balances,  comb through and clean out the intestines!  We could even add Strawberry Fart Scents, for those who like to crop dust their co workers and innocent bystanders!

Since we have mapped out the human DNA, and are working on individual genetic propensities for disease risks and prevention, and through the growing field of Functional Medicine, this all seems plausible and could even be designed on a case by case basis.  A Printout of a personalized nutribarpaste recipe, catered to your own DNA and Genetic Makeup, Caloric tracking on your Fit Watch, etc..

Further, this proposal, if and when finlly invented, a person could grab a bar of tasty food, eat it in a few minutes or less, feel fully satisfied, throw away the biodegradeable wrapper, and get on with their daily activities.

No trash, no dishes, no cooking, order it on the internet, or make at home, no shopping, no driving around, etc, etc.

So, all that may be Sci Fi, but, I have thought of making my own baking pan of power bar concoction for the present.  At least for some of the meals.  One Pan, Many Meals.

It just seems to me that , at least from my current view, alot of time and resources is spent on the daily food intake cycle, needlessly.

So, to sum up, Plan is,

Eat Healthy, Toss, and Go.

Then we could all get on to the real fun, Televised Pig Mud Wrestling!!!  

Where if the pig wins it gets a weeks stay on the banks of the Mississippi,  if the human wins it gets a week in the Bahamas...

Psi

Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 8:14 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/23/15 8:14 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Psi:


With modern science and all this technology, surely we can invent a tasty, nutritious health bar, or tube of paste, that will provide a human with all of necessary ingerdients to live a healthy lifestyle, precooked, prepackaged, environmetally safe, helps ones maintain weight, fight off cancer and diseases.  And if made correctly will even help clean the teeth, maintain bacterial balances,  comb through and clean out the intestines!  We could even add Strawberry Fart Scents, for those who like to crop dust their co workers and innocent bystanders!
IMO, we are nowhere close to that currently.  Most of the chemical reactions in cells are not understood, if we knew enough to know that, we'd probably also know what exactly caused diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease and all that.  Some scientists may like to try to give the illusion they know but really they are still flailing pretty badly in all those quarters. Yes, humans often like to have one simple answer so as not to have to think too hard, but life is often not like that.  Very very complex systems like the human body and the weather are extremely hard to sort out and human cells can't be fully studied in their natural habitat.  Put them in a petri dish and they act differently.  Research and knowledge in those areas is still very rudimentary.  
Since we have mapped out the human DNA, and are working on individual genetic propensities for disease risks and prevention, and through the growing field of Functional Medicine, this all seems plausible and could even be designed on a case by case basis.  A Printout of a personalized nutribarpaste recipe, catered to your own DNA and Genetic Makeup, Caloric tracking on your Fit Watch, etc..
In the future possibly, but even identifying the components of the human DNA, we still don't know what each of them does in the body and how they interact, and what turns them on and off.  Even if you can observe all the ants in a colony, that does not tell you how they make decisions and operate as they do.  You still don't know how to control them. 

Further, this proposal, if and when finlly invented, a person could grab a bar of tasty food, eat it in a few minutes or less, feel fully satisfied, throw away the biodegradeable wrapper, and get on with their daily activities.
You are not the first to wish for it, but I don't think we are anywhere near to it.  The closest we might get in the near future would be a recipe or few recipes for a mix of natural whole foods. But we are nowhere near developing a healthy artificial food.  The artificial foods we have now may keep you from dieing of starvation in the near future, but are not exactly what you would call 'healthy' otherwise.  

It just seems to me that , at least from my current view, alot of time and resources is spent on the daily food intake cycle, needlessly.
Some months back, I transitioned to only eating one meal per day, that saves a lot of time and hassle!  ;-P

Where if the pig wins it gets a weeks stay on the banks of the Mississippi,  if the human wins it gets a week in the Bahamas...

Psi
I don't think pigs would enjoy wrestling, but monkeys or bears might. ;-P
-Eva 
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Yash C, modified 9 Years ago at 7/26/15 12:48 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/26/15 12:48 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 14 Join Date: 2/22/15 Recent Posts
I'm in no way well-read enough to get into this debate, but for those who want alternative and *somewhat* objective sources of information on meat eating, human nutritional requirements & ecological issues surrounding the whole issue, look up primalblueprint.com & robbwolf.com, the spearheads of the Primal/Paleo movement. They'll point you to other sources. 

A fair amount of vegans on those sites too, especially on primalblueprint.com & its forums.

Would you believe it, I'm a Primal vegetarian. emoticon

Love  & metta,
Yash
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 7/26/15 1:13 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/26/15 1:13 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Yash C:
I'm in no way well-read enough to get into this debate, but for those who want alternative and *somewhat* objective sources of information on meat eating, human nutritional requirements & ecological issues surrounding the whole issue, look up primalblueprint.com & robbwolf.com, the spearheads of the Primal/Paleo movement. They'll point you to other sources. 

A fair amount of vegans on those sites too, especially on primalblueprint.com & its forums.

Would you believe it, I'm a Primal vegetarian. emoticon

Love  & metta,
Yash
I don't think there is any such thing as a nutrition philosophy group that is not heavily biased!  ;-P  Part of the prob is that the science does not understand much about what happens in digestion and energy utilization in the body, gut bacteria and all that.  So we have theories but none of them are complete and most have a lot of assumptions that sound good but have not been thoroughly tested, there are always many people whose body does not respond as expected on any given diet.  I personally do like Robb Wolf quite a bit and he is smart enough and open minded enough to not be too dogmatic, he understands there is much we still need to learn.  And I actually do generally follow the paleo concepts overall, I think they may be closer than most other diets as to what is most healthy for most people.  But the paleo community in general can be extremely dogmatic at times too, as i think any community can. Some paleo eaters can be rather antifruit for instance, due to the glucose.  Perhaps humans just like to have simple answers but nutrition is just not a simple subject. 
-Eva
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 9/1/15 3:46 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 9/1/15 3:46 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
A nice article that i think brings to awerness all the issue of the effect our actions have - and what are  deep  and true intentions really are

even if we dont kill the animal ourselvs (or we help the animal itself) 

http://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/rethinking-life-release

http://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/rethinking-life-release
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 7/24/15 10:37 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 7/22/15 1:06 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts


Anyway, taken from a different perspect even then that, your body is not you and the dog's body is not the dog.  And the cow's body is not the cow.  None of them really die.  Dieing is an illusion. Each creature sets its own path.  You choose if you want to get sucked into the drama or not.  The Earth game is designed such that creatures eat other creatures. Better get used to it because nature is probably not going to change any.  That's the way this Earth game is designed.  A better question might be why is it designed the way it is designed?  If you play Dungeons and Dragons, do you have your character run around with a 'Save the Dragons' sign?   Why not?   It's because there is no real death, you can resurrect the dragon at any time with your mind or you can let it go back to where it came from.  Dieing in the Dungeons and Dragons is an illusion.  But dieing in the Earth game is also an illusion.
-Eva
There is so much to write about this view and how it is wrong i even think the buddha has refuted  this view directly in the suttas

but all i can say in my words thats its just another excuse/justification to support financially the suffering of animals by buying meat,dairy products and eggs

and it reminds me of  this zen "joke" 



EMPTINESS

When Tesshu (1836-88), the famous Japanese samurai master of the sword,
was young and headstrong, he visited one Zen master after another. Once
he went to visit Master Dokuon and triumphantly announced to him the
classic Buddhist teaching that all that exists is empty, there is really
no you or me, and so on. The master listened to all this in silence.
Suddenly he snatched up his pipe and struck Tesshu’s head with it. The
infuriated young swordsman would have killed the master there and then,
but Dokuon said calmly, “Emptiness is sure quick to show anger, is it
not?” Tesshu left the room, realizing he still had much to learn about
Zen. He later became fully enlightened and founded the art of
“no-sword.”
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 6/3/15 2:16 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/3/15 2:16 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Chris J Macie:
re: . Jake . (5/21/15 9:49 AM as a reply to Chris J Macie.)

Another parallel, in Western modernist Buddhism, is extending Buddha's ethics in the direction of instigating social change, social activism; e.g. B.Bodhi's Buddhist Global Relief organization. (Arguably transferring a Judeo-Christian evangelical impulse into Buddhism.)
I suspect the main potential problem with an evangelical attitude, and certainly I have been guilty of this many many times myself, is that one gets the idea that he/she can and should know what is best for others and that they can and should be attempting to do only what you think they should do.  But the more time one spends analyzing the perceived faults in others, the less time and energy are spent understanding one's own perhaps not 100% pure issues and intentions.  Everything one decides and attempts to do is colored by the lens of that person.  My impression is that Bhuddism historically put the emphasis on cleaning and clearing the lens first before spending time attempting to control and pass judgement on others.  The most efficient way to inact change is to change oneself first and when that is done, all things around will automatically change with no additional effort.  Like attracts like.  If you bring an attitude of judgement, then you tend to attract that back to yourself as well.  If you instead spend your time looking back at the lens of self, you might find that some previous assumptions about your previous intent may not have been 100% accurate. It took me a long time to figure that out and it's still something I work on every day.  The habit of pointing fingers at others instead of fixing my own crap has been a very strong one.
-Eva 
Scott Kinney, modified 9 Years ago at 5/13/15 2:56 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/13/15 2:56 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 112 Join Date: 4/7/15 Recent Posts
You'll get no argument from me on your own dietary practices.

Something that I've considered on this topic for myself is that we also have a duty of kindness and compassion for ourselves. If, at a practical level, a vegan diet does not support an individual's health needs, then, you are falling short in that duty.

I recognize the attraction of the theories and philosophy, and they are compelling. I'm speaking at the more tactical level of a specific individual's metabolic needs. 
C P M, modified 9 Years ago at 5/13/15 5:23 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/13/15 5:23 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 218 Join Date: 5/23/13 Recent Posts
I agree with your thoughts on this.  I was actually surprised myself to find so many meditation practitioners eating meat.  The topic comes up once in a while, one of the latest threads discussing it is here:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/5612079#_19_message_5612079


The topic seems to be polarizing in general, but some interesting perspectives were added in that thread.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 9 Years ago at 5/17/15 11:14 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/17/15 11:00 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
Markus, Water Drop, Scott, C P M,
The topic seems to be polarizing in general, but some interesting perspectives were added in that thread.
Markus's way of approaching this topic, while the actuallity of animal torture is a huge condition and his is an honest account of part of his source of hard feelings/suffering reality (as with many people) and interest in meditation-- well, he may create in his current expression the low-hanging fruit easy to label as "rant" or "extreme", which insecure people use to villainize or simply shut down veganism by associating it with "threat", to make it an aversive or assumed-threat in society.

There are loads of people who simply eat and shop and apply their conscience in society, not forcing others, and even simply partaking of any meals when a guest in another's house.

The human brainstem is averse to threats, attracted to conditions that cause pleasant sensations. So activities one supports can be well served in the long-term and naturally by making them honest, but also pleasant.

(I also get that some good changes have come through battle and force... it's a long human and social history with all manner of tactics of change-- now, this era, is just a very crowded time-- we each influence/impact more people, more quickly; therefore, fight influence versus pleasant/rewarding recruitment each have bigger, faster impacts.)

Like many humans I, too, want to go to activities that are pitched pleasantly; I get a daily email from One Green Planet with a lot of recipes from which I can pick when I have a kitchen (I'm building and have not yet cooking nor cool storage space) while they still have articles about, say, the wildlife effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and how to take action. 


Perhaps consider a winsome approach at large: creating vegan fishing, novel/enlivened outdoorsy activities, tasty vegan meals.

And save your smart activism approach can be in your vegan community which has already bought in (e.g., supporting neuroscience and legal processes, like the Nonhuman Rights Foundation), and great vegan meals.

For example, I frankly ignore the groups that send me angry emails villainizing people; I support working on changing laws and enforcing laws, but not villainizing people or reifiying people for their past actions nor for their current legal hobbies and preferences. 

The world is not mine to rule (thankfully), but we all do co-influence and the human brainstem avoids negativity and seeks pleasant/rewarding conditions.

Consider the terrain (the Art of War's first rule? I don't remember..):
A) In this DhO forum, people here have routinely found meditative "gains" (their new ability to sit and not fall asleep or experience arthritis-like pain from bready-carby diets) by doing meat-based ketogenic diet; so they become advocates for meat-based ketosis, because the carbohydrate-cloud lifted and they don't try vegan ketosis or non-bready vegan meals in depth. So it serves them to think their diet is "it".

b) I live in an area with a lot of fishing, hunting, animal harvesting (I have done all of these): I would not eagerly support someone trying to force an end to this. We have enough drug addiction and health issues that fishing and local foods have many healthy/social benefits for which I'm grateful. I would though support someone building new businesses and hobbies, which also support, or don't exploit, human and nonhuman animals. This seems to have been the approach in Indian buddhism, though I love that Pure Land and other Chinese forms of buddhism following a Boddhisattva vow, and are vegetarian or even vegan. It is a joy to work in such kitchens. Many insight campuses are this way: vegan/vegetarian.


Markus, I am going to phase in "V-dogfood" this week with my dog's ocean meal and see how it goes. 

I am glad you linked to a vegan Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and graduate from a well-respected school, University of California Davis' Dr. Armaiti May, DVM, to make your point.  


6 x edit: hyperlink, typo, clarity ... it never ends! ;)
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Dream Walker, modified 9 Years ago at 5/15/15 12:53 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/15/15 12:53 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1770 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Markus:
I would like to start a discussion on this. We have another thread going here where we talk about this a little but the purpose of that thread was something else and I felt it's better to start fresh. I also feel i came across as a little condescending over there (i was going through some dark night shit) and that is not my intention. I admit that i have some room for development in my communication skills regarding matters such as this. I figured starting this thread is a good way to practise. 

I think it's wrong to eat animals in this day and age. It's unnecessary. I also think its harmful to our health, our environment and ethically speaking, harmful to other sentient life forms. I'm no expert when it comes to the science of these matters but from a philosophical viewpoint i cannot see any fault in the reasoning of wanting to cause minimal harm on our precious time on this earth. I have yet to find a justification that would indicate otherwise. 

Do you agree or disagree with this position?

Now how does this pertain to buddhism? I think it gets to the heart of it. And that is what the first training (morality, 4th noble truth, 8-fold path, etc) is all about. It does not matter so much what buddha or anyone decided to do back in the day. Times have changed. We live in a different world. What matters is what we do now. So yes, it is very crucial i believe to how we live in this world. 

It's also slightly baffling how little regard many practitioners have regarding this even masters of some traditions. In fact, there's even this antagonistic attitude which often appears when these matters are probed further (from my experience). I have noticed this again and again. I would like to understand why this is so. How can we talk about kindness and compassion and then then turn around to practise something entirely opposite. We should at least be able to talk about it freely and open-heartedly. Pursuing enlightenmnet through deep meditation while feeding hot dogs to our children or cooking bacon for our grandma is a clear indication that something has gone amiss in our wisdom. Perhaps we have forgot to think for ourselves and are relying too much on maps and teachings. 

It's foolish to think that just because we cannot do everything (ie. save the world), we should do nothing. It's always better to do something instead of nothing, just as it is when sitting on our make-believe throne of meditation. And making basic food choices is a simple yet immensely powerful and effective vote towards a world where buddhist practises could be spread evermore and developed. 

It's time for a reality check. 

Here are some excellent resources to educate ourselves which have helped me enormously since i began this path many years ago. This powerful information can literally change your life wherever you are with your daily practise. It sure has changed mine. All I ask is that you keep an open mind if this is an area of your life that is sensitive to external inquiry. And if it is, ask yourself why. Your life may depend on it!

films: 
Speciesism: The Movie
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret
Earthlings
Forks Over Knives

lectures:
Carnism: The Psychology Of Eating Meat
The World Peace Diet: Being Healthy and Saving The Planet
Best Speech You Will Ever Hear

a good forum for the intellectual folk: http://theveganatheist.com/forum/

Feel free to discuss. 

As for me, its time to meditate and turn off this damn computer!
(Speaking as a forum moderator)
Please be advised to read the Home page (partial excerpt below)

To help keep the place more inviting of participation by those who can benefit from helpful friends supporting friends in their practices and sharing the intimate and deep adventures that these explorations can produce, the following ground rules have been adopted:
  • No on-and-on repetitious, angry rants that marshal no supporting evidence, target an interlocutor, and have the effect of intimidating the interlocutor.
  • No threats of violence, even if metaphorical or aimed at no one in particular
First point -The other thread said just about everything you are saying here...I am getting the flavor of a rant starting. Please do not let it go in that direction and please keep it from getting angry as the other one did.
You are in violation of the second  point on the other thread when you said "Do us all a favor and kill yourselves." Thank you for deleting this after the fact but please do not violate this again

Thank you
~D
Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/18/15 8:48 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/18/15 8:45 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
I have two anti-vegan arguments that I have yet to see anyone come close to being able to refute.

