Does Spirituality Comprise Vegetarianism?

[wizanda]

Proteins in meats are not easily absorbable and use more resources to digest them, then they give; this is why we feel exhausted after eating them.
The intestines are full of dead rotten animals, which make us ages more, as it just sits there rotting; slowing down the whole metabolism of the body.
Fruit is fast absorbing and the seeds grow from the waste we produce (free food globally), which is nitrates and phosphates (fertilizer)…
Sort of reminds me of Cain and Able and where we went wrong…..animal farming for meat takes mass quantities of land, in comparison to fruit trees, which helps climate also.

 

[A. Ben-Shema]

God did not Create animal and vegetable to be independent life.
He created an ecosystem, in which each was dependant on the others for food and life.
Eating meat is inherent in God's scheme of things; as is eating and drinking all that God has provided us with.
Nothing is inherently unclean... It was all created and provided by God.

When a Lion eats a man, does he sin
Of course not, that is the nature of being a Lion.
The same applies to all life.

As all life Is of God, we should respect it, not wantonly kill for pleasure, nor consume more than we need to survive.
We should always respect what God has provided by treating it with kindness.

To suppose that some classes of animal are in some way unclean, usually has some historic reality. It was either a carrier of disease that could not be controlled. or was a beast that was more useful to us in some other way. such as the horse....
Some cultures relish horse meat, others Like the English reject it.

There are more valid reasons for not eating certain animals... such as their rarity and usefulness.

So you reject ALL the quotes that I gave in my OP?

Even the great apes (e.g. gorillas, orangutans, etc), who are closest to us in the animal kingdom, are vegetarians.

Peace & Love

 

[MaddLlama]

So you reject ALL the quotes that I gave in my OP?

Even the great apes (e.g. gorillas, orangutans, etc), who are closest to us in the animal kingdom, are vegetarians.

Peace & Love

Humans are omnivores - that is, we are designed to be opportunistic eaters. The human body can digest meat just fine, and meat is a more accessible, and better absorbable source of protein than dairy and legumes. What do you think they ate for protein thousands of years ago? It wasn't as if they had tofu outside of Asia (and in Asia they didn't have much meat other than fish). If we weren't designed to eat meat, then we wouldn't be eating it now, we would have stopped eating it tens of thousands of years ago.

Notice that people still eat meat today, and survive. That's a long time for an entire species to live and prosper and not follow its intended diet.

 

[A. Ben-Shema]

Humans are omnivores - that is, we are designed to be opportunistic eaters. The human body can digest meat just fine, and meat is a more accessible, and better absorbable source of protein than dairy and legumes. What do you think they ate for protein thousands of years ago? It wasn't as if they had tofu outside of Asia (and in Asia they didn't have much meat other than fish). If we weren't designed to eat meat, then we wouldn't be eating it now, we would have stopped eating it tens of thousands of years ago.

Notice that people still eat meat today, and survive. That's a long time for an entire species to live and prosper and not follow its intended diet.

I could argue that, in fact, our bodies, just like the great apes, are not designed for eating flesh (e.g. we have long intestines, just as all non-flesh eating animals; our jaws move both up and down as well as side to side, unlike flesh eaters; etc.), but the whole point is not material, it is Spiritual.

I could never understand why people, who say that they love animals, eat flesh. But everyone makes their own choices.

Peace & Love

 

[MaddLlama]

I could argue that, in fact, our bodies, just like the great apes, are not designed for eating flesh (e.g. we have long intestines, just as all non-flesh eating animals; our jaws move both up and down as well as side to side, unlike flesh eaters; etc.), but the whole point is not material, it is Spiritual.

I could never understand why people, who say that they love animals, eat flesh. But everyone makes their own choices.

Peace & Love

Just because we have certain body parts in common with herbivoric animals doesn't mean we were designed to be herbivores. We have more things not in common with herbivores, not the least of which is that our bodies require more protein to survive. Herbivores need little, if any protein, and the little they need is easily extracted from plants. Human bodies can't survive with only plants as a protein source, which is why all vegetarians need to eat beans.

The natural order of the world is not happy, peace, love, every living thing gets along New Age style blather. Nature is a harsh mother, and you will never truly experience the spiritual nature of the natural world, it's cycles and symbiosis until you have seen both the cute fuzzy animals living in happiness, and a fox jump out from the trees, catch a rabbit and eat it. It may not be pretty, but facing the reality of the way the world works is far more spiritual than pretending that the world is made of bubble wrap.

