"...but to hunt...is forbidden you, so long as
ye are on the pilgrimage. Be mindful of your
duty to Allah, unto Whom you will all be
gathered."

---Koran, surah 5, verse 96

Islam teaches that in Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, no creature can be slaughtered and that perfect harmony should exist between all living beings. Muslim pilgrims approach Mecca wearing a shroud ("ihram"). From the moment they wear this religious cloth, absolutely no killing is allowed. Mosquitos, lice, grasshoppers, and other living creatures must also be protected. If a pilgrim sees an insect on the ground, he will motion to stop his comrades from accidentally stepping on it. Islam teaches respect for animals and nature; the Islamic tradition has much to say about humanity's relationship with the animal world.

"Whoever is kind to the creatures of God is
kind to himself."

---the Prophet Mohammed

"There is not an animal on the earth, nor a
flying creature flying on two wings, but
they are all peoples like unto you."

---Koran, surah 6, verse 38

The Koran (Majeed 55:10-12) teaches that God assigned the earth "to all living creatures," and humanity is ordered not to "spread corruption on earth, after it has been put in order." (Majeed 7:56) "Seest thou not that it is God whose praises are celebrated by all beings in heaven and on earth, and by the birds with extended wings?" asks the Koran. "Each one knows its prayer and psalm. And God is aware of what they do." (Majeed 24:41) The Koran calls the pagan practice of slitting the ears of animals "devilish acts." Mohammed is recorded as having told his followers, "it behooves you to treat the animals gently." (Majeed 4:118-19, 5:103)

About Mohammed, the English Arabic scholar, David Margoliouth (1858-1940), has written: "His humanity extended itself to the lower creation. He forbade the employment of towing birds as targets for marksmen and remonstrated those who ill-treated their camels. When some of his followers had set fire to an anthill, he compelled them to extinguish it. Acts of cruelty were swept away by him."

In one popular tradition ("Hadith"), Mohammed is said to have rebuked his followers for failing to show compassion. "But we do show compassion," they responded, "to our wives, children and relatives." The Prophet insisted, "It is not this to which I refer. I am speaking of universal mercy." According to tradition (Hadith Mishkat 3:1392), Mohammed taught that "all creatures are like a family of God; and He loves the most those who are the most beneficent to His family."

Providing food and drink for animals, Mohammed explained, "are among those virtuous gestures which draw us one step nearer to God," and "everyone who shows clemency, even towards a mere bird under the knife, will find God's clemency towards him on Doomsday."

Awakening from rest one afternoon, Mohammed found a small, sick cat sound asleep on the fringe of his cloak. The Prophet cut off his garment, allowing the cat to sleep undisturbed. "Is this a man who would advocate the unnecessary slaughter of harmless beasts?" asks writer Steven Rosen. "Show sympathy to others," taught Mohammed, "especially to those who are weaker than you."

Islamic scholar Dr. M. Hafiz Syed records the following traditions from the life and teachings of Mohammed:

The Prophet passed by certain people who were shooting arrows at a ram and hated that, saying, "Maim not the brute beasts."

The Prophet, seen wiping the face of his horse with his wrapper, said, "At night I received a reprimand from God in regard to my horse."

A man once robbed some eggs from the nest of a bird, whereupon the Prophet had them restored to the nest. "Fear God in these dumb animals," said the Prophet, "and ride them when they are fit to be ridden—and get off them when they are tired."

"Verily, are there rewards for our doing good to quadrupeds and giving them water to drink?" asked the disciples. And the Prophet answered, "There are rewards for benefitting every animal having a moist liver." (i.e., everyone alive!)

The Prophet spoke of the rewards and punishments one would receive depending on one's treatment of animals. He once told his companions he had a vision of a woman being punished in hell because she had starved a cat to death. "A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being," taught Mohammed, "while an act of cruelty to an animal is as bad as an act of cruelty to a human being."

On another occasion, the Prophet is recorded as having said, "He who takes pity even on a sparrow and spares its life, God will be merciful to him on the Day of Judgement... There is no man who kills even a sparrow, or anything smaller, without a justifiable cause, but God will question him about it."

Again, Mohammed is said to have taught that, "one who kills even a sparrow or anything smaller without a justifiable reason will be answerable to Allah." Muslim literature even records the Prophet forbidding the use of animal skins.

Mohammed took pity on beasts of burden. He forbade the beating of animals, as well as branding, striking, or painting them on the face. When the Prophet encountered a donkey that had been branded on the face, he exclaimed, "May Allah condemn the one who branded it." According to Mohammed, some animals were better than their riders. "Verily, there exist among the ridden ones some who are indeed better than their riders, and who praise their Lord more worthily."

According to Islamic scholar B.A. Masri, "All kinds of animal fights are strictly forbidden in Islam." Mohammed forbade using living creatures as targets, and went so far as to condemn putting animals in cages, calling it "a great sin for man to imprison those animals which are in his power."

Mohammed even classified the unnecessary slaughter of animals as one of the seven deadly sins. "Avoid the seven abominations," he said, then referring to a verse from the Koran, "And kill not a living creature, which Allah has made sancrosanct, except for a justifiable reason."

Dr. Masri writes that: "According to the spirit and overall teachings of Islam, causing avoidable pain and suffering to the defenseless and innocent creatures of God is not justifiable under any circumstances."

On the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Masri points out that: "Many of the experiments that are being done on animals in the name of scientific research and education are not really necessary and are sheer cruelty. Such experiments are a contradiction in terms of the Islamic teachings...According to Islam, all life is sancrosant and has a right to protection and preservation."

Like the Bible, the Koran also describes God's blessings to mankind as essentially vegetarian, in verses similar to Genesis 1:29:

"Therewith He causes crops to grow for you, and the olive and the date-palm and grapes and all kinds of fruit. Lo! Herein is indeed a portent for people who reflect."

---Koran, surah 16, verse 11

"A token unto them is the dead earth. We revive it, and We
bring forth from it grain—so that they will eat thereof. And We have placed therein gardens of the date-palm and grapes, and We have caused springs of water to gush forth therein. That they may not eat of the fruit thereof and their hands created it not. Will they not, then, give thanks?"

---Koran, surah 36, verses 33-35

"Let man reflect on the food he eats: how We poured out the rain abundantly, and split the earth into fissures, and how We then made the grains to grow, and vines and reeds, olives and palms and gardens and fruits and pastures—an enjoyment for you and your cattle to delight in.

"It is God who sends down water out of the sky, and with
it quickens the earth after it is dead. Surely, in that is a sign for people who have ears to hear. In cattle, too, there is a lesson for you: We give you to drink of what is in their bellies, between filth and blood—pure milk, sweet to those who drink.

"And We give you the fruits of the palms and the vines from which you derive sweet-tasting liquid and fair provision. Indeed, this is a sign for men of understanding.

"And your Lord inspires the bees, saying, 'Build your homes in the mountains, in the trees and in the thatch of roots, then feed on every kind of fruit and follow the ways of your Lord, so easy to go upon.' Then there comes forth out of their bellies a liquid of various colors wherein is healing for men. Truly, this is a sign for people who reflect."

Dr. M. Hafiz Syed writes that the Prophet taught worshipers who eat animal flesh to wash out their mouths before going to pray. It is a Muslim custom to clean one's mouth before prayer, but many biographers record Mohammed giving this instruction only in regards to meat, and not to any other kind of food.

Mohammed's earliest biographers wrote that he preferred vegetarian foods. The Prophet enjoyed milk diluted with water, yogurt with butter or nuts, and cucumbers with dates. His favorite fruits, which he would often subsist on for weeks at a time, were pomegranates, grapes and figs. He liked soaked, crushed dates as a morning drink.

The Prophet was especially fond of honey. He would eat it mixed with vinegar. Mohammed is quoted as having said that in a home where there is honey and vinegar, there will be the blessings of the Lord. He enjoyed a preparation known as "hees," made from butter, dates and yogurt. "Where there is an abundance of vegetables," said the Prophet, "hosts of angels will descend on that place."

Mohammed did not directly forbid the killing of animals for food, but he taught that such killing should be done as humanely as possible. "If you must kill," he conceded, "kill without torture." The laws governing the "humane slaughter" of animals for food in Islam are similar to those found in Judaism. The knife must be "razor sharp," to cause as little pain to the animal as possible. The knife should not be sharpened in the presence of the animal about to be killed. An animal must not be slaughtered in the presence of other animals. In order to prevent harm to an animal that may still be alive, it is forbidden to skin or slice an animal carcass until it is cold, i.e., when rigor mortis has set in.

The Koran clearly evokes compassion and mercy towards animals. Islamic mystics, such as the Sufis, regard vegetarianism as a high spiritual ideal. One contemporary Sufi master explains, "If you understand the 'qurban' (ritual slaughter and Islamic dietary laws) from within with wisdom, its purpose is to reduce this killing. But if you look at it from outside, it is meant to supply desire with food, to supply the craving of the base desires..."

As in the Jewish tradition, animal life partakes of the sacred, and the ritual and humane slaughter of animals is regarded as a divine concession to human lust and brutality. The Koran (22:37) also teaches the futility of animal sacrifice as a means of worship. "Their flesh will never reach Allah, nor yet their blood—but your devotion and piety will reach Him."

The death of the Prophet Mohammed put flesh-eating in its proper perspective. It is said a non-Muslim woman invited Mohammed and his companions to a meal and served them poisoned meat. By the gift of prophecy, Mohammed knew the flesh was poisoned. He alone ate it, and ordered his companions not to do so.

Although Mohammed was not in the habit of eating foods prepared by non-Muslims, on this occasion he did. Struck down by the poisoned meat, he was ill for nearly two years before dying in 632 AD. Some scholars believe Mohammed deliberately ate the poisoned meat to teach his followers to moral wrong of flesh-eating, recalling passages from the biblical Book of Numbers (11:4-34), in which the Israelites who demanded and got meat (instead of the vegetarian manna provided by God) were struck down by a plague.

The traditional understanding of the Islamic dietary laws is that Muslims are meant to eat wholesome foods. The Koran (surah 7, verse 157) teaches that "He (Mohammed) makes lawful to them the good things of life and he forbids them the bad things." Al-Ghazzali (1058-1111), one of Islam's most distinguished philosophers, wrote in his book Ihya Ulum ul-Din: "Eating the meat of a cow causes disease ('marz'), its milk is health ('safa') and its clarified butter ('ghee') is medicine ('dava'). Compassionate eating leads to compassionate living." Islamic compassion should extend to animals.

Rabi'a al Adawiyya was born in 717 AD in Basra, in what is now known as Iraq. During childhood, her parents died, and she was sold into slavery. Rabi'a was a Sufi, a member of a mystical sect that preaches total love of God and total union with Him. After her release from slavery, she went to the desert for prayer and meditation. She returned to Basra, leading a life of voluntary poverty and simplicity. She refused gifts of money and riches as well as many offers of marriage. Her life was marked by acts of kindness towards humans and animals alike. When she was in the mountains, the animals gathered around her: deer, gazelles, mountain goats and wild donkeys. In her presence, they were trusting and fearless.

Once, when another Sufi teacher, Hasan-al-Basri approached her, the animals ran away. He asked her why the animals gathered around her, but ran from him. Rabi'a responded by asking him what he had eaten. "Onions fried in fat," he replied. "You eat their fat!" exclaimed Rabi'a. "Why should they not flee from you?"

"Share thy water with the early birds
For this is a worthwhile deed
The birds do no harm nor sin
But beware and fear thy kind.

"Freeing an insect is kinder
Than giving money to the needy
There is no difference between releasing
The deformed black creature,
And the black prince of Kinda,
Ready to be crowned.

"Both deserve living, for their lives are precious
And seeking to live is a continual struggle."

These are the teachings of Abu l'Ala, a blind poet, born in Syria in 973 AD. He originally planned to live as a vegetarian ascetic, but his fame spread, and disciples and students all came to him. He was surrounded by people who wanted to learn from him. He used his eloquence with words to speak on behalf of the oppressed.

Abu l'Ala called for religious equality, urging Jews, Christians and Muslims to respect one another's faiths and to act with good will towards one another. He opposed tyranny, and taught that rulers and princes are servants of the people.

"My heart bleeds for the cruelty toward
The poor burro, who stubbornly endures
But also gets whipped for resting because of
the excessive burden on his back."

Abu l'Ala was a vegetarian out of compassion for animals. "Neither eat the sea creatures," he taught, "for this is cruel. Nor seek nor desire thy food from the painful slaughtering of animals." Abu l'Ala also objected to the use of fur, leather, milk, honey and eggs, because they involve abusing or taking things from animals.

The Koran teaches compassion and mercy. Each of its 114 chapters, except one, begin, "Allah is merciful and compassionate." The name of God used most often in the Koran is "al-Rahim," which means "the All-Compassionate." Mohammed taught love and respect for nature, compassion for animals and condemned the needless suffering and death of other living creatures. Vegetarianism and animal rights are consistent with Islam.

Wow vasumurti, 5,700 words? I thought the original commentaries were supposed to be limited to 1,000 words. Wasn't there something in Shakespeare's Macbeth about that sort of thing?

Great discussion. Great to read CD readers getting out of their heads (for a change) and sharing hearts and spirits and bodies.

Some observations: A friend is a very committed member of a Sai Baba community ("the only religion is love"), has been a strict vegetarian for decades, and I've witnessed him hitting his kids on more than one occassion.In reaction, I personally grapple with my own violence issues as a man, whenever my buttons are pushed witnessing my (ill)friend's behavior. It is only very recently that I am beginning to see it all as a test of my own "lovingness" and an opportunity to explore not falling back on patterns of fear,anger, and exclusion.

I welcome other personal observations from other readers, especially on the large area of life that exists between ideology and daily human experience.

Pythagoras (570-470 BC) was born on the island colony of Samos. Historian Dr. Martin A. Larson describes him as "A universal genius...He made important contributions to music and astronomy; he was a metaphysician, a natural philosopher, a social revolutionary, a political organizer, and the universal theologian. He was one of those all-embracing intellects which appears at rare intervals."

Pythagoras' biographer Diogenes Laertius records that he did not "neglect medicine;" his followers contributed to medical wisdom. In the history of religion, Pythagoras was the first person to teach the concepts of reincarnation, heaven and hell to the Western world.

Diogenes Laertius writes that Pythagoras warned that all who did not accept his teachings would suffer torment in the afterlife, while promising his followers the spiritual kingdom. According to the early Christian father Eusebius: "Pythagoras...declared...that the doctrines which he had received...were a personal revelation to himself from God."

Pythagoras was driven from his native Samos in 529 BC when the tyrant Polycrates declared him a subversive. He went to Croton in Italy, established a school of philosophy, and lectured to classes of up to six hundred students. He founded a monastic order that soon became very influential. It was basically a religious sect made up of dedicated saints practicing vegetarianism, voluntary poverty and chastity.

In less that two decades, the Pythagoreans were numerous and powerful enough to take political power without having to resort to force or violence. History shows that when the Pythagoreans were attacked and massacred in Magna Grecia in 450 BC, they practiced nonviolence and did not resist their aggressors.

Ancient and modern historians alike acknowledge that Pythagoras was vegetarian. This was the conclusion of Plutarch, Ovid, Diogenes Laertius and Iamblichus in ancient times, and it is the conclusion of scholars today. Nor was vegetarianism loosely connected with the Pythagorean philosophy—it was an integral part of it.

"Oh, my fellow men!" exclaimed Pythagoras. "Do not defile your bodies with sinful foods. We have corn. We have apples bending down the branches 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 milk or thyme-scented honey. The earth affords you a lavish supply of riches, of innocent foods, and offers you banquets that involve no bloodshed or slaughter."

Pythagoras' meals consisted of honeycomb, millet or barley bread, and vegetables. He would pay fishermen to throw their catch back into the sea. Ironically, he claimed to have been a fisherman in a previous life. He abhorred animal sacrifice and wine, and would only sacrifice cakes, honey, and frankincense to the gods. He revered the altar at Delos because it was free from blood sacrifices. Upon it, he offered flour, meal, and cakes made without the use of fire. Pythagoras would not associate with cooks or hunters.

According to Iamblichus, Pythagoras taught his followers not to kill even a flea, especially in a temple. He not only showed respect for gods, humans, and animals, but also for the trees, which were not to be destroyed, unless absolutely necessary. It is said Pythagoras pet an eagle, told an ox not to trample a bean field, and fed a ferocious bear barley and acorns, telling it not to attack humans any more.

Pythagoras not only taught transmigration of the soul, or reincarnation, but even claimed to remember his previous lives. It is said Pythagoras once stopped a man from beating a dog, because in the dog's yelping he recognized the voice of an old friend. For Pythagoras, killing animals for food meant causing suffering or death to living creatures just as worthy of moral concern as human beings, and who may also have been human in previous lifetimes.

The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC - 18 AD), quoted Pythagoras in the 15th chapter of Metamorphosis as follows: "Our souls are immortal, and are ever received into new homes where they live and dwell, when they have left their previous abode...All things change, but nothing dies; the spirit wanders hither and tither, taking possession of what limbs it pleases, passing from beasts into human beings, or again our human spirit passes into beasts, but never at any time does it perish...Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another!"

