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Re: The Ethics of Vegetarianism
namaskaram,
the following article is going to a few (minority) individuals. this is
my first posting and i hope you objectively evaluate my post.
so here goes...
In article <3g3vm6$cak@ucunix.san.uc.edu> susarla@rice.edu (H. Krishna
Susarla) writes:
>
>
> Vegetarianism: A Means to a Higher End
>
> >From the book "The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking"
> By Adiraja Dasa
>
> (c) 1989 The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International
> Used with permission
>
> Ethics
>
> Many people consider the ethical reasons the most important of all for
> becoming vegetarian. The beginning of ethical vegetarianism is the
> knowledge that other creatures have feelings, and that their feelings
are
> similar to ours. This knowledge encourages one to extend personal
> awareness to encompass the suffering of others.
>
does this imply that plants don't feel? then how come sunflower blossoms
only in sunlight??
>
> Many people would no doubt take up vegetarianism if they visited a
> slaughterhouse, or if they themselves had to kill the animals they ate.
Such
> visits should be compulsory for all meat eater..
>
what would `many' classify as? is it an absolute number like say 20 or a
relative number like 20 out of 1000? i can assure you that this relation
is what you mean by `many'. now, that many doesn't seem like many, does
it? all the people who visit a slaughterhouse a don't convert never
report it and you never will be able to show that in you stats!
>
> Pythagoras, famous for his contributions to geometry and mathematics,
> said, "Oh, my fellow men, do not defile your bodies with sinful foods.
We
> have corn, we have apples bending down the brances with their weight,
> and grapes swelling on the vines. There are sweet-flavored herbs, and
> vegetables which can be cooked and softened over the fire, nor are you
> denied mild or thyme-scented honey. The earth affords a lavish supply of
> riches of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no
> bloodshed or slaughter, only beasts satisfy their hunger with flesh, and
> not even all of those, because horses, cattle, and sheep live on grass."
>
aren't we also beasts 'cuz we also belong to the animal kingdom?
>
> In an essay titled On Eating Flesh, the Roman author Plutarch wrote:
"Can
> you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstinence from flesh? For
> my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of mind
> the first man touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the
flesh
> of a dead creature, set forth tables of dead, stale bodies, and ventured
to
> call food and nourishment the pets that had a little before belloed and
> cried, moved and lived... It is certainly not lions or wolves that we
eat out
> of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter
harmless,
> tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us. For the sake of a
little
> flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life they are
> entitled to by birth and being."
>
we hunt harmless creatures for exactly what they are, `harmless'. i would
be stupid if choose to hunt a lion rather than a deer. i'll be putting
myself in danger of being attacked. it is classic economics-costs vs.
benefits, the cost of killing a lion to the benefit of eating its meat is
worse than it is for a deer. as a human being i tend to maximize the
cost/benefit ratio. then there is the darwinian arguement of survival. i
hunt the deer for the exact reason a lion hunts a deer rather than another
lion for food, my survival is not jeopardized.
> Plutarch then delivered this challenge to flesh-eaters: "If you declare
that
> you are naturally designed for such a diet, then first kill for yourself
what
> you want to eat. Do it, however only through your own resources, unaided
> by cleaver or cudgel or any kind of ax."
>
> The poet Shelly was a commited vegetarian. In his essay A Vindication of
> Natural Diet, he wrote, "Let the advocate of animal food force himself
to a
> decisive experiment on its fitness, and as Plutarch recommends, tear a
> living lamb with his teeth and plunging his head into its vitals, slake
his
> thirst with the steaming blood...then, and then only, would he be
> consistent."
>
through the use of the greatest tool ever created or will ever be, the
BRAIN, the humankind has strived to make the hassle of living easier and
the creation of tools to kill, cut, cook...compensate the loss of
techniques required to satisfy the above condition through EVOLUTION!
>
> Leo Tolstoy wrote that by killing animals for food, "Man suppresses in
> himself, unnecessarily, the highest spiritual capacity-that of sympathy
and
> pity toward living creatures like himself-and by violating his own
feelings
> becomes cruel." He also warned, "While our bodies are the living graves
of
> murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal conditions on earth?"
>
> When we lose respect for animal life, we lose respect for human life as
> well. Twenty-six hundred years ago, Pythagoras said, "Those that kill
> animals to eat their flesh tend to massacre their own." We're fearful of
> enemy guns, bombs, and missiles, but can we close our eyes to the pain
> and fear we ourselves bring about by slaughtering, for human
> consumption, over 1.6 billion domestic mammals and 22.5 billion poultry
a
> year. The number of fish killed each year is in the trillions. And what
ot
> speak of the tens of millions of animals killed each year in the
> "torture-camps" of medical research laboratories, or slaughtered for
their
> fur, hide, or skin, or hunted for "sport". Can we deny that this
brutality
> makes us more brutal too?
>
i was of the opinion that an intellectual human being was capable of
distinguishing between a human being and an animal. when did food
bio-chemically interfere with human intellect? the lack of respect is
more due to fauly teaching than anything else.
> Leonardo da Vinci wrote, "Truly man is the king of beasts, for his
brutality
> exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others. We are burial places!"
He
> added, "The time will come when men will look upon the murder of
> animals as they now look upon the murder of men."
>
> Mahatma Gandhi felt that ethical principles are a stronger support for
> lifelong commitment to a vegetarian diet than reasons of health. "I do
> feel," he stated, "that spiritual progress does demand at some stage
that
> we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our
> bodily wants." He also said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral
> progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
>
does gandhi suggest starvation 'cuz plants are also creatures and the
lowest form of food , the plankton, is a creature too. and didn't gandhi
say that india was a great nation 'cuz of its heritage, a heritage that
has always include a preponderance of meat-eaters?
>
>
sorry again if i have offended people, i had a valid case too.
mohan draksharam
