Attn: Vegetarians and Vegans

[Spirit of Light]

if you eat the meat, you killed the animal, that's the karma of it.

If you example found a dead animal in the forest in a survival situation, the spirit of the animal has already left, so technically the meat is only a lump of meat with no life in it. If we killed the animal then eat it, that is not the right action to do.
In my understanding of the teaching of the buddha, it is the killing that is not right to do or to eat animals killed directly to us. For example, if you have a friend who hunts, we can not receive meat from them or ask them to kill an animal for us.

But i do think everyone understand this in their own way, and there are not always a clear answer to it

 

[SalixIncendium]

If you example found a dead animal in the forest in a survival situation, the spirit of the animal has already left, so technically the meat is only a lump of meat with no life in it. If we killed the animal then eat it, that is not the right action to do.
In my understanding of the teaching of the buddha, it is the killing that is not right to do or to eat animals killed directly to us. For example, if you have a friend who hunts, we can not receive meat from them or ask them to kill an animal for us.

But i do think everyone understand this in their own way, and there are not always a clear answer to it

If you find a dead animal in the forest and it has not been field dressed (gutted), there is a risk of disease in the meat. Furthermore, bacterial growth over time in the temperature danger zone (45F - 135F) presents food safety concerns. Another reason hunters field dress game is to cool the meat more quickly to slow such bacterial growth.

In other words, if you find any dead animal in the forest, it is in your best interest not to eat it.

 

[Mindmaster]

This thread is inspired by a comment by a member in another thread that replied to a spammy post.

How far are you willing to take your moral standard with regard to not consuming animals or animal products?

In such an scenario that the only thing left to eat was hermetically sealed or canned foods that contains meat or meat products, what would you do? Would you set aside these moral standards and eat meat or meat products? Would you slowly die of starvation?

As for me, being vegetarian, I don't have a definite answer as I have not given it much thought. I'll ponder this and reply later in the thread.

I think by the time you're hungry enough you'd eat your socks. There is actually a trigger in the brain that will force you to eat in such desperate circumstance no matter what you'd normally think about it. That trigger will prompt you to eat insects, vegetation, and anything else that is naturally edible. In fact, you'd eat that can of meat and your brain would be flooding you with so much pleasure you'd switch from vegan to normal omnivore in a heartbeat. Your brain will nearly instantly get over that if it has to. Of course, if you were truly sated your brain will leave you to your normal mental meanderings, but it'll take over the conscious decision making in the case where your actions would likely get you killed from starvation.

This is always my argument against vegan being a natural diet for humans. Your survival instincts don't care about your food politics/religion. But, anyway, history backs this up -- it wasn't uncommon in the past for people to consume meat even if their culture normally didn't if there were catastrophic crop failures and so on. You gotta eat what you got, and being able to choose is a luxury. That's why in some survival scenarios people even went cannibal -- it's that hardwired into your brain that it'll literally justify anything to live -- and worse, you won't even get to "choose" your think-y parts of the brain will be over-ridden.

 

[PureX]

I was asking a friend some years ago why she would not eat meat, but would eat fish, and eggs. And her response summed it up quite succinctly. She said to me; "look, one day you're driving down the road in your car and you see a dead rabbit laying on the road, and so you think to yourself; aw! look at that poor dead rabbit." "But then another day you're driving down the road and you see a dead fish laying there, and you think to yourself; what the h@ll is that fish doing there???" "I don't eat things that I can empathize with."

 

[Daemon Sophic]

This thread is inspired by a comment by a member in another thread that replied to a spammy post.

How far are you willing to take your moral standard with regard to not consuming animals or animal products?

In such an scenario that the only thing left to eat was hermetically sealed or canned foods that contains meat or meat products, what would you do? Would you set aside these moral standards and eat meat or meat products? Would you slowly die of starvation?

As for me, being vegetarian, I don't have a definite answer as I have not given it much thought. I'll ponder this and reply later in the thread.

To me there are two basic groups of vegan people: those who are vegan for moral reasons, and you may find a selection of answers to your OP question. While the second group, like myself, are vegetarian purely for health reasons.
Yes there are also benefits to global warming and other environmental issues, but I consume vegetables only, as a way to avoid heart disease and many other ailments.

Faced with starvation or eating meat and other animal products, I would readily consume the animal materials.
The moral vegans may have trouble.

 

[BSM1]

a spammy post.

.

I see what you did there....

 

[SalixIncendium]

I see what you did there....

I'm glad someone got the pun.

 

[Stevicus]

I'm glad someone got the pun.

I only just now got to this thread, but I noticed it too.

 

[PoetPhilosopher]

I'm a big subscriber to PETA. People Eat Tasty Animals. Though I feel this thread has killed my appetite today, in more ways than one.