If souls can transmigrate from one species to another, and all souls are of the same nature, then the unnecessarily killing animals is as morally indefensible as the unnecessary killing of human beings. Pythagoras may have also drawn a parallel between the plight of animals in human hands, and the fate of humans in the hands of the gods. We humans would suffer should the gods unnecessarily kill or torment us; we should likewise treat the animal world with mercy.

Local tradition says Pythagoras spent time living in a cave on Mount Kerkis in Samos. He was the first person in the history of the world to deduce that the Earth is a sphere. He may have reached this conclusion by comparing the Earth to the Sun and the Moon, or perhaps he noticed the curved shadow of the Earth upon the Moon during a lunar eclipse, or he may have seen that when ships depart and recede over the horizon, their masts disappear last.

The famous "Pythagorean theorem" is now known to have been mathematical knowledge long before Pythagoras. Square roots and cube roots and the "Pythagorean" theorem are mentioned in the Sulbha Sutras of Bodhayana, in India. (700 BC) Bodhayana also calculated the areas of triangles, circles, trapezoids and determined the value of pi = 3.14136 in measuring and constructing temple altars. Some scholars believe Pythagoras may have received his wisdom from the East.

What was significant about Pythagoras' approach, however, was that he did more than list examples of this theorem: he developed a method of mathematical proof of the theorem, based on deduction. Our modern tradition of mathematical proof, the basis for every kind of science, originated in the West with Pythagoras.

Whereas classical Indian mathematics tended to be intuitive, the Greeks established a tradition of rigorous mathematical proofs. Pythagoras further taught that the world is well-ordered, harmonious, and may be comprehended through human reason. He was the first to use the word "cosmos" to denote a fathomable universe. According to Pythagoras, the laws of nature could be deduced purely by thought.

During the Renaissance and the age of Enlightenment, Kepler and Newton thought of the world in terms of harmony—the order and beauty of planetary motion and the existence of mathematical laws explaining such motion, and from them came our modern scientific belief that the entire universe can be measured, quantified, and explained in terms of mathematical relationships. These ideas began with Pythagoras. "Chemistry is simply numbers," said Dr. Carl Sagan, "an idea Pythagoras would have liked."

George Bernard Shaw, British playwright, was a vegetarian from age 25 to 94, still writing when he died. This fact should put to rest the belief that animal protein is necessary for superior mental activity. He wished his bier would be pulled by all the animals he did not eat.

The Netherlands, in their last parlimentary election, elected two or three representatives from the Animal Rights Party; the first country ever to elect even one.

Vegetarianism and concern for animals can be found in Protestant Christianity as well. Commenting on Deuteronomy 22:6, which forbids harming a mother-bird if her eggs or chicks are taken, Martin Luther (1483-1546) wrote: "What else does this law teach but that by the kind treatment of animals they are to learn gentleness and kindness? Otherwise it would seem to be a stupid ordinance not only to regulate a matter so unimportant, but also to promise happiness and a long life to those who keep it."

According to Luther, Adam "would not have used the creatures as we do today," but rather, "for the admiration of God and a holy joy." Referring to passages from Scripture concerning the redemption of the entire creation and the Kingdom of Peace, Luther taught that "the creatures are created for an end; for the glory that is to come."

British historian William Lecky observed that, "Luther grew sad and thoughtful at a hare hunt, for it seemed to him to represent the pursuit of souls by the devil." Author Dix Harwood, in Love for Animals, depicts a grieving young girl being comforted by Luther. Luther assures her that her pet dog who died would certainly go to heaven. Luther tells her that in the "new heavens and new earth...all creatures will not only be harmless, but lovely and joyful...Why, then, should there not be little dogs in the new earth, whose skin might be as fair as gold, and their hair as bright as precious stones?"

Biblical teachings on human responsibilities towards animals were not lost on John Calvin (1509-1564). According to Calvin, animals exist within the framework of human justice: "But it must be remembered that men are required to practice justice even in dealing with animals. Solomon condemns injustice to our neighbours the more severely when he says, 'a just man cares well for his beasts' (Proverbs 12:10). In a word, we are to do what is right voluntarily and freely, and each of us is responsible for doing his duty."

John Wray (1627?-1705), the "father of English natural history," made the first systematic description and classification of animal and vegetable species. He wrote numerous works on botany, zoology, and theology. In 1691, Wray published The Wisdom of God Manifest in the Works of His Creation, which emphasized the sanctity and value of the natural world.

Wray advocated vegetarianism and made two points in his book. The first was that God can best be seen and understood in the study of His creation. "Let us then consider the works of God and observe the operation of His hands," wrote Wray. "Let us take notice of and admire His infinite goodness and wisdom in the formation of them. No creature in the sublunary world is capable of doing this except man, and yet we have been deficient therein." Wray's second point was that God placed animals here for their own sake, and not just for the pleasure of humans. Animals have their own intrinsic value. "If a good man be merciful to his beast, then surely a good God takes pleasure that all His creatures enjoy themselves that have life and sense and are capable of enjoying."

Thomas Tryon's lengthy The Way to Health, Wealth, and Happiness was published in 1691. Tryon defended vegetarianism as a physically and spiritually superior way of life. He came to this conclusion from his interpretation of the Bible as well as his understanding of Christianity. Tryon wrote against "that depraved custom of eating flesh and blood." The opening pages of his book begin with an eloquent plea for mercy towards the animals:

"Refrain at all times such foods as cannot be procured without violence and oppression, for know, that all the inferior creatures when hurt do cry and fend forth their complaints to their Maker...Be not insensible that every creature doth bear the image of the great Creator according to the nature of each, and that He is the vital power in all things. Therefore, let none take pleasure to offer violence to that life, lest he awaken the fierce wrath, and bring danger to his own soul. But let mercy and compassion dwell plentifully in your hearts, that you may be comprehended in the friendly principle of God's love and holy light. Be a friend to everything that's good, and then everything will be a friend to thee, and co-operate for thy good and welfare."

In The Way, Tryon (1634-1703) also condemned "Hunting, hawking, shooting, and all violent oppressive exercises..." On a separate occasion, he warned the first Quaker settlers of Pennsylvania that their "holy experiment" in peaceful living would fail unless they extended their Christian precepts of nonviolence to the animal kingdom:

"Does not bounteous Mother Earth furnish us with all sorts of food necessary for life?" he asked. "Though you will not fight with and kill those of your own species, yet I must be bold to tell you, that these lesser violences (as you call them) do proceed from the same root of wrath and bitterness as the greater do."

"Thanks be to God!" wrote John Wesley, founder of Methodism, to the Bishop of London in 1747. "Since the time I gave up the use of flesh-meats and wine, I have been delivered from all physical ills." Wesley was a vegetarian for spiritual reasons as well. He based his vegetarianism on the Biblical prophecies concerning the Kingdom of Peace, where "on the new earth, no creature will kill, or hurt, or give pain to any other." He further taught that animals "shall receive an ample amends for all their present sufferings."

Wesley's teachings placed an emphasis on inner religion and the effect of the Holy Spirit upon the consciousness of such followers. Wesley taught that animals will attain heaven: in the "general deliverance" from the evils of this world, animals would be given "vigor, strength and swiftness...to a far higher degree than they ever enjoyed."

Wesley urged parents to educate their children about compassion towards animals. He wrote: "I am persuaded you are not insensible of the pain given to every Christian, every humane heart, by those savage diversions, bull-baiting, cock-fighting, horse-racing, and hunting."

In 1786, Reverend Richard Dean, the curate of Middleton, published An Essay on the Future Life of Brute Creatures. He told his readers to treat animals with compassion, and not to "treat them as sticks, or stones, or things that cannot feel...Surely ...sensibility in brutes entitles them to a milder treatment than they usually meet from hard and unthinking wretches."

The Quakers have a long history of advocating kindness towards animals. In 1795, the Society of Friends (Quakers) in London passed a resolution condemning sport hunting. The resolution stated in part, "let our leisure be employed in serving our neighbor, and not in distressing, for our amusement, the creatures of God."

John Woolman (1720-72) was a Quaker preacher and abolitionist who traveled throughout the American colonies attacking slavery and cruelty to animals. Woolman wrote that he was "early convinced in my mind that true religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence God the Creator and learn to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute creatures..."

Woolman's deep faith in God thus led to his reverence for all life. "Where the love of God is verily perfected and the true spirit of government watchfully attended to," he taught, "a tenderness toward all creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great Creator intends for them."

Joshua Evans (1731-1798), a Quaker and a contemporary of Woolman's, stated that reverence for life was the moral basis of his vegetarianism. "I considered that life was sweet in all living creatures," he wrote, 'and taking it away became a very tender point with me...I believe my dear Master has been pleased to try my faith and obedience by teaching me that I ought no longer to partake of anything that had life.

The "Quaker poet" and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92), wrote: "The sooner we recognize the fact that the mercy of the Almighty extends to every creature endowed with life, the better it will be for us as men and Christians."

One of the most respected English theologians of the 18th century, William Paley (1743-1805), taught that killing animals for food was unjustifiable. Paley called the excuses used to justify killing animals "extremely lame," and even refuted the rationalizations concerning fishing.

The founder and first secretary of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) was an Anglican priest, the Reverend Arthur Broome. The RSPCA was originally founded as a Christian society "entirely based on the Christian Faith, and on Christian Principles," and sponsoring sermons on humane education in churches in London. The Society formed in 1824, and its first "Prospectus" spoke of the need to extend Christian charity and benevolence to the animals:

"Our country is distinguished by the number and variety of its benevolent institutions...all breathing the pure spirit of Christian charity...But shall we stop here? Is the moral circle perfect so long as any power of doing good remains? Or can the infliction of cruelty on any being which the Almighty has endued with feelings of pain and pleasure consist with genuine and true benevolence?"

This Prospectus was signed by many leading 19th century Christians including William Wilberforce, Richard Martin, G.A. Hatch, J. Bonner, and Dr. Heslop.

The Bible Christian Church was a 19th century movement teaching vegetarianism, abstinence from intoxication, and compassion for animals. The church began in England in 1800, requiring all its members to take vows of abstinence from meat and wine. One of its first converts, William Metcalfe (1788-1862), immigrated to Philadelphia in 1817 with forty-one followers to establish a church in America. Metcalfe cited numerous biblical references to support his thesis that humans were meant to follow a vegetarian diet for reasons of health and compassion for animals.

German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) believed flesh-eating to be responsible for the downfall of man. He felt vegetarianism could help mankind return to Paradise. He wrote: "Plant life instead of animal life is the keystone of regeneration. Jesus used bread in place of flesh and wine in place of blood at the Lord's Supper."

General William Booth (1829-1912), founder of the Salvation Army, practiced and advocated vegetarianism. Booth never officially condemned flesh-eating as either cruelty or gluttony, but taught that abstinence from luxury is helpful to the cause of Christian charity. "It is a great delusion to suppose that flesh of any kind is essential to health," he insisted.

"If you want to pass from the consciousness of flesh into the consciousness of Spirit, you must withdraw your attention from the things of the flesh," taught Dr. Charles Filmore, founder of Unity. "You must recognize that there is but one universal life, one universal substance, one universal intelligence, and that every animal is contending for its life and is entitled to that life.

"But in the matter of animal slaughter, who countenances it or defends it after his eyes have been opened to the unity of life? Let us remember that the right kind of food will give our minds and our spirits opportunity to express that which is one with ideal life."

Founded in the 19th century at Lee's Summit, Missouri, the Unity School teaches that the time will come when man will look back upon eating animal flesh as he now looks upon cannibalism:

"As man unfolds spiritually he more and more perceives the necessity of fulfilling the divine law in every department of his life. From experience and observation Unity believes that somewhere along the way, as he develops spiritually, man comes to question seriously the rightness of meat as part of his diet. Man is naturally loathe to take life, even though the idea of killing animals for food has so long been sponsored by the race that he feels it is right and proper to do so.

"However, the Commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' considered in its fullest sense, includes the killing of animals...There is a kindred spirit in all living things—a love for life. Any man who considers honestly the oneness of life feels an aversion to eating meat: that is a reaction of his mind towards anything so foreign to the idea of universal life."

"The moral evils of a flesh diet are not less marked than are the physical ills," wrote Ellen White, founder of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. "Flesh food is injurious to health, and whatever affects the body has a corresponding effect on the mind and soul."

Although Seventh-Day Adventists strongly recommend vegetarianism for reasons of health and nutrition, White also espoused the belief that kindness to animals should be a Christian duty. In Ministry of Healing, she urged the faithful to:

"Think of the cruelty that meat eating involves, and its effect on those who inflict and those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard these creatures of God!"

In Patriarchs and Prophets, White referred to numerous passages in the Bible calling for kindness to animals, and concluded that humans will be judged according to how they fulfill their moral obligations to animals:

"It is because of man's sin that 'the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain' (Romans 8:22). Surely, then, it becomes man to seek to lighten, instead of increasing, the weight of suffering which his transgression has brought upon God's creatures. He who will abuse animals because he has them in his power is both a coward and a tyrant. A disposition to cause pain, whether to our fellow men or to the brute creation is satanic.

"Many do not realize that their cruelty will ever be known because the poor dumb animals cannot reveal it. But could the eyes of these men be opened, as were those of Balaam, they would see an angel of God standing as a witness to testify against them in the courts above.

"A record goes up to heaven, and a day is coming when judgement will be pronounced against those who abuse God's creatures."

In Counsels on Diet and Foods, White referred to the Garden of Eden, a Holy Sanctuary of God, where nothing would ever die, as the perfect example of humans in their natural state:

"God gave our first parents the food He designed that the race should eat. It was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken. There was to be no death in Eden. The fruit of the tree in the garden was the food man's wants required."

"Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit," wrote Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. "The individuality created by God is not carnivorous, as witness the millenial estate pictured by Isaiah (11:6-9). All of God's creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible. A realization of this grand verity was a source of strength to the ancient worthies. It supports Christian healing, and enables its possessor to emulate the example of Jesus. 'And God saw that it was good.'"

Congregational minister Frederic Marvin preached a Christmas Eve sermon in 1899 entitled, "Christ Among the Cattle." Marvin regarded Jesus' birth in the manger as that of God incarnate teaching humanity by dramatic example. Birth among the cattle was a sign for people all over the world to follow—a lesson teaching the need to show compassion towards the animals.

At the close of the 19th century, Reverend Thomas Timmins of Portsmouth, England, helped organize what may have been the first mass effort in America to teach kindness to animals. Reverend Timmins worked with George T. Angell (1823-1909) to organize American students into "Bands of Mercy," based on a similar movement taking place in England at the same time.

By 1912 there were over three million elementary school students enrolled in over 85,000 chapters. They all wore badges and pledged: "I will try to be kind to all living creatures, and try to protect them from cruel usage." This movement reached global proportions before declining after the Second World War.

In his 1923 work, The Natural Diet of Man, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg observed:

"The attitude of the Bible writers toward flesh-eating is the same as toward polygamy. Polygamy as well as flesh-eating was tolerated under the social and religious systems of the old Hebrews and even during the early centuries of the Christian era; but the first man, Adam, in his pristine state in the Garden of Eden was both a monogamist and a flesh-abstainer. If the Bible supports flesh-eating, it equally supports polygamy; for all the patriarchs had plural wives as well as concubines. Christian ethics enjoin a return to the Edenic example in matters matrimonial. Physiologic science as well as human experience call for a like return to Eden in matters dietetic."

An essay on "The Rights of Animals" by Dean William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) can be found in his 1926 book, Lay Thoughts of a Dean. It reads in part:

"Our ancestors sinned in ignorance; they were taught (as I deeply regret to say one great Christian Church still teaches) that the world, with all that it contains, was made for man, and that the lower orders of creation have no claims upon us. But we no longer have the excuse of saying that we do not know; we do know that organic life on this planet is all woven of one stuff, and if we are children of our Heavenly Father, it must be true, as Christ told us, that no sparrow falls to the ground without His care. The new knowledge has revolutionized our ideas of our relations to the other living creatures who share the world with us, and it is our duty to consider seriously what this knowledge should mean for us in matters of conduct."

Dean Inge is reported to have said, "Whether animals believe in a god I do not know, but I do know that they believe in a devil—the devil which is man."

"The day is surely dawning," wrote the Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore, M.A., "when it will become clear that the idea of the Blessed Master giving His sanction to the barbaric habit of flesh-eating, is a tragic delusion, foisted upon the Church by those who never knew Him."

Reverend Holmes-Gore called vegetarianism "absolutely necessary for the redemption of the planet. Indeed we cannot hope to rid the world of war, disease and a hundred other evils until we learn to show compassion to the creatures and refrain from taking their lives for food, clothing or pleasure.

"The Church is powerless to free mankind from such evils as war, oppression and disease," insisted the Reverend Holmes-Gore, "because it does nothing to stop man's oppression of victimizing living creatures...Every evil action, whether it be done to a man, a woman, a child, or an animal will one day have its effect upon the transgressor. The rule that we reap what we sow is a Divine Law from which there is no escape.