1. It's better to live a good life and die young than never live at all.

I think we all can agree that factory farming/hormone pumping is not ideal..so let's take a free range chicken or grass fed raised cow, the ones you see from a road in the countryside, just lounging about, eating grass, wandering an enormous pasture in the sun. These cows live a good life, they eat to their hearts delight, the make love, have children, and then yes, one day when they are all grown up they get killed and we eat them.

But if humans didn't eat them, these cows would never have existed. Cows would have long ago gone extinct, just as their wild counterparts have.  These cows get to live many years enjoying life before dying. That's a net positive. I bet the cow would take it. If no one ate cows, there wouldn't be any cows, the species would be extinct. No cows would ever get to enjoy the grass, the sun , to make love, to raise little cattle ever again.

So if we all ate Vegan, you would be cause a ton of harm, harm in the form of denying life to all the animals that we eat.  Harm isn't just causing pain, it is also denying pleasure. If we could ask a cow, would you rather exist for five years than not exist at all, the cow says what?

2. Eating vegan actually leads to far more animal deaths..

http://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659

By eating vegan, you have to replace that protein with bread, pasta, other grains, soy, etc.. I.E farming..when you farm land you kill every animal that lived on that land beforehand. That is all the mice, snakes, rabbits, moles, etc...as well as the pesticides used to keep these animals from eating the crops. Are these animals less deserving of life simply because they are smaller? Is a rat any dumber than a cow? Does it have less sentience? Not too mention, by planting these huge swaths of farmland, we are killing entire ecosystems which has far ranging and devastating effects on all the animal life in the surrounding areas. Studies have shown that vegetarians and vegans contribute to 23x more animals deaths than grass fed meat eaters due to the more farm products they consume.


Basically, if you care about animal welfare, it's a terrible idea to be vegan. What you should be doing is supporting grass-fed beef, free range chicken and like minded practices.
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 6:55 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 5:53 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
You have a lot misconseptions - i dont think i can convince you others but consider this points
 

"85% of soy grown is meant for animal feed"

http://gentleworld.org/as-we-soy-so-shall-we-reap/
http://gentleworld.org/as-we-soy-so-shall-we-reap/

free range argument : http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/free-range-organic-meat-myth/
http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/free-range-organic-meat-myth/

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/12/why-free-range-meat-isnt-much-better-than-factory-farmed/67569/
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/12/why-free-range-meat-isnt-much-better-than-factory-farmed/67569/

These cows live a good life, they eat to their hearts delight, the make love, have children, and then yes, one day when they are all grown up they get killed and we eat them



Cows lifes are not great - they are pretty abusive  - their bodys are genetclly modifed which causes them health problems and lots of suffering  - Have children by artificial insemination - their male children are taking away and put in small cages straight after birth and lots of time dont get to "one day grow up"


A birth of a calf and how his treated - https://www.facebook.com/Alfront/videos/786974024755824/?fref=nf 

https://www.facebook.com/Alfront/videos/786974024755824/?fref=nf

everything can be distorted by the way - in the above video people say that the calf is pulled to help him get out - what they dont say that many times the calf is pulled before time - because its not profitable for the farmer to wait patiently


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_iIXZZrWIw    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_iIXZZrWIw
 
this are just 2 videos i found just now - do some resarch and you can find many more from "free range" as well - the whole notion of harming an animals quality of life even a tiny bit is very wrong - and certintly not fitting for any buddhist to support it


i really hate debating it thats why i dont go into details ect ... please try to have an open mind you are "addicted" to meat and like drug addicts you make excuses why its ok to keep doing it - every evil deed can be reasoned - every evil dictator in the world had pretty good arguments why what he is doing is right - some had large books explaining why its ok to do immoral stuff, pedophiles - whats wrong with them who says its wrong? there are many pro-pedophilia excelent claims like is 18 ok why not 16 ? why no 13 ? why is it ok for a 16 year old to have sex with a 16 year old and not a 40 year old ? what the limit to age gap between couples ? is 60 and 40 ok ? than why not 18 and 38 ? - this are just 0.0001% of the arguments pedohpiles are morally ok -  every bad deed can be intellctualized to justify it

I once used to explain and debate but i understand somepeople cant be reasoned with cause there is always a counter argument - when your mind is attached to defilments it will go to a lot of effort to make an unwholesome deed look as wholesome - thats maras expertise
Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 10:38 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 9:54 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
water drop,

1. Yes in the US, much soy is produced for animal feed. That is why I said grass fed, not grain fed cows. Like they do in Australia.

2. These abusive cow lives you are talking about are from factory farms, there are cows who live relatively nice lives on large pastures. And even if they are not perfect (is life supposed to be perfect) I'd argue that the cows would rather live 5 years and then get killed than not live at all. By not eating meat, you are basically committing genocide on an entire species, by not allowing them to exist in the first place.

 Cows would not exist if we didn't raise them. Is it better for cows as a species to exist or not exist? What is 'wrong' about killing an animal? Is it that it prevents the cow from future life? Well if there was no species of cows as you would have it (again, thats what would happen if we didn't farm them) you would be preventing far more future life.

3. I think it is far morally superior to eat meat than to not eat meat. For the sake of animals. So I'm not making excuses, I actually think vegetarians suffer from some sort of mental disability spawned by our unnatural livestyles. Unnatural in the sense that humans for our millions of years of existence humans hunted from the day they were old enough to hold a spear.  We were very attuned to the cycle of life.  Now since humans don't grow up hunting and their only interaction with animals is in the form of pets, they have irrational emotional reactions to animals dying, they have become oversensitive.

Be open to the idea that your decision to not eat meat is not based on rationality. But on your unnatural emotional sensitivity. And Ironically, it causes more harm to animals than if you just ate grass fed, and ethically raised meat.

4. The Buddha ate meat.
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 10:16 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 11:45 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
Jinxed P:
water drop,

1. Yes in the US, much soy is produced for animal feed. That is why I said grass fed, not grain fed cows. Like they do in Australia.

2. These abusive cow lives you are talking about are from factory farms, there are cows who live relatively nice lives on large pastures. And even if they are not perfect (is life supposed to be perfect) I'd argue that the cows would rather live 5 years and then get killed than not live at all. By not eating meat, you are basically committing genocide on an entire species, by not allowing them to exist in the first place.

 Cows would not exist if we didn't raise them. Is it better for cows as a species to exist or not exist? What is 'wrong' about killing an animal? Is it that it prevents the cow from future life? Well if there was no species of cows as you would have it (again, thats what would happen if we didn't farm them) you would be preventing far more future life.

3. I think it is far morally superior to eat meat than to not eat meat. For the sake of animals. So I'm not making excuses, I actually think vegetarians suffer from some sort of mental disability spawned by our unnatural livestyles. Unnatural in the sense that humans for our millions of years of existence humans hunted from the day they were old enough to hold a spear.  We were very attuned to the cycle of life.  Now since humans don't grow up hunting and their only interaction with animals is in the form of pets, they have irrational emotional reactions to animals dying, they have become oversensitive.

Be open to the idea that your decision to not eat meat is not based on rationality. But on your unnatural emotional sensitivity. And Ironically, it causes more harm to animals than if you just ate grass fed, and ethically raised meat.

4. The Buddha ate meat.

Be honest - are you going to stop eating meat if you get a good answer for this questions ? or are you going to find new questions that will allow you to eat meat ? be really really honest with yourself -

If i would think a full answer would have convinced you i would put the big amount of time to explain it and debate it fully- but its never the case people just find new reasons to support their addiction

About the cows thats too long to explain but cows will not fully become extinct even if tommorw everyone would go vegan (instead of gradually turning vegan) and everyone will stop taking care of them imidatly  , i guess that even if all would be vegan for 1000 years they would still not be extinct - and of course im ignuring bizons baffalos ect ect  

many animal species go extinct naturally, and thanks to human help (some of it directly thanks to growing cows for meat) that rate is extremly high and thousands of animals are going extinct each year - how much do you care for them - why 1 spesific specie of the domastic cow is so important to you ? - this is a classical example of the excuses that we find to continue our addiction to meat  this is exactly what the 5 hindernaces do - almost always we have a reasoning for why its ok to do akosala things  - once we overcome the attachment/addiction and we look at the item that caused as the attachment (meat) suddenly we see that all the thoughts we had were wrong and stemmed directly from our attchment to that object

And  in buddhism nothing is wrong in non existing in the first place - but killing is wrong


the buddha was a monk - not a lay person
  - and about the meat he ate - check the wiki page  -

http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Diet_of_Buddha http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Diet_of_Buddha
i will give just a some quotes - i have trobule copeing it here successfully - so best you just read the link i gave
At his final days in the parinibbana sutta, the food that led to his death was at one time translated as pork. The terms have been translated as “pig’s truffles” which was originally mistranslated as pork. Modern scholars including, Arthur Waley, K. E. Neumann, and Mrs. Rhys Davids have corrected this to “the food of pigs” which are mushrooms.
Further evidence that the Buddha did not eat pork can be seen in the fact that Cunda was a blacksmith, the one who offered the final meal to the Buddha.
The three highest castes do not eat pork or other foods from pig meat.
As a blacksmith, he was a member of the third caste and therefore, could
not have prepared pork.
.
.
.

and for our millions of years of existence humans hunted from the day they were old enough to hold a spear.
Usually hunters dont have nice fates in the sutta -  and what is a natural lifstyle ? is killing natural ? rape? its natural to be burn in heal realms - does it mean we should not try to avoid it ?

You will porobobly change your "questions" (=excuses) to other ones or improve the wording of the curent one or you will hear a peice on information and base all your view point on it (like an scintific resarch that will come to the conclusion that animals cant feel pain or cant feel emotion) ......... but the base for all your "questions"= "reasons" to eat meat are all   5 hindrances in disguise - mara in disguise -  and thats the only way mara acts- in disguise - thats the whole point of buddhism to see things as they are  excuses as excuses   ( note that i also make excuses for stuff like everyone else does - but its not ok and i try to see them as they really are )

Be open to the idea that your addiction of eating meat (and everyone elses including myself in the past)  is not based on rationality but based on the 5 hindrances - and that your rationality is based on your hindrances and not the other way around

im writing this as if to you - but i aim it to everyone who eats meat - its not something spesific to yourself - everyone who eats meat is having to deal with exact same issue the same hindarnces - and that includes myself when i ate meat in the past

 
 
Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 1:02 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 12:53 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
Water drop,

1)There are many issues at hand here. One is meta-ethics. Of which I am a moral error theorist. Meaning, I don't think morality actually exists. Practically, I believe everyone should try to maximize their own happiness, and as we live in a society we should be beholden to social contracts. Since cows are not part of the social contract, nor do I see any good reason to include them in it- that we should waste valuable resources to raise and keep cows alive and not eat them!

2) as I pointed out and you have yet to refute at all, it is simply better for cows that we eat them. They would be extinct..immediately? No, but pretty soon if we didn't raise them. As of now they are from a numerical standpoint one of the most successful species of mammals on earth. 

3) There are plenty of enlightened people who eat meat. Many of them on this forum. Eating meat is no hindrance to enlightenment.

4) By natural I mean hunter-gatherer's. Those people you see wearing loin cloths and living in the jungle. The way humans existed before agriculture and civilization.  They are very happy people. Shinzen Young said they have the same calm and presence of living in the now as enlightened monks, psychologist Jean Leidloff says she has seen entire families of hunter-gatherers who have the same calm and joy of life as the most attained guru's. Studies on hunter-gatherer tribes show they don't ever get depression or chronic stress. They literally don't worry.

5) I have researched the health and particularly the mental health benefits of diet thoroughly. Those who eat a paleo type diet simply have the best health of any cohort. 1 in 4 vegetarians suffer from anxiety and depression, likely because they are not getting the essential fats and protein their brain requires. 

6) Again, the Buddha ate meat..

""Monks, I allow you fish and meat that are quite pure in three respects: if they are not seen, heard or suspected to have been killed on purpose for a monk. But, you should not knowingly make use of meat killed on purpose for you." [2]"

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma3/meat.html

"The Vinaya, then, is quite clear on this matter. Monks and nuns may eat meat. Even the Buddha ate meat. Unfortunately, meat eating is often seen by westerners as an indulgence on the part of the monks. Nothing could be further from the truth - I was a strict vegetarian for three years before I became a monk. In my first years as a monk in North-East Thailand, when I bravely faced many a meal of sticky rice and boiled frog (the whole body bones and all), or rubbery snails, red-ant curry or fried grasshoppers -"  - Ajahn Brahm
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 2:20 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 1:24 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
Water drop,

1)There are many issues at hand here. One is
meta-ethics. Of which I am a moral error theorist. Meaning, I don't
think morality actually exists. Practically, I believe everyone should
try to maximize their own happiness, and as we live in a society we
should be beholden to social contracts. Since cows are not part of the
social contract, nor do I see any good reason to include them in it-
that we should waste valuable resources to raise and keep cows alive and
not eat them!

2) as I pointed out and you have yet to refute at
all, it is simply better for cows that we eat them. They would be
extinct..immediately? No, but pretty soon if we didn't raise them. As of
now they are from a numerical standpoint one of the most successful
species of mammals on earth. 

3) There are plenty of enlightened
people who eat meat. Many of them on this forum. Eating meat is no
hindrance to enlightenment.

4) By natural I mean
hunter-gatherer's. Those people you see wearing loin cloths and living
in the jungle. The way humans existed before agriculture and
civilization.  They are very happy people. Shinzen Young said they have
the same calm and presence of living in the now as enlightened monks,
psychologist Jean Leidloff says she has seen entire families of
hunter-gatherers who have the same calm and joy of life as the most
attained guru's. Studies on hunter-gatherer tribes show they don't ever
get depression or chronic stress. They literally don't worry.

5) I
have researched the health and particularly the mental health benefits
of diet thoroughly. Those who eat a paleo type diet simply have the best
health of any cohort. 1 in 4 vegetarians suffer from anxiety and
depression, likely because they are not getting the essential fats and
protein their brain requires. 

6) Again, the Buddha ate meat..

""Monks,
I allow you fish and meat that are quite pure in three respects: if
they are not seen, heard or suspected to have been killed on purpose for
a monk. But, you should not knowingly make use of meat killed on
purpose for you." [2]"

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma3/meat.html

"The
Vinaya, then, is quite clear on this matter. Monks and nuns may eat
meat. Even the Buddha ate meat. Unfortunately, meat eating is often seen
by westerners as an indulgence on the part of the monks. Nothing could
be further from the truth - I was a strict vegetarian for three years
before I became a monk. In my first years as a monk in North-East
Thailand, when I bravely faced many a meal of sticky rice and boiled
frog (the whole body bones and all), or rubbery snails, red-ant curry or
fried grasshoppers -"  - Ajahn Brahm


This is exactly what i said - you dont want to find the truth - you are locked and attached to the 5 hindarnces  - whatever i will say - you would find a better or another reason why its ok to eat meat and act unmorally

i starte to write but than i stopped - im not sure if what i say will have affect  

i said already and i bolded it that monks are not lay people ! huge huge differences and the quote you gave even strengthens the fact that even monks cant eat every meat they get  (and of course i ignore the mahayana sects which have vegaterian monks - because i follow theravada and thats where im more knowledgeable )

Life without computers without video games and TV without a dead line for a boss ect  - would be more conducive to practice  - its not thanks to them hunting - and this is another example 

i just give you examples


Im sure and positive that if you clean your mind from the attachment to meat eating and you will look at your arguments - you would see they are just excuses  -

Its not pure intelctualizing that you are doing you - its your hindraces that are making you distort the information to something that suits you   -  excuses and reasoning that justifys the akosala unwholsome act


 

 
Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 1:38 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 1:38 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
1. There is no rule against lay people eating meat. 

2. You still cannot give a single argument that less animals suffer from not eating meat than eating meat.

3. Bhante G and many other scholars say it is ok for laypeople to eat meat. Others say differently. There is no consensus here.

4. You are still just trying to rationalize your emotional sensitivity.

5. And yes of course hunter-gatherer's have many other reasons for their happiness. My point was eating meat does not get in the way of their happiness.