 

[ajay0]

What if karma carries over several lifetimes and it was the husband's dharma to drink the urine, while it was the wife and child's dharma to not drink it?

Obviously, the dharma of the couple was to survive till they were rescued. To do that, they had to make use of all resources they had at their disposal, including their own urine.

The husband overcame his conditioned revulsion to his urine for the time being and drank it, while his wife and child did not, inspite of his insistence, and sadly died before their rescue.

How can we judge if it was if either action was adharmic from our own perspective?

Dharma is that which brings the greatest good and the least evil. Obviously their dharma was to survive the ordeal and make the best use of their resources rationally rather than go by conditioned reactions .

How do we determine if any of them decided that it was not in their karma to become enlightened in that lifetime; that they were to continue to experience maya in another lifetime?

They need not be enlightened, but at least could have all survived and lived a virtuous and happy life in that lifetime. This would have also given them a good foundation for enlightenment in a future lifetime.

 

[David T]

This thread is inspired by a comment by a member in another thread that replied to a spammy post.

How far are you willing to take your moral standard with regard to not consuming animals or animal products?

In such an scenario that the only thing left to eat was hermetically sealed or canned foods that contains meat or meat products, what would you do? Would you set aside these moral standards and eat meat or meat products? Would you slowly die of starvation?

As for me, being vegetarian, I don't have a definite answer as I have not given it much thought. I'll ponder this and reply later in the thread.

Its An ocd question. If you are concerned about germs, do you stop eating out of that concern? At what point does ones concern take a back seat to eating?

Its a question asked from a place of luxury to ask the question. Its situational ethics but a really shallow version.

 

[Aupmanyav]

How far are you willing to take your moral standard with regard to not consuming animals or animal products?

As for me, being vegetarian, I don't have a definite answer as I have not given it much thought. I'll ponder this and reply later in the thread.

My community has a non-vegetarian tradition. So, nothing wrong if I eat non-vegetarian food. Otherwise also, all food is Brahman, and all eaters are Brahman. 'Dharmavyadha' said in Srimad Bhagawat, even vegetation is a life form.

Brahmārpañam Brahmahavir 
Brahmāgnau Brahmañāhutaṃ; Brahmaiva Tena Gantavyam 
Brahmakarmā Samādhinah.

It is nothing that one should terribly be concerned with. Whatever suits you.

 

[Bird123]

This thread is inspired by a comment by a member in another thread that replied to a spammy post.

How far are you willing to take your moral standard with regard to not consuming animals or animal products?

In such an scenario that the only thing left to eat was hermetically sealed or canned foods that contains meat or meat products, what would you do? Would you set aside these moral standards and eat meat or meat products? Would you slowly die of starvation?

As for me, being vegetarian, I don't have a definite answer as I have not given it much thought. I'll ponder this and reply later in the thread.

Does God want people to eat animal products? Perhaps, the real answer stares us in the face. The body requires B12 which only comes from animal products. If one wanted to be really kind, one could drink milk rather than kill the animal.

Food chains and life cycles are set up considering many factors. Since death is no more than a change and an exit from this world, I don't think feeding ourselves can be a crime. The crime exists only with the cruelty of raising feed animals, not allowing them a Life so to speak at all. Some chickens, for example, live their entire lives in a cage with no room to more and they do nothing but eat until they are butchered. To me, that is a crime. Does it really take that much more to give them their life before we eat them. I think we owe them that.

 

[ajay0]

Perhaps, the real answer stares us in the face.

Vitamin B12 is present in vegetarian foods like yoghurt, cheese and low-fat milk.

Vitamin B-12 foods for vegetarians and vegans

Unfertilized eggs are also a source of vitamin B12, and at the same time their consumption does not cause any loss of life.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'm a big subscriber to PETA. People Eat Tasty Animals. Though I feel this thread has killed my appetite today, in more ways than one.

Not me. I've seen all those PETA videos and I still eat meat, yet I'm still empathatic enough to put a worm back in the grass when they've been washed up on to the pavement after it's rained. As an animist, life is life and all life consumes other lifeforms to survive. Yet I do believe we should strive to treat other living beings (i.e. everything that exists) with respect.

 

[Vinayaka]

Vitamin B12 is present in vegetarian foods like yoghurt, cheese and low-fat milk.

Vitamin B-12 foods for vegetarians and vegans

Unfertilized eggs are also a source of vitamin B12, and at the same time their consumption does not cause any loss of life.

There are also lots of meat eaters who are low on B12. Besides that, B12 isn't the only nutrient that, if lacking, health deteriorates. Many of these are only found in vegetables, not in meat. When it comes to many nutrients, the question should be asked of everyone. Generally a complete diagnostic blood work will show what an individual is low in.