"God is ever merciful," Reverend Holmes-Gore explained, "but he is also righteous, and if cruel men and women will learn compassion in no other way, then they will have to learn through suffering, even if it means suffering the same tortures that they have themselves inflicted. God is perfect Love, and He is never vengeful or vindictive, but the Divine Law of mercy and compassion cannot be broken without bringing tremendous repercussions upon the transgressor."

Reverend Holmes-Gore acknowledged that a great deal of social progress has been made, but injustices continue to flourish:

"...we have made many great reforms, but there remains much to be done. We have improved the lot of children, of prisoners, and of the poor beyond all recognition in the last hundred years. We have done something to mitigate the cruelties inflicted upon the creatures. But though some of the worst forms of torture have been made illegal, the welter of animal blood is greater than ever, and their sufferings are still appalling.

"What we need is not a reform of existing evils," concluded Reverend Holmes-Gore, "but a revolution in thought that will move Christians to show real compassion to all God's creatures. Many people claim to be lovers of animals who are very far from being so. For a flesh-eater to claim to love animals is as if a cannibal expressed his devotion to the missionaries he consigns to the seething cauldron."

"Dear God," began the childhood prayers of Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), "please protect and bless all living things. Keep them from evil and let them sleep in peace." This noted Protestant French theologian, music scholar, philosopher and missionary doctor in Africa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.

Schweitzer preached an ethic of reverence for life: "Not until we extend the circle of compassion to include all living things shall we ourselves know peace." When a man questioned his philosophy, saying God created animals for man to eat, Schweitzer replied, "Not at all."

Schweitzer reflected, "How much effort it will take for us to get men to understand the words of Jesus, 'Blessed are the merciful,' and to bring them to the realization that their responsibility includes all creatures. But we must struggle with courage." According to Schweitzer, "We need a boundless ethics which will include the animals also."

Schweitzer founded the Lambarene Hospital in French Equatorial Africa in 1913, managing it for many years. "I never go to a menagerie," he once wrote, "because I cannot endure the sight of the misery of the captive animals. The exhibiting of trained animals I abhor. What an amount of suffering and cruel punishment the poor creatures have to endure to give a few minutes of pleasure to men devoid of all thought and feeling for them."

Schweitzer taught compassionate stewardship towards the animal kingdom: "We...are compelled by the commandment of love contained in our hearts and thoughts, and proclaimed by Jesus, to give rein to our natural sympathy to animals," he explained. "We are also compelled to help them and spare suffering as far as it is in our power."

In a sermon preached in Bath Abbey, the Reverend E.E. Bromwich, M.A., taught: "Our love of God should be extended as far as possible to all God's creatures, to our fellow human beings and to animals...In His love, God caused them all to exist, to express His feelings for beauty and order, and not merely to provide food and companionship for man. They are part of God's creation and it is God's will that they should be happy, quite as much as it is His will that we should be happy. The Christian ought to be bitterly ashamed for the unnecessary suffering that men still cause their animal brothers."

According to the Reverend Lloyd Putman: "In the beautiful story of creation in Genesis, God is pictured as the Creator of all Life—not just of man. To be sure, man is given 'dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,' but far from being a brutal dominion, man is to view the animal world with a sense of stewardship and responsibility. If man lives recklessly and selfishly with no regard for animals, he is denying that God is to be seen as the creator of all life, and he is forgetting that God beheld not only man, but all creation and said that 'it was very good.' He is omitting the Biblical emphasis on man and animals sharing a common creation."

On June 5, 1958, the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale stated, "I do not believe a person can be a true Christian, and at the same time engage in cruel or inconsiderate treatment of animals."

One of the leading Protestant thinkers of the 20th century, Karl Barth (1886-1968), wrote in The Doctrine of Creation (1961):

"If there is a freedom of man to kill animals, this signifies in any case the adoption of a qualified and in some sense enhanced responsibility. If that of his lordship over the living beast is serious enough, it takes on a new gravity when he sees himself compelled to suppress his lordship by depriving it of its life. He obviously cannot do this except under the pressure of necessity.

"Far less than all the other things which he dares to do in relation to animals, may this be ventured unthinkingly and as though it were self-evident. He must never treat this need for defensive and offensive action against the animal world as a natural one, nor include it as a normal element in his thinking or conduct. He must always shrink from this possibility even when he makes use of it.

"It always contains the sharp counter-question: who are you, man, to claim that you must venture this to maintain, support, enrich and beautify your own life? What is there in your life that you feel compelled to take this aggressive step in its favor? We cannot but be reminded of the perversion from which the whole historical existence of the creature suffers and the guilt which does not really reside in the beast but ultimately in man himself."

Responding to a question about the Kingdom of Peace, Donald Soper was of the opinion that Jesus, unlike his brother James, was neither a teetotaler nor a vegetarian, but, "I think probably, if He were here today, He would be both." In a 1963 article on "The Question of Vivisection," Soper concluded: "...let me suggest that Dr. Schweitzer's great claim that all life should be based on respect for personality has been too narrowly interpreted as being confined entirely to the personality of human beings. I believe that this creed 'respect for personality' must be applied to the whole of creation. I shouldn't be surprised if the Buddhists are nearer to an understanding of it than we are.

"When we apply this principle, we shall be facing innumerable problems, but I believe we shall be on the right track which leads finally to the end of violence and the achievement of a just social order which will leave none of God's creatures out of that Kingdom which it is our Father's good pleasure to give us."

In 1970, the Church of England Board of Social Responsibility issued the following indictment of man's relationship with the animal kingdom:

"We make animals work for us, carry us, amuse us and earn money for us. We also make them die for us, sometimes in ways which would be rapidly rejected if we could readily see it done. In many fields we use them, not with gratitude and compassion, but with thoughtlessness, arrogance and complete selfishness."

In 1977, at an annual meeting in London of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), Dr. Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said: "Animals, as part of God's creation, have rights which must be respected. It behooves us always to be sensitive to their needs and to the reality of their pain."

"Honourable men may honourably disagree about some details of human treatment of the non-human," wrote Stephen Clark in his 1977 book, The Moral Status of Animals, "but vegetarianism is now as necessary a pledge of moral devotion as was the refusal of emperor-worship in the early church." According to Clark, eating animal flesh is "gluttony," and "Those who still eat flesh when they could do otherwise have no claim to be serious moralists."

"Clark's conclusion has real force and its power has yet to be sufficiently appreciated by fellow Christians," says the Reverend Andrew Linzey. "Far from seeing the possibility of widespread vegetarianism as a threat to Old Testament norms, Christians should rather welcome the fact that the Spirit is enabling us to make decisions so that we may more properly conform to the original Genesis picture of living in peace with creation."

The contemporary Christian attitude towards vegetarianism is perhaps best expressed by Kenneth Rose, in a 1984 essay entitled "The Lion Shall Eat Straw Like the Ox: The Bible and Vegetarianism."

"At present," Rose acknowledges, "vegetarianism among those who base their lives on the Bible is quite rare. Nevertheless, vegetarianism remains God's ultimate will. Since, according to the Bible, the goal of history is the transformation of the predatory principle in the principle of universal love, it seems reasonable to suppose that people who take the Bible seriously should strive to bring their lives into accordance with the righteousness and nonviolence that will prevail in God's kingdom. Surely we can't in this life fully escape the consequences of the Fall, but we can try, with God's grace, to live in accordance with God's perfect will.

"...no rational or scriptural reason can be discovered," Rose observes, "that would prohibit the teacher of Christian truth from encouraging believers to go beyond the concession to human weakness granted in Genesis 9:3 so that, even now, before the full dawning of God's kingdom of peace, they may begin living according to the ethics of that kingdom. To live in this way must be considered as part of God's ultimate intention for humanity, for how else can one account for the fact that the Bible both begins and ends in a kingdom where the sound of slaughter is unknown?

"For those of us who take the Bible seriously," Rose concludes, "our obedience to God will then become greater as it aspires to live out the vision of the peaceable kingdom the Bible points to. To the degree that we stop slaughtering innocent creatures for food, to that degree we will nullify the predatory principle, a principle that structures the injustices characteristic of this fallen age. And seeing all creatures with equal vision, we will enter more deeply into the kingdom of God."

In 1986, Dale and Judith Ostrander, ministers in the United Church of Christ issued a biblical call for stewardship, in which they concluded: "For Christians the Scriptures contain the Word of God. And there is a particular conviction about Jesus Christ being the normative Word through whom all scriptural words are interpreted—the central meaning of Love and reconciliation of all creation. Therefore, all other biblical themes and all specific pieces of Scripture become authoritative for the Christian insofar as they affirm or are consistent with God's reconciling purpose.

"The role of Christians is to help God's reconciling purpose become a reality. This means, among other things, living out our calling to care for God's creation. It means taking seriously the interconnectedness of all life and our kinship with all living things. If Christians accept God's loving dominion, then, created in God's likeness, we are called to exercise our given 'dominion' over creation with the same kind of love. And if the great commandment is to love God, we must love God also through the complex ecological relationship of all living things.

"To misuse our delegated authority over the creation in exploitative, abusive, cruel or wasteful ways is to live as if we did not love God. We are led, therefore, as Christians to raise questions about our attitudes toward and treatment of animals. A growing number of 'voices crying in the wilderness' are calling us to take more seriously the ways in which we are despoiling the Earth and threatening its ability to sustain and support life. These voices are calling us to rethink our attitudes and our treatment of animals as we consider anew what it means to be faithful stewards of creation."

In 1987, the Reverend Carolyn J. Michael Riley declared Unity Church in Huntington, N.Y. a fur-free zone. Reverend Riley, a vegetarian since 1982, remains committed to her position. "I really do believe," she says, "that everyone is able that much more to feel the Spirit, because there are no longer vibrations of death." Reverend Riley says she wants to "help raise the consciousness of the suffering going on in the animal kingdom."

According to the Reverend James E. Caroll, an Episcopal priest in Van Nuys, California, "A committed Christian, who knows what his religion is about, will never kill an animal needlessly. Above all, he will do his utmost to put a stop to any kind of cruelty to any animal. A Christian who participates in or gives consent to cruelty to animals had better reexamine his religion or else drop the name Christian."

In 1992, members of Los Angeles' First Unitarian Church agreed to serve vegetarian meals at the church's weekly Sunday lunch. This decision was made as a protest against animal cruelty and the environmental damage caused by the livestock industry.

Vegetarianism and ethical concern for animals are consistent with Protestant Christianity:

"It is not a question of palate, of custom, of expediency, but of right," wrote the Reverend J. Tyssul-Davies, B.A., on the subject of vegetarianism. "As a mere Christian Minister, I have had to make my decision. My palate was on the side of custom; my intellect argued for the expedient; but my higher reason and conscience left me no alternative. Our Lord came to give life, and we do not follow Him by taking life needlessly. So, I was compelled, against myself, to eschew carnivorism."

The Reverend George Laughton taught that: "The practice of kindness towards dumb creatures is a sign of development to the higher reaches of intelligence and sympathy. For, mark you, in every place there are those who are giving of their time and thought and energy to the work of protecting from cruelty and needless suffering the beasts of the field and streets. These are the people who make the earth clean and sweet and more like what God intended it to be."

George Bush thought it was great fun to blow frogs up with fire crackers. That revealed his sadism and lack of compassion.

It was easy for him to declare an unjust and illegal attack and occupation on innocent people in Iraq (and Afghanistan). He made a joke about the execution of people while he was governor of Texas. Killing people and animals means nothing to him.

St. Jerome (AD 340-420) wrote to a monk in Milan who had abandoned vegetarianism:

"As to the argument that in God's second blessing (Genesis 9:3) permission was given to eat flesh—a permission not given in the first blessing (Genesis 1:29)—let him know that just as permission to put away a wife was, according to the words of the Saviour, not given from the beginning, but was granted to the human race by Moses because of the hardness of our hearts (Matthew 19:1-12), so also in like manner the eating of flesh was unknown until the Flood, but after the Flood, just as quails were given to the people when they murmured in the desert, so have sinews and the offensiveness been given to our teeth.

"The Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, teaches us that God had purposed that in the fullness of time he would restore all things, and would draw to their beginning, even to Christ Jesus, all things that are in heaven or that are on earth. Whence also, the Saviour Himself in the Apocalypse of John says, 'I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.' From the beginning of human nature, we neither fed upon flesh nor did we put away our wives, nor were our foreskins taken away from us for a sign. We kept on this course until we arrived at the Flood.

"But after the Flood, together with the giving of the Law, which no man could fulfill, the eating of flesh was brought in, and the putting away of wives was conceded to hardness of heart...But now that Christ has come in the end of time, and has turned back Omega to Alpha...neither is it permitted to us to put away our wives, nor are we circumcised, nor do we eat flesh."

St. Jerome was responsible for the Vulgate, or Latin version of the Bible, still in use today. He felt a vegetarian diet was best for those devoted to the pursuit of wisdom. He once wrote that he was not a follower of Pythagoras or Empodocles "who do not eat any living creature," but concluded, "And so I too say to you: if you wish to be perfect, it is good not to drink wine and eat flesh."

The 4th century St. Blaise is said to have established an animal hospital in the wilderness. The wildlife, in turn, protected him. St. Patrick (389?-481?) is said to have saved a mother deer and her baby from hunters. Commentators say it was this act of compassion which led to the conversion of the pagan.

"By saving the fawn they were about to kill," writes Richard Power in The Ark, St. Patrick made the Christian religion meaningful to the hardened Ulster warriors. Before that act of compassion, his preaching had failed to convince them." (The Ark is a bulletin published by the Catholic Study Circle for Animal Welfare.)

St. Ciaran of Ossory noted in the 5th Century that animals have rights because of their capacity to feel pleasure and pain. Butler's four-volume Lives of the Saints describes many saints as abstinent from childhood, never eating flesh-meats, never touching meat or wine, compassionate to all creatures, etc.

According to Father Ambrose Agius:

"Many of the saints understood God's creatures, and together they shared the pattern of obedience to law and praise of God that still leaves us wondering. The quickest way to understand is surely to bring our own lives as closely as possible into line with the intention of the Giver of all life, animate and inanimate."

The Reverend Alvin Hart, an Episcopalian priest in New York, says:

"Many Georgian saints were distinguished by their love for animals. St. John Zedazneli made friends with bears near his hermitage; St. Shio befriended a wolf; St. David of Garesja protected deer and birds from hunters, proclaiming, 'He whom I believe in and worship looks after and feeds all these creatures, to whom He has given birth.' Early Celtic saints, too, favored compassion for animals. Saints Wales, Cornwall and Brittany of Ireland in the 5th and 6th centuries AD went to great pains for their animal friends, healing them and praying for them as well."

St. Benedict, who founded the Benedictine Order in AD 529, made vegetarian foods the staple for his monks, teaching, "Nothing is more contrary to the Christian spirit than gluttony." The Rule of St. Benedict itself is a composite of ascetic teachings from previous traditions, such as St. Anthony's monasticism in Egypt, which called for abstinence from meat and wine.

Aegidius (c. 700) was a vegetarian who lived on herbs, water and the milk of a deer God sent to him. One day the deer was being hunted by a king and his entourage, and fled to Aegidius for protection. Aegidius stopped with his right hand the arrow intended for the deer, but which only perforated his hand.

In the 7th century, the hermit monk St. Giles was an Athenian, who resided in a French forest, dwelling in a cave, and living on herbs, nuts, and fruits. One day the King of France came hunting in the forest. He pursued a young deer which took refuge in Giles' arms. The King was so impressed with Giles' holiness he begged forgiveness and built him a monastery.

Boniface (672-754) wrote to Pope Zacharias that he had begun a monastery which followed the rules of strict abstinence, whose monks do not eat meat nor enjoy wine or other intoxicating drinks. St. Andrew lived on herbs, olives, oil and bread. He lived to be 105.

The early English mystic St. Guthlac of Crowland (673-714) is said to have been able to call birds in to feed from his hand. "Hast thou never learned in Holy Writ that he who led his life after God's will, the wild beasts and the wild birds have become more intimate with him?" he asked. St. Gudival of Ghent once brought a slaughtered sheep back to life "because he saw in it Christ led like a sheep to the slaughter."

St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) "was moved to feelings of compassion for animals, and he wept for them when he saw them caught in the hunger's net." St. Richard of Wyche, a vegetarian, was moved by the sight of animals taken to slaughter. "Poor innocent little creatures," he observed. "If you were reasoning beings and could speak, you would curse us. For we are the cause of your death, and what have you done to deserve it?"

Secular scholar Keith Akers writes:

"The 'orthodox' response to vegetarianism has been somewhat contradictory…The objection to meat consumption has been taken as evidence of heresy when Christians have been faced with outsiders; however, vegetarianism met with a kinder reception among the monastic communities…Vegetarianism does attain a certain status even in orthodox circles.

"Indeed, a list of known vegetarians among the church leaders reads very much like a Who's Who in the early church. Peter is described as a vegetarian in the Recognitions and Homilies. Hegesippus, quoted by Eusebius, said that James (the brother of Jesus) was a vegetarian and was raised as a vegetarian. Clement of Alexandria thought that Matthew was a vegetarian…

"According to Eusebius, the apostles—all the apostles, and not just James—abstained from both meat and wine, thus making them vegetarians and teetotalers, just like James. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nanziance, John Chrysostom, and Tertullian were all probably vegetarians, based on their writings…they themselves are evidently vegetarian and can be counted on to say a few kind words about vegetarianism. On the other hand, there are practically no references to any Christians eating fish or meat before the Council of Nicaea.

