VEGETARIANISM - a religion?? Why not??

September 15, 2002

Dear Friends,

this is Murthy again.

I have been contemplating quite a lot on why am I a

vegetarian and what is Vegetarianism all about for

several years (may be a decade or two).

I have not yet found any profound reason, rationale

behind vegetarianism. If you can't rationalize it but

you believe in it, that " IT " is nothing but religion.

So why not Vegetarianism a religion, an international,

unifying religion that advocates peace??

Before you get angry or excited or disappointed, here

are my thoughts, please go through them:

1. By being a vegetarian if you don't want to

hurt/harm/kill life - sorry, plants also have life.

They can feel too.

2. By being a vegetarian if you want to be healthy and

eat balanced diet (to be good to yourself) - that

doesn't mean you shouldn't eat meat once in a while.

3. By being a vegetarian if you want to protest

against cruelty towards animals, animal farming etc. -

you can still eat organic meat, but in less

quantities.

4. I'm not aware of any studies that prove small

quantities of untreated (with hormones etc) meat

products are hazardous to human health.

Being a conscious, lifelong vegetarian, the only

acceptable answer that I could give myself is the

emotional aspect, not the rational one.

That I'm emotionally disturbed to imagine eating

something that is produced through killing a moving

life (any way from earthworm to elephant), that I feel

good to eat any kind of vegetation, speaks for my

belief.

Understanding is science & believing is religion. So,

why not Vegetarianism a religion!!

Cheers

Murthy

=====

Respect for Nature is respect for yourself

For that, " Nature includes you too "

Respecting yourself is the key to " Joyful Life "

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September 15, 2002

On Saturday, Sep 14, 2002, at 06:43PM, Murthy <msgsfb wrote:

>By being a vegetarian if you don't want to

>hurt/harm/kill life - sorry, plants also have life.

>They can feel too.

Plants can feel?

Is that a religious point of view or can it be backed up with some science?

There are buddhists who support the vegan point of view, so I think the vegan

who lost his case should adopt that religion, and fight it again.

" There is no creator " - the Dalai Lama

tony

September 16, 2002

Dear Murthy & other friends ~

Just a few quick points in response to Murthy's thought-provoking comments:

MURTHY:

1. By being a vegetarian if you don't want to

hurt/harm/kill life - sorry, plants also have life.

They can feel too.

ALKA:

Many people (myself included) identify the desire to *reduce suffering* as their

reason for adopting a vegan diet. It's amply clear that animals (humans

included) suffer to a greater degree than plants - we have central nervous

systems, a network of pain receptors, etc., all of which are absent in plants.

Even if we peer into the " secret life of plants, " we can do the math to

appreciate that we kill (and cause suffering to?) many more plants by eating

meat, dairy & eggs which are higher up the food chain (since it takes anywhere

from 6 to 16 pounds of plant material to make one pound of animal flesh, it

follows that greater numbers of plants must be killed to support this

inefficient way of eating).

Since eating animal products - meat, dairy and eggs - translates to eating

gluttonously, we effectively rob other people of food by eating animal products.

At the height of the Ethiopian famine, Ethiopia was exporting grains and

soybeans to Europe for European livestock so that Europeans could eat meat. This

is well documented by Oxfam et al. This is not to discount the phenomenal

corruption in a country like Ethiopia permitting such a scandalous decision, but

it is to question the extent to which meat-eaters in Europe were/are being

complicit in their choice to eat " food " which necessitates robbing other people

of food that they need to survive. Similar relationships can be seen today

between the U.S. and the countries of Central & South America. Again, the point

is that we increase suffering when we eat animal flesh & animal products and

potentially decrease suffering when we - to paraphrase Gandhi - consume enough

for our need but not for our greed.

MURTHY:

2. By being a vegetarian if you want to be healthy and

eat balanced diet (to be good to yourself) - that

doesn't mean you shouldn't eat meat once in a while.

ALKA:

I like John Robbins' analogy that much in the way that certain engines were

designed, for instance, to run on gasoline & not diesel, in a like manner, the

human body was designed to run on plant foods and not animal foods. I could

never imagine pumping diesel into my car (I would feel like I was doing damage

to the engine and my $13,000 investment). Is my health worth less than my car,

that I would think to pump my body with inappropriate fuel?

Plus, these days, a little bit of meat can have a whole lotta prions, a whole

lotta bacteria, and a whole lotta pathogens (to say nothing of the feces in

which some of these microbial agents are housed). Yum, yum.