Here is a video of a monk talking about how silly vegetarianism is..and that there is nothing wrong with eating meat. He actually makes the point that the Buddha said that having such attachment to not-killing any living thing is actually samsara!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSwtv7VqMh0
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 4:37 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 4:36 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
 please try to have an open mind you are "addicted" to meat and like drug addicts you make excuses why its ok to keep doing it

Water drop,

      It seems in this case having an open mind isn't really having an open mind but agreeing with you. What does it mean that you must accuse and speak in pejorative terms of others, while also needing them to agree with you? Because you are not really asking that he or she have an open mind but that he agree with your asessment, which also belittles in the process. I find this sort of speech harmful, and unfair. That it seems to be paired often with those speaking of their compassionate choices is an irony to myself, and others, I'm sure. If you have to rely on propraganda, negative charcterizations, and you need your reader to agree with you, your argument is flimsy.
       I believe there is actually some level of cognitive dissonance on your part related to this subject: Jinxed P gives the example of free range animals. I buy my meat from local farms. They are not treated or raised the way you describe. You are describing factory farms. When Jinxed P points this out you say you do not want to go into a long debate about, but then you contintue to write much more after that statement. You actually haven't responded yet to what he or she writes, as pointed out. It seems you do not want discussion, but agreement and the emotional satisfaction of feeling better than. You can have it, but it strikes me as unworthy. You and Markus will never convince anyone because your arguments aren't factual, or evidence based: they're a mix of strong emotions and propaganda (and possible mental health issues), and it comes across clearly.
       There are also a number of individuals (Alexandra Jamieson, Lierre Keith) who were formerly vegan activitsts who upon learning more about agriculture and ecology dropped veganism and resumed eating meat. Keith in particular is an interesting indvidual: Former vegan, author of the 2009 book "The Vegetarian Myth" -well woth a read- is deeply commited to issues of environment and animal treatment and has chosen to eat meat as a more ethical choice after investigating. We do not all have to agree with you or be in denial. That is an insincere, and small minded way to communicate, and it reflects a level of emotional and intellectual immaturity that helps no one, and is the opposite of the compassion you believe is reflected in your food choices.

Bill
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 4:44 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 4:44 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts



Cows lifes are not great - they are pretty abusive  - their bodys are genetclly modifed which causes them health problems and lots of suffering  - Have children by artificial insemination - their male children are taking away and put in small cages straight after birth and lots of time dont get to "one day grow up"
What I see time and time again on these threads is that people  have strong perspectives and they are so strong that they will not consider in any serious way any argument to the contrary.  Instead of really considering another's argument, the immediate response is to find a hole in the other's theory and pick at it.  The truth is that both sides have many good points, that is the hallmark of a polarizing argument.  But if you want ot be fair with yourself, then you will consider both your argument (which of course you are probably already doing) and also equally and fairly and without excessive emotion consider the other side's arguments.  Like in the above case, what you say is true SOMETIMES.  But not always.  If a cow that has the right genetics for that climate (there are many breeds because diff breeds are adapted to different climes) is allowed to live free range with a proper natural diet, cows are quite hardy.  They roam the ranges for months without human intervention and their main threats are wolves, bears, etc.  They are a heck of a lot tougher than even the toughest humans.   It's only in recent times in 1st world countries that the breeding has switched to mostly just getting fatter cows but not considering hardiness and in many areas of the world, hardiness is still very important.  If you want to argue that current cow breeding and raising in 1st world countries is  unfair to the animal and cruel, I think almost everyone here would already agree with you.  The response from this point could go in more than one direction.  One direction would be never eat cow again, another would be lets raise cows humanely.  For instance, locally to me, one can buy free range meat direct from the farmer and see the cows trotting around the range happily.  No corn lots, no stink, just natural.  They drink from a stream, no water is piped in, and they eat the range bushes and grasses.  That area has poor soil and is not suitable for crops so it's better to use it for cows.  The stream is too small to irrigate a large area.  In this case, cows are the best use of this area for food production. 

Now if you wanted to ONLY argue a one sided argument, you can ignore the fact that many range cows are on areas that are unsuitable for crops and instead say that crops would be better because they use less resources.  But that would be a total lie because in those areas, crops are not a good fit.  But the data can be crunched to make cows always look bad if you conveniently forget to look at the WHOLE picture.  And that is what  happens when someone wants to ONLY see their side and NOT see the whole picture.  Many diehard vegan websites produce these types of data and propaganda.  Things that are presented as facts are only part of the picture, not a whole and fair portrayal of the true situation.  Many peoples on poor quality land like the Masai and Mongolians and Inuit are in environments where meat eating is the ONLY way to survive and crops are NOT more sustainable and better.  Cold regions along with areas of crappy soil are not good crop regions.

As for health issues, vegan websites are equally biased.  Personally, wheat makes me quite ill (really bad asthma) and I also do not do well with processed foods.  All those fake meat vegan burgers are really quite tasty but my body does not like all the chemical crap.  I can eat fruit but if I eat a ton, all that sugar makes me kinda crazy too.  Vegetables do not have enough calories to reasonably survive on.  So for those reasons, I will never be vegan, even though I really do love the taste of fruits and grains, my body does not do well with them.  Contrarily, if I eat meat and whole foods that are not processed (wheat is heavily processed), I am quite healthy and do not take any meds for anything (unlike most of America it seems).  So health depends on the situation and the person.  Those who eat big macs and fries are probably not as healthy as a vegetarian.  But what about those who eat free range beef and unprocessed foods?  There are many stories of sick vegans becomes healthy on paleo eating.  But you will never ever see such sacrilige on any vegan website.  I have known some vegans that were very traumatized when they got sick and tried all kinds of different vegan foods and could not make it and then were ostricized by fellow vegans when they finally went back to eating meat.  Some were even accuses of being paid off by the meat companies (which was not true), because some vegans simply could not believe that some humans were more healthy eating meat.  Even though science backs that vegans sometimes have nutritional deficiencies, those issues are pushed aside and ignored on vegan websites. 


i really hate debating it thats why i dont go into details ect ... please try to have an open mind you are "addicted" to meat and like drug addicts you make excuses why its ok to keep doing it - every evil deed can be reasoned - every evil dictator in the world had pretty good arguments why what he is doing is right - some had large books explaining why its ok to do immoral stuff, pedophiles - whats wrong with them who says its wrong?
See there is another major assumption on your part.  How do you know for sure that i am addicted to meat?  Actually I will tell you that I love sugar and wheat and those are my addictions.  I could easily give up meat in favor of sugar and wheat.  But sugar and wheat make me sick so I can't go that route.  If someone does not agree with you, then you have to in your mind assume they are like pedophiles and then accuse them of that and then expect them to take your arguments seriously anyway?  Are all those Inuit, Masai, Mongolians and every tribe since the dawn of humanity all like pedophiles?  That argument is not valid.  


I once used to explain and debate but i understand somepeople cant be reasoned with cause there is always a counter argument - when your mind is attached to defilments it will go to a lot of effort to make an unwholesome deed look as wholesome - thats maras expertise
I think what you are saying is that you tried to convince some people and for all those who did not agree with you, you assume they can't be reasoned with just because they did not accept YOUR reasoning.  Yet did you ever seriously consider all their arguments and facts or did you just compare them to pedophiles?
-Eva
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 2:25 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 2:25 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Hi Jinxed,

I have an answer to your first argument: that cows wouldn't exist unless we were raising them - the cow would rather live than not exist. This is actually a fallacy in logic.  A cow that doesn't exist has no preferences.  For your argument to work, you first have to create an imaginary cow in your mind, then you have to give it the choice to keep living or not.  Deciding not to breed the cow, then, becomes the same as killing the cow because the cow exists as an object in the mind.  However, because no cow actually exists, there is nothing to be destroyed.  It's the same argument the Catholic Church sometimes uses against contraceptives: by wearing a condom you are stopping children from being born.  This isn't actually true, since no child exists until the egg is fertilized.  Personally, I would prefer that unfit or busy parents didn't have children they can't raise well, and I wouldn't  say they are doing something wrong, somehow, by preventing an egg from being fertilized.  It doesn't really make sense.  It's the same with cows - humans are not treating cows well, so it would be better that no more cows were born into the care of humans than to keep breeding them and torturing them. 

I do think people who commit to eating only animals that are well cared for are helping, but the reality is that most of the meat that's available to us simply isn't like this (as well as the dairy and eggs).  It's easy to make these arguments to justify eating meat, and then go have a hamburger at McDonalds.  By being a vegan, I've found I can be more consistent and make a bigger impact.

Also, farming does kill wild animals, as does building a house, driving a car, and even getting an education or taking a shower.  By existing, we cause suffering to others.  This doesn't mean we can't make an impact by living mindfully.  I live right next to a farm field where they plant soy and corn.  There are a lot of animals living in those fields during the year that benefit from it, even in spite of the pesticides and fertilizer and monoculture.  I think things could be done better than this - which is why I try to buy organic veg when I can - but those tractors move pretty slowly and I don't think there are many animals that can't get out of the way.  I think you probably do the same amount of damage driving slowly off-road.  Comparing this to the systematic torture, close confinement, and greusome death most farm animals have to deal with these days seems a bit disingenuous.

Being a vegan isn't about being perfect, it's about making a difference.  Even using less animal products helps.
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 4:01 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 4:01 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
I do think people who commit to eating only animals that are well cared for are helping, but the reality is that most of the meat that's available to us simply isn't like this (as well as the dairy and eggs).  It's easy to make these arguments to justify eating meat, and then go have a hamburger at McDonalds.  

I appreciate the balanced approach but it is not easy to justify eating meat from places like McDonald's for me personally. I am curious if you can provide a source on this. Iwill foreswear all sorts of meat products if I know they are not humanely raised, and spend extra time and money to find certified humane meat products.

Also, organic vegetables don't have anything to do with how many animals are killed growing the vegetables. The best way to do the least harm on a number of scales would be to buy locally grown.

Kudos on your veganism. It's cool that you are thinking about these things and trying to live out your principles. 

I am still not sold on the belief that it is more ethical, or kills less animals, or results in less environmental destruction than my own current diet, but I may be wrong.


Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 7:38 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 7:33 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
Not Tao:
Hi Jinxed,

I have an answer to your first argument: that cows wouldn't exist unless we were raising them - the cow would rather live than not exist. This is actually a fallacy in logic.  A cow that doesn't exist has no preferences.  For your argument to work, you first have to create an imaginary cow in your mind, then you have to give it the choice to keep living or not.  Deciding not to breed the cow, then, becomes the same as killing the cow because the cow exists as an object in the mind.  However, because no cow actually exists, there is nothing to be destroyed.  It's the same argument the Catholic Church sometimes uses against contraceptives: by wearing a condom you are stopping children from being born.  This isn't actually true, since no child exists until the egg is fertilized.  Personally, I would prefer that unfit or busy parents didn't have children they can't raise well, and I wouldn't  say they are doing something wrong, somehow, by preventing an egg from being fertilized.  It doesn't really make sense.  It's the same with cows - humans are not treating cows well, so it would be better that no more cows were born into the care of humans than to keep breeding them and torturing them. 



Tao,

1. I agree that the catholic church's contraceptive argument is a bad one. Mainly because it doesn't take into consideration the needs of the parent.  Parents are not obliged to have children.

This is not comparative to the case of the cow, because the farmer is a willing 'parent', in fact this is how he makes his livelihood and how he feeds his children. He wants to live, the cow (pasture-raised) once alive is glad that it has gotten the chance to live. And the main departure from my point and the one you characterized of mine is that you could ask the cow after it has lived, after it has been chopped up (if you could) and it would probably still say I'm glad I had gotten the chance to live.

I cannot see a single reason why anyone would prefer a world without cows and chickens versus a world in which cows and chickens exist and live relatively calm lives eating grass and lounging about in pasture's before they die. Why is world A better? Better for who? Is it better for cows and chickens as a species? Better for humans?

As far as comparing farming crops to animal death read the study I linked to earlier. In Australia where all cows are grass fed, vegans/vegetarian diets contribute to 23x more animal deaths than meat eaters. So I'm not being disenguious, but basing my argument on that study.
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 4:03 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 2:33 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
Just cause there is a very short answer i will refer to a spesific issue cause its simple and s :  Lots of vegans never eat soy and never eat soy products (and about the other claim its a thread about eating animals and thats the reason you probobly have mentioned soy )

Did you know that many products are added soy protien cause its cheaper for the producers ?  choclate for example - and packged  meat - so there are vegans who eat less soy than non-vegans

i just looked at this vegan bodybuilder page and his diet doesnt eat soy or seitan or any other "fake meat" products - he dosnt eat any proccessed food and is vegan  (and is 55 years old)

https://www.facebook.com/vegfit/photos/pb.242156802489656.-2207520000.1432109342./466963530008981/?type=1&theater
https://www.facebook.com/vegfit/photos/pb.242156802489656.-2207520000.1432109342./466963530008981/?type=1&theater

https://www.facebook.com/vegfit  https://www.facebook.com/vegfit 

So if anyone dosnt become vegan because of the "question"/"reason" of soy not being healthy - it has been answered ! and he can be vegan

I am not responding mainly cause i want my latest post to be the main issue - more accuratly  my last sentance  - I make excuses we all do - but meat buying for me seems like a big akosala action and one that can be avoided - and if i can help people do kosala and less akosala than its a great privalge

I didnt want to actually counter any claim if you notice i just touch the subjects with my response there are many more facts, reasonings ect that i can give  - i just wanted to show that there are answers  didnt want to put effort to it and also i tryed not to answer them all fully on purpse i just got tempted to respond more than needed - cause its not important cause the questions are just maras work -

maybe the word excuses is off putting - so what i call excuses are thoughts - thoughts that seem logical cause of attachment - and i also have this excuses for many stuff in my life and i used to have them about meat eating

this are the thoughts that come in meditation that say "your to tired you must sleep"  "this is a good idea i must stop the meditation and write it down "  " i have to scratch that itch "  " i must most check that sound "  -   all sorts of thoughts that are not really true and are all coming from the 5 hindarnces - and when you finish the meditation you see its great you ignored them and that they were not true  - and you get thoughts all day off of the cushion

thats why i said lastley - is all that matters - all the arguments i gave are short without much thought just to show that i know of counter arguments but they are not important
Its not pure intelctualizing that you are doing you - its your hindraces
that are making you distort the information to something that suits
you   -  excuses and reasoning that justifys the akosala unwholsome act

I am trying to explain this from a buddhist prespective but i might have been wrong to use the words excuses - i really hope poeple here will try to understand what im trying to get at - and to do so without any ego and thinking about me without thinking about who is right and wrong - just try to understand what im getting at :

That the thought process you are having isnt pure its tainted cause of the attachment to meat - and like i said at the start to help you think  : is there some spesific "questions" that if you are answered you will stop eating meat ?  is the fact hitler was a vegeterian matters? if it will be proven he ate meat would you go vegan ? will cows go extinct ? does it even  matter if one specie of cows will go extinct when thousnds other speiceis go extinct every year ?   why one speices of animals is so important to you suddenly ? what stands behind this extreme worry for the fate of a single speicess of domestic cow ?  .... be extremly brutally honest with yousrself

Again this is all im trying to say evertyhing else i said is side stuff and not important - i hope people try to understand what im getting at instaed of focusing on my wording or my answers to the questions - the last paragraph i wrote is all that matter
Scott Kinney, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 5:25 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 5:25 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 112 Join Date: 4/7/15 Recent Posts
Waterdrop,

You might consider moderating your consumption of dogma, you exhibit some symptoms of hardening of the orthodoxies.
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 1:16 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 1:01 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Jinxed, when thinking on the level of a species, it doesn't make sense to talk about preferences.  For this argument, I will invent a species that has never existed - a type of squirrel-like creature that eats blueberries as it's staple diet and nests on mountain cliff faces.  Any individual member of this species whould certainly want to continue existing, but the species itself has no preferences, so it's not a tragety that it never existed.  Cows that don't yet exist have no preferences, and the species "cow" also has no preferences, so if no cows existed it wouldn't contribute to the suffering of any individual creature (except, maybe, the humans that remember the cows and enjoyed having them around).  So there is nothing "better" or "worse" for a species, because a species is not a living thing with preferences, it's just an imaginary mental object created by humans to arbitrarily group animals by how they mate with eachother.  The only way to accurately reference "better" or "worse" (preference) is on an individual level where animals feel preference.

Consider it this way: If the whole of humanity was enslaved by aliens for food processing, would you want to have children?

Also, your concept of animals living a happy life out in a field in the sunshine for a few years before experiencing a swift and humane death is quite far from the reality of modern farming.  If you research all of your meat and only buy from local small-time farmers, then this may be true.  Any meat you buy from the supermarket is not like this, though.  Even some of the "grass-fed beef" is factory farmed and fed hay - there's really no way to tell on the packaging.  Most of the farm animals that are raised today have been bred and genetically modified to grow to maturity much faster than normal (often in just a few months) and this means they develop severe deformities.  The primary breed of chicken raised for meat grows so quickly that its undeveloped legs will break under its own weight.  I think it would be best if this species went extict - suffering is built into its genetic code.  Cows, even the grass fed ones, are usually given growth horomones to make then grow faster, not to mention the branding and forced insemination.  The bulls they want to breed have their testicles electrocuted to extract semen.  Most cows live less than a year.  Dairy cows can live up to 4, but they usually stop being productive due to sheer exhaution and are sent to slaughter earlier.  Dairy cows are kept pregnant for most of their life so they will continue to produce milk, and the baby cows are usually processed for veal - either living in crates where this is still legal, or on a cement floor in a warehouse.

