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ALL RELIGIONS: How do you justify meat eating?

Jeremiah Ames

Well-Known Member
I am not a vegetarian but I am Hindu. Like 550 million other Hindus of the world I eat meat and i've been constantly criticised for it.

The main argument is you're killing another creature for taste.

How do you justify it?

I don’t believe that God has any interest in what we eat or drink.
Or smoke, for that matter.
Unless we are doing harm to another person. Such as stealing food from someone to eat it.
 

Mindmaster

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I am not a vegetarian but I am Hindu. Like 550 million other Hindus of the world I eat meat and i've been constantly criticised for it.

The main argument is you're killing another creature for taste.

How do you justify it?

We didn't come up with idea, take it up with homo erectus. :D

Seriously though, you can't even live without killing something. Are plants inferior life so it's OK to eat them and their babies? (seeds/pods) It's a ridiculous line of logic -- that killing is bad, but killing "this" is OK. A life is a life... However, I have no delusion that I can live without killing something to feed myself directly or indirectly and neither do I believe that one food type is more moral to take than another.
 

Marcion

gopa of humanity's controversial Taraka Brahma
I don’t believe that God has any interest in what we eat or drink.
Or smoke, for that matter.
Unless we are doing harm to another person. Such as stealing food from someone to eat it.
Are you of the opinion that God loves only the human part of His creation and not the animals and plants on this planet or indeed life everywhere in His universe?
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I am not a vegetarian but I am Hindu. Like 550 million other Hindus of the world I eat meat and i've been constantly criticised for it.

The main argument is you're killing another creature for taste.

How do you justify it?
I think even plants have feelings. I like Jainism. I just had a Beyond Meat at Carl's Jr a few minutes ago.
 

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
I am not a vegetarian but I am Hindu. Like 550 million other Hindus of the world I eat meat and i've been constantly criticised for it.

The main argument is you're killing another creature for taste.

How do you justify it?

Hmm... but aren't plants alive as well? So aren't vegetarians just as guilty of killing another life for taste? Are they suggesting that everyone is supposed to starve to death?
 

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
As a practitioner of a spiritual path it is very important to not kill an animal, also to gain food. But if you did come across a already dead animal in the forest, technically you could eat this meat since there is no life in it.
And also we must think about if we going to visit somewhere, and they serve food, that if one choose to eat the meat, that the animal was not killed dedicated to you directly. Because this would create karma not only for the one who did the killing, but also morally for you since you choose to eat it.

Interesting... and why exactly does this not hold true for killing plants as well?
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
Interesting... and why exactly does this not hold true for killing plants as well?
If i go out to the forest and pluck plants, it will create karma, but as human beings we do need to eat, and according to buddhist teaching plant is lower down on the karma rebirth cycle then animals , birds or fish. meaning that plants are not seen as higher form of beings (in my understanding)
And i do think you agree that we do need to eat something?
 

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
If i go out to the forest and pluck plants, it will create karma, but as human beings we do need to eat, and according to buddhist teaching plant is lower down on the karma rebirth cycle then animals , birds or fish. meaning that plants are not seen as higher form of beings (in my understanding)
And i do think you agree that we do need to eat something?

Absolutely, everyone has to eat. I just think it's odd to consider living plants an acceptable source of food, but somehow living animals are not. I also find it strange that anyone would rate life forms as being 'higher' or 'lower'.
 

ronki23

Well-Known Member
Meat eater or vegetarian, everything eaten was once alive.

We must eat to live.
I can’t eat rocks.

I don’t believe that God has any interest in what we eat or drink.
Or smoke, for that matter.
Unless we are doing harm to another person. Such as stealing food from someone to eat it.

We didn't come up with idea, take it up with homo erectus. :D

Seriously though, you can't even live without killing something. Are plants inferior life so it's OK to eat them and their babies? (seeds/pods) It's a ridiculous line of logic -- that killing is bad, but killing "this" is OK. A life is a life... However, I have no delusion that I can live without killing something to feed myself directly or indirectly and neither do I believe that one food type is more moral to take than another.

Are you of the opinion that God loves only the human part of His creation and not the animals and plants on this planet or indeed life everywhere in His universe?

I think even plants have feelings. I like Jainism. I just had a Beyond Meat at Carl's Jr a few minutes ago.