"The rule of Benedict forbade eating any four-legged animals, unless one was sick. Columbanus allowed vegetables, lentil porridge, flour, and bread only, at all times, even for the sick. A fifth-century Irish rule forbids meat, fish, cheese, and butter at all times, though the sick, elderly, travel-weary, or even monks on holidays may eat cheese or butter, but no one may ever eat meat.

"The Carthusians were especially strict about vegetarianism. The origin of their order is related by the story of St. Bruno and his companions, who on the Sunday before Lent are sitting before some meat and are debating whether they should eat meat at all.

"During the debate, numerous examples of vegetarians among their monastic predecessors are mentioned—the Desert Fathers, Paul (the Hermit), Antony, Hilarion, Macharius, and Arsenius, are all cited as vegetarian examples. After much discussion, they fall asleep—and remain asleep for 45 days, waking when Archbishop Hugh shows up on Wednesday of Holy Week! When they wake up, the meat miraculously turns to ashes, and they fall on their knees and determine never to eat meat again.

"It is true that the church rejected the requirement for vegetarianism, following the dicta of Paul. However, it is interesting under these circumstances that there are so many vegetarians. In fact, outside of the references to Jesus eating fish in the New Testament, there are hardly any references to any early Christians eating meat.

"Thus, vegetarianism was practiced by the apostles, by James the brother of Jesus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nanziance, John Chrysostom, Tertulllian, Bonaventure, Arnobius, Cassian, Jerome, the Desert Fathers, Paul (the Hermit), Antony, Hilarion, Machrius, Columbanus, and Arsenius—but not by Jesus himself!

"It is as if everyone in the early church understood the message except the messenger. This is extremely implausible. The much more likely explanation is that the original tradition was vegetarian, but that under the pressure of expediency and the popularity of Paul's writings in the second century, the tradition was first dropped as a requirement and finally dropped even as a desideratum."

In the (updated) 1986 edition of A Vegetarian Sourcebook, Keith Akers similarly observes: "But many others, both orthodox and heterodox, testified to the vegetarian origins of Christianity. Both Athanasius and his opponent Arius were strict vegetarians. Many early church fathers were vegetarian, including Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Heironymus, Boniface, and John Chrysostom.

"Many of the monasteries both in ancient times and at the present day practiced vegetarianism…The requirement to be vegetarian has been diluted considerably since the earliest days, but the practice of vegetarianism was continued by many saints, monks, and laymen. Vegetarianism is at the heart of Christianity."

Vegetarian writer Steven Rosen explains:

"...over the centuries, there has arisen two distinct schools of Christian thought. The Aristotelian-Thomistic school and the Augustinian-Franciscan school. The Aristotelian-Thomistic school has, as its fundamental basis, the premise that animals are here for our pleasure —they have no purpose of their own. We can eat them, torture them in laboratories— anything... Unfortunately, modern Christianity embraces this form of their religion.

"The Augustinian-Franciscan school, however, teaches that we are all brothers and sisters under God's Fatherhood. Based largely on the world view of St. Francis and being platonic in nature, this school fits in very neatly with the vegetarian perspective."

It is said that St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) bought two lambs from a butcher and gave them the coat on his back to keep them warm; and that he bought two fish from a fishwoman and threw them back into the water. He even paid to ransom lambs that were being taken to their death, recalling the gentle Lamb who willingly went to slaughter (Isaiah 53:7; John 1:29) to pay the ransom of sinners.

"Be conscious, O man, of the wondrous state in which the Lord God has placed you," instructed Francis in his Admonitions (4), "for He created and formed you to the image of His beloved Son—and (yet) all the creatures under heaven, each according to its nature, serve know, and obey their Creator better than you." St. Francis felt a deep kinship with all creatures. He called them "brother," and "sister," knowing they came from the same Source as himself.

Francis revealed his fraternal love for the animal world during Christmas time 1223: "If I ever have the opportunity to talk with the emperor," he explained, "I'll beg him, for the love of God and me, to enact a special law: no one is to capture or kill our sisters the larks or do them any harm. Furthermore, all mayors and lords of castles and towns are required to scatter wheat and other grain on the roads outside the walls so that our sisters the larks and other birds might have something to eat on so festive a day.

"And on Christmas Eve, out of reverence for the Son of God, whom on that night the Virgin Mary placed in a manger between the ox and the ass, anyone having an ox or an ass is to feed it a generous portion of choice fodder. And, on Christmas Day, the rich are to give the poor the finest food in abundance."

Francis removed worms from a busy road and placed them on the roadside so they would not be crushed under human traffic. Once when he was sick and almost blind, mice ran over his table as he took his meals and over him while he slept. He regarded their disturbance as a "diabolical temptation," which he met with patience and restraint, indicating his compassion towards other living creatures.

St. Francis was once given a wild pheasant to eat, but he chose instead to keep it as a companion. On another occasion, he was given a fish, and on yet another, a waterfowl to eat, but he was moved by the natural beauty of these creatures and chose to set them free.

"Dearly beloved!" said Francis beginning a sermon after a severe illness, "I have to confess to God and you that...I have eaten cakes made with lard."

The Catholic Encyclopedia comments on this incident as follows: "St. Francis' gift of sympathy seems to have been wider even than St. Paul's, for we find to evidence in the great Apostle of a love for nature or for animals...

"Francis' love of creatures was not simply the offspring of a soft sentimental disposition. It arose from that deep and abiding sense of the presence of God. To him all are from one Father and all are real kin...hence, his deep sense of personal responsibility towards fellow creatures: the loving friend of all God's creatures."

Francis taught: "All things of creation are children of the Father and thus brothers of man...God wants us to help animals, if they need help. Every creature in distress has the same right to be protected."

According to Francis, a lack of mercy towards animals leads to a lack of mercy towards men: "If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."

One Franciscan monk, St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231), who preached throughout France and Italy, is said to have attracted a group of fish that came to hear him preach. St. James of Venice, who lived during the 13th century, bought and released the birds sold in Italy as toys for children. It is said he "pitied the little birds of the Lord...his tender charity recoiled from all cruelty, even to the most diminutive of animals."

St. Bonaventure was a scholar and theologian who joined the Franciscan Order in 1243. He wrote The Soul's Journey into God and The Life of St. Francis, the latter documenting St. Francis' miracles with animals and love for all creation. Bonaventure taught that all creatures come from God and return to Him, and that the light of God shines through His different creatures in different ways:

"...For every creature is by its nature a kind of effigy and likeness of the eternal Wisdom. Therefore, open your eyes, alert the ears of your spirit, open your lips and apply your heart so that in all creatures you may see, hear, praise, love and worship, glorify and honor your God."

St. Filippo Neri spent his entire life protecting and rescuing other living creatures. Born in Florence in 1515, he went to Rome as a young man, and tried to live as an ascetic. He sold his books, giving away the money to the poor. He worked without pay in the city hospital, tending to the sick and the poor. He gave whatever he possessed to others. St. Filippo loved the animals and could not bear to see them suffer. He took the mice caught in traps away from people's homes and set them free in the fields and stables. A vegetarian, he could not endure walking past a butcher shop. "Ah," he exclaimed. "If everyone were like me, no one would kill animals!"

The Trappist monks of the Catholic Church practiced vegetarianism from the founding of their Order until the Second Vatican Council in the late 1960s. According to the Trappist rules, as formulated by Armand Jean de Rance (1626-1700), "in the dining hall nothing is layed out except: pulse, roots, cabbages, or milk, but never any fish...I hope I will move you more and more rigorously, when you discover that the use of simple and rough food has its origin with the holy apostles (James, Peter, Matthew).

"We can assure you that we have written nothing about this subject which was not believed, observed, proved good through antiquity, proved by historians and tradition, preserved and kept up to us by the holy monks."

A contemporary Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast points out that the lives of the saints teach compassion towards all living beings. "Unfortunately," says Brother David, "Christians have their share of the exploitation of our environment and in the mistreatment of animals. Sometimes they have even tried to justify their crimes by texts from the Bible, misquoted out of context. But the genuine flavor of a tradition can best be discerned in its saints...

"All kinds of animals appear in Christian art to distinguish one saint from another. St. Menas has two camels; St. Ulrich has a rat; St. Bridgid has ducks and geese; St. Benedict, a raven; the list goes on and on. St. Hubert's attribute is a stag with a crucifix between its antlers. According to legend, this saint was a hunter but gave up his violent ways when he suddenly saw Christ in a stag he was about to shoot...Christ himself is called the Lamb of God."

According to Brother David, "...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging—to all other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."

Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90), wrote in 1870 that "cruelty to animals is as if a man did not love God." On another occasion, he asked: "Now what is it that moves our very heart and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes? I suppose this: first, that they have done us no harm; next, that they have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially touching...there is something so very dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us and who cannot defend themselves; who are utterly in our power."

Cardinal Newman compared injustices against animals to the sacrifice, agony and death of Christ upon the cross: "Think of your feelings at cruelty practiced upon brute animals and you will gain the sort of feeling which the history of Christ's cross and passion ought to excite within you. And let me add, this is in all cases one good use to which you may turn any...wanton and unfeeling acts shown towards the...animals; let them remind you, as a picture of Christ's sufferings. He who is higher than the angels, deigned to humble Himself even to the state of the brute creation..."

Another cardinal, Henry Edward Manning (1808-92), spoke out against cruelty to animals, especially experimentation upon animals. In a letter dated July 13, 1891, he wrote: "We owe ourselves the duty not to be brutal or cruel; and we owe to God the duty of treating all His creatures according to His own perfections of love and mercy."

Bishop Westcott wrote, "Animals are in our power in a peculiar sense; they are committed by God to our sovereignty and we owe them a considerate regard for their rights. No animal life can be treated as a THING. Willful disrespect of the sanctities of physical life in one sphere bears its fruit in other and higher spheres."

Cardinal Francis Bourne (1861-1934) told children in Westminster Cathedral in April 1931: "There is even in kindness to animals a special merit in remembering that this kindness is obligatory upon us because God made the animals, and is therefore their creator, and, in a measure, His Fatherhood extends to them." Cardinal Arthur Hinsley (1865-1943), the former archbishop of Westminster, wrote, "The spirit of St. Francis is the Catholic spirit." According to Cardinal Hinsley, "Cruelty to animals is the degrading attitude of paganism."

A Roman Catholic priest, Msgr. LeRoy E. McWilliams of North Arlington, New Jersey, testified in October 1962 in favor of legislation to reduce the sufferings of laboratory animals. He told congressional representatives:

"The first book of the Bible tell us that God created the animals and the birds, so they have the same Father as we do. God's Fatherhood extends to our 'lesser brethren.' All animals belong to God; He alone is their absolute owner. In our relations with them, we must emulate the divine attributes, the highest of which is mercy. God, their Father and Creator, loves them tenderly. He lends them to us and adjures us to use them as He Himself would do.""

Msgr. McWilliams also issued a letter to all seventeen thousand Catholic pastors in the United States, calling upon them to understand "what Christianity imposes on humans as their clear obligation to animals."

Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest, author, and founder of the Riverdale Center of Religious Research in New York, wrote in 1987, "Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being, and spiritual integrity."

In an editorial that appeared on Christmas Day, 1988, Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy, a prominent Catholic writer and a vegetarian, observed: "A long raised but rarely answered question is this: If it was God's plan for Christ to be born among animals, why have most Christian theologians denied the value and rights of animals? Why no theology of the peaceable kingdom?...Animals in the stable at Bethlehem were a vision of the peaceable kingdom. Among theology's mysteries, this ought to be the easiest to fathom."

Mother Teresa, honored for her work amongst the poor with the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize, wrote in 1992 to Marlene Ryan, a former member of the National Alliance for Animals. Her letter reads:

"I am praying for you that God's blessing may be with you in all that you are doing to create concern for the animals which are often subjected to much cruelty. They, too, are created by the same loving Hand of God which created us. As we humans are gifted with intelligence which the animals lack, it is our duty to protect them and to promote their well being.

"We also owe it to them as they serve us with such wonderful docility and loyalty. A person who shows cruelty to these creatures cannot be kind to other humans also. Let us do all we can to become instruments of peace—where we are—the true peace that comes from loving and caring and respecting each person as a child of God—my brother—my sister."

In an article entitled "The Primacy of Nonviolence as a Virtue," appearing in Embracing Earth: Catholic Approaches to Ecology (1994), Brother Wayne Teasdale wrote: "One key answer to a culture's preoccupation with violence is to teach, insist on, and live the value of nonviolence. It can be done successfully, and it has been done for more than 2,500 years by Jains and Buddhists. Neither Jainism nor Buddhism has ever supported war or personal violence; this nonviolence extends to all sentient beings. Christianity can learn something valuable from these traditions. This teaching on nonviolence has been incarnated in the lives of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama with significant results..."

According to Teasdale: "...it is necessary to elevate nonviolence to a noble place in our civilization of loving-compassion because nonviolence as ahimsa in the Hindu tradition, a tradition that seems to possess the most advanced understanding of nonviolence, is love! Love is the goal and ultimate nature of nonviolence as an inner disposition and commitment of the heart. It is the fulfillment of love and compassion in the social sphere, that is, in the normal course of relations among people in the matrix of society."

Brother Aelred (Robert Edmunds), a Catholic monk living in Australia, discusses the moral question of killing animals for food in his book Encounter: Christ and Krishna. He points out that Jesus Christ greatly expanded the interpretation of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" to include not getting angry without cause:

"My position is that Jesus' teachings on mercy in the Beatitudes require an open-ended ethical inquiry. I ask, for example, how a Christian may speak of 'mercy' in the terms of Jesus Christ, and deny mercy to creatures of God who, as we do, experience fear and suffering. Isn't it the case that Jesus constantly went beyond the 'letter of the law' to its spirit?"

Brother Aelred quotes the prophecies of Isaiah (11:6-9, 65:25) concerning the coming Kingdom of Peace. "The passage sees a time when pain and bloodshed will be no more; when prey and devourer will be reconciled. What a vision! Even if the passage is seen as just poetic exaggeration, it is clear that there is hope for a future which will be very different to the world we know. And surely we, as Christians, must be part of this 'peace process.' Perhaps our main burden, as Christians, is to be part of this message of hope and reconciliation."

Brother Aelred concludes: "An Anglican Franciscan superior, in Australia, tells his novices that if they wish to eat flesh they must go out and themselves kill the animal. The moral responsibility must be theirs alone. I consider this a thoroughly sound position, and any Christian reading this article might well reflect on the brother's teaching. In conclusion, I must report a sad truth. My own Christian formation taught me many things of great value, but 'respect for all things living' was not part of that formation. It was other religious traditions and 'secular' insights which gave me teaching in this area."

You are what you eat. When the animal is killed, chemical changes throughout its body occur because of its fear, anger, panic, and bitterness at being slaughtered. This is transferred to the human who eats the flesh of the animal. The Mahayana (northern) Buddhists are right about it being healthier and wiser to be a vegetarian.

Although it is an agnostic moral philosophy (i.e., no recognition of a personal God) a few centuries older than Christianity, Buddhism teaches a consistent ethic of reverence for all life. No wars have ever been waged in the name of Buddhism. The act of abortion is also explicitly condemned in the Buddhist canonical scriptures. Sir Edwin Arnold�s poetic biography on Siddhartha Gautama, The Light of Asia, caused quite a controversy in Victorian England: centuries before Jesus, an earlier teacher lived "the Christ life."

The ethical teachings of the Buddha are quite similar to those found in the Gospel of Jesus: One must never be proud nor harbor anger against anyone. He who humbles himself shall be exalted, while the one who exalts himself shall be degraded. Harsh language must never be used against anyone.

Avoid lust, anger and greed. One should not scrutinize the mote in a neighbor�s eye without first noticing the beam in one�s own. One must "turn the other cheek" if attacked or abused. One�s own possessions must be shared with the less fortunate. If a man obtained the whole world and its riches, he still would not be satisfied, nor would this save him.

In 261 B.C., the Indian emperor Ashoka witnessed firsthand the innumerable casualties he caused during one of his many military campaigns. His heart was filled with grief. He converted to Buddhism. 19th century scholar and writer H.G. Wells considered Ashoka�s conversion to Buddhism one of the most significant events in world history.

Ashoka, formerly a bloody and ruthless emperor, became a remarkably kind and gentle leader. Ashoka established some of the first animal rights laws. He stopped the royal hunt, the sacrifice of animals in his capital city, the killing of animals for food in the royal kitchens, and gave up the eating of meat. Ashoka made it illegal to kill many species of animals, such as parrots, ducks, geese, bats, turtles, squirrels, monkeys and rhinos. He forbade the killing of pregnant animals, or animals that were nursing their young. He declared certain days to be "non-killing days," on which fish could not be caught, nor any other animals killed. He established wells and watering holes, places of rest and hospitals for humans and animals alike.