MURTHY:

3. By being a vegetarian if you want to protest

against cruelty towards animals, animal farming etc. -

you can still eat organic meat, but in less

quantities.

ALKA:

It's an absolute myth to think that animals raised for organic meat/dairy/eggs

are somehow raised more humanely than in conventional systems. Many of us recall

the debate over " Save Organic Standards, " when the U.S. government was

attempting to formulate a national definition for organic foods.

Environmentalists and others concerned about food safety lobbied to ensure that

certain manners of food production would in no uncertain terms be considered

" organic. " For instance, foods grown in toxic sludge, genetically modified

foods, and other items, the lobbyists argued, should not be considered organic.

Included in this list were a couple of items having to do with " foods " of animal

origin, and there were some stipulations indicating humane treatment of animals

for a food to be labeled organic. It was Horizon ORGANIC DAIRY that fought

tooth-and-nail *against* the adoption of these stipulations. They argued that

they could not *afford* to institute better living conditions for " th!

eir " cows whilst continuing to meet the high demand for organic dairy. Sadly,

Horizon won this battle and the cows lost.

MURTHY:

Being a conscious, lifelong vegetarian, the only

acceptable answer that I could give myself is the

emotional aspect, not the rational one.

That I'm emotionally disturbed to imagine eating

something that is produced through killing a moving

life (any way from earthworm to elephant), that I feel

good to eat any kind of vegetation, speaks for my

belief.

Understanding is science & believing is religion. So,

why not Vegetarianism a religion!!

ALKA:

One could just as easily say that one is " emotionally disturbed " to see a person

of a visible minority being poorly treated because of racism, or a woman being

paid less than a man to do the same job because of institutionalized sexism, or

a gay person being beaten because of homophobia. Yes, these things are

emotionally disturbing, but that doesn't prohibit the existence of strong

structured philosophies which articulate why discrimination based on race, sex,

or sexual preference are ethically objectionable. In a like manner, the writings

of so many philosophers from Peter Singer to Tom Regan to Andrew Linzey to Carol

Adams to Marti Kheel and others articulate within the context of a rational

framework, why discrimination on the basis of species is also ethically

objectionable.

Best regards,

Alka

September 16, 2002

Greetings...

I have been contemplating my reply and this is what I have come up with for now.

As far as reasons and rationale behind vegetarianism... it boggles my mind how

one could be a veg for years and not ask " Why am I doing this? " Does this seem a

bit misaligned to anyone else? In no particular order, I will cite some reasons

I am veg. World hunger, Conservation of Natural resources, anti-violence,

anti-cruelty, anti-suffering(animals and humans)and I could continue.

Now, we all know that plants have life, but I will ask this: Do they have a

central nervous system? I would really like to see some unbiased research

results of conducted by parties who do not have an agenda that show significant

possibilities of plants feeling pain/pleasure.

That is with valid, reliable, objective measurements and instrumentation.

>2. By being a vegetarian if you want to be healthy and

>eat balanced diet (to be good to yourself) - that

>doesn't mean you shouldn't eat meat once in a while.

Being " vegetarian " , by definition, means no meat consumption (to me). Yes, I

suppose I might be labeled fundamentalist, but to me, zero is zero.

3. By being a vegetarian if you want to protest

>against cruelty towards animals, animal farming etc. -

>you can still eat organic meat, but in less

>quantities.

It is possible to believe that ANY time an animal is killed, whether or not it

experienced a peaceful and beloved life, that falls under

cruelty-violence-suffering.

>4. I'm not aware of any studies that prove small

>quantities of untreated (with hormones etc) meat

>products are hazardous to human health.

Here is a scenario:

First of all, the review board is assembled to discuss the feasibility and

ultimately have the final word on administration of funds. How difficult might

it be to get funding for research that proposes to feed meat to humans which is

contaminated/treated with hormones, etc. Could be tricky, but the kicker is

this:

A research group offers $$$ to anyone wishing to be a subject in this study.

They must provide the potential subjects with the real deal. Yes, this meat has

hormones, and though we believe the possibility of negative outcome is minute,

we cant promise you anything... except to cut you a check after completion. Only

the very greedy might buy into it, but overall the ethical issues involved will

compound the difficulty of getting and maintaining subjects.

I feel it is about one side of the fence or the other. The straddling position

has always been a discomfort to me. My view is that if someone chooses to eat

even a little meat, however little, their vegetarianism has been compromised.

They can go back and try again, of course, and I encourage that. Just calling it

like I see it.

With that note, let the flaming begin... just keep the dead animal flesh away

from it.