Hmm... but aren't plants alive as well? So aren't vegetarians just as guilty of killing another life for taste? Are they suggesting that everyone is supposed to starve to death?

Interesting... and why exactly does this not hold true for killing plants as well?

Plants and animals are different at the cellular level.

animal-cells-vs-plant-cells-373375_final-5b462d7fc9e77c00375014f1.png
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
Absolutely, everyone has to eat. I just think it's odd to consider living plants an acceptable source of food, but somehow living animals are not. I also find it strange that anyone would rate life forms as being 'higher' or 'lower'.

Plants bear fruit. Also one can cut an amount of foliage from a plant and it will continue to flourish.

How many living animals have you tried that with successfully?
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
Absolutely, everyone has to eat. I just think it's odd to consider living plants an acceptable source of food, but somehow living animals are not. I also find it strange that anyone would rate life forms as being 'higher' or 'lower'.
plants are living beings too. However, they do not have the levels of self awareness nor the nervous system that animals have.
The reality is that all animals in the cycle of rebirth have three choices: 1) eat animals, 2) eat plants, 3) don’t eat. So to create as little suffring as possible one try to choose what create less karma and suffering for one self and other. And since we must eat, plants are the way to go.

If someone does see this as a wrong path, that is up to them ofcourse
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
As a practitioner of a spiritual path it is very important to not kill an animal, also to gain food. But if you did come across a already dead animal in the forest, technically you could eat this meat since there is no life in it.
And also we must think about if we going to visit somewhere, and they serve food, that if one choose to eat the meat, that the animal was not killed dedicated to you directly. Because this would create karma not only for the one who did the killing, but also morally for you since you choose to eat it.
I used to believe all Buddhists were vegetarian. I was the guest for the day with one of Tibetan Buddhism's highest lamas. I had the honor of being invited by him to have dinner with him and his entourage of high-profile monks at a private home, where a local Tibetan chef came in to prepare for them. It took several hours as he prepared the home-made dough for the dumplings in the dish he was preparing. Meanwhile I hung out with the monks down at the lake, walked around, played the piano for a bit while his Eminence walked around with the monks.

Anyway, not being a Buddhist myself, though I certainly do draw from and understand its teachings and practice and incorporate its teaching for myself in many areas, I was surprised as dinner came it had meat in it. Oh yes, Tibetan Buddhists do eat meat. I later heard the Dalai Lama muse, "I'm a Buddhist, not a vegetarian".

Here's my personal thoughts, at this time as they are always developing. The deeper I go into my spiritual nature, my true nature, the more connectedness I feel with everything, at a conscious level. Everything is living. Everything is Life itself in form. All of us are. Every animal. Every plant. Every atom of every molecule, vibrates with that Single Life. In the deeper moments I connect with this Expression and it all becomes an extension of my own body, which is an extension of Life itself.

It gets a little deep here. I'll try to share, mostly just as an exercise for myself to see if I can. In this form, as this man on this computer who lives his life as "me" in this world, I am a participant in this unimaginably complex system of manifest forms of that Divine Reality, on this side of my face. The other side of this face sees the Infinite in everything. This side of my face sees the world and its living, organic, breathing and pulsating forms, of which I incarnate one, as do you.

The system of this universe consumes and gives rise to new forms, over and over in a continuous cycle. It is the Lungs of Life; this pulsating cycle of birth and death and rebirth, exhaling and inhaling. As a creature of this world who grew to consume food in a species which evolved to become omnivores for survival reasons, meat is included in that menu of food choices. It is not immoral to be human, anymore than it is for a cat to be a cat and eat what cats eat as the system of nature selected that for her.

But as a more higher consciously awakened being than a cat (ostensibly), I have different choices I can make as that omnivore which nature made me to me. To me, the question isn't about killing another animal, taking its life for your consumption, just as you kill a plant to eat it. It's about respecting a particular life form at its current evolutionary stage. No matter what we eat on this earth, it is all part of that system for its own continuation it designed to be as is. Each form we consume, is an incarnation of, That which is All That Is. Emptiness in form.

The other part that is a factor in the choice to eat animal products are not is more an ethical question. Since all food we consume should be eaten with reverence for its gift of itself to us, the industrialization of animals for mass consumption is unsettling as a steward of this world in our uses of it. The glorification of it as a product that must be consumed in large quantities is irresponsible and disrespectful to animal life, which is a more to be revered form of higher life. It dishonors life, that we consume out of greed.