Further, you make the argument that the cow, after being chopped up, would still be glad it got the chance to live.  I think the cow would prefer not to be chopped up at all.  Anything that is alive will say it prefers to live, unless it's suicidal.  It's disingenuous to assume the cow would be thankful it ever had any contact with humans, just because humans brought it into the world.

Now, perhaps you only eat Australian grass fed beef.  Do you also eat eggs, chicken, pork, fish, or dairy?  It's the whole system that's corrupted, which is the general vegan argument.  It's just an inescapable fact that using animal products at this time in history is contributing to systematic torture and cruelty on an unprecidented scale.  Like I said before, it's very easy to make a few arguments about the abstracted concept of whether eating meat is ethical, or whether certain minorities within the farming and agricultural industry are doing things better than others, but this completely misses the point.  I have no idea what your diet or purchasing habits are, so I'll leave it up to you to judge yourself - I can only present the facts.

@BillF: This is a pretty huge topic.  I spent a lot of time reading about this stuff a while ago when I made my decision to be a vegan.  I think it's best to find your own sources since I don't know what kind of reporting you would respect vs. what you'd find slanted.  Vegan websites tend to have the most information in one place, but I'm guessing you'd see this as biased.  I found enough on non-vegan sites to be convinced it was impossible for me even to trust dairy products and eggs from "free range" and "organic" sources, and that's when I decided to drop the whole thing.

EDIT: This article seems like a balanced take on why even grass fed beef is part of the problem: http://foodrevolution.org/blog/the-truth-about-grassfed-beef/

Is grassfed beef the answer?

Grass-fed beef certainly has its advantages, but it is typically more expensive, and I’m not at all sure that’s a bad thing. We shouldn’t be eating nearly as much meat as we do.

There is a dark side even to grassfed beef. It takes a lot of grassland to raise a grassfed steer. Western rangelands are vast, but not nearly vast enough to sustain America’s 100 million head of cattle. There is no way that grassfed beef can begin to feed the current meat appetites of people in the United States, much less play a role in addressing world hunger. Grassfed meat production might be viable in a country like New Zealand with its geographic isolation, unique climate and topography, and exceedingly small human population. But in a world of 7 billion people, I am afraid that grassfed beef is a food that only the wealthy elites will be able to consume in any significant quantities.

What would happen if we sought to raise great quantities of grassfed beef? It’s been tried, in Brazil, and the result has been an environmental nightmare of epic proportions. In 2009, Greenpeace released a report titled “Slaughtering the Amazon,” which presented detailed satellite photos showing that Amazon cattle are now the biggest single cause of global deforestation, which is in turn responsible for 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. Even Brazil’s government, whose policies have made the nation the world’s largest beef exporter, and home to the planet’s largest commercial cattle herd, acknowledges that cattle ranching is responsible for 80 percent of Amazonian deforestation. Much of the remaining 20 percent is for land to grow soy, which is not used to make tofu. It is sold to China to feed livestock.

Amazonian cattle are free-range, grassfed, and possibly organic, but they are still a plague on the planet and a driving force behind global warming.

Trendy consumers like to think that grassfed beef is green and earth-friendly and does not have environmental problems comparable to factory farmed beef. But grassfed and feedlot beef production both contribute heavily to global climate change. They do this through emissions of two potent global warming gases: methane and nitrous oxide.

Next to carbon dioxide, the most destabilizing gas to the planet’s climate is methane. Methane is actually 24 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and its concentration in the atmosphere is rising even faster. The primary reason that concentrations of atmospheric methane are now triple what they were when they began rising a century ago is beef production. Cattle raised on pasture actually produce more methane than feedlot animals, on a per-cow basis. The slower weight gain of a grassfed animal means that each cow produces methane emissions for a longer time.

Meanwhile, producing a pound of grassfed beef accounts for every bit as much nitrous oxide emissions as producing a pound of feedlot beef, and sometimes, due to the slower weight gain, even more. These emissions are not only fueling global warming. They are also acidifying soils, reducing biodiversity, and shrinking Earth’s protective stratospheric ozone layer.

The sobering reality is that cattle grazing in the U.S. is already taking a tremendous toll on the environment. Even with almost all U.S. beef cattle spending much of their lives in feedlots, seventy percent of the land area of the American West is currently used for grazing livestock. More than two-thirds of the entire land area of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho is used for rangeland. In the American West, virtually every place that can be grazed, is grazed. The results aren’t pretty. As one environmental author put it, “Cattle grazing in the West has polluted more water, eroded more topsoil, killed more fish, displaced more wildlife, and destroyed more vegetation than any other land use.”

Western rangelands have been devastated under the impact of the current system, in which cattle typically spend only six months or so on the range, and the rest of their lives in feedlots. To bring cows to market weight on rangeland alone would require each animal to spend not six months foraging, but several years, greatly multiplying the damage to western ecosystems.

The USDA’s taxpayer-funded Animal Damage Control (ADC) program was established in 1931 for a single purpose—to eradicate, suppress, and control wildlife considered to be detrimental to the western livestock industry. The program has not been popular with its opponents. They have called the ADC by a variety of names, including, “All the Dead Critters” and “Aid to Dependent Cowboys.”

In 1997, following the advice of public relations and image consultants, the federal government gave a new name to the ADC—“Wildlife Services.” And they came up with a new motto—“Living with Wildlife.”

But the agency does not exactly “live with” wildlife. What it actually does is kill any creature that might compete with or threaten livestock. Its methods include poisoning, trapping, snaring, denning, shooting, and aerial gunning. In “denning” wildlife, government agents pour kerosene into the den and then set it on fire, burning the young alive in their nests.

Among the animals Wildlife Services agents intentionally kill are badgers, black bears, bobcats, coyotes, gray fox, red fox, mountain lions, opossum, raccoons, striped skunks, beavers, nutrias, porcupines, prairie dogs, black birds, cattle egrets, and starlings. Animals unintentionally killed by Wildlife Services agents include domestic dogs and cats, and several threatened and endangered species.

All told, Wildlife Services intentionally kills more than 1.5 million wild animals annually. This is done at public expense, to protect the private financial interests of ranchers who graze their livestock on public lands, and who pay almost nothing for the privilege.

The price that western lands and wildlife are paying for grazing cattle is hard to exaggerate. Conscientious management of rangelands can certainly reduce the damage, but widespread production of grassfed beef would only multiply this already devastating toll.

“Most of the public lands in the West, and especially the Southwest, are what you might call ‘cow burnt.’ Almost anywhere and everywhere you go in the American West you find hordes of cows. . . . They are a pest and a plague. They pollute our springs and streams and rivers. They infest our canyons, valleys, meadows and forests. They graze off the native bluestems and grama and bunch grasses, leaving behind jungles of prickly pear. They trample down the native forbs and shrubs and cacti. They spread the exotic cheatgrass, the Russian thistle, and the crested wheat grass. Even when the cattle are not physically present, you see the dung and the flies and the mud and the dust and the general destruction. If you don’t see it, you’ll smell it. The whole American West stinks of cattle.” — Edward Abbey, conservationist and author, in a speech before cattlemen at the University of Montana in 1985
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 3:11 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 3:10 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
@BillF: This is a pretty huge topic.  I spent a lot of time reading about this stuff a while ago when I made my decision to be a vegan.  I think it's best to find your own sources since I don't know what kind of reporting you would respect vs. what you'd find slanted.  Vegan websites tend to have the most information in one place, but I'm guessing you'd see this as biased.  I found enough on non-vegan sites to be convinced it was impossible for me even to trust dairy products and eggs from "free range" and "organic" sources, and that's when I decided to drop the whole thing.- Not Tao

Yes, indeed, very big topic. I actually know the farmers who I buy meat/eggs from so am aware of the conditions, but I believe a lot of what is passed off as "grass fed" in supermarket is only mildly better than other factory farmed meat. I am not educated on the subject of grass fed beef sold in super markets so for now I can only call it a belief. Same to the environmental impact. It seems very abstract and hypothetical, and I do not have the knowledge or mind to compute all of the various forces at play if there were a huge industrial shift. I do know the meat I buy locally is more expensive than store bought, but not incredibly so. I imagine in urban areas there is some truth to the idea you have to be rich if you want to buy that sort of meat. There are alternatives but getting into all that seems less than useful now.
I do respect your decision, believe it is rooted in good intentions, so I am only thinking out loud, but I wonder if it is appropriate to refer to a vegan lifestyle as "cruelty free". I have read some numbers suggesting the amounts of animals killed to process grains, even organic grains, and their deaths were as most deaths paniful. Then you or I pay for the product, and the farmer has more money to continue the process of harvesting vegan products, that, although they are not meat, none the less caused the deaths of many animals (I can provide sources with numbers if you want, but I'm guessing that's peripheral). So if killing so that we may eat, and supporting others who do this, is cruel, isn't a vegan diet also cruel? The argument may be that those animals killed lived out their lives and were not kept in small cages, mistreated, but this seems not so different from the animals raised on humane certified farms. And here we are playing a game of degrees, this is slightly better than that is slightly better than that. Since it is obvious that animals are killed to harvest vegan products isn't it arbitrary to position that as the place an eater should stand ethically? It seems only a matter of degree and it often seems to solidify into an idenityt from which one can stand judgmentally in opposition. It becomes just another ego game. I do not get that vibe from you recently.
Perhaps the most ethical way to eat would be to only eat food that other people have thrown away. Thay way we are not contributing in any way that I can think of to the deaths of animals. But whose ready for that? Not me.
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 8:32 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 8:32 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Hey Bill,

We all have to eat something if we want to live, and most food production will cause some kind of suffering. My own view of the situation is that, at this point in time, being a vegan is the best way I can eat and cause the least amount of suffering directly. Suffering is hard to quantify. Do we count the people who work on the farms? Just the animals that are slaughtered? The animals that are killed making the feed for the animals that are slaughtered? At what point does my own culpability start? Do I count the massive destruction caused by oil spills, since gas is used to transport all food? What about the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs so my ancestors could evolve into humans and learn farming? To me, the most direct impact I have is on the animals I'm eating. I have only a secondary impact on the animals killed during plant harvesting. I can do my best to minimize the damage I cause, but it's inevitable somewhere in the great chain of being.

I tend to look at this as a moment-to-moment type thing, as well. If I were living in the arctic, and the only thing I could eat was seal meat or fish to survive, I might do that (hard to say, TBH. I've had a hard time killing things in the past, even the spiders I used to be deathly afraid of). A lot of this comes down to what I think I'd be willing to do personally. Since I would have no problem growing plants and eating them, but I would have a hard time killing animals to eat them, I don't really feel justified letting someone else do the "dirty work" for me. I was still eating eggs and milk until recently because of this line of reasoning (I would have no problem milking a cow or raising chickens), but after learning more about how the cows and chickens are treated, I decided to become vegan in order to lessen the secondary impact I was having on these animals. Wild animals being killed by tractors is accidental. Accidental death isn't something I feel a need to take responsibility for, since there isn't much I can do to prevent it. If there is some kind of farming that is developed to minimize accidental death of animals and insects (like organic farming which minimizes pesticides and chemicals) I will do my best to support it. I can directly prevent the death of farm animals raised for meat, milk, and eggs, though, so I take on that responsibility by being a vegan.

The main reason I am somewhat vocal about this, actually, is because of the general situation of factory farmed animals. If it was just about the ethics of killing animals or not, I probably wouldn't be interested in arguing it; that's a more personal decision people have to make for themselves. Factory farming is a kind of cultural problem that we need to get a grip on, and I think more people need to understand what's actually going on.
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 7:12 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 7:06 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
 To me, the most direct impact I have is on the animals I'm eating. I have only a secondary impact on the animals killed during plant harvesting. I can do my best to minimize the damage I cause, but it's inevitable somewhere in the great chain of being. - Not Tao

Yeah, I think that's why I see veganism as being arbitrary, which does not mean I don't respect your opinion. I just don't agree with it. The synopsis seems to me: Yes there are animals killed so I can eat, but I'm not eating the animals, so it's ethical. It puzzles me. There is a direct impact on the animals that die to bring you food. They are killed, sliced to death mostly, to bring you the food that you eat. If you were not purchasing the food the farmers would have to choose a different way to make money, and all those animals killed to bring you food, would live. So your food choices contribute to a process that kills animals. Your money pays to keep the process going. It seems to me that the "dirty work" is still being done for you. It's just out of your site. Which is perhaps even dirtier. To me, comparing the issue to slavery (I don't conceive of them as being on the same level but looking for a useful analogy) it's akin to saying, "I don't own any slaves, but slaves built my house and stitched my clothing". You will have to elaborate more on this direct and secondary impact: To me it seems no more ethical to purchase food that animals were killed in the process of harvesting than to eat animal who was killed to be food itself. What if there are more animals harmed in the process of harvesting than actual meat production? Would meat then be more ethical, or is there an aversion to animals as food? A recent estimate I read, that was labelled as "conversative", estimated 20 mice are killed to harvest every pound of organic rice, and that does not include all of the other animals killed.
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 9:29 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 9:16 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Not to dodge the qustion, but I think the point is moot.  It's somewhat rediculous to say a vegan diet contributes to more animal suffering because a majority of the animals being grown for consumption are fed on food that was grown in the same farm fields.

However, since I know you're a fan of logical consistency, if we embrace the argument and I were to only eat grass-fed beef as my source of meat, I'd still be eating vegetables as part of my diet which would contribute to the accidental death of animals on farm fields.  Further, I simply don't believe that farming crops causes as much destruction as you say.  Considering how much food a field of corn supplies, a very large number of animals would have to die in order to equate to the death of a cow used for meat - and this is assuming grass fed beef doesn't cause the death of any wild animals, which isn't true (deforestation, pollution of rivers, destruction of natural prarie habitat, etc).  Doing some completely arbitrary math from dubious internet sources, the death rate would have to be something like one animal per every 3 acres of land cultivated to compare to the one death of the cow.  This is considering the best possible conditions for your argument (no suffering on the part of the farm animal during it's life, no wild animals killed, etc).  At very best, it seems to me that a vegan diet might be equivalent to a diet baised solely on time-honored grass-fed farming with idyllic meadows and etc. as long as we forget that the cow is killed long before it would die naturally (two years at best vs. 10-15).  But if you were to follow this diet you'd probably have a heart attack in short order.  You'd also have to live in a very specific place since this type of farming doesn't really exist on a large scale and couldn't work for eveyone (unless it was industrialized and thus cause wild-animal deaths makng the whole point still more moot).  To cap it all off, if the farmers raising these cattle just grew plants by hand instead of animals on their land, they could probably yeild equivalent calories with less animal suffering.

The main point I was making about primary vs. secondary responsibility is that opting for a vegetable-baised diet is the most direct way to reduce harm.  I can't directly stop the farmer from running over mice, but I can directly stop the farmer from killing as many cows.  I am still responsible for the death of the mice, but this is less under my control and more varied depending on what food is bought and how it was cultivated.  By supporting organic farming, as an example, I can cause less animal deaths.  By supporting local small vegetable farms, I can cause even less.  It's about degrees.  This secondary responsibility is why I recently removed eggs and milk from my diet.  It isn't necessary to kill things in order to grow a tomato.  It is always necessary to kill something for meat.

But, like I said, this is all more for the sake of argument, since the reality is that pretty much all of the meat available to buy is fed food farmed in the same fields.  Even grass fed beef is often "finished" at factory farms (they are raised for 6 months on a ranch, then fattened up on corn and soy in a factory farm before slaughter - this is how virtually all american ranchers run business).  (EDIT: I feel inclined to interject that most of this post has ignored the systemized torture that is life for most farm animals - not to mention the farmers who have to work in the same conditions - just for the sake of the argument, even though this is the main reason I'm currently a vegan.) It would be nice to exist in a way that caused no suffering, but this probably will never be possible (until we start farming in space or using intelligent robots to detect animals underground and avoid them while planting). I do enjoy a good argument-for-its-own-sake now and again, but I didn't become vegan to be morally and logically perfect, I became a vegan to do the least amount of harm living in the culture that I do currently, which is based on industrial factory farming.
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 11:46 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 11:46 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
It's somewhat rediculous to say a vegan diet contributes to more animal suffering because a majority of the animals being grown for consumption are fed on food that was grown in the same farm fields.- Not Tao

That's my bad. I didn't specify. I was referring to locally raised animals, not animals on factory farms, fed grains.


However, since I know you're a fan of logical consistency, if we embrace the argument and I were to only eat grass-fed beef as my source of meat, I'd still be eating vegetables as part of my diet which would contribute to the accidental death of animals on farm fields.

Nope. Grass isn't harvested. It is the harvesting of the crops that kills the animals. So you may actually be responsible for less animal deaths buying locally raised meat than a bag of rice.