Ashoka educated his people to have compassion for animals, and to refrain from killing or harming them. He sent missionaries to all the neighboring kingdoms to teach mercy, compassion and nonviolence. Through Ashoka�s patronage, Buddhism was spread all over the Indian subcontinent. Buddhism would eventually reach the rest of Asia; today there are an estimated 300 to 600 million Buddhists worldwide.

The first precept of Buddhism is: "Do not kill, but rather preserve and cherish all life." There is an ancient poem, reputed to be the only text ever written by the Buddha himself, which states:

"Let creatures all, all things that live, all beings of whatever kind, see nothing that will bode them ill. May naught of evil come to them."

The Buddhist emperor Ashoka (268-223 BC) declared in one of his famous Pillar Edicts: "I have enforced the law against killing certain animals..The greatest progress of Righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings."

Mahayana Buddhism supports the vegetarian way of life. According to the Mahaparinirvana Sutra: "The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion."

The Lankavatara Sutra says:

"For the sake of love of purity, the bodhisattva should refrain from eating flesh, which is born from semen, blood, etc. For fear of causing terror to living beings let the bodhisattva, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh...It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order others to kill it, when it was not specifically meant for him...Again, there may be some people in the future who...being under the influence of the taste for meat will string together in various ways many sophisticated arguments to defend meat-eating...But...meat-eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally and once and for all prohibited...Meat-eating I have not permitted to anyone, I do not permit, I will not permit..."

The Surangama Sutra says:

"The reason for practicing dhyana and seeking to attain samadhi is to escape from the suffering of life. But in seeking to escape from suffering ourselves, why should we inflict it upon others? Unless you can control your minds that even the thought of brutal unkindness and killing is abhorrent, you will never be able to escape from the bondage of the world's life...After my parinirvana in the final kalpa different kinds of ghosts will be encountered everywhere deceiving people and teaching them that they can eat meat and still attain enlightenment...How can a bhikshu, who hopes to become a deliverer of others, himself be living on the flesh of other sentient beings?"

The Dalai Lama has said, "I do not see any reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. After all, man can live without meat."

For further reading:

Dr. Tony Page, Buddhism and Animals
Norm Phelps, The Great Compassion: Buddhism and Animal Rights
Steven Rosen, Diet for Transcendence

I have mixed opinions on vegetarianism. Yes, I definitely do believe that it is a healthier diet--Dr. Dean Ornish and other well known medical experts promote a vegetarian diet. I also understand and agree with various religions that encourage vegetarianism (e.g. Buddhism, Jainism, etc).

However, I do not respect groups like PETA and the scare tactics that they use. Also, PETA is hypocritical--they promote vegetarianism, yet they kill thousands and thousands of dogs and cats every year (www.petakillsanimals.com). Several years back, they also had an utterly ridiculous campaign to discourage young people from drinking milk. As a rebuttal to the dairy industry's popular "Got Milk?" campaign, PETA came up with "Got Beer?", a campaign that they took to college campuses nationwide. With the epidemic of binge drinking, did college students really need more encouragement to drink beer?

I am all for healthier eating and protecting the environment. However, if people choose to eat meat, that is their decision, and it is not my place, or anyone else's for that matter, to judge them, or threaten them, etc. For proven health reasons, they should limit the amounts of meat products they eat, but they do not necessarily need to totally eliminate it, unless they choose to do so.

And, as a mother of a 4-legged fur-child, I totally disagree with the idea of feeding dogs a vegetarian diet. Dogs are naturally carnivores; if they were out in the wild, they would hunt and eat smaller animals. They need the nutrients that meat provides.

Keith Akers addresses the moral question of killing insects in A Vegetarian Sourcebook: "What about insects? While there may be reason to kill insects, there is no reason to kill them for food. One distinguishes between the way meat animals are killed for food and the way insects are killed.

"Insects are killed only when they intrude upon human territory, posing a threat to the comfort, health, or well-being of humans. There is a huge difference between ridding oneself of intruders and going out of one's way to find and kill something which would otherwise be harmless."

According to Akers:

"These questions may have a certain fascination for philosophers, but most vegetarians are not bothered by them. For any vegetarian who is not a biological pacifist, there would not seem to be any particular difficulty in distinguishing ethically between insects and plants on the one hand, and animals and humans on the other."

I'd like to see a return to organic farming. In 1989, concern over the use of the pesticide Alar on apples caused many Americans to consider organic produce. We produce pesticides at a rate some 13,000 times faster than we did in the 1950s. Our environment is being flooded by pesticide compounds.

Poisons used to kill insects accumulate on crops, in the soil and in greater concentration in the tissues of living creatures higher on the food chain. The EPA's Pesticide Monitoring Journal reports that "Foods of animal origin (are) the major source of pesticide residues in the diet."

In his Pulitzer Prize nominated book, How to Survive in America the Poisoned, Lewis Regenstein writes: "Meat contains approximately 14 times more pesticides than do plant foods...Thus, by eating foods of animal origin, one ingests greatly concentrated amounts of hazardous chemicals."

A 1976 study by the EPA found the breast milk of mothers who eat animal flesh to be 50 to 100 times more contaminated by pesticide residues than the milk of vegetarian mothers.

Organic farming and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) are getting more attention today. These utilize natural insect controls, such as predatory insects, weather, crop rotation, pest-resistant varieties, soil tillage, and other environmentally safe practices.

A 1979 Department of Agriculture task force of scientists and economists came to "...positive conclusions on the importance of organic farming and its potential contributions to agriculture and society." Until the end of the Second World War, American farmers produced bountiful harvests without relying on pesticides. There is no reason why America cannot do so again.

L I L L U L U,

Yes, so true. Most people in today's spiritually deficient world view ( paradigm ), are in such deep denial of a soul or spirit within EACH man, woman, & child.

What I believe is that aliveness ( SOURCE Energy ) is penetrating all existence, of Japanese or Native American belief systems of spirits inhabiting rocks, trees, animals, streams, and oceans.

When a person is in such denial to mistakenly see no soul in himself, there is no way for them to uynderstand the broader belief of NATURE tapped into LIFE's very source. As Abraham-Hicks jokes, our doctors are fairly limited in this respect, as they can only recognize SIMPLY if this or that body has that life force (alive) or has lost it (dead).

Congratulation's on your "life-style" choice, as I have a challenging 12 yo carnivore, while next year will mark 3 decades for me.

~

Like that old commercial for chicken of the sea ( TUNA ), they don't want Charley because he has good tastes, they want ( only ) tuna that tastes good.

Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King

veracity, I love the story of the Indian chief. I think what we eat affects the way we think --- in addition to what you said: "Our thoughts and thinking determine who we are, and what we EAT."

I like animals and don't want them killed just because they "taste good," but to each his own. Actually, I don't like meat anymore and prefer a vegetarian diet now after over 3 years. :)

Wow, this issue has stimulated a lot of discussion. Strong feelings.

Some farmer perspectives are missing, even with 90+ comments.

First, the shortcomings of livestock factories should not be attributed to livestock farming in general. (In fact, failure to manage population should not be excused by the fact that more people could be fed on a grain diet.) Actually, in sustainable and organic farming it is well known that livestock enhance sustainability. With livestock you are encouraged to keep erodable lands in pastures. The same can be said for erodable regions. Allen Savory has shown how livestock can enhance the environment, reducing erosion along streams, for example, with proper management.

Additionally, small grains and forages (ie. clover) fit into "resource conserving crop rotations." And the clover is better at providing nitrogen for crops in systainable ways.

Secondly, grassfed livestock production is rising. It's superior to industrial nutritionally, ecologically, socially and economically. Livestock harvest their feed themselves (draft power) and spread the fertilizer.

Thirdly, the food crisis of suddenly higher prices is new and untypical, late 2006-2007-2008). It's relatively minor in the context of food and agriculture history since, say, 1870. The usual problem is just the opposite, low farm crop prices destroying the local and regional economies of rural people including the vast majority of the poor world wide. For example, from 1981-2006 U.S. farmers lost money (not counting subsidies) massively, billions every year, and we exported at a loss every year on most farm "program commodities." We had too much grain, which drove down prices below cost, since that's what the government, dominated by corporate interests, wanted.

So it was only a couple of years ago that it was all about this massive dumping. That's what made people starve. Their wealth was looted.

The problem was a lack of price floors with international supply management as advocated by the National Family Farm Coalition. In "An Adaptive Program for Agriculture," a corporate think tank, the Committee on Economic Development called, in 1962 for gutting these programs. They wanted to run one third of U.S. farmers off the land within five years and said in 1974 that it had basically been accomplished. See Crisis by Design by Mark Ritchie. So they deliberately chose to fight to devastate rural regions.

The new higher prices are a huge economic stimulus for rural economies world wide, but so far it's too little too late. Poor regions need high farm prices to last long term. Then the starving can be fed and given jobs that pay decently.

In particular, low prices caused farmers world wide to lose their main value added (livestock) to CAFO factories, sending them toward poverty.

The Weston Price Foundation tells of studies on traditional diets. Meat is important. Especially vegetarians should be wary of vegetable oils, which, they say, are not as healthy as saturated fats, including lard and butter.

Finally, see Erich Fromm on "the prophetic concept of peace." It's about reconciliation, and not a return to Eden, but moving forward into an advanced stage of development.

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain: "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism. Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices: "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25). Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..." The word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices. However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says: "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities." This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9). Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5) The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9) Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful." (Luke 6:36) Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)

Jesus spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28). Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice." (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32) The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets, but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple. (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.

When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years. He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath. "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked. (Luke 13:10-16)

On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath. "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep. He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock. (Luke 15:3-7,10)

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

From history, too, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists. For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding.

Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity have been vegetarian. A partial list includes: St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Benedict, Aegidius, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Columba, St. Filipo Neri, John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe, General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore.

Reverend Marc Wessels of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) writes:

"The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves. Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to consider the animals as our neighbors.

"To think about animals as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea. By extending the idea of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy of animals. There are many historical examples of Christians who thought along those lines, besides the familiar illustration of St. Francis. An abbreviated listing of some of those individuals worthy of study and emulation includes Saint Blaise, Saint Comgall, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Gerasimus, Saint Giles, and Saint Jerome, to name but a few."

According to contemporary Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging---to all other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."

In a sermon preached in York Minster, September 28, 1986, John Austin Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, England, attacked the overcrowded confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food ("factory farming"), choosing as his example, the treatment of chickens:

"Is there any credit balance for the battery hen, denied almost all natural functioning, all normal environment, lapsing steadily into deformity and disease, for the whole of her existence?" he asked. "It is in the battery shed and the broiler house, not in the wild, that we find the true parallel to Auschwitz. Auschwitz is a purely human invention."

Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church says:

"The Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline in the struggle for animal welfare and rights. We who are Christians should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then, at Christ's second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the One we call 'Lord,' who was born in a stable surrounded by animals simply because He chose it that way."

Rose Evans, editor and publisher of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious Left, says there are more Christian vegetarians than Jewish vegetarians. Yet some people still react to the idea of Christian vegetarianism as though it were an oxymoron.

"Every year," says Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so...The time is long overdue to take the issue of animal rights to the churches...

"I derive hope from the Gospel preaching that the same God who draws us to such affinity and intimacy with suffering creatures declared that reality on a Cross in Calvary. Unless all Christian preaching has been utterly mistaken, the God who becomes incarnate and crucified is the one who has taken the side of the oppressed and the suffering of the world--however the churches may actually behave."

L I L L U L U,

Which outcome is dependent upon what we perceive, and intend.

Our thoughts and thinking determine who we are, and what we EAT :"

'll let an old Cherokee chief answer that. I heard this story a long time ago — of the tribal elder who was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging inside himself. He said, "It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: Anger, envy, sorrow, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is the good wolf: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith." The boy thought this over for a minute, and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?" The old Cherokee replied simply: "The one I feed.""

|______ W H I C H __ W O L F __ A R E __ Y O U ______|

|____________ F _ E _ E _ D _ I _ N _ G_______________|

Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King

Which animals are more peaceful and nonthreatening? It's the ones that stick to a vegetarian, non-meat diet e.g. deer, elephants, rabbits, etc. Ever see a rabbit's long teeth? They could do a lot of damage if they were meat eaters; thankfully they aren't.

Which animals are more dangerous and threatening? It's the meat-eaters such as lions, tigers, sharks and wolves.

I'd guess it's the same with humans from what I've observed. Not every meat-eating human is dangerous, but if they are I'll bet you 2 to 1 they're not a vegetarian.

|_____ WHEN _ THE __ S T U D E N T __ IS __ READY _______|

|____ THE __ T E A C H E R __ WILL __ A P P E A R ____|
None of us has power over another's will, that is an illusion.

At best we can illustrate through our example, that there are other choices for BE'ing and LIVING. Stand as a force of uplifting, and others may soon sense which way is "UP", but that is always for them to decide,

as CHOICE and intention

is EVERYTHING

|___ I __ R E V E R E __ ALL __ L I F E ____|

… and that includes all forms of BE'ing and eating.

Namaste « Presence »
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world » — Gandhi
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed » — Gandhi
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — ML King

It still makes sense to eat lower on the food chain.

Significant environmental damage results from livestock agriculture, often driving many other species into extinction. The existence of dodo birds was first recorded in the early 1500s by Portuguese Sailors. The dodo, which weighed about 50 pounds, was incapable of defending itself and could not flee from its enemies, since it lacked the ability to fly. Large numbers of these birds were killed by human beings for food. Additionally, pigs that were brought to the islands destroyed a significant portion of the dodos' eggs, creating a severe decline in the dodo population. The species became extinct by the 18th century.

The Steller's sea cow once inhabited the coastal waters of the Commander Islands in the Bering Sea. Russian Sealers, who were the first to record the existence of these creatures in 1741, estimated the entire population to be about 5,000. Their meat was considered a delicacy by Russian sealers, who decimated the entire species by 1768.

The Labrador duck has been extinct since 1875. This species formerly inhabited the coastal regions of northeastern Canada. The extinction of the passenger pigeon was caused by the American westward expansion in the second half of the 19th century. As passenger pigeons became a popular food item, the numbers of this species rapidly diminished. Millions were slaughtered each year and shipped by railway cars to be sold in city markets. Another bird to become extinct because of its use as food was the heath hen, which became extinct about 1932.

The pacific sardine lives along the coasts of North America from Alaska to southern California. Sardines, once a major part of the California fishing industry, are now considered to be "commercially extinct." Another species classified as "commercially extinct" is the New England haddock. Ecologists have also been concerned about the significant reduction in finfish, the Atlantic bluefin tuna, Lake Erie cisco, and blackfins that inhabit Lakes Huron and Michigan.

More than 200,000 porpoises are killed every year by fishermen seeking tuna in the Pacific. Sea turtles are similarly killed in Caribbean shrimp operations. Some animals are killed because, as carnivores, they compete with the human predator for the right to kill other animals for food, including wild game and domesticated species raised by livestock ranchers. Alaskan hunters are eager to reduce the wolf population in their state because this animal is a predator of moose.

Cougars, coyotes and wolves are considered a menace to the cattle and sheep industries, and livestock ranchers have engaged in a large-scale campaign to exterminate them. Two species of wolves are now endangered, and very few wolves can be found in the United States except in Alaska and northeastern Minnesota. The relatively small number of eagles in the U.S. is largely due to the destruction of this species by livestock ranchers, particularly those in the sheep business.

Herbivorous animals that inhabit rangeland areas are also killed by the livestock industry because they compete with cattle arid sheep for food. Large numbers of kangaroos are being exterminated in Australia, while in the United States livestock ranchers seek to destroy wild horses, wild burros, deer, elk, antelope and prairie dogs.

An ever-increasing amount of beef eaten in the United States is imported from Central and South America. To provide pasture for cattle, these countries have been clearing their priceless tropical rainforests. In 1960, when the U. S. first began to import beef, Central America was blessed with 130,000 square miles of rainforest. But now, less than 80,000 square miles remain. At this rate, the entire tropical rainforests of Central America will be gone in another forty years.

These tropical rainforests are among the world's most precious natural resources. Amounting to only 30 percent of the world's forests, the rainforests contain 80 percent of the earth's land vegetation, and account for a substantial percentage of the earth's oxygen supplies. These forests are the oldest ecosystems on earth and have developed extreme ecological richness. Half of all species on earth live in the moist tropical rainforests. But these jewels of nature are being rapidly destroyed to provide land on which cattle can be grazed for the American fast-food market.

The current rate of species extinction is 1,000 species a year, and most of that is due to the destruction of rainforests and related habitats in the tropics.

Overgrazing of cattle leads to topsoil erosion, turning once-arable land into desert. We lose four million acres of topsoil each year and eighty-five percent of this loss is directly caused by raising livestock. To replace the soil we've lost, we're destroying our forests. Since 1967, the rate of deforestation in the U. S. has been one acre every five seconds. For each acre cleared in urbanization, seven are cleared for grazing or growing livestock feed.

According to the editors of World Watch, July/August 2004:

"The human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future—deforestization, topsoil erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities and the spread of disease."

The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.

"If anyone wants to save the planet," says Paul McCartney, "all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do. It's staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let's do it! Linda was right. Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century."

The animal rights movement should be supported by all caring Americans.