There is nothing about our larger brains or reasoning ability that gives us some sort of spiritual responsibility to not eat animals. It is our larger brains and reasoning ability that allows us to cook our meat, and survive as opportunistic eaters.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

So you reject ALL the quotes that I gave in my OP?

Yes I am not a jew who needs to obey the old law. No do I believe God has given us Dietary restrictions. Those religions that chose to follow a restricted diet are welcome to do so.
Some like the Mormons have very sensible restrictions with scientific value.
Others seem somewhat arbitrary.

Even the great apes (e.g. gorillas, orangutans, etc), who are closest to us in the animal kingdom, are vegetarians.
Peace & Love

The Diet of the great apes is a result of their habitat and most will eat meat on occasion and nearly all will eat insects and grubs.
The Gorillas have Great difficulty with their diet and are not fully adapted to it.
Our teeth are specialised for an omnivorous diet, we can chew crush and tear.

We can digest a wide range of foods and produce enzymes For each class of food.
Personally the food I eat is roughly 15% to 20% animal protein and the rest vegetable.

 

[MFaraz_Hayat]

The plants too feel pain and can even cry (though due to limitations of human ear, we can't hear them). They too are living beings.

 

[A. Ben-Shema]

I wonder how many flesh eaters would truthfully have the ability, and the stomach, to actually kill, skin, chop up, and otherwise prepare an innocent creature themselves?

It is so easy to go to the supermarket and get one's share of ready prepared, and relatively bloodless flesh, but to do the dirty work is something else altogether. I know that I could not kill an animal myself.

Peace & Love

 

[MaddLlama]

I wonder how many flesh eaters would truthfully have the ability, and the stomach, to actually kill, skin, chop up, and otherwise prepare an innocent creature themselves?

It is so easy to go to the supermarket and get one's share of ready prepared, and relatively bloodless flesh, but to do the dirty work is something else altogether. I know that I could not kill an animal myself.

Peace & Love

Do you think they had Shop Rite thousands of years ago? If you look far back enough, nearly every culture hunted for their food - they created weapons, killed and prepared animal flesh, and ate it. The only reasons we don't do so today is because we have a larger population to sustain so it isn't practical, and we have the technology now that it isn't necessary.

Just because you don't want to eat meat, or think that it's not "consistent with our spiritual nature" doesn't mean that humanity was meant to be that way. You're free to make your own choice, and you don't need to justify it with bad reasoning. What's wrong with saying "I choose not to eat meat"? Why do you have to try and prove your way of eating is more right than someone else's?

By the way, do you believe there is a spiritual quality to the nasty bits of nature? Like, a fox chowing down on a rabbit?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I wonder how many flesh eaters would truthfully have the ability, and the stomach, to actually kill, skin, chop up, and otherwise prepare an innocent creature themselves?

It is so easy to go to the supermarket and get one's share of ready prepared, and relatively bloodless flesh, but to do the dirty work is something else altogether. I know that I could not kill an animal myself.

Peace & Love

Some religions have people trained for this task, others have a whole cast for it.
I have Killed animal both to end suffering, and for the pot, but never for pleasure.
From my view point, if you eat meat and can do it with out causing undue distress, you should be prepared to do it.
If you do not have the required skill, I would prefer that you leave it to some one who has.

 

[xexon]

The whole purpose of being a vegetarian for spiritual reasons is two-fold.

First, you wish to cause no pain to any animal. This will only add to your bad karma account.

Second, you are trying to increase your personal spiritual frequency. Eating of animal flesh slows this down. It creates a dragging effect.

In being a vegetarian, you are trying to make yourself more spiritually aerodynamic.


x

 

[doppelganger]

It wasn't as if they had tofu outside of Asia (and in Asia they didn't have much meat other than fish). If we weren't designed to eat meat, then we wouldn't be eating it now, we would have stopped eating it tens of thousands of years ago.

Having just finished Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs & Steel, half of which is about the domestication of plants and animals that lie at the "roots" of civilization, I would add that there is quite a bit of evidence that agricultural societies evolved largely in places where a combination of a relatively easily domesticated cereal grain and a legume of some sort occurred together, which allowed a society in a fixed locale to provide protein for its peoples' diet (legumes and cereals together generally provide a complete array of essential amino acids).