Further, I simply don't believe that farming crops causes as much destruction as you say. 


Well I'm not just guessing ha. What sounds far fetched? I'll provide a source.

assuming grass fed beef doesn't cause the death of any wild animals, which isn't true (deforestation, pollution of rivers, destruction of natural prarie habitat, etc). 

This would be generalizing. Not all farms are responsible for those things listed. Like most things and industries, it's varied. Can you provide a source for this?

Doing some completely arbitrary math from dubious internet sources, the death rate would have to be something like one animal per every 3 acres of land cultivated to compare to the one death of the cow. 

I don't understand this. Can you explain?

 I can't directly stop the farmer from running over mice, but I can directly stop the farmer from killing as many cows.  I am still responsible for the death of the mice, but this is less under my control and more varied depending on what food is bought and how it was cultivated.  By supporting organic farming, as an example, I can cause less animal deaths. - Do you have a source for belieivng that organic farming causes less animal deaths?
Also, by not buying the rice you exert just as much power as not buying meat. There's really no difference. It's just with rice people can conveniently look away or believe there were no animal deaths involved in bringing them food, so there is a sense of acting in a superior way, more ethically, and then fixing one's identity solidly around the idea of themselves as an ethical eater. It's really not so different from people who just eat meat and don't think about it because they don't want to. But you are not doing this, so not an accusation.

At very best, it seems to me that a vegan diet might be equivalent to a diet baised solely on time-honored grass-fed farming with idyllic meadows and etc. as long as we forget that the cow is killed long before it would die naturally (two years at best vs. 10-15)- Source?

It isn't necessary to kill things in order to grow a tomato.- Insects are killed to grow a tomato. I would be amazed if you could grow anything without even killing insects in the process, or destruction to their habitat. 

Even grass fed beef is often "finished" at factory farms (they are raised for 6 months on a ranch, then fattened up on corn and soy in a factory farm before slaughter - this is how virtually all american ranchers run business).- Often meaning mostly, or that out of the many farmers there are a number that do this? This contradicts what I know and have learned from various places where I've bought meat, at which places the animals live out their lives in their native pasture until "processing" (a.k.a the killing of animals). Can you provide a source for this? You wrote "virtually all" so I'm assuming you read a percentage somewhere? And how did they figure that out?

Thanks. Sorry for the question overload, but I'm curious.

Bill



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Vuthy Ou, modified 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 12:01 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 12:01 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 24 Join Date: 3/8/15 Recent Posts
Just pointing out that one of the biggest arguments against veganism seems to be that lots of animals are being killed in the production of vegetable products. Don't our food animals eat vegatable products? So we grow all this feed while killing a bunch of mice, then we kill the pig that ate all the feed and turned most of it into poop and urine. Wouldn't it be more efficient (and cause less suffering) to remove the pig and just turn the vegetables and water into poop and pee ourselves?
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 3:13 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 2:39 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
You are competly right - one reasong people say its morally ok is that they eat "grass fed" meat - even that is not really saving lives :

* 3% of US beef is described "grass fed" (they also arent purely fed grass)  -  so this is a tiny amount of the beef meat (and of course a microscopic amount of meat in general)

*Vegan diet is much more diverse than just grains (and some vegans dont eat grains)  so moving to veganism wont be such a derastic change in grain consumprtion as one might thing - especailly if you consider meat eaters eat grains as well  - this all should be added to the calculation

* most grass fed cows are still being  killed in the same industrial slouther houses the "regular" cows are killed in 

* "grass fed" isnt really grass fed all year only part of the year - so most grass fed are not really "grass fed" - so the animals in the field still die - cause grass fed cows still get grains parts of the year  (and a cow can eat much more grain in part of the year than a few peoeple can eat the entire year)  -  sometimes the cows are fed grains which is put in bins near the pasture or in piles  - or cows before slouther are moved from free range to feedlots and eat 95% grains for some months before slouther to fatten them up - and again a cow dosnt need to eat grain its entire life for it to eat a substintial amount of grain

*animals numbers killed from harvesting is exagerated by people, companies and organizations who want to justify meat consumption  (especially "Grass fed" industry)  (the link i give is just for an example of how data can be changed to fit an omnivore idiology)

http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans
http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans

* vegans dont eat fish as well - so this should be added into calculation

* animals are lots of time killed on purpse on farms by techniques that dont let them escape (like harvesting the sides first to trap animals in the middle and kill them)  - if farmers want to they can reduce death numbers drasticlly -   but unlike farming which can really reduce death numbers in the meat industry you will always have deaths  - some farmers do take measure that animals wouldnt get hurt

* here they say a vegaterian saves animal lives - i dont know how accurate it is but its sure a vegan diet will save more lives

http://www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/
http://www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/

* cow growing causes lots of pollution that also kills many animals  - so this also should be added to the calculation

* to make grass areas for the "grass fed" the agriculture departments kills thousand and thoushnds of wild animals

* in another forum i wouldnt say this - but as we are in a buddhist forum it matters greatly if the kill was done intentionally or not - if you kill an animal with intention its much worse than killing it by mistake (please note the relativism i talk with its not abosulote) of course its not ok that animals die in harvest but its not making as much bad kamma like killing on purpose but this its just another small aspect we should add to the calculation  - just like stepping on insects by accident is a whole different story than killing an insect on purpse which is a clear break of the first precept

*cowspiracy is a good movie about the "cow industry" including "grass fed" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryg99pbyjDA

* chickens pigs ducks turkeys are not "Grass fed"   - so eating eggs - bacon - chicken and turkey meat is still killing lots of animals - but many people who raise the "grass fed" excuse to eat meat suddenly dont care about the animals deaths from harvesting grains - this is for me  an important point which shows its all reasons that people find to not to go vegan

*something i found on a website which shows how "defenitions" like "grass fed" can be distorted and not being taken seriously and not be regulated
Grass fed  -  USDA regulated. It means, very narrowly, that animals eat grass.
According to the USDA definition, “grass-fed” animals can also be fed
grain, and can be raised on grass in confinement, as long as they have
access to pasture.

[As documented in The Omnivore’s Dilemma  and elsewhere, “access” can be — and often is — nothing more than a
facility with a door to a small outdoor area. Livestock is transferred
to this facility after they have been conditioned to remain indoors in a
facility with no such exit. Get to know your local butcher or rancher
and get to know your meat.]


So "grass fed" is just a feel good label for people to not think they are doing something wrong - just the latest lie of the "industry"  to fight  the spread of veganism

Of course this ignores the abusive milk industry - and of course this is just about the grass fed most people who give that claim eat eggs from an industry that even in the "free range" part are killing all the young chicks in horrible ways and in massive amounts

the way that is considered one of the most human ways to kill the chicks is "Maceration, using a large high-speed grinder into which the live chicks are fed."  - it dosnt kill all the chicks and some are just injured and left to die slowly 

*The US kills 450 milion chicks in a year!!!! this is not including the later killing of their mothers ect  -

*7 billion chickens are killed each year  in the US alone , 41,700,000 cows 15,200,000 pigs 4,300,000 sheep =

9.7 animals killed in the year 2000  in the us alone  (most likely its a higher number in 2015)   (this are states provided by usda not some animal rights organization - the meat industry has a strong infulance on the USDA  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/politics/  so if anything this numbers are lower than what they actually are  )  -add fish numbers which was estimated globally at 0.97-2.7 trillion and these estimate dosnt include unrecoreded like illigal fishing or fish discarded back to see

*  A short video i found now - it only reffers to part of the issues i raised not all of them - i didnt base any of my above points on this video but i think its a short and nice watch  https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=361&v=1w1da3wdTjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=361&v=1w1da3wdTjk



* of course as buddhists we should consider the most important thing is suffering - which is hard to measure in numbers

yes its still clear from the first videos i gave sorry but for me they are enough if you keep an open mind thats why i repeat them  :

animals and the buddha : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc[url=]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0MWAAykFuc

best speech you will hear : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9EzlDT4WLQ

Or the movie "earthlings" which i dont remember if i posted before : http://earthlings.com/?page_id=32  http://earthlings.com/?page_id=32
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 3:44 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 3:44 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
water drop:
The Meateater's Diliemna, Atheroscelorisis  

What I think, if you eat meat, cut out the beef and pork, completlely, even cut out poultry, eat salmon or sardines, cut out as much cheese as possible, eat lots of nuts, beans, fruits, vegetables, oatmeal, some brown rice.  Otherwise you could get Atherosclerosis.  I know blah blah blah... Not preachin' , just sayin'  

The body just can not handle an excess of meat all the time, if you eat meat alot, and want to be healthy, you will have to fast also to clear out all the grease.  Greasy grease greases...  If you do not care about being healthy, eat a pork chop sandwiched inside a doughnut, slap on a slice of cheese, smoke a cig, and chase it with a whiskey milk shake, and you could build some nice arteries like in the pic below.  




Liver and Onions, Thats not right...

Psi
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 4:11 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 4:09 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Psi:

Perhaps I should not have posted, for there are many out there with Atherosclerosis, in fact I did not really know of the disease until I had an Uncle diagnosed with it a couple of years ago.  But, perhaps if more people knew about the health effects of eating too much meat, especially beef and pork, they may be able to save themselves alot of unnecessary dukkha in the future.  It is a reality.  Atheroslcerosis is a physical samskara based upon past actions,  cause and effect, preceded by the enslavement of the mind to the taste sensations.  Mind is the forerunner.

Eating Animals should have a label.

 Eat at your own risk.

Psi
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 4:19 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 4:19 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
Psi:
Psi:

Perhaps I should not have posted, for there are many out there with Atherosclerosis, in fact I did not really know of the disease until I had an Uncle diagnosed with it a couple of years ago.  But, perhaps if more people knew about the health effects of eating too much meat, especially beef and pork, they may be able to save themselves alot of unnecessary dukkha in the future.  It is a reality.  Atheroslcerosis is a physical samskara based upon past actions,  cause and effect, preceded by the enslavement of the mind to the taste sensations.  Mind is the forerunner.

Eating Animals should have a label.

 Eat at your own risk.

Psi

sadhu sadhu sadhu - i think you explained it well 

Atheroslcerosis is a physical samskara based upon past actions,  cause and effect, preceded by the enslavement of the mind to the taste sensations  -

thats an excelent explanation - couldnt say it better  myself
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 4:48 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 4:48 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
* "grass fed" isnt really grass fed all year only part of the year - so most grass fed are not really "grass fed" - so the animals in the field still die - cause grass fed cows still get grains parts of the year  (and a cow can eat much more grain in part of the year than a few peoeple can eat the entire year) -
This is not true. The animals at the local pastures are indeed out all year. I verify this when I drive by. Your argument only works by generalizing, and not accounting for subtlelties. The word for this is propraganda. If you want to be an ethical and honest communocator, you could use words like "some" or even "many".

*animals numbers killed from harvesting is exagerated by people who want to justify meat consumption  (especially "Grass fed" industry) 

http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans
http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans

Having read this I know the article does not give a mention of how many animals are killed to harvest grains. It mentions only in one case where 1/33 mice were killed. It does not anywhere in this article mention the total number of animals killed to harvest a product, but the percentage from one group. So the article is artful propaganda. It doesn't actually say anything about the number of animals killed but gives you a number from one study, the variables of which are made unclear purposefully.
Can you provide a scientific article that backs this sentiment up? As we've seen there are reports to the contrary, so if you want to be an honest and ethical person you have to acknowledge the evidence is contradictory. In ignoring the contradictory nature of the evidence, the subtleties, you are not being honest with yourself, or others.


* here they say a vegaterian saves animal lives - i dont know how accurate it is but its sure a vegan diet will save more lives 

http://www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/
http://www.countinganimals.com/how-many-animals-does-a-vegetarian-save/

They make the same argument Vuthy makes above. That animals are fed grains. But not all meat eaters eat grains. And as a vegan, you do not have to eat grains. Why not take it one step further, and avoid grains? That is an honest question. You can get carbs from other sources causing less harm. 


* to make grass areas for the "grass fed" the agriculture departments kills thousand and thoushnds of wild animals 

Can you provide a source for this from a peer reviewed scientific journal?

* chickens pigs ducks turkeys are not "Grass fed"   - so eating eggs - bacon - chicken and turkey meat is still killing lots of animals - but many people who raise the "grass fed" excuse to eat meat suddenly dont care about the animals deaths from harvesting grains - this is for me  an important point which shows its all reasons that people find to not to go vegan 

Can you provide a source for this? Who are the many? 

*
Grass fed  -  USDA regulated. It means, very narrowly, that animals eat grass. 
According to the USDA definition, “grass-fed” animals can also be fed 
grain, and can be raised on grass in confinement, as long as they have 
access to pasture.- 

This is a lie. I fact checked it by going to the USDA standards for grass fed claims at the USDA site. (
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5063842) What I learned is that 

"Animals must eat only grass and forage throughout their lives, except when consuming milk before weaning. They can’t eat or be fed grain or grain byproducts, but food from cereal crops in the vegetative (pre-grain) state is ok.
They must have “continuous access to pasture during the growing season.” The growing season is defined as the time between average last frost and average first frost in the animal’s locale. During winter months or drought conditions, they must continue to eat only grass and forage — no grains."

Here I have demonstrated by going to the source that you are pushing false propraganda on us. If you want to know what the USDA policy is go to their website, not a vegan website. I really feel you are not a very ethical communicator, and I wish you would be more honest with your communications. It is not a language issue.

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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 2:09 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 2:01 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Bill, that article did show that the research you seem to be relying on to prove your case (that harvesting grain kills small animals) is based on data correlation rather than a study of direct causation.  It makes sense that there would be less small animals at harvest time than in the spring due to natural predation and mating cycles.  Do you have any scientific sources that can show a direct link to harvesting grain and small animal death?
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 3:23 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 3:08 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
A short video i found now - it only reffers to part of the issues i raised not all of them - i didnt base any of my above
points on this video but i think its a short and nice watch 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=361&v=1w1da3wdTjk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=361&v=1w1da3wdTjk
 
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 6:23 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 6:23 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Not Tao,

      You are not a good person to communicate with because you just avoid responding at a certain point. Perhaps it is when the questions become uncomfortable. Perhaps it is when they seem to you to be reiterated. I would love to have an intelligenct, scientific based conversation with you about this subject, but feel less inclined with you since you just duck out after people respond with objectivity or experiential enecdotes to your gross generalizations. I have seen this happen so many times to those corresponding with you that I am weary to go there this morning. Perhaps I am getting a little wiser. Perhaps not. I am happy to engage you on this subject when you respond to the questions previously addressed to you that you did not respond to. Good morning.
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 7:36 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 7:27 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
Bill - i wrote a long explanation but deleted it before posting cause i think to myself - whats the point you arent really listening you are looking for loop holes in what i say


USDA is as biased source as a vegan websites - where do you get your information what organization do you base your information on ? could they be from organizations that are part of the "industry" ? 

You gave from USDA site this : 

"but food from cereal crops in the vegetative (pre-grain) state is ok" - so animals dont die from this crops ? (may they dont)


They must have “continuous access to pasture during the growing season.”    as proof what i said was wrong but it was exactly what i said - it dosnt contradict what i said

continus access to a pasture can be inturpreted to accsess to a small yard (which they will define as pasture)   who will tell them its not ok ? the USDA ? the body that is strongly influanced by the meat industry ?  do you think the farmers are not using  loopholes in the wroding of this "rule" ?  - that was the point of the article i quoted from (and as far as i remember it was not a vegan website just one showing how all this defanitions and labeling are bullshit - i cant find the link though)

also what about the grass-fed cows being fed grains a few months before slougther to fatten them up ? i know its a loophole farmers use

and again you might be right about one point but look at all the evidance

if you keep an open mind and try to understand the point of my quote you would understand it - it feels to me like you ignore what im trying to say and just try to find fault in it to win some imaginry debate contest - thats why i got tierd to answer every claim you get

thats why i didnt answer jinxes comments at all - should i waste so much precuis time explainig to him why cows wont go extint when he dosnt even really care ? does he care for the houndrerds of animals going extinct each year  ?  or is it all just an excuse to eat meat ?

is the fact that grass fed cows in brazil are causing animals there to go extinct bother him ? what is this obssesion with cows extinction - its not an honest thing -

did you always thought that eating cow meat is helping save animal lives - or is it just a nice reason you found out now to justify your meat consumption ?  
 
and as i said except animal lives there is the issue of morality of eating another being
 
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 8:40 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 8:39 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Bill - i wrote a long explanation but deleted it before posting cause i think to myself - whats the point you arent really listening you are looking for loop holes in what i say 


I don't understand. This is the first part of your message, but then you responded to me anyways? Or, you changed your mind about the not listening? And I am not looking for loop holes. I don't find you particularly convincing because I don't think you are an intellectually honest communicator. And I am pointing that out because I think it's unethical. When I read you, I just read feelings. It's like someone trying to convince me that life sucks by playing morbid music very loudly in my ear and then telling me repeatedly, "Just listen to the lyrics! You're lying to yourself if you're happy!" 