"meat eating certainly doesn't confer "satifying" or "balanced" dietary advantages either."

This is a matter of opinion. For me, eating meat (along with grains, nuts, fruits, veggies, etc.) confers a very satisfying diet. A lot of the discussion here reminds me of my frequent conversations with religious folk (of all faiths, BTW -- some of the most annoying zealots I have ever encountered have been Buddhists), who all seem to fervently believe that my life would be 'better' and that I would achieve some advanced moral state if I would just pray to their god, accept their savior, or follow their enlightened one. Actually, my life is great the way it is, and I plan to remain an omnivorous atheist until my time is up.

Vasumurti,

You have a fine, coherent belief system. I will continue to believe as I choose. I won't try to impose my belief system on you. I highly recommend against trying to impose your belief system on me.

pissantnobody
the degree of satisfaction one gets goes beyond taste - it literally begins and ends with the heart. as for nutritional balance, a bit of effort to choose a variety of healthful grains, nuts, seeds, plus all the fruits and veggies, tofu, tempeh, etc. and there really isn't much of a problem here. meat eating certainly doesn't confer "satifying" or "balanced" dietary advantages either.

VASUMURTI: I just wish to thank you for your informed postings. I cut and paste each of them for my own record. I don't eat red meat, but I do still eat fish. If I were a better cook I suppose I could toss that, too. Years ago I lived in Puerto Rico and paid this very strange guy to prepare vegetarian meals for me. He used coconut milk as a basic component. The stuff was great, mostly rice based with local vegetables or fruits.

One woman friend of mine (from UK) has been a vegetarian ALL her life. She does wonders with food, comes up with countless dishes.

Two years ago I made a 110 mile drive south (Florida) from where I live and passed every fast food place along the path, actually feeling hungry. At last I spied a health food store, rushed in to find they only had canned foods or vitamins. I wondered why there wasn't even a cold case with yogurt? He said "you're the first person who asked." In other words in that entire 110 mile stretch the very concept of, and therefore interest in "health foods" was minimal at best.

Outside of Ojai, California is a wonderful farmer's market lunch place where the salad greens are mostly grown locally and your plate is weighed (for cost). I ran into the actress Julie Christie there right before driving down to LA, to leave the rental car, to then fly over the same landscape filmed in Dr. Zhivago! I love those "concordant" events.

deselby:

VERY WELL SAID! (July 10 @ 2:59pm)

It made me so glad to hear someone bring reason without emotion to the table (pun intended).

Maybe it was different in ancient Africa, but have you ever tried to catch a bird or quadruped with your bare hands, or otherwise find a meal in a forest? No need for diet pills in that world!

Are insects, spiders, etc. considered meat? Based upon a look at our hands and mouth, humans are suspiciously well adapted for eating them, even before we had tools, fire, fat brains, and sensibilities beyond survival. Further, few of our prehistoric ancestors survived long enough to suffer heart disease or other meat-attributed diseases.

A tilt toward vegetarianism seems positive, from a kindness and longevity viewpoint, but it's not like tofu used to grow on trees. Even with the benefit of mega-markets, with food originating in all corners of the world, pulling together a satisfying, nutrtionally complete meal in the produce aisle is not easy.

Unfortunately, our ability to objectively analyze nutrition and diet is, like most things, severely hampered by the capitalist profit motive. In a rational and humanitarian (i.e., socialist) world, there would be no reason to promote bad diet. Let's go about creating that harmonious world, and let our descendants sort out the fine points of gastronomy.

when quite a bit younger, i thought about how i might indulge my erotic appetites, carefully (and sometimes not so carefully) inspecting the array of potential prospects - considering them only slightly more or less enjoyable than the various forms of meat i consumed regularly.

to say one should "give up" something before having the opportunity to make a wholehearted, eyes open, positive choice will merely create a greater pressure to reverse that choice. one doesn't "give up" eating meat any more that one stops craving sex. but the manner in which you regard your partner will go a long way in determining how enjoyable is your experience. and the manner in which you regard what you eat will go a long way in determining its overall benefits. while it is true that one can regard anything even remotely edible as holy and therefore good, when it is finally discovered within one's own heart that vast suffering of enormous numbers of animals is taking place to satisfy a craving not much different than that of "fucking", you tend to get a little more selective about what you put in your mouth. it's all about one's own unfolding awareness.

"You cant survive on fucking peanuts and plants."

"No, but you might if you ate them"

big ups PShaw...

"You cant survive on fucking peanuts and plants."

No, but you might if you ate them :-)

Just because some inbred Appalacian retard is capable of killing oxen with his bare hands, doubtless whilst simultaneously having sexual congress with a hog, it does not mean we all wish to live that way.

And if the only way the tosspot somewhere above can find to stop a deer eating his vegetables is to kill it, to my mind that takes the sapiens right out of homo.

We are supposed to be sentient beings. As such, you get empathy thrown in for good measure. Ignore it at the price of your soul.

Sermon over.

"Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating." ---Chrissie Hynde

Half the world's population does not receive an adequate amount of food to eat. Ten to twenty million die annually of hunger and its effects. The Institute for Food and Development Policy reports that, "Forty thousand children starve to death on this planet every day," or one child every two seconds.

The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country. We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats. Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people. Most of it is used to grow livestock feed.

Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain-fed livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

The world's cattle alone, not to mention pigs and chickens, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. According to Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes. That same acre of land, if used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of beef.

In his book, The Hungry Planet, Georg Bergstrom points out that protein-starved underdeveloped nations export more protein to wealthy nations than they receive. He calls this "the protein swindle." Ninety percent of the world's fish meal catch, for example, is exported to rich countries. One-third of Africa's peanut crop winds up in the stomachs of European livestock. Half the world's cereal crop is fed to livestock and the United States annually imports one million tons of vegetable protein from Third World nations--just to feed its farm animals.

Bergstrom writes: "Sometimes one wonders how many Americans and Western Europeans have grasped the fact that quite a few of their beef steaks, quarts of milk, dozens of eggs, and hundreds of broilers are the result, not of their agriculture, but of the approximately two million metric tons of protein, mostly of high quality, which astute Western businessmen channel away from the needy and hungry."

Jeremy Rifkin, author of a dozen influential books and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, writes in his 1992 bestseller Beyond Beef:

"Cattle and other livestock are devouring much of the grain produced on the planet. It need be emphasized that this is a new phenomenon, unlike anything ever experienced before.

"Contrary to popular belief, the poor are getting poorer each year...Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition. On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished. In Latin America, nearly one out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night. In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of a perpetual hunger."

"In the Near East, one in ten people is underfed. Chronic hunger now affects upwards of 1.3 billion people, according to the world Health Organization--a statistic all the more striking in a world where one third of all the grain produced is being fed to cattle and other livestock. Never before in human history has such a large percentage of our species--nearly 25 percent--been malnourished.

"The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against their fellow human beings."

In the 1970s, the United Nations Secretary General said that the food consumption of the rich countries is the key cause of hunger around the world. The United Nations has recommended that the wealthy nations cut down on their meat consumption.

The Worldwatch Institute has released a remarkable report entitled Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment, which lists nation after nation where food deprivation has followed the switch from a grain-based diet to a meat-based one.

Most of the nations that now import grain from the United States were once self-sufficient in grain. The main reason they aren't is the rise in meat production and consumption.

In Taiwan, for example, per capita consumption of meat and eggs increased 600 percent from 1950 to 1990. With this change, vastly increased amounts of grain have gone to livestock, raising the annual per capita grain use in the country from 375 pounds to 858 pounds. In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.

In mainland China, the situation is similar. Increased meat consumption has meant less grain available to feed people. Since 1978, meat consumption has more than doubled, to twenty-four kilograms. The share of Chinese grain fed to livestock rose from 7 percent in 1960 to 20 percent in 1990.

Over half Of Latin America's beef production is exported, and the rest is too expensive for any but the wealthy to purchase. From 1960 to 1980 beef exports from El Salvador increases over sixfold. Meanwhile, increasing numbers of small farmers lost their livelihood and were pushed off their land. Today, 72 percent of all Salvadoran infants are underfed.

In Brazil, major portions of the Amazon tropical rain forests have been destroyed so that wealthy multinational corporations can produce beef for the wealthy. Corporations such as Volkswagen, Nestle, Mitsubishi, Liquigas, King Ranch, and Swift-Eckrich have bulldozed and burned literally hundreds of millions of acres, replacing the world's oldest and richest ecosystems, home to two million or more species of plant and animal life with a single crop--pasture grass for cattle. And here, the beef produced has not gone to feed hungry Brazilians; it has been primarily exported to Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America. In 1987, the United States imported three hundred million pounds of meat from countries in Central and South America.

With the help of international lending institutions, Brazil has mounted an enormous effort to increase agricultural production, but this has been primarily meat-oriented production and for export. In the late '60s, soybeans were almost nonexistent or Brazil. Today, this crop is the nation's number one export--but almost all of it goes to feed Japanese and European livestock. Twenty five years ago, one third of the Brazilian population suffered from malnutrition. Today, the figure has risen to two thirds.

Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Brazil huge cattle ranches take up some of the most fertile soil in the whole country, yet 60 percent of Brazilians are malnourished. Oxfam estimates that in Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats! The livestock are exported of course, to satisfy the developed nations' craving for cheap hamburgers.

In the early '60s, sorghum was almost unknown in Mexico. But by 1980, it covered literally twice the acreage of wheat. Sorghum isn't grown for humans. It is fed to livestock. In the late '60s, livestock consumed only 6 percent of Mexico's grain. Today, the figure is over 50 percent. This is a trend throughout the Third World. Copying the United States' meat-oriented diet, these poor countries devote increasing percentages of their resources to meat production.

In Guatemala, 75 percent of the children under five years of age are undernourished. Yet, every year Guatemala exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States. It borders on the criminal!

In Costa Rica, beef production quadrupled between 1960 and 1980, but almost all this beef is exported to the United States, and what does stay in the country is eaten by a tiny minority. Though more and more Costa Rican land is being turned over to meat production, the population is not eating more meat for the change. The average family in Costa Rica eats less meat than the average American housecat.

Throughout Latin America, land availability is a prominent social issue. Revolutionaries as well as reform-minded moderates have made land reform a major issue. Yet in many Latin American countries, forests are being leveled in order to create pastures for cattle grazing land.

In a region where land availability is a central social issue, existing land is being gobbled up by livestock agriculture. The resulting social tensions have resulted in civil wars, repression and violence.

Hunger is really a social disease caused by the unjust, inefficient and wasteful control of food. Our food security is not being threatened by the prolific, hungry masses, but by elites that profit by the concentration and internationalization of control of food resources.

In country after country the pattern is repeated. Livestock industries are consuming feed to such an extent that now almost all Third World nations must import grain. Seventy-five percent of Third World imports of corn, barley, sorghum, and oats are fed to animals, not to people. In country after country, the demand for meat among the rich is squeezing out staple production for the poor.

The same trend can be found in the Middle East and North Africa--increases in grain-fed livestock require more imported feed. In the early '70s, Egypt was self-sufficient in grain. Then, livestock ate only 10 percent of the nation's grain. Today, livestock consume 36 percent of Egypt's grain. As a result, Egypt must now import eight million tons of grain every year.

In the late '60s , Syria was a barley exporter. But in the intervening years, livestock has consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain. Now, despite a phenomenal 1,000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.

According to Buckminster Fuller, there are enough resources at present to feed, clothe, house and educate every human being on the planet at American middle class standards. The Institute for Food and Development Policy has shown that there is no country in the world in which the people cannot feed themselves from their own resources.

Moreover, there is no correlation between land density and hunger. China has twice as many people per cultivated acre as India, yet less of a hunger problem. Bangladesh has just one-half the people per cultivated acre that Taiwan has, yet Taiwan has no starvation, while Bangladesh has one of the highest rates in the world. The most densely populated countries in the world today are not India and Bangladesh, but Holland and Japan.

Many of us believe that hunger exists because there's not enough food to go around. But as Frances Moore Lappe' and her anti-hunger organization Food First! have shown, the real cause of hunger is a scarcity of justice, not a scarcity of food.

Peace Czar- I know what go's into a hamburger, regardless of where it is bought. I dont actually give a fuck. I am at the top of the food chain, I will eat animal, mineral, vegetable regardless of where it came from. I'm not scared of what is in it! Not that I actually went to Macdonalds after writing that, I just put a little humorous twist into the thread, people are just to serious about it.
We are all part of a system from the smallest insect to the blue whale, humans are no different. Its part of life to eat other life forms!
You cant survive on fucking peanuts and plants.

Gnosis1:

Yeah, it kinda does taste like turkey loaf right now, which is why it's not on the market. The production method is there to make perfectly nutritious and edible product right now, but the trick is getting it to taste right. It's going to take some more fine tuning to get the details right, but I have no doubt it's possible and neither do those backing the technology. I mean, really, if it's possible to take a bunch of vegetable matter and make a damned convincingly good hamburger or chicken nugget out of it, how hard can it possibly be to make meat taste more like meat? It's only a matter of time, the economic incentive is there to keep researching and tweaking the techniques until they get it right.

And of course, that's the core of it isn't it? Animals are expensive and time consuming to raise and keep, it's labor intensive, storage intensive, energy intensive and waste intensive. Those things all cost money, bones and organs and eyes and brains and fur and hooves and everything else that isn't grade A meat is poundage they're paying for feed to create that they're not getting a return on investment for. Of course they want to eliminate all that, and the long time and many many labor hours it takes to get all that waste and all the expense involved in getting rid of it. The potential for savings in a setup where instead of whole animals they just grow rack on rack of pure salable product ready to be packaged is enormous. And that savings is all potential profit, as they certainly won't pass the savings onto the consumer who is already accustomed to paying a certain price.

This technology is coming. There's too much money in it for them not make it happen. It's only a matter of time. One day the idea of killing animals for meat will seem quaint and primitive, because it'll be common knowledge that meat is grown in factory dishes. And it won't be because of any concern for animals or pressure from people who have it, it'll be because it's economically more efficient to do it that way.

Seventh Son:

You call me violent and diseased for a choice that doesn't affect you at all but you consider a moral crusade, and you wonder why the words smug and holier-than-thou are spoken of you? You're just like the religious reich, wanting to tell me what I can eat, who I can fuck, what's the difference? It's still moralistic tyranny and I will still fight it. So unless you wanna end up in the pot next, back the hell off.

applesauce, B-12 is not synthesized by any plant whatsoever. It may be present in small amounts on some plants, but only due to bacteria in the soil still clinging to the plant material.

Simple Sauce is right, the fact is that 'livestock animals are a necessary part of some regenerative ecosystems."

And livestock herds MUST be managed. Sometimes that means culling. Is it better to let a rare breed die out because 'we don't want to manage it because we might have to cull some of the herd', or is it better to maintain that breed in health and fitness because it IS properly managed ?

Animals can make good and productive use of land which is not suited for 'vegetarian' agriculture.

Forgiveness -- Our kids grew up around the small farm facts of life and they turned out fine. We had a herd of purebred Galloway cattle, and yes, we did cull, there is no way around it. The herd is elsewhere now but still going strong. When she was about four, my daughter spent most of a long night helping me cut up a pig. She was FASCINATED by all the musculature, etc. And now she is a second-year medical school student and considering a career as a surgeon. She still remembers the Night of the Dead Pig. Fondly.
So I guess that makes us horrible people. Deal with it.

My favorite line regarding food is from Arctic Unicorn, a young adult book about the life of the Inuit at the time of first contact with white people. In one scene, a young dude arrives at the family camp. He has a gun, the first anyone has ever seen. With the gun, he kills a sea bird. The bird is taken to the old woman of the camp to prepare. She refuses, saying "This one does not prepare food that is not taken with respect."

That pretty much says it all. How many of you vegans know how your food is harvested ? Are you sure there are no human rights issues involved ? Is it worse to eat a moose killed by bow and arrow and cared for by yourself than to eat 'organic' vegetables harvested by virtual slave labor somewhere?

it doesn't matter who in history has been vegan or vegetarian. you can be the worst person in the world and still be right about a few things.

and no, vitamin b-12 can be found in things like buckwheat, pomegranates and nutritional yeast (otherwise known as hippie dust).

we don't live in a hunter gatherer society any more. that is the problem. the argument i had against vegetarianism before i became one was that - people kill animals because it is natural. the point is that we don't live that way any more and it is extremely inhumane and UNNECSSARY NOW.

it is a widely held consensus among scientists that humans evolved from seed and fruit predators who also ate soft leaves. predation because they choose to feed off of live plants (SEE RAW FOODISTS TODAY). Australopithicene teeth structure have been studied in great detail and proves that evolution wise, no humans are not strictly omnivores and we can return to being herbivores.

Today we still have similar teeth structure- there is no way humans could tear through RAW FLESH. Why do you think we have to cook it first???