We do need protein. It doesn't need to be much animal protein (and certainly not in the amounts that Americans tend to eat), though we are obviously quite capable of digesting and using protein in animal products. Before that, and before the domestication of food animals (beef cattle, sheep, pigs, etc.) getting meat was difficult and dangerous for hunter-gatherers, which may explain why it was so celebrated in hunter-gatherer mythology. Speaking for myself, spirituality does not require vegetarianism, though I can understand why for some it would. Diets rich in animal products come at a pretty steep price, including fat and cholesterol, disease (things like colon cancer as well as communicable diseases), and ecological problems. I try to minimize the amount of meat and animal products I consume, personally. And stick mainly to whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables. And i don't eat any red meat (beef, mutton, pork, etc.) but mostly fish.

Moderation is not a bad option.

 

[Sonic247]

Romans 14:1- Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, [but] not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

Colossians 2:20-Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

 

[Smoke]

Even the great apes (e.g. gorillas, orangutans, etc), who are closest to us in the animal kingdom, are vegetarians.

Of the four groups within the great apes, two -- gorillas and orangutans -- are mostly vegetarian, though they will eat bugs. The other two great apes -- chimpanzees and humans -- are omnivores. We're more closely related to chimpanzees, and they to us, than to the others.

There's a lot to be said for vegetarianism, and it may be -- for all I know -- that gorillas are more spiritual than chimps. But I wouldn't want to have to defend vegetarianism on evolutionary grounds.

 

[MFaraz_Hayat]

The whole purpose of being a vegetarian for spiritual reasons is two-fold.

First, you wish to cause no pain to any animal. This will only add to your bad karma account.

Second, you are trying to increase your personal spiritual frequency. Eating of animal flesh slows this down. It creates a dragging effect.

In being a vegetarian, you are trying to make yourself more spiritually aerodynamic.


x

The plants too feel pain and can even cry (though due to limitations of human ear, we can't hear them). They too are living beings.

 

[Sonic247]

How can they feel pain, they don't have any nerves.

 

[doppelganger]

How can they feel pain, they don't have any nerves.

Root apices:

http://ds9.botanik.uni-bonn.de/zellbio/AG-Baluska-Volkmann/plantneuro/pdf/NeuroPlantTZ-Biologia.pdf

 

[xexon]

The plants too feel pain and can even cry (though due to limitations of human ear, we can't hear them). They too are living beings.

I agree, plants talk to me all the time. Animals too.

The forest absolutely sings when rain is approaching. And it is beyond the human ear. But I don't hear if through my physical ears. It "resonates" in the area around my heart.

The consciousness of a plant is not like ours. It is in a dull state. While it can react to it's environment, it does not have emotions in the way we do.

We have to eat something while here in this world. It is best to cause as little pain and suffering as possible in the process. Sticking to a vegetarian diet is the best service we can offer to our little brothers and sisters called animals.


x

 

[wizanda]

I agree, plants talk to me all the time..........

The consciousness of a plant is not like ours. It is in a dull state. While it can react to it's environment, it does not have emotions in the way we do.

Could us trees listen then to reply :angel2:
Wonder why so many people read books from them then?

 

[doppelganger]

From the conclusion of the linked article, BTW:

This overview of data that concern the nervous
aspects of higher plants makes it clear
that, although plants are generally immobile and
lack the most obvious brain activities of animals
and humans, they not only are able to
show many attributes of intelligent behaviour
but they also are equipped with several critical
molecules, especially with synaptotagmins (CRAXTON,
2001) and glutamate-/glycine-gated glutamate
receptors (DAVENPORT, 2002; DUBOS et al.,
2003; SIVAGURU et al., 2003), that could support
synapse-like cell-to-cell communication in plants.
Indeed, the recent advances in plant cell biology
allowed identification of plant synapses (BALUŠKA
et al., 2003b,c; BARLOW et al. 2004), leading to a
breakthrough in nervous plant biology. It is increasingly
obvious that synaptic communication
is not limited to brains of animals and humans
but that it is widespread throughout plant tissues
also. Moreover, root apices show many features
which allow us to propose that they, especially
their transition zones, act in some way as plant
brains. On the other hand, stelar tissue is specialised
not simply for the transport of solutes and
assimilates but also brings about the transport
of neurotransmitter-like and morphogen-like auxin
(BALUŠKA et al., 2003a; BHALERAO & BENNETT,
2003). Moreover, the vascular bundles support the
transmission of action potentials suggesting that
they act act as a highway for plant nervous activity.
It is obvious that stelar tissues are enriched
with actin and nervous molecules like glutamate
receptors as well as acetylcholine.