I actually am interested in discussing this, but I am interested in discussing this in a sensible way that tries as best as possible to objectively look at sources, feelings and assumptions. In my perception your goal is to spread propraganda. You have strong feelings about the subject and don't seem particularly bothered by the false truths you spread in the process, your pejorative labeling and comparison of others, and wholesale generalizations that only account for part of the truth. If you were more honest and balanced it would be okay, and we could discuss it. As gently as possible, I am suggesting that your skills for critically thinking about and honestly representing this issue, seem to be weak, or non-existent.

To answer your question at the bottom of the page, no I did not always suppose grass fed locallly raised meat was better. I did not care about food ethics at all as a teenager. Never thought about it just as there are many world issues you are probably ignorant about, but contribute to, so they bother you not at all. When I was 22, or 23, I watched a video about chickens in a slaughter house. I was so moved by the video I gave up meat that day. I considered veganism, but did not become a vegan. I don't know if I felt I was transitioning to that, or what. I still have a vegan cookbook somewhere in the house, or a book about veganism as an introduction, so I must have been considering that at some point. I felt more ethical because I did not see meat on my plate. It wasn't my fault. I just wasn't educated about food production. At a certain point I came upon Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma", which was reccomended by a friend. After reading it I became more interested in food ethics, and researched for a long period of time. And I researched sources on all sides of the fence. I read Peter Singer, I read Paleo authors, I perused vegan websites, and looked at the arguments for and against. This is what former vegan activist Lierre Keith would call the transition from childhood ignorance to adult knowledge. Adult knowledge knows that food is not just about food, but is a multi-layered process involving animals, plants, environments, transportation, capitol, and people. It is easier, and safer to pretend that because you see no meat on your plate you are acting ethically. I am saying it can be (note the avoidance of gross generalizations) unwholesome to eat a vegan diet as the previously listed factors may add up to all sorts of harm behind your plate. You may see a pretty diamond, and think it harmless, but somewhere there is a 14 year old girl with one arm behind that diamond. But all you see is the diamond. And you think, this is nice, it's beautiful, it's wholesome.
After an extended period of research I returned to meat. But I committed to buying meat from locations where I could support local farmers (wholesome), support the proper treatment of animals raised for human consumption (wholesome), and support my own biology (wholesome). Just as you are okay with the fact that animals die to bring you food so am I. Life and death are intimately intertwined. Adult knowledge. We can act compassionately in light of this fact. Because animals die no matter what you eat, and because some evidence suggests the veganism is both unhealthy and also responsible for animal deaths, I find veganism to be ethically questionable. I find the stories of former vegan activitists compelling for their insight into how they had bought into the lie of veganism, and how they had formed a false self image around veganism. I suggest you read Lierre Keith, but of course I can't make you. I would love to have an honest discussion about what you find interesting in her book.
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 12:20 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 12:13 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
Bill F.:
Bill - i wrote a long explanation but deleted it before posting cause i think to myself - whats the point you arent really listening you are looking for loop holes in what i say 


I don't understand. This is the first part of your message, but then you responded to me anyways? Or, you changed your mind about the not listening


This is what i talk about - try to understand what im saying and not just try to find faults in what im saying .... if you would try to understand what im trying to say you could have gotten to the conclusion that i wrote a long post responding to all your replys and given full explanations , but than thought whats the point and gave you just a short reply of one example - just to show you how you look for faults in what i say and ignore all the truth that is uncomftarble    
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 6/4/15 11:04 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/4/15 11:04 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
water drop:


is the fact that grass fed cows in brazil are causing animals there to go extinct bother him ? what is this obssesion with cows extinction - its not an honest thing -
We get tired of arguing with you because you only want to see your side.  We agree there are issues with many current farming practices including both production of vegetarian products and meat production.  At issue is your continuing blanket incorrect statements about only meat production.  Grass fed cows may indeed endanger some native animals in some places, but so does traditional field farming endanger some animals in some places.  Many articles are out there on slash and burn farming in the tropics removing vast areas of jungle for instance.  I have not seen any articles fairly comparing the entire issue across all the globe, but in some areas, field crops are far more destructive than cows, like for instance in vast areas of the desert southwest where cows have minimal impact on the chapparal and require little supplemental water compared to crops.  I have said this multiple times but you just ignore it and only concentrate on some other areas where you can say cows might be more destructive there, totally ignoring in situation where crops are likely more destructive.  You don't want to see the whole picture so you avoid all evidence that does not support what you already decided is true.  Certainly there are many people here who consider all the various arguments fairly and then decide that they feel vegetarianism is still right for them, and I can respect that decision greatly, because most of those people do not come on here writing half truths, incorrectly remembered falsehoods and ignoring every argument they don't have a comback for, and then insulting and passing judgement on others who disagree with them.   If you come with an attitude of moral superiority and judgement, I think you will find that the result with be people fighting with you.  The intent and feelings behind words tends to come out even if you try to hide them and people will tend to respond accordingly. 

 
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 12:57 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/30/15 12:57 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Hi Bill,

It might suprise you to hear this, but I was thinking something similar about your debate style.  I already responded to your questions in two posts, but you didn't seem to like the answers I gave, so you kept asking.  I didn't think it would do any good to answer a third time, since you would probably be unsatisfied with my answer again.  You've been doing a little victory dance by painting me as a confused hypocrite who only debates as long as he's winning, which is fine if that's how you want to end it, but just because one side gets tired of talking doesn't mean the other side was more convincing.  You seem a lot more interested in justifying the point you're making than actually listening.  I've noticed your responses to a few of my posts were very superficial, especially as the debate wore on, and you seemed to miss the point completely in your excitement to latch onto one sentence at a time and fire off a quick retort.  Mainly, you don't seem to like the fact that I'm attempting to demonstrate the irrelevance of your point rather than accept it for the sake of argument.  To be fair, though, I did also accept it for the sake of argument in one post and demonstrated why I still disagreed with it.  Anyway, I don't mean to rely on ad hom attacks to prove any point, but since you're throwing them my way, I thought I'd take the time to bounce them back at you, haha.

I went back and forth about posting my last question, since I'd already stepped out, but I am genuinely interested if this was the source of your information since it did get me thinking about the web of responsibiity.  If you don't feel like getting into it, that's fine.  I probably won't debate it any further.  I was just looking for some solid ground for my own thought process into the future.
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/31/15 8:04 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/31/15 8:03 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Rather than continue quarelling the most compassionate thing I can provide is information. So here is the information, the floodgates, and they have been loosed. All of the information/studies are provided in the back, as references. Whether or not you choose to look is your karma, your choice, but it feels potentially harmful to not put the information out there. I offer this in the spirit that those who are vegan, vegetarian, considering, might honestly think about the process of food, and act compassionately from there, for themselves, for the planet and other sentient beings. I understand as well that food often becomes not just food, but a self-image, and so giving up that self image is not so different from the so called dark night stages of path, in that what we had formerly taken with certainty to be self, is shown to be false, with all of its attendant instability and potential for bleed through. And so the best I can do is respond to that with compassion as well, which I have failed at times to do. Good Sunday.: 

Lierre Keith

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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 4:22 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/29/15 4:22 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Just pointing out that one of the biggest arguments against veganism seems to be that lots of animals are being killed in the production of vegetable products. Don't our food animals eat vegatable products? So we grow all this feed while killing a bunch of mice, then we kill the pig that ate all the feed and turned most of it into poop and urine. Wouldn't it be more efficient (and cause less suffering) to remove the pig and just turn the vegetables and water into poop and pee ourselves?- Vuthy

 What I find tiring in some of these discussions is the extent to which vegetarians/vegans (assuming you are one, may be wrong) seem to lack a basic agricultural understanding. To answer your questions, "don't our food animals eat vegetable products?". It depends on the animal. Grass is not a vegetable. It's an herb. The local farms where I buy meat (where the animals graze all year long in contrast to Water Drop's propaganda below) have been family farms for generations. The grass is already there. The process of preparing the soil, and then harvesting the crops does not happen. So to answer your question, no, not the animals I buy. They are locally raised, grass fed lamb and cow, both ruminants. They do not eat grains.
I also do not eat grains. I also do not eat chicken, or pork. This is why I believe my diet causes less deaths numerically than the average vegan diet. Can anyone prove me wrong with a scientifically validated article, and not propaganda from pro-vegan sites?
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 6/3/15 2:38 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/3/15 2:38 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Not Tao:


The main reason I am somewhat vocal about this, actually, is because of the general situation of factory farmed animals. If it was just about the ethics of killing animals or not, I probably wouldn't be interested in arguing it; that's a more personal decision people have to make for themselves. Factory farming is a kind of cultural problem that we need to get a grip on, and I think more people need to understand what's actually going on.
I dont' think there is anything to argue here, no one here has disagreed with you that current factory animal conditions are not good.  Wouldn't that mean the real argument here then, according to my perceptions of what you said, is how to fix that?  Is it more efficent to not eat any animal product and maybe to try to convince others to do the same?  Or is it more efficient to EITHER not eat meat OR carefully support farmers who do it more humanely so that such options become more available and popular.  In many areas, if you do a bit of research, you can find such farmers.  I buy my beef from a farmer whose cows are right there in the field, I can see them at any time and touch them through the fence if they happen to want to come over.  They are 100% grassfed and organic.  It's a bit of a drive but I can buy a very large chunk of beef at wholesale, cut it into smaller pieces and store in the freezer.  When bought wholesale, my price for tritip last time was about $2.50 per pound, less than most factory farm lesser grades of beef.  I buy about $80.00 worth at a time.  By doing our due diligence, we support the farmers who are truly trying to do it better and buying less from those who aren't.  If the issue is mainly factory farms, then would it be more efficient to help the meat eaters eat better and more healthy or only wag fingers at them?  I suspect one big reason why people argue more and solve problems less is an adversarial attitude between different groups.  There tends to be an attitude that either members of another group convert their thoughts or the other group wags fingers and passes judgement.  That alienates the other side and they may be less willing to listen. If the attitude was more of one of working together to find mutually agreeable solutions, maybe we could get more problems better solved more efficiently.
-Eva    
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 6/4/15 9:12 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 6/4/15 9:12 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
Ten  minutes before work so I'll try to rattle this off quick: I emailed Lierre Keith who was a former vegan who began a study of agriculture and animals that has lasted years, asking about the numerical number of deaths to harvest grains vs. locally raised, grass fed cattle and grains vs. vegetables. Here is her response:


Yes, there have been some estimates made about animals killed by grain production. Besides the biotic cleansing that is agriculture, the death rate may be as high as 1000 per acre. And that's just for the animals people care about--birds, small mammals, and reptiles. Contrast that with the one beef cow that could be grown on that same acre. So it's 1000 to 1.

Grains vs. vegetables:


They are more damaging to grow because of the intense amounts of fertilizer needed (grain at this point is oil on a stalk). But beyond that, agriculture itself is the problem because of what it is--biotic cleansing. Taking over an entire ecosystem, scraping the life off it, and then planting it to human use, until the soil gives out entirely.


I actually bothered to read the article that is cited on the flaming vegan claiming that grain production is not responsible for the deaths of field animals. The article does say that the actual machines of harvest do not kill the majority of mice found dead from that study. The article says the mice were killed because removing their cover to grow the grains left them with no defense against predators. The vegan website makes no mention of this. I've read their article and the study three times. They never once mention what the study makes clear: that agriculture and grain production were the culprits for the deaths of the animals. Propaganda. Why must the truth be skewed? I believe the answers vary but are most likely dependence on grains for what they do to the brain, and a self image that must be upheld and block out opposing information. 

Off to work. Will fill in more later.
Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 6:01 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 5:55 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
Not Tao,
"The only way to accurately reference "better" or "worse" (preference) is on an individual level where animals feel preference."
Fair enough. I agree. And I think each individual cow would choose to live versus not live at all.

Consider it this way: If the whole of humanity was enslaved by aliens for food processing, would you want to have children?
If we got to spend half our lives in our natural environment frolicking about in peace and equanimity, definitely. If we had to live in cages..maybe. It's a tougher question. I don't know if the factory farm animal would prefer to live or not live. That is far more debatable.

I do try and eat only pasture raised animals, both cows, and chickens etc..but not because of any ethical concerns. Simply because they are healthier. If it was healthier and cheaper to eat factory farmed meat in the most disgusting conditions I would eat that meat.

I have very little emotional sensitivity towards cows and chickens. I don't see how having such emotional attachment to animals who couldn't give a crap about you, and don't do anything for you is rational. If it hurts you so much to see animals suffer my thought is "sucks to think that way", it doesn't bother me. At least not animals that my mind equates with food.

The killing of animals for food causes me no suffering whatsoever and only gives me pleasure.
The killing of animals causes the vegan suffering adn they are left without the pleasure and health benefits of eating quality meat.

I can't see any rational reason why anyone would adopt the vegan view.
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 8:58 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 8:52 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Jinxed P:
I have very little emotional sensitivity towards cows and chickens. I don't see how having such emotional attachment to animals who couldn't give a crap about you, and don't do anything for you is rational. If it hurts you so much to see animals suffer my thought is "sucks to think that way", it doesn't bother me. At least not animals that my mind equates with food.

The killing of animals for food causes me no suffering whatsoever and only gives me pleasure.
The killing of animals causes the vegan suffering adn they are left without the pleasure and health benefits of eating quality meat.

I can't see any rational reason why anyone would adopt the vegan view.


Veganism is an action - a way of living - not a viewpoint. Someone might become a vegan because they feel bad for animals, but this doesn't necessarily have to be true. You don't have to care about something to understand it's wrong to torture it. You just need to understand that you have some kinship to it - that it can feel like you do and that it experiences life like you do. My understanding of animals, after living with a few of them and reading the current scientific literature about them, is that they are much more similar to me than they are different from me. I've decided to extend "personhood" to animals and give them the same respect I'd give other people. If an animal were to attack me, I would fight against it the same way I'd fight against another person. If an animal moves into my house, I'd evict it the same way I would a person. I don't really care about cows or pigs or fish, generally speaking, but I think it's wrong to kill them in the same way it's wrong to kill a person. Other animals kill each other and other people kill each other, too, that doesn't make it right for me to kill people or animals.

As humans, we're lucky because we have a lot of choices and an ability to understand them. We're one of the most powerful forces of nature on the planet at the moment. We don't have any responsibility to take it seriously (tornadoes and volcanoes don't really take anything seriously) but I like the fact that we have the choice to do so if we want to. I think this gives us a privileged viewpoint which we can use to develop into what we want to be.  I would like to be as harmless as possible, simply because I find those kind of people the most pleasant to be around. emoticon
Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/21/15 10:00 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/21/15 9:58 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
Not Tao,

When it comes to issues of right and wrong the discussion always boils down to meta-ethics. What meta-ethical theory do you espouse? Unluess you have a philosophical background this is probably not something you are terribly familiar with, so here is a quick intro clip so you can understand where i'm coming from..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWuzk1ZigcU

And again, I think the evidence shows that if you are vegan, while you might wanting to be causing as least harm as possible, it is actually self-defeating. The way to truly cause the least harm would be to support local, pasture raised animals.
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water drop, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 4:30 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 3:26 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 91 Join Date: 1/16/15 Recent Posts
First thanks not tao for going vegan - i know you stated you are not vegan in a thread not long ago  - so  its nice to hear you are vegan now


and i hope people will consider going vegan - cause lots of  things that are hapening in the industry are hapening in "Free range" yes it is better - but its still messed up    (stealing is better than murder but they are both wrong)

I will post here a lecture that refers to some of the issues raised here

I belive people here will benift from watching it    - and remember maybe he dosnt convince you on some statment he says - maybe he says some sentance that seems ilogical to you -  please focus on the general speech,  the general message - im sure if you look very close you can find some (loophole) point where you think he is mistaken - you can find it in any arguments he says please keep an open mind and look at the speeach as a whole - watch all the video not just 5 minutes of it and find something worng in those 5 minutes - you dont have to agree to 100% of what he says


If you choose to watch - please watch from the begining to the end - dont skip parts from the speech
 
Its called : "The most important speech you will ever hear"  (duration : 1 hour)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5hGQDLprA8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5hGQDLprA8



Q&A : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PR64HGJoyk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PR64HGJoyk
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 4:25 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 4:18 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
That doesn't make sense. The least harmful option would be to grow my own vegetables, or to buy vegetables from a grower who is dedicated to minimizing harm in their farm practices. I think, each time we eat a meal, or each time we buy food, we need to compare each option in context and consider where responsibility begins and ends. By purchasing meat, a person is directly responsible for the death of the animal and also indirectly responsible for the industry that produced the animal. Purchasing vegetables also means the buyer is indirectly responsible for the industry that produces the vegetables, but it has removed the most direct relationship to harm. We each have to make a decision about where responsibility begins and ends, and how much weight we can put on the varying shades of responsibility that emerge.