We are equatorial/tropical creates and the reason we started eating meat was because we started moving due to WAR. WAR forced humans to move and therefore forced us to hunt.

if we lived in a third world country or were natives this would be a slightly different matter because it might be infringing on a cultural thing (but culture still doesn't make things correct).

but the point is that the energy in to produce animals is extremely wasteful compared to harvesting fruits and vegetables. we can feed way more mouths and have a healthier and more nutritious diet if it were vegetarian/vegan. it is good for the environment and it is healthier for humans as well. not to mention places like the amazon, the florida everglades and a large portion of agricultural land in the US could be freed up and either used to grow vegetables or set aside and protected.

i don't understand why omnis get so taken back by vegetarianism. it is just another form of domination and exploitation that needs to end.

on another side note, what does anyone think of meat grown in a test tube?

Choices...we all get to make them...

sometimes, it is hard to see that the "choice" to do something brings havoc into our own and others lives....ie:

smoking

drinking

driving personal Weapons of Mass Destruction

clear cutting

using nuclear ...anything

going to war to serve ones country/to have employment

using grasslands to farm corn for biodiesel
using grasslands to farm grain for cattle feed lots
using grasslands to play military war games

choosing to eat meat laced with anti-biotics, hormones, and who knows how the creature was treated during its short life (so the emotions of depression, fear are encased in those muscle tissues too)

choosing to eat fish that come from oceans and lakes that are also laced with so many indescriable contaminents from nuclear wastes dumped to constant oil slicks and ocean liners waste products...not to mention the trawling method of fishing that scoops up hundreds of species

all choices....that are seen as innocent and individual, but when applied by the thousands/possibly millions....the destruction that is wreaked upon our poor planet home is horrifying...

and unfortunately, those of the human population that can see this clearly have no choice but to live on a planet being destroyed by other's thoughtless and selfish choices....

If you get hungry you will kill the cute little bunnies, deer, squirrels etc. and eat them. I know this from my childhood to some extent but much more from some of the others who had it worse. Our garden raised an awful lot of venison harvested on a moonlit night by a shot out the window.

One family knew every wild plant or animal by food value. They ate every part of a deer but the hoof. They were small people but I don't think there was anything they hadn't killed, skinned, and eaten. For a cow they would walk right up to it, bean it on the head really hard with a hammer and cut its throat. Some of the older generation drank the blood right out of a cows veins. The younger ones collected it and made blood sausage and other interesting foods.

If things really get tough you vegans will starve waiting for those imported vegetables from California, Chile, Mexico etc. The family I mentioned above will knock a squirrel out of a tree with a rock, snare a rabbit, dig up some roots, and gather mushrooms and have one hell of a feast. Better wait for an invitation, they don't receive surprise visitors. You might find the still.

Of course, I will be done for because I need too many prescriptions to live.

If you get hungry you will kill the cute little bunnies, deer, squirrels etc. and eat them. I know this from my childhood to some extent but much more from some of the others who had it worse. Our garden raised an awful lot of venison harvested on a moonlit night by a shot out the window.

One family knew every wild plant or animal by food value. They ate every part of a deer but the hoof. They were small people but I don't think there was anything they hadn't killed, skinned, and eaten. For a cow they would walk right up to it, bean it on the head really hard with a hammer and cut its throat. Some of the older generation drank the blood right out of a cows veins. The younger ones collected it and made blood sausage and other interesting foods.

If things really get tough you vegans will starve waiting for those imported vegetables from California, Chile, Mexico etc. The Bates family will knock a squirrel out of a tree with a rock, snare a rabbit, dig up some roots, and gather mushrooms and have one hell of a feast. Better wait for an invitation, they don't receive surprise visitors. You might find the still.

Of course, I will be done for because I need too many prescriptions to live.

As a Jain activist for the Jain minority right under the Indian constitution I welcome John Dear's spirited defence of vegetarianism. Jainism gave the pioneering message of non-violence to the humanity.

The Nobel prize winning medical missionary Dr. Albert Schweitzer speaks in glowing terms of the principle of Ahimsa non-violence as laid down by Jainism: "The laying down of the commandment not to kill and not to damage is one of the greatest events in the spiritual history of mankind. Starting from its principle, founded on world and life denial of abstention from action, ancient Indian thoughts and this is a period when in other respects ethics have not progressed very far reaches the tremendous discovery that ethics know no bounds. So far as we know this is for the first time clearly expressed by Jainism."

Mahatma Gandhi, father of the Indian Nation won India freedom through non-violence and pursuit of Ahimsa.

In a world fraught with grain shortages, food crisis the only alternative can be vegetarianism.

I think its admirable that Fr. John Dear is advocating vegetarianism and nonviolence; I sincerely hope it will cause others in his church and in the Christian tradition to follow his example.

I would like to see organized religion take up the struggle for animal rights. Religion has been wrong before. It has often been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery, religion has impeded social and moral progress. It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off in great numbers.

The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states here in the U.S. actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.

Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."

New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery. Many of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.

The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn human slavery. "Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," says contemporary Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik. "Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves.

"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-Biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul. Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God."

In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867: "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved."

The status of animals in contemporary human society is not unlike that of human slaves in centuries past. Quoting Isaiah 61:1, Luke 4:18 or any other biblical passages in favor of liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the same kind of response animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.

Some of the worst crimes in history have also been committed in the name of religion. There's a great song along these lines from the early 1990s by Rage Against the Machine entitled "Killing in the Name Of".

Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement) rather than simply remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern churches in the U.S. upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support must come freely and voluntarily (e.g., "The Liberation of All Life" resolution issued by the World Council of Churches in 1988).

Religious institutions can't be coerced into rewriting their holy books or teaching a convoluted doctrine to suit the whims or the secular political ideology of a particular demagogue. American liberals argue that principle of the separation of church and state (upon which the United States was founded) gives us freedom FROM religious tyranny and theocracy. Conservatives argue (the other side of the coin!) that one of the reasons America's founding fathers established the separation of church and state was to prevent government intrusion into religious affairs.

I agree with Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA), who said on Earth Day 1990:

"It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this country (the United States) without the voice of the religious community being heard. The endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage movement; the emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the power and support of organized religion. Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a reality."

seventhson

Before you point fingers, you might want to look at your own attitudes. You seem to be laboring under a condition I might call Human Exceptionalism Syndrome. You seem to think that humans are not part of nature, and therefore are not to behave in the way nature evolved us to behave. Today, I ate part of a chicken. In my life, I will eat thousands of animals. Eventually, something (probably a microbe, but maybe another animal) will eat me. I am neither superior to the chicken nor inferior to the microbe, we are all simply playing our role in the natural order of things.

Paul_GA errs when he repeats the old myth that Hitler was a "vegetarian." He is not the first to have done this.

Kathleen Marquardt, founder of Putting People First, an anti-animal rights group, unsuccessfully tries to equate animal rights with Nazism in her 1993 book, Animal Scam: the Beastly Abuse of Human Rights. She claims that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, and that he suffered from depression, mood swings, irritability, and agitation, all of which are symptoms of a vitamin B-12 deficiency, and that animal products are the only dietary source of vitamin B-12.

According to Carol Orsag, in Irving Wallace and David Wallechinsky's The People's Almanac (1975), however, Adolf Hitler consumed animal products in the form of eggs and dairy products, and enjoyed eggs "prepared 101 different ways by the best chef in Germany." He "became vegetarian because of stomach problems" rather than out of compassion for animals, and "was criticized for eating pig's knuckles."

In a 1996 article, "Nazis and Animals: Debunking the Myths," Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights states that Hitler "had a special fondness for sausages and caviar, and sometimes ham," as well as "liver dumplings." Kalechofsky states further that the Nazis experimented on animals as well as humans in the concentration camps:

"The evidence of Nazi experiments on animals is overwhelming. In The Dark Face of Science, author John Vyvyan summed it up correctly: 'The experiments made on prisoners were many and diverse, but they had one thing in common: all were in continuation of, or complementary to, experiments on animals. In every instance, this antecedent scientific literature is mentioned in the evidence, and at Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps, human and animal experiments were carried out simultaneously as parts of a single programme.'"

According to Marquardt: "Having equated animals with man, the Nazis proceeded to treat men as animals." Marquardt wants to have it both ways. She wants to show that the Nazis' "respect for life" somehow led to a devaluation of human life. But would not a genuine reverence for life—elevating animal rights to the level of human rights—have had the opposite effect? Compassion for every living creature? There is no evidence that vegetarianism (for health or ethics) will make people saints or give them Gandhian compassion, but neither is there any evidence that it will make people Nazis.

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain to Jews and non-Jews alike: "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism. Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."

Isaac Bashevis Singer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, became a vegetarian in 1962. He once asked, "How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy? How can we speak of rights and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood?"

Hitler's so-called "vegetarianism" did not prevent Isaac Bashevis Singer from comparing humanity's mass killing of 50 billion animals every year to the Nazi Holocaust. In 1987 he wrote, "This is my protest against the conduct of the world. To be a vegetarian is to disagree—to disagree with the course of things today. Nuclear power, starvation, cruelty—we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one."

Isaac Bashevis Singer has also expressed the view that unnecessary violence against animals by human beings will only lead to further violence in human society: "I personally believe that as long as human beings will go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace. There is only one little step from killing animals to creating gas chambers a' la Hitler and concentration camps a' la Stalin—all such deeds are done in the name of 'social justice.' There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is."

The late Rabbi Isaac ha-Levi Herzog once made the prediction that "Jews will move increasingly to vegetarianism out of their own deepening knowledge of what their tradition commands...Man's carnivorous nature is not taken for granted or praised in the fundamental teachings of Judaism...A whole galaxy of central rabbinic and spiritual leaders ...has been affirming vegetarianism as the ultimate meaning of Jewish moral teaching."

Professor Henry Bigelow observed: "There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of science as they do now to burning at the stake in the name of religion."

Harming or killing other animals for food, "sport," or clothing, or even owning other animals as property must become as unthinkable to us humans as owning other human beings as property, regardless of one's religion or belief in a god or gods. The animal rights movement is NOT a "front" for a religious minority attempting to impose its "dietary laws" upon the rest of secular American society. Is the right-to-life movement, however, a "front" for Catholic, Fundamentalist, or "born-again" Christianity?

Animal rights, as a secular, moral philosophy, may appear to be at odds with traditional religious thinking (e.g., human "dominion" over other animals), but this is equally true of democracy and representative government in place of the divine right of kings, the separation of church and state, the abolition of human slavery, the emancipation of women, birth control, the sexual revolution, lesbian and gay rights, and perhaps every kind of social progress since the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment.

Some of the greatest figures in human history have been in favor of ethical vegetarianism and animal rights. These include: Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, Alice Walker, George Bernard Shaw, Robert Browning, Percy Shelley, Voltaire, Thomas Hardy, Rachel Carson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Victor Hugo, John Stuart Mill, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pythagoras, Susan B. Anthony, Albert Schweitzer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Gertrude Stein, Frederick Douglass, Francis Bacon, William Wordsworth, the Buddha, Mark Twain, and Henry David Thoreau.

Abraham Lincoln once said: "I care not for a man's religion whose dog or cat are not the better for it." Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity have also been vegetarian. A partial list includes: St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome, Aegidius, St. Benedict, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Thomas More, St. Filippo Neri, St. Columba, John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe, General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore.

apollosviper:

"Crock of shit" is about as literal as you can get. Enjoy the supersized dosage of antibiotics, hormones, and *shit* with your value meal.

There's probably a fair share of blood, guts and pus in there, too.

Just thought you should be honest with yourself about what you're going to ingest and the complicity you're party to.

"Feed your pets the diet they would eat on their own."

DON'T KEEP PETS AT ALL! On their own, they would do their own killing. It is a perversion of nature to kill for carnivores. When you buy pet food for your cat you are supporting the wholesale killing of vegetarian animals to feed carnivores. You are supporting an industry that takes protein-rich foods from protein-deficient children in poor countries. If you need something to love, there are six-plus billion human beings desperately in need of it.

"Armadillos make affectionate pets, if you need affection that much."
------WILL CUPPY

To all you meat eaters on this post who have called us vegetarians/vegans "holier than thou", "holy rollers", "smug", etc etc etc:

Methinks that is EXACTLY the arrogance you all must have within yourselves to continue the mass slaughter of animals and to eat your dead animal flesh with a straight face. It is part of that same age-old attitude that is truly a disease: I call it Human Superiority Complex. It is that same particular disease that prompts your violence against animals in the first place.

The problem with Milton Mill's work is that he has never cited the sources of his data, nor has he done a proper statistical analysis to see if the comparisons he makes are valid. He uses vague, qualitative terms ('longer', 'shorter', etc.) without any proper citation of measurement. He also does not mention which specific species he is placing into his categories, so when he says omnivores, herbivores, etc., we have no idea what he talking about. Even more problematic, his entire thesis is based on the assumption that taxonomy determines diet -- this is such a fallacy that it is even debunked on a vegetarian website!

(http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/omni.htm#confusion)

On the other hand, there is a wealth of properly conducted, scientific studies that support the hypothesis that humans are omnivorous. These studies are cross-disciplinary, drawing from anatomy, physiology, anthropology, and archaeology. There is even some pretty compelling biochemical evidence, probably the most compelling of which is the fact that humans cannot synthesize taurine (an amino acid) very efficiently, and the only dietary source is meat.

I have great respect for vegetarians for two reasons, first, because they take healthy eating seriously, and secondly because they back up their belief system with behavior. However, when I see absolutist words like 'only', or 'all' being used with respect to behavior (in the title of this essay, for example), my skin crawls. This sort of thing flies in the face of free thought.

A healthy ecosystem is diverse.

When humans were a part of it, they foraged like omnivores.

It's only a small planet because there are too many people in it.

Species extinction is happening at an unprecedented rate because of overpopulation.

Too many carnivores, too many vegetarians and too many omnivores are destroying natural diversity forever.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Plant and animal monocultures are causing a vacuum in nature.

Nature corrects this by killing off the offending species.

You have bad taste.

What a crock of shit.
I'm off to Mcdonalds for dinner, supersize me all the way bitches.

There is a great connection between the imprisonment and slaughter of human beings and of animals. As well a connection between the food crisis and the raising of animals. If you fail to see that then you need to watch any number of animal exploitation films. Someone listed a few above including Earthlings. And remember. There are more reasons than god and health to make a change. Please stop and consider for a second why you oppose war and then try to relate that to the food you consume.

If any one of you are against war, occupation and grave human rights abuses I am sure any one of you would be against the imprisonment, slaughtering and the deanimimalization of the 'food' you eat. Just as millions of americans don't understand the costs of war because we do not see it with our own eyes or it is not broadcasted over the airwaves- so too do millions of american's not know about the mechanization used to cut up and wrap the flesh you eat.

Here is a good article by George Monboit about the relationship to the food crisis and the raising of animals for profit.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/04/15/the-pleasures-of-the-flesh/

It might not be that we decide whether we are vegan or vegetarian. We might just have to do it to survive as a species.

p.s. a main reason why I became vegan was the outrage i felt in finding out about the labeling of ingredients. when these terms are changed so a layman can understand them- it is simply down right gross and i feel offended that I was tricked for so long.

http://www.caringconsumer.com/resources_ingredients.asp

PEACE does include eating peace.

Cloned meat will probably be as tasty as turkey loaf. Ugh. BTW, Joseph Campbell said, "Vegetarianism is the first turning away from life. It is the failure to recognize that life feeds on life. Whether you eat plants or animals, you're still eating the body of God. If you only eat plants you're just eating a form that can't run away from you."

What do you eat when there's a bad harvest for a few seasons or a drought?

Seems to me to be pretty cruel to rip life out of the ground or cut it to shreds. Some people like to eat their veggies raw...that's kinf of like saying they like to eat things that are alive.

Whatever will the holier-than-thou militant vegetables rail about when we get cloned meat? It's coming, soon we'll be buying packaged meat in our stores that was grown in a laboratory-style factory setting and never was part of a living animal. The technology exists right now, and has strong economic advantages that make it's adoption virtually inevitable. Then what will you preach at us about? What will you have to feel morally superior about then?

I look forward to watching the smiles wiped from your smug faces then. It's coming, just you wait.

Apparently, Vasumurti is unfamiliar with the work of Dr. Jane Goodall. Chimps will occasionally hunt, kill and eat other animals. Also, humans don't need sharp claws and teeth--we have tools. The main problem with humans is that we're too successful as the top predator--but then you can blame Brahma and Shiva for that. And you can thank Vishnu for the capacity to preserve life-- which we better start doing.

I am 62 this year, and have been either near-vegetarian or near-vegan for most of my life. It was always a joyful discovery to learn about others feeling as I do. I read "Diet For A Small Planet" when it was first published;discovered what the various religions had to say about our kinship to all sentient beings; found out that Deep Ecology was over-written upon my own positions ... Any step away from causing suffering of others is a practice of skill and compassion. It is just another step toward full human development (something we are here for, whether we are bright enough or courageous enough to admit).

According to paleontologists we would not have been able to develop into homo-sapiens if it were not for the incorporation of meat into our diet. It is what allowed our brain size to grow. We are quite clearly omnivores. Is the continued consumption of meat necessary? I don't know. But to deny that we are meat eaters is simply not rational.

The frugivores (gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates) have intestinal tracts twelve times the length of the body, clawless hands and alkaline urine and saliva. Their diet is mostly vegetarian, occasionally supplemented with carrion, insects, etc.