I do eat meat. I don't consider it immoral, but I consider mass consumption of animal products to be an unaware, unconnected, or rather disconnected consciousness. As we Awaken, we see and hold life in a different more reverational way, which can see into the eyes of an animal, and know that Life in them as well as our own on the evolutionary tree.

Life has its cycles, and I too in this body provide food of myself for Life as well, as it consumes other life forms for its own being. But I try to eat such products in small moderation, such as was the dish which included it in the meal served to myself and the monks at that beautiful, sereen lake home I had the honor of being their guest at.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
I used to believe all Buddhists were vegetarian. I was the guest for the day with one of Tibetan Buddhism's highest lamas. I had the honor of being invited by him to have dinner with him and his entourage of high-profile monks at a private home, where a local Tibetan chef came in to prepare for them. It took several hours as he prepared the home-made dough for the dumplings in the dish he was preparing. Meanwhile I hung out with the monks down at the lake, walked around, played the piano for a bit while his Eminence walked around with the monks.

Anyway, not being a Buddhist myself, though I certainly do draw from and understand its teachings and practice and incorporate its teaching for myself in many areas, I was surprised as dinner came it had meat in it. Oh yes, Tibetan Buddhists do eat meat. I later heard the Dalai Lama muse, "I'm a Buddhist, not a vegetarian".

Here's my personal thoughts, at this time as they are always developing. The deeper I go into my spiritual nature, my true nature, the more connectedness I feel with everything, at a conscious level. Everything is living. Everything is Life itself in form. All of us are. Every animal. Every plant. Every atom of every molecule, vibrates with that Single Life. In the deeper moments I connect with this Expression and it all becomes an extension of my own body, which is an extension of Life itself.

It gets a little deep here. I'll try to share, mostly just as an exercise for myself to see if I can. In this form, as this man on this computer who lives his life as "me" in this world, I am a participant in this unimaginably complex system of manifest forms of that Divine Reality, on this side of my face. The other side of this face sees the Infinite in everything. This side of my face sees the world and its living, organic, breathing and pulsating forms, of which I incarnate one, as do you.

The system of this universe consumes and gives rise to new forms, over and over in a continuous cycle. It is the Lungs of Life; this pulsating cycle of birth and death and rebirth, exhaling and inhaling. As a creature of this world who grew to consume food in a species which evolved to become omnivores for survival reasons, meat is included in that menu of food choices. It is not immoral to be human, anymore than it is for a cat to be a cat and eat what cats eat as the system of nature selected that for her.

But as a more higher consciously awakened being than a cat (ostensibly), I have different choices I can make as that omnivore which nature made me to me. To me, the question isn't about killing another animal, taking its life for your consumption, just as you kill a plant to eat it. It's about respecting a particular life form at its current evolutionary stage. No matter what we eat on this earth, it is all part of that system for its own continuation it designed to be as is. Each form we consume, is an incarnation of, That which is All That Is. Emptiness in form.

The other part that is a factor in the choice to eat animal products are not is more an ethical question. Since all food we consume should be eaten with reverence for its gift of itself to us, the industrialization of animals for mass consumption is unsettling as a steward of this world in our uses of it. The glorification of it as a product that must be consumed in large quantities is irresponsible and disrespectful to animal life, which is a more to be revered form of higher life. It dishonors life, that we consume out of greed.

I do eat meat. I don't consider it immoral, but I consider mass consumption of animal products to be an unaware, unconnected, or rather disconnected consciousness. As we Awaken, we see and hold life in a different more reverational way, which can see into the eyes of an animal, and know that Life in them as well as our own on the evolutionary tree.

Life has its cycles, and I too in this body provide food of myself for Life as well, as it consumes other life forms for its own being. But I try to eat such products in small moderation, such as was the dish which included it in the meal served to myself and the monks at that beautiful, sereen lake home I had the honor of being their guest at.

Thank you for a very good and interesting answer. As you say, yes you will find buddhists who do eat meat. And as i said earlier in the tread. The meat in it self is not unwholsome to eat, it is the kiling of animals that is seen as unwholesome.
Personally i do my best to keep to vegan food, and i eat only twice a day.
And i try to explain to many that i do not judge those who choose to eat meat. But in my spiritual path i do take choices that will look different to many others.
 
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