Here's a non-food-related example. Buying a diamond is a decision with many shades of moral responsibility attached to it. If you buy a diamond that was produced from African slave-labor, you are directly supporting slavery. Obviously, a person should do their best to avoid this. However, by supporting the diamond trade, they're raising the price of diamonds, which means the slave-drivers will still be searching for diamonds. How much responsibility does the buyer have for this if they buy a non-african diamond? Why not buy a morally-irrelevant opal instead?

The most practical argument I can see in terms of causing the least harm is veganism, because veganism is about choosing vegetable based options in all comparable circumstances. It's a false dilemma to say local grass-fed cattle should be chosen over walmart vegetables because this choice isn't one that exists in real life. If I go to walmart, any plants that I buy there are going to be less harmful than any meat that I buys there - both the plants and the meat are sourced from the industrial farming complex. If I go to an organic farm, buying only vegetables is less harmful than buying meat, as both are sourced oganically. If I go to someone's house, and they know I don't eat meat, they won't make me any. Even with hunting, foraging for nuts and berries is less harmful that shooting a deer. When each choice is taken in context, choosing the vegetables over meat is always less harmful in practical experience.

As a response to jake: The reason hunting is necessary is because people are hunting and have been hunting. If all hunting was stopped today - including hunting the natural predators - balance would be restored on its own fairly quickly. Because the animals can't tell us what they prefer (human hunters vs. wolves) it's best to give them the freedom to decide their own fates. Considering the way humans hunt - with a completely modern arsenal of technology - I, personally, would assume the deer would choose to live only with natural predators since they may actually have a fighting chance for survival. Humans usually kill the strongest animals in a way that the animal doesn't even have a chance of escape, which is not true to nature or very fair to the way nature has developed the animals. In an evenly matched battle of the wits, most modern hunters would never kill anything, simply because it would require a great deal of skill. Now, if the deer was going to an execution, it would probably choose to be killed by a human rather than a pack of wolves - but living in a natural environment with predators is not a death sentence or an execution whereas being hunted by humans generally is.

As an anecdote - when I was in high school the science teacher invited everyone to come watch him feed a live rat to the anaconda. When he noticed I was uncomfortable about this he said, "but it's natural!" What he didn't seem to understand was that anacondas don't live in glass tanks in nature, and that rats were rarely trapped in inescapable pits with hungry predators. In nature, the rat could dig a hole, run up a tree, or dive into a river to escape. What I was uncomfortable about was that the science teacher was running a colluseum and all the students watching were there for the bloodshed.

I grew up in hunting culture and it's the same thing. Animals are sport, like a video game. A way to play indians in the woods and then go home to modern society. If buying a hunting liscense required people to kill a live cougar with their bare hands in a cage match, hunting might be more respectable and live up to the image that hunters have in their minds about what it is. This is a fiction, though.  The reality is closer to blood sport and the thrill of killing something for fun without any danger of being hurt in the process.
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katy steger,thru11615 with thanks, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 4:56 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 4:53 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1740 Join Date: 10/1/11 Recent Posts
<whistling, passing through debate zone, commercial break, white flag!>


... again, [url=]NC State has a free online permaculture course, & one can donate funds they save (from a paid week-long field cour$e at someone's homestead) to farm animal sancuary, land/preserve conservation, popularizing human population restraint, education, housing, clear waterways, home insulation, telsa battery..

good water and food access = important for human peace and peace of mind amid our fellow species.

Just open up the newsfeed...

Oof,  it's a good time for universal paramis, no? 

Generosity, 
ethical discipline,
patience,
joyous perseverance/resolve,
meditative stabilization / studious reflection,
lovingkindness
balanced understanding

And it's still a good time (and thread) for me to consider our/my own causality, what we/I put in motion. As the Rumi poem goes (in translation) let the beauty I love, be what/how I do.

I've turned a bid of a blind eye on foods I buy recently. So I appreciate the thread.

Businesses call us all "consumers" and that's a very useful role to play.

<commercial over>

______________________________
Vegan recipe link for those interested:
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/channel/vegan-recipe/
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 5:03 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 5:03 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
https://m.facebook.com/notes/michael-slusher/common-anti-vegan-arguments-how-to-quickly-refute-the-same-lame-excuses-that-are/120926087965760

Haha, so, every argument on thus thread, as well as many I'd never even considered before, are in this post...
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 9:24 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 9:24 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Not Tao:
Now, if the deer was going to an execution, it would probably choose to be killed by a human rather than a pack of wolves - but living in a natural environment with predators is not a death sentence or an execution whereas being hunted by humans generally is.
Not so, in order to even the playing field, humans in 1st world countries abide by laws that limit our power, only certain weapons allowed in certain seasons with permits required, with only a few bullets, must be walking (humans are really slow compared to natural predators like wolves and every prey in town can outrun us easily), and only a limited number of animals with certain characteristics can typically be taken.  Animals that don't stay out of the way of slow loud stomping industrial humans are not the best survivors.  In many areas, humans probably do not have any higher success rate than wolves or other predators.  We can't smell our prey in advance so tracking is a lot harder, a few of us can read footprints but most are not adept at it and it doesn't work on some terrain, and the prey need only run over the next hills and we are screwed, whereas wolves would be able to chase prey for hours.  Plus the prey populations are usually monitored to maintain even levels when we hunt so only a certain amount are taken.  With natural predators, there tends to be a lot of cycling of feast and famine between predator and prey.  First too many prey, then predators breed rapidly, then overpopulate and the prey are decimated, then many predators starve.  Then it starts over with, it's a harsh system. 
As an anecdote - when I was in high school the science teacher invited everyone to come watch him feed a live rat to the anaconda. When he noticed I was uncomfortable about this he said, "but it's natural!" What he didn't seem to understand was that anacondas don't live in glass tanks in nature, and that rats were rarely trapped in inescapable pits with hungry predators. In nature, the rat could dig a hole, run up a tree, or dive into a river to escape. What I was uncomfortable about was that the science teacher was running a colluseum and all the students watching were there for the bloodshed.
This particular argument is kind of weird to me.  Either way, the snake is going to eat.  If he attacks and quickly kills 5 rats in a cage or if in the wild he chases 10 rats and more slowly catches and kills only half those rats, either way, 5 rats die.  In fact, in the latter, twice as many rats are terrorized than in the former.  Either way, the cycle of life and death is an integral part of life on this planet.  Every single thing that lives does so off the corpses of those who died before.  It's the way this world was designed.  You should also know that sometimes a rat does fight and damage a snake and even sometimes kills it.  Mice are wimpy but rats can be dangerous even to snakes.     
I grew up in hunting culture and it's the same thing. Animals are sport, like a video game. A way to play indians in the woods and then go home to modern society. If buying a hunting liscense required people to kill a live cougar with their bare hands in a cage match, hunting might be more respectable and live up to the image that hunters have in their minds about what it is.
That is the way you choose to look at it.  Humans have always been predators via our brains, not our strength.  And AS predators, what is completely natural is that the predator is stronger than the prey.  Some think we developed our brains to make tools precisely because we were so wimpy physically.  Wolves would not survive if often the deer were able to kill the wolf, predators are always stronger than prey.  But prey are often faster, something still very true. As for hunters, yes some are respectful of the prey more than others.  Like cats, predators often do enjoy what they do, it comes naturally.  Sometimes a predator will get in a chicken coop and go crazy and kill all the chickens, even though he could not even eat half of them.  Many cats love to kill small game even though they don't even like the taste thanks to canned cat food.  The thrill of the hunt is in the genetics of a predator.  For millions of years, tribes of humans have done this with what weapons we could make.  Suddenly people have recently invented refrigerators, airplanes and trucks and now some would like the evolutionary success of millions of years to disappear in a few generations.  I don't think that's likely even with large amounts of finger wagging.  Unnatural would be the cat suddenly feeling sorry for all the prey animals and trying to live off of oatmeal instead.  I am not sure what all that means in terms of evolution and how humans will progress from here.  But hunting is a huge part of our genetic heritage for our entire history so I think any efforts at change will have to take that into account in a more respectful way, respectful both to the prey and to the hunter, both of which are very natural for this planet. Predator and prey is an integral part of the Earth game system.  If we want to get off the ride and separate ourselves from it, which I think is the point of enlightenment, I don't think we can do that by hating the Earth game system any more than we can do that by being in love with it.  Part of letting go of clinging is to let go of trying to make others do what you tell them or think they should do or making judgements on a setup that is pervasive throughout all of the Earth game.

This is a fiction, though.  The reality is closer to blood sport and the thrill of killing something for fun without any danger of being hurt in the process.
Hunters do get hurt, they get lost or caught in storms, they get bit by snakes, if you twist and ankle, you might not make it back, and there are other predators out there that sometimes still eat human.  It's certainly more risky than the usual kind of sports.  But yes, you are right, it's a blood sport, something that comes naturally to all predators on Earth.  If we did not like it, then I would agree that we are probably not predators, but many of us do like it, just as it is has been liked by many of us through our entire history.  Because we are predators.
-Eva   
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 10:05 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/24/15 10:05 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
With all due respect, Eva, these arguments seem kind of feeble to me.  High powered rifles and semi-automatic shotguns don't require any great skill to use in order to kill an animal.  Most hunters just sit in a tree or a blind and wait for something to wander into the vast range of their scope.  This is more similar to Sauron blasting hobbits with lightning in LOTR than anything else. Just because they have to wait until a certain time of the year, and they might twist their foot while they blunder around in the woods, doesn't make hunting fair game for the animals being hunted.
Eva Nie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 1:02 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 1:02 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 831 Join Date: 3/23/14 Recent Posts
Not Tao:
With all due respect, Eva, these arguments seem kind of feeble to me.  High powered rifles and semi-automatic shotguns don't require any great skill to use in order to kill an animal.  Most hunters just sit in a tree or a blind and wait for something to wander into the vast range of their scope.  This is more similar to Sauron blasting hobbits with lightning in LOTR than anything else. Just because they have to wait until a certain time of the year, and they might twist their foot while they blunder around in the woods, doesn't make hunting fair game for the animals being hunted.
I don't think you get my point, I am saying humans are predators by nature.  Predators have never been on an even playing field with prey.  Is it fair if wolves outnumber their prey, is it fair if coyotes gang up on a rabbit, is it fair or dolphins trap a group a fish with their sneaky tactics?  Fairness is not a valid concept between predator and prey.  Humans have always succeeded in hunting by using brains and tools instead of claws and teeth.  If you are saying we should use claws and teeth, then is it fair to day we can't use our brains anymore?  Every predator uses what it has.  Wolves have claws and teeth and speed and the pack.  Humans have tools.  No smart predator hunts for things that are likely to hurt the predator unless super super desperate.  Wolves will not attack something they have decent surety of killing effectively and neither would a smart human.  Predators are always way way stronger than the prey, that's natural.  Humans have better tools now that in the past, but we are also fatter, slower, weaker, dumber (in ways of the forest), and with poorer vision than in the past.   But we are still predators and like any predator, we dominate any prey we can catch.  Would you tell the wolf that oh it's not fair that you run faster and there are more of you and you are picking on a baby deer and that's not fair?  Would you say oh look, let us file your teeth blunt and injure your foot so it's more fair to the deer?  Or would you say instead that hey, if you are going to be a predator, then be the most efficient you can and please kill quickly and cleanly as possible?  Which is more fair?  Is it fair when a spider spins a web and those poor flies have like no chance at all?  All the spider has to do is just sit and wait there, is that fair?  What I am saying is that for some reason, that is how this Earth is designed on so many levels.  Everything eats something else to survive.  It's a giant predator prey system from top to bottom.  Ironically of all predators, humans are the only ones that seriously try to limit our skills to give the prey more chance by making various rules and we seem to be the only ones that consider the pain of the prey and attempt to minimize it.  No other predators do that.  In that way, we are more 'fair' than all the other predators, all those many who don't appear to care at all.  

IMO, if you want to change things, you might want to at least have a good understanding of how things are now and how they are now is we live on a world that is built almost entirely of predator and prey relationships.  Biologically we are designed for it and scientists do not yet know enough about our biological needs to create healthful artificial food.  So for now, unless we find that we can evolve past needing food at all, then the predation will continue.  If the killing of animals were to immediately stop then there would be immediate mass starvation in many areas of the world that rely on meat to survive, areas where cropland is poor or not enough.  Some people who genetically are not able to get enough nutrition from vetetable matter and pills alone would become sickly.  There would be an immediate global food shortage of epic proportions because many cows are raised on land that is not suitable for crops so you would be removing a big food source with nothing to replace it with, those lands could not be used for crops.  And in some areas there is not enough daylight or good weather or decent soil to grow many crops.  Globally, our food supply is precarious, if you removed meat, you would be condemning the world to mass starvation.  If you removed fish, the disaster would be all the greater.  All these issues would need to be solved before the world could afford to turn to veganism in any kind of scale. 
-Eva
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CJMacie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 7:40 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/25/15 7:35 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
re: Not Tao (5/24/15 4:25 PM as a reply to Jinxed P.)
"The reason hunting is necessary is because people are hunting and have been hunting. If all hunting was stopped today - including hunting the natural predators - balance would be restored on its own fairly quickly."
But would it? or the deer and predators (wolves, coyotes, cougars) all being treated as pests as civilisation (unrestrained development) takes over their habitats – another dimension of the predatory underpinings of human nature that Eva M Nie has aptly described.

"I grew up in hunting culture and it's the same thing. Animals are sport, like a video game. A way to play indians in the woods and then go home to modern society. If buying a hunting liscense required people to kill a live cougar with their bare hands in a cage match, hunting might be more respectable and live up to the image that hunters have in their minds about what it is. This is a fiction, though.  The reality is closer to blood sport and the thrill of killing something for fun without any danger of being hurt in the process."

Not universally so. In Germany, where I lived some time, hunters are as much game wardens as predators. They are, by legal condition, responsible for maintaining the wildlife in their districts. In that country (as I believe in England, and throughout Europe), they also maintain forest land almost everywhere interspersed with housing, industry and farmland. They have narrow strips of forest linking the larger ones (like hedges in the UK), and build under/overpasses at freeways just for animals. Between Duesseldorf and Cologne (both cities of ca. 1,000,000 people), which are ca. 20 miles apart, most of the distance is farmland and forest, with small towns and industries interspersed.

Here in California, between San Fransico and San Jose (both also ca. 1,000,000 people) lies about 50 miles, as recently as 50 years ago lined with interspersed towns, farms / orchards, and relatively light industry. Today, 'SiliconValley' has paved-over most of what was once one of the most fertile agricultural areas on the earth (then known as the Santa Clara Valley). The last (small-scale) farms in Mountain View and Sunnyvale (my haunts) were converted into 100-unit condos or 10-20 luxury homes within the last decade. Between those two major cities the small towns have morphed into a single wall-to-wall canyon of high-density housing, Walmart/Target-style supermalls, and mammoth "light-"industrial complexes like Apple Computer, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Native cougars, deer, racoons, etc. that venture into this area are disposed of as pests. Blue jays and hawks are replaced by mobs of crows (scavengers). Houses costs are rapidly rising, $1m+ for row-houses, $3k/month for one-bedroom apartment. (People in the servant class, formerly the 'middle class', have to commute 50 miles or so from distant suburbs.)

A famous short-story I remember from high school: "The Most Dangerous Game". To invert the image, most dangerous today is the profit-predatory human.
Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/26/15 6:24 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/26/15 6:23 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
Not Tao:


That doesn't make sense. The least harmful option would be to grow my own vegetables, or to buy vegetables from a grower who is dedicated to minimizing harm in their farm practices. I think, each time we eat a meal, or each time we buy food, we need to compare each option in context and consider where responsibility begins and ends. By purchasing meat, a person is directly responsible for the death of the animal and also indirectly responsible for the industry that produced the animal. Purchasing vegetables also means the buyer is indirectly responsible for the industry that produces the vegetables, but it has removed the most direct relationship to harm. We each have to make a decision about where responsibility begins and ends, and how much weight we can put on the varying shades of responsibility that emerge.

Not Tao, We can go back and forth on what we think makes sense. Or we can just look at the empirical data. You can't live on just vegetables. You need protein and fat for a healthy brain.  So where are you going to get it from? Grains or meat?

http://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659


.Published figures suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in:
  • at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein
  • more environmental damage, and
  • a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.

Each area of grain production in Australia has a mouse plague on average every four years, with 500-1000 mice per hectare. Poisoning kills at least 80% of the mice.At least 100 mice are killed per hectare per year (500/4 × 0.8) to grow grain. Average yields are about 1.4 tonnes of wheat/hectare; 13% of the wheat is useable protein.
Therefore, at least 55 sentient animals die to produce 100kg of useable
plant protein: 25 times more than for the same amount of rangelands
beef.

But as I said, you still have not given me a reasonable meta-ethical theory that I should believe in.

To phrase that in language you might understand, what if for the sake of argument I granted the eating vegan caused less suffering for animals. Why should I care? Why should I care that cows die in factory farms? How is getting so emotional about cows suffering anything other than mental weakness?
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 1:57 AM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 1:57 AM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Jinxed, if you don't care, then just eat the animals.

In terms of meta-ethical theory, I think the correct answer would be that I think everyone is just justifying their feelings with morality.  Ethics are felt, and then explained.  I think problems arise when people try to make these beliefs consistent and then end up denying subsets of their feelings in order to maintain a single viewpoint.  This is also why people get frustrated trying to justify their morality - it's right because their experience is of the rightness of the feeling.  Someone without feelings could simply be practical and maintain a purely logical outlook.

So, I start with my feeling - it feels wrong to kill an animal - and from there I try to understand why: when I seen an animal twitching and bleeding, making pained noises, I can't help but imagine myself in the same position.  I anthopomorphize the animal.  Then I try to justify this: the animal has a nervious system, a brain, eyes and ears and a face, vocal communication, and shares a large amount of my DNA.  This all seems consistent so I can come back to the feeling confidently and say, yes, that's wrong.  Golden rule, and all that.  I don't want to die or feel pain or be controlled, so I shouldn't expect an animal to go through those things for something as frivolous as taste.  I anthropomorphize plants as well, but I don't really feel justified with these feelings because the plant is too different.

It becomes less simple when faced with the indirect responsibility web I outlined above.  This can become very complex: is the death of a wild animal as cruel as the death of an animal that has been confined its whole life?  Can an animal understand confinement?  How much responsibility do I take for the suffering or death of wild animals due to environmental factors like habitat destruction (overgrazing, deforestation, river pollution with feces) - and is this equivalent to the deaths of animals that are killed directly by tillers and harvesters in a grain field?  Should I consider options that can be adopted on a wide scale (veganism) more important for me personally than options that could do the greatest individual benefit (moving somewhere near a hippie who only grows compassionate wheat by hand) in order to represent a viable alternative and encourage others to adopt it?  Am I even responsible for the death of a cow if I don't kill it?  How far removed do I have to be from the death or suffering of an animal to consider it not caused by me?  What about the suffering I cause other people with bad moods and selfish actions - are these better or worse than killing a spider, eating a cow, a deer, or a lentil?  If you wanted to explore every angle of this web, the thread would go on forever, and you could probably make great points for each pro and con.

However, the simple truth is that in every situation I encounter in real life, choosing to avoid the animal product is always a better choice.  I don't live in Australia, so your numbers don't apply to my situation.  Also, if I was eating meat, I would still be eating grains, or some other vegetables, so it seems like an irrelevant argument based solely on reducing the complexity to one set of number and ignoring the big picture of what animal farming looks like in modern society.  If you want to spend time making hypothetical situations to ponder over, that's fine and it can be fun on a rainy day, but it's likely they don't have any real meaning or purpose aside from mental exercise.
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 3:30 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 3:30 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
However, the simple truth is that in every situation I encounter in real life, choosing to avoid the animal product is always a better choice. 

If more animals died to bring you the vegan product than the animal product is it still better? If the environmental damage from agriculture and transportation is far more detrimental is it still better? If the work is more demeaning and takes advantage of illegal immigrants is it still better?
On the other side of words like "simple" "every situation" "always better" I imagine a great deal of doubt. As you outlined above there are complexities. Vegetables are fertilized with the animal product but most of the mention I've read of non-animal products causing animal deaths in large numbers have been grains.
Why not take it further and avoid grains as well? That is a serious question. You do not need grains. In fact they seem to be pretty bad for most people, and they obviously cause the deaths of animals. You can get your carbohydrate and starch need met elsewhere.
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 4:04 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 4:04 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Bill, our conversation here has been thought provoking, but at this point you seem to be asking the same questions as before, which is usually a sign the conversation has run out of material. I think I've already responded to these ideas in depth and I feel pretty comfortable with the defensive arguments I've constructed, so I'm going to step out. I'll let you have the last word if you like. emoticon
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 5:15 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 5:15 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
But you didn't respond when I posed the questions the last time. And I've never asked why not give up grains. And you never tried to explain this theory of first and second degree harm, and how second degree harm is ethical. You didn't respond at all to the whole message I wrote out. If there is really an ethical difference, and since you know I am interested in such things, you could humour me. My suspicion (which may be wrong) is that veganism is another self-image to get addicted to, and that it is arbitrary and willfully ignorant of its own destruction. In light of contradicting evidence of its ethical value vegans tend to avoid answering the questions (like here) or use moral relativism to explain why even though their diet is responsible for deaths, it is just okay enough to be considered ethical.
Jinxed P, modified 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 5:27 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 5:27 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 347 Join Date: 8/29/11 Recent Posts
Not Tao,

Respect for admitting that your moral judgment is based on a feeling. Most people are not insightful enough for that , or wouldn't want to admit it.

I made a similar claim to water drop, stating that water drops moral compass was due to the bad feeling he/she has when observing animal cruelty. I made the statement that this feeling is unnatural. You ask 'why do I feel this way?'. It is a good question, because it not something humans naturally feel,any hunter-gatherer group of humans still living the way our ancestors did for millions of years will do things like strip a bird of its feathers while still alive. Obviously hunt and kill animals daily..etc.. and have done so since they were old enough to hold a spear.  Little kids today still do things like kill small animals, I recently witnessed a bunch of 8 year olds throw rocks at a chipmunk to kill it. Just for fun. They are otherwise good kids. 

We live so far removed from ancestral life of being immersed in nature, that there is now a huge discord between our genetics and the society we live in. While we are genetically wired to eat meat and kill animals the most animal contact we all come in contact today is through pets. Because of this we over anthropomorphize and feel empathy towards animal suffering. Instead of seeing animals as 'food' as our ancestors did, we now see them as friends. And this leads to the emotional feeling you have towards their suffering.

I don't live in Australia either, however I don't eat grains and I subsist off quality meat (when I can afford it) , veggies, and fruits.
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Not Tao, modified 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 6:05 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/27/15 6:05 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 995 Join Date: 4/5/14 Recent Posts
Final note to Jinxed: I grew up on a farm and all of my relatives on my Dad's side are hunters.  My own experience has been a natural aversion to the killing I witnessed since I was very young, and it actually caused a lot of problems for me growing up since I didn't want to participate.  I think you may be projecting your own feelings and experience onto other people (apathy towards animal suffering), and then attempting to explain how they developed feelings towards animals later.
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CJMacie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 5:59 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 5:59 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
re: Not Tao (5/19/15 2:25 PM as a reply to Jinxed P.)

"…humans are not treating cows well…"


Indeed:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-32800365

(Maybe the British swat team had reason to believe the cow was a terrorist in disguise?)
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CJMacie, modified 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 6:45 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/19/15 6:25 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 856 Join Date: 8/17/14 Recent Posts
Use of soy products for human consumption -- complicated, with big question marks

check it out -- google "soy humans'

Some angles that have caught my attention (POV):

Traditionally far-east Asians have used soy products, for some 2500 years, ALWAYS preprocessed / transformed, by fermentation or other means. E.g. tofu, miso, tempe, soy sauce, ... Some of their historical medical sources considered raw soy beans as toxic (poison).

Until recently (say 50-60 years) raw soy is for animal feed. Recently, it's been discovered various ways to process (but not to the extent the Asians did) soy for human consumption, which can be far more profitable than feeding it to animals.

"Science" is used on both sides of the argument (as usual). Scientists -- an unfortunate reflection of modern social values -- most often sell their services to the highest bidder, most often well-heeled industrial concerns.

A teacher I once studied with -- an MD, psychiatrist, acupuncturist and carrier / teacher of a lineage of classical Chinese pulse diagnosis -- recounted: When he was studying medicine at Cornell, in the late 1940's, a friend of his, studying nutritional science (Cornell is a major center in that field to this day), told him, as to the future effects of 'science' on nutrition: "In 50 years, you won't recognize food" relative to what food was like up to that time.

Food today my grandmother (who lived from ca. 1890's to 1980's) wouldn't recognize (she was a pretty good cook).

Over the last half of the 20th century -- highly processed sugar, flour, trans-fat oils, chemical fertilizers and pesticide, antibiotic and hormone animal feeding, etc. gradually took over the food industry, and people got used to it, to some extent due to the advertising that this was great, progress, healthier, ...

That coincides with a period during which GI diseases became a major part of medical problems -- esophegeal cancers, GERD, celiac disease, IBS, colon cancer, etc.

In classical Chinese medicine, nutritional function is consider to be the function of 'pi-wei' -- 'wei' is 'stomach', the 'yang' or outer layer of function; 'pi' is 'spleen', or better 'spleen-pancreas', the inner or yin layer of function.

The GI (gastro-intestinal) tract corresponds to the 'wei' or yang layer, in which ingested food moves through the body, but is still "outside" the body (the body is a torus, a donut, the GI tract is the hole in the center), being broken down and select parts of it then being absorbed to "inside" the body, that is into the blood, filtered then by the liver and then to all bodily tissues. This is metabolizing ingested food into a form useable by the body.

That range of diseases to prominent roughly 1950-1999 relates to the GI / wei level, relatively external or superficial.

Since then the focus is shifting to the deeper, yin, 'pi' layer, which corresponds to the cellular metabolism that goes on in all 30 trillion cells of the body -- the oxygen + glusose (via insulin) --> ATP, CO2 and H2O process that drives animal life.

Currently what do we see? Pandemic diabetes (and other auto-immune syndromes), obesity, immune systems gradually crippled by vacination frenzy, a range of environmental toxic issues,... Now that food products are not only overly, "unnaturally" processed, but now becoming more thoroughly artificial, with GMO and further technological advances, and advertising to convince people to relish things like animal food that slowly kills them.

The overall prognosis is dim for the average Joe and Jane trying to live a normal life, but, more importantly, but it's looking great for the major industrial sectors that continue to profit excessively with this trend -- agri-business (food industry), and the medical-industrial complex.

All this is a bit wild -- scatter-brained analogies between ancient Chinese medical ideas and recent nutritional-medical history, with a dash of conspiracy theories -- but a style that's not unknown in DhO.

Bottom line: the vegetarian / vegan issues can be seen as distraction, as small potatoes, so to speak. Another way to look at it is a need to 'wake-up' and see what's really going on.
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 6:11 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 6:05 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Eating Animals, some points to discuss, or not

What about the fact that there are literally millions of animals eating other animals.  If not eating animals is to reduce suffering in the world, why not extend that to stopping other animals from eating other animals.

Humans eating meat.  Well, but actually humans are not doing all the work of digesting and breaking down the meat, bacteria does that.  There is roughly 3 pounds of non-Human DNA actually digesting the meat and other food, so we are not totally at fault for the breaking down of the meat.  In fact we may just be subservient symbiots to bacteria, they may really be in charge here.

All life is made of DNA, so who is eating who?  A plant eats the decomposing remains of dead animals, and animals eat the decomposing remains of dead plants.  DNA is eating DNA, so who is to say who or what is actually more important?  

Plus, all the digested matter from plants and animals never disappears, it just reforms into something else.

Further, if everything is just a vibration of energy, then what looks like something eating something else is really just energy in one place combining with energy in another place.  

Assumig that when something is dead it feels no more pain, then the eating phase has nothing to do with any continuance of pain for the animal being eaten.

A quote:

“Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

Please, if anyone is going to break apart what I have said above, please use this last statement as part of the context.

Currently, I rarely eat meat, mainly because the killing involved is mostly unnecessary, plant matter provides most of what is needs for the human body to function properly.  That, and I am fairly lazy when it comes to cooking, view food mainly as a medicine that is needed to keep the body alive, and am mostly content with eating cold oatmeal, raisins, honey and almond milk.  I have added some occasional sardines , tuna, eggs (for omega) and some cheese back into the diet. I also supplement B12, sometimes some vegan protein powder (not soy). Plus I do eat a variety of other stuff, nuts, beans, rice, apples, bananas, tortilla chips, popcorn, etc.

So anyway, I do try to minimize meat eating, because if one is just eating meat to appease the taste receptor cells , then one is just a slave to the taste receptor cells.  And, I will admit, I do enjoy tasting stuff.

Anyway, Humans are still a barbaric bunch.

Oh, if we found animals on other planets, would the alien animals be fair game, what if they were as smart as dogs, or squirrels?  What if the animals on this planet  had little hands and little noses, showed joy, loneliness, love?  Had spines and brains, toenails and teeth and tongues.  Lungs and kidneys, eyes and ears.  Hair and perspiration, had sex organs like us. Would we still eat them?  Or would we see them for the forgotten ancestors that they are...

Eating ancestors

So I try to minimze the eating of them, and yet I still do it.  And probably would alot more in a survival or apocolyptic situation, as would the animals hunt us also...  Humans beware... emoticon

But, I am an animal too...  And someday the worms will take revenge...

Psi
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Noah, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 6:30 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 6:30 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1467 Join Date: 7/6/13 Recent Posts
Big fan of all of these thoughts, Psi.
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Bill F, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 7:08 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 7:08 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 556 Join Date: 11/17/13 Recent Posts
What about the fact that there are literally millions of animals eating other animals.  If not eating animals is to reduce suffering in the world, why not extend that to stopping other animals from eating other animals.- Psi

Interesting point. It brings up this question for me: Is it compassionate to hunt the carnviore who eats herbivores? 
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Psi, modified 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 8:13 PM
Created 9 Years ago at 5/20/15 8:13 PM

RE: Eating animals

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Bill F.:
What about the fact that there are literally millions of animals eating other animals.  If not eating animals is to reduce suffering in the world, why not extend that to stopping other animals from eating other animals.- Psi

Interesting point. It brings up this question for me: Is it compassionate to hunt the carnviore who eats herbivores? 

Well, loaded question, so for fun and speculation, 

It may at first seem compassionate for the herbivore, yet if the herbivore was sick and diseased, and thus the easiest prey for the canivore, was then let to survive, then somehow got the rest of the herbivore herd sick and they all died then , oh wait, no that would not be compassionate.  

Or if it was a carnivore mommy that was shot while she was trying to feed her children carnivores, and the children carnivores then weakened and died due to lack of mommy nutrition, then oh no, that is not so compassionate either.  

Or, if killing the carnivore, led to a carnivore shortage and the herbivores overpopulated and ate all of the vegetables in the surrounding countryside, then no one would have anything to eat, so that is not compassionate either.

Hmmm, maybe it would be better to just go up to the carnivores and reason with them, maybe give them a hug or something.  I think that is the Disney conspiracy, just teach kids to get a  bear hug!

But just really contemplate on how deep and esoteric these Disney lyrics really are, fascinating.
And don't spend your time lookin' around
For something you want that can't be found
When you find out you can live without it
And go along not thinkin' about it
I'll tell you something true

The bare necessities of life will come to you

But please, Do not read to much into my nonsensicalness, I am in the Goofy Nana, it is actually the hidden Seventeenth Stage of Insight, only known to the MahaMahahaMahayana Buddhism, literally translated as the Greaterest Greater Vehicle of Comedic Insight.

  • Knowledge to distinguish mental and physical states (namarupa pariccheda nana).
  • Knowledge of the cause-and-effect relationship between mental and physical states (paccaya pariggaha nana).
  • Knowledge of mental and physical processes as impermanent, unsatisfactory and nonself (sammasana nana).
  • Knowledge of arising and passing away (udayabbaya nana).
  • Knowledge of the dissolution of formations (bhanga nana).
  • Knowledge of the fearful nature of mental and physical states (bhaya nana).
  • Knowledge of mental and physical states as unsatisfactory (adinava nana).
  • Knowledge of disenchantment (nibbida nana).
  • Knowledge of the desire to abandon the worldly state (muncitukamayata nana).
  • Knowledge which investigates the path to deliverance and instills a decision to practice further (patisankha nana).
  • Knowledge which regards mental and physical states with equanimity (sankharupekha nana).
  • Knowledge which conforms to the Four Noble Truths (anuloma nana).
  • Knowledge of deliverance from the worldly condition (gotrabhu nana).
  • Knowledge by which defilements are abandoned and are overcome by destruction (magga nana).
  • Knowledge which realizes the fruit of the path and has nibbana as object (phala nana).
  • Knowledge which reviews the defilements still remaining (paccavekkhana nana).
  •  Knowledge which reviews the goofiness still remaining (pitihaha nana).

Please do not ban me!!!  emoticon  I will be good for a while, really!!!!!

Psi

 P.S.  On a serious note, I do know that this is a serious topic and causes great inner pain and sadness to some here, and for that, and for the way the world is, I can only offer some serious Metta.  Please be at peace.