Flesh-eating animals lap water with their tongue, whereas vegetarian animals imbibe liquids by a suction process. Humans are classified as primates and are thus frugivores possessing a set of completely herbivorous teeth. Proponents of the theory that humans should be classified as omnivores note that human beings do, in fact, possess a modified form of canine teeth. However, these so-called "canine teeth" are much more prominent in animals that traditionally never eat flesh, such as apes, camels, and the male musk deer.

It must also be noted that the shape, length and hardness of these so-called "canine teeth" can hardly be compared to those of true carnivorous animals. A principle factor in determining the hardness of teeth is the phosphate of magnesia content. Human teeth usually contain 1.5 percent phosphate of magnesia, whereas the teeth of carnivores are composed of nearly 5 percent phosphate of magnesia. It is for this reason they are able to break through the bones of their prey, and reach the nutritious marrow.

Zoologist Desmond Morris makes a case for vegetarianism in his 1967 book, The Naked Ape: "It could be argued that, since our primate ancestors had to make do without a major meat component in their diets we should be able to do the same. We were driven to become flesh eaters only by environmental circumstances, and now that we have the environment under control, with elaborately cultivated crops at our disposal, we might be expected to return to our ancient feeding patterns."

In The Human Story, edited by Marie-Louise Makris (1985), we read: "...recent studies of their teeth reveal that the Australopithecines did not eat meat as a regular part of their diet, and were mainly peaceful vegetarians, rather like chimps or gorillas. The popular image of the murderous ape is now as extinct as the Australopithecines themselves."

Dr. Gordon Latto notes that carnivorous and omnivorous animals can only move their jaws up and down, and that omnivores "have a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth, a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth--showing that they were destined to deal both with flesh foods from the animal kingdom and foods from the vegetable kingdom...

"Carnivorous mammals and omnivorous mammals cannot perspire except at the extremity of the limbs and the tip of the nose; man perspires all over the body. Finally, our instincts; the carnivorous mammal (which first of all has claws and canine teeth) is capable of tearing flesh asunder, whereas man only partakes of flesh foods after they have been camouflaged by cooking and by condiments.

"Man instinctively is not carnivorous," explains Dr. Latto. "...he takes the flesh food after somebody else has killed it, and after it has been cooked and camouflaged with certain condiments. Whereas to pick an apple off a tree or eat some grain or a carrot is a natural thing to do; people enjoy doing it; they don't feel disturbed by it. But to see these animals being slaughtered does affect people; it offends them. Even the toughest of people are affected by the sights in the slaughterhouse.

"I remember taking some medical students into a slaughterhouse. They were about as hardened people as you could meet. After seeing the animals slaughtered that day in the slaughterhouse, not one of them could eat the meat that evening."

Author R.H. Weldon writes in No Animal Food:

"The gorge of a cat, for instance, will rise at the smell of a mouse or a piece of raw flesh, but not at the aroma of fruit. If a man can take delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still living body apart with his teeth, sucking the warm blood, one might infer that Nature had provided him with a carnivorous instinct, but the very thought of doing such a thing makes him shudder. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger, he will eat fruit to gratify taste."

As far back as 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that: "A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions." More recently, Wiiliam S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens concluded: "Examination of the dental structure of modern man reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the carnivore. Herein may lie the bais for the high incidence of arteriosclerotic disease."

Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), responds to the argument that killing animals for food is natural:

"The main problem with this argument is that it does not justify the practice of meat-eating or animal husbandry as we know it today; it justifies hunting. The distinction between hunting and animal husbandry probably seems rather fine to the man in the street, or even to your typical rule-utilitarian moral philosopher. The distinction, however, is obvious to an ecologist. If one defends killing on the grounds that it occurs in nature, then one is defending the practice as it occurs in nature.

"When one species of animal preys on another in nature, it only preys on a very small proportion of the total species population. Obviously, the predator species relies on its prey for its continued survival. Therefore, to wipe the prey species out through overhunting would be fatal. In practice, members of such predator species rely on such strategies as territoriality to restrict overhunting and to insure the continued existence of its food supply.

"Moreover, only the weakest members of the prey species are the predator's victims: the feeble, the sick, the lame, or the young accidentally separated from the fold. The life of the typical zebra is usually placid, even in lion country; this kind of violence is the exception in nature, not the rule.

"As it exists in the wild, hunting is the preying upon isolated members of an animal herd. Animal husbandry is the nearly complete annihilation of an animal herd. In nature, this kind of slaughter does not exist. The philosopher is free to argue that there is no moral difference between hunting and slaughter, but he cannot invoke nature as a defense of this idea.

"Why are hunters, not butchers, most frequently taken to task by the larger community for their killing of animals? Hunters usually react to such criticism by replying that if hunting is wrong, then meat-hunting must be wrong as well. The hunter is certainly right on one point--the larger community is hypocritical to object to hunting when it consumes the flesh of domesticated animals. If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal."

In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

"Killing an animal is in itself a troubling act. It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat we would all be vegetarians. There may be exceptions to that general rule, but it is true that most people prefer not to inquire into the killing of the animals they eat.

"Very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse; and films of slaughterhouse operations are rarely shown on television...Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.

"If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?"

Peter Singer concludes in Animal Liberation that "by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too."

Finally, even if humans really are omnivores as some claim (and this claim is subject to dispute: I would refer these people to Dr. Milton Mills, or to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, www.pcrm.org , which advocates a vegan diet, an end to vivisection, etc., for the latest on whether humans are frugivorous or omnivorous), my friend Mareechi Duvvuuri (another Hindu-American!) who once studied sports medicine, pointed out that the diet of natural omnivores is mostly (85 percent) plant food.

I've been a vegan for ten years, and, religious stuff aside, I agree with most of Mr. Dear's article. Before I was a vegan, I was a fat vegetarian (lots of dairy and eggs) who wore leather, etc., and when I was a kid, I challenge anyone to suck the marrow out of a ham bone faster than I could. Since I've partaken of meat in my "dark" past, it's hard for me to sit in judgment of other meat eaters. I came by my veganism in very small increments over a period of years, so it's possible that others will do the same. I'm not a crusader, but I'm always looking for an opportunity to spread the gospel of vegan, which I mainly do by simply eating vegan food and fielding questions (and I occasionally wear a message T). That's it. Anything more aggressive, and I think people's natural curiosity shuts down and they get defensive--at least, that's what I used to do.

PShaw-

If you read what I agreed with in my comments, you could have saved yourself this last post. I merely agreed that there indeed can be a fat vegetarian, but it is difficult to do. Obviously I don't believe that people should kill animals, having been a vegetarian for most of my life. Please see which comment of yours I was responding to. I don't think that you can possibly encourage meat-eaters to even try a vegetarian diet with your aggressive stance. I won't agree to any of your comments anymore for the fear that you will take offense.

I feel that the overt aggressiveness by every discussion I have logged onto isn't how you get others to see your point of view and possibly open them up to trying something they may not have in the past--such as eating a plant-based diet. I also take back my statement earlier about vegetarians being less aggressive.

BTW, Samoans are the fattest people on earth.

You speak for yourself 'open-minded'. As far as I am concerned meat-eaters are not second-class citizens, they are third-rate human beings. Why, would you want to go around killing "god's" (I'm an atheist) critters? I have never met an animal I didn't like and, for the most part, who didn't like me -- even some wild ones. I could certainly not say the same for humans, who are the most pernicious species that ever roamed the earth.

Tripe? Do I smell menudo? Mui bueno.

More of the same ignorant tripe in the comments section - the ineffectual dogmatic pacifist vegans claiming that humans are unable to hold two opposing beliefs in mind at once, and that somehow a personal quest for moral purity will somehow stop the killing and destruction of the planet. It's tiring. It's also tiring to see the typical arguments:

we're herbivores
eating meat = enslaving and slaughtering humans
personal moral rectitude is the only way to true salvation (Pat Robertson, is that you?!)

This article would've actually made sense if the author bothered to make the distinction between industrial meat and all meat. The fact that livestock animals can be part of (and are in fact necessary for, in some cases) regeneratively sustainable human ecosystems is ignored here as it typically is by dogmatic veggie-vores.

Of course, there's the standard "If you want to eat meat, go out and kill it yourself, murderer!" I wish, however, that the logic would instead be something more holistic. What if instead of challenging each other to kill animals (or plants), this discussion led to challenges to each other and our communities to raise our own food (animal, vegetable, fungus, etc.) where we live and harvest (and kill) it all ourselves.

Personally, I'll be happy to hunt the young buck who keeps coming and munching in my garden. He's making it harder for me to be vegetarian, and he can't find enough forage because there are too many deer and not enough predators here. And yes, I'll gut, skin, and butcher him myself if he lets me take his life for my own. And yes, you bet your life my children will know how to take life to sustain theirs as well, be it animal or otherwise.

The challenge for our time is not to seek moral purity by the standards of some abstract ideology, but to seek sustainable, regenerative ways of living with the land that supports us.

thundermoon-

I checked out http://brucefriedrich.org/Top_Five_Nutrients.html. Your information wasn't as complete as his which states:

As I outlined, there are a number of nutrients
vegetarians can lack of they do not research
and plan. This is not meant to discourage
people from becoming vegetarians, but instead
to encourage them to spend time planning a
health approach to their vegetarian diet
before starting it.

When planned adequately, a vegetarian diet
can not only make up for what it lacks from
animal products, but it can far exceed
the healthfulness of most non-vegetarian diets.

Anyone eating any healthy diet, whether plant or animal based should know some nutrition and learn what to eat for optimum health. As I stated before, most Americans don't do this as evidenced by how fat they are.

PShaw-
I totally agree that you can be fat and vegetarian, but it is very difficult to do.
p

Their English would probably be better than most Americans. They might also tell us how they'd like to be prepared.

You know, I wonder if people would eat animals if they spoke english (or whatever language). If not isn't that weird.

Forgiveness--

I totally agree that watching how animals are slaughtered will change someone and whether they can continue eating meat forever. Too many people are eating things without thinking about what it once was and more importantly, where it came from. If eating meat, people should opt for the more humane options such as free-range.

Thundermoon-

Anyone eating a vegetarian diet should be educated about combining different food sources to get all the nutrients they need. This helps make up for those things found only in meat. We took our children to a pediatric nutritionist at a world-renowned children's hospital when they started eating what we did to make sure they were getting everything they needed to grow up healthy. I knew how to eat for myself, but wasn't sure that would be appropriate for a child. The analysis showed that without the breastmilk they were still consuming, they were getting 97% of their needs met and that most people don't get that percentage without supplements. Also, why don't vegetarians last? I think living in a place where you can buy the food you need and to have choices is probably the biggest reason why. People need to stop being judgmental with regard to diet choices, whether vegetarian or omnivore. I have been a vegetarian most of my life and I challenge anyone to have my health and energy. Let's not forget how fat America is. It's interesting how much my family stands out many places we go because you just won't see a fat vegetarian.

carcinoid112-

I promise not to judge you for eating meat if you don't judge me for eating a plant-based diet. I don't think anyone is trying to tell the meat-eaters that they are "second-class citizens".

Actually, being raised on American culture makes me more of a vegetable.

All this talk about slaughtering animals, figured the slaughtering of humans was a good analogy. You are just another animal.

My cat will take a small animal, even a bird sometimes, kill it, and eat it. All of it. Raw. Could you do that? I'll bet you couldn't even if you were starving. So, are you a carnivore/omnivore? Or, more correctly, a carrion eater?

Here's another couple of thoughts: Which nation is the fattest in the world? And which nation eats the most meat (processed into junk food)?

You can be fat and be a vegetarian, you just have to try a little harder.

I have been vegetarian for 14 years now. I have not been to a doctor once in those 14 years, my body is healthier now than when I was 18.

Interesting that Mr. Forgiveness has thoughts of shooting me in the face.

When my children were small and people would ask what religion they were, they would answer, "vegetarian". We don't eat this way for any religious reasons. All people would benefit from a vegetarian diet, but only if they make the choice to do so. My children have never consumed animal products. They are peaceful, compassionate, smart, and healthy. They tend to be the more compassionate children in their classes and teachers comment on how they stand out from others with regard to how they care about classmates and others. They have learned this from us and from the choice we made to not feed them animal products. They respect all living things.

Someone (a meat-eater) once commented on how he felt that people get aggression from the blood in meat. It's certainly interesting to think about. We don't push our beliefs on anyone however, we don't feed meat-eaters meat in our house. We feel that by offering good-tasting, interesting food we expose people to vegetarianism and hopefully, allow them to become more open to choices other than meat. When we are invited to eat at friends' houses, they always consider our diet and always have food for us without any problems.

I do feel that eating meat does impact our environment in a negative way and that the world supply of food would be greater if grains weren't used for feeding animals, who are then consumed themselves. However, not being judgmental and by exposing others to a vegetarian diet allows people to make better choices with regard to meat. I resent when people have said that I am doing a bad thing for my children by not eating meat, so how would a meat-eater respond if someone said the same thing to them? I think that explains some of the responses meat-eaters have had in response to this article.

Oh, and yes, our dog is a carnivore. This is what his teeth and digestive system were designed for. Human canines aren't like a dog's or cat's and don't seem as though they are for ripping meat, like certain animals.

Well, it's nice to know that those of us that CANNOT exist on a vegetarian/vegan diet get to be second class citizens to you "holy" types??

Mr. Dear, you act as if you possess all the wisdom of the world, while what you have is a complete lack of understanding of ANY physiology other than your own.

If total CRAP like this article and some of the comments here are "the future" of the Progressive/Populist movement, we're dead in the water, and we might as well hand McCain the keys to Air Force One and let him crash it like he did five other planes the Navy gave him to fly.

I despair at the mindset that wants to take time out from all the multitudes of ills that face our world to pick fights over what one eats. YES, less reliance on animal protein would be fiscally and ecologically sound, but THIS extremist bullshit? Is just that, bullshit.

And, if you have questions about my NEED to eat meat, understand that my screen name (minus the numbers) is also my major illness.I have half a stomach, about to lose more, and I MUST have a lot of high quality protein every day. And I'm allergic to eggs.

So, Mr. (excuse me, Father) Smart Guy, what's YOUR solution? And is it sound medical theory as well? If not, get your needle nose out of my dinner bowl.

And that goes for the rest of you as well.
===
Edit to add, I HAVE hunted, I HAVE had to slaughter. As a child, we wouldn't have had sufficient food if we had not done so. I also can fish and catch crab, and have even shrimped. I understand where it comes from, I try to buy locally, not factory farmed meat and poultry.

I GET IT. Why can't some of YOU get it that NOT everybody is YOU?? And not every body's body is the same? And that way too often, being an absolutist just proves that you're an absolute idiot??

But even Bruce Friedrich cautions about a vegetarian diet, and mentions that eating meat has advantages. Look at his own website:

http://brucefriedrich.org/Top_Five_Nutrients.html

It's a column called Top Five Nutrients Vegetarians Lack. It warns of consequences, short or long-term, of vegetarianism, and is open about facts like B12 existing in no plant source.

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with eating meat. The way meat is raised is as bad as the way plants are raised for the most part, but that does not make the Amish wrong, or hunters wrong, or the 97+% of us who eat meat wrong. And I have noticed that many vegetarians simply don't last. maybe you shouldn't get to call yourself that for at least 3 years.

Well of couse the human body can assimilate meat, I don't think that is the point.

Just because I can shoot you in the face doesn't mean I should.

I haven't seen an objective analysis of anatomy and physiology here. So here goes. First, Homo sapiens has the dentition (teeth)not of an herbivore, but of an omnivore. Herbivores have teeth specifically evolved for grinding coarse food--usually for an extended period of time. Carnivores have dentition for tearing and ripping. Omnivores such as humans have teeth that are intermediate between herbivores and carnivores. Second, herbivores have long gastrointestinal tracts (often with multi-chambered stomachs)for getting as much nutrition out of difficult to digest and nutritionally poor plants. Carnivores have much shorter GI tracts since their food is nutrient rich. Omnivores such as humans have GI tracts that are intermediate between herbivores and carnivores. Also, from an evolutionary viewpoint, all the paleontological evidence dating back to the Australopithecines and beyond reveals hominids to be opportunistic omnivores. And for you vegans. Humans have been cooking their food for about half a million years. Finally, mammalian carnivores are much more intelligent than mammalian herbivores because hunting requires skills/insight that grazing does not. Having said all that, I think meat is a better ingredient than entree. Bon appetit!

I try to not bash meat eaters but I do want them to fully understand that their package of deli slices came from an animal.

Especially children who are just fed meat in between to pieces of bread with no idea of what happened to the animal that used to be that slab of meat.

If you can't look an animal in the eye and then kill it, you should not eat meat.

I guaranty if you take a 5 year old to slaughter a cow they are going to have very different thoughts running through their head the next time they go to McDonalds, which they should.

The disconnect of the fact that an animal died and that you are eating it's flesh is a problem with the typical american meat diet. Take responsability for that life that is gone just so you can eat something that you think is tasty.

Take a hot dog for example, how many kids would happily chow those down if they have heard the squeal of dieing pig and watched as the life left it's body, it's body is ripped open and torn apart.

As a vegan, I really hate the bashing of meat-eaters. Let them eat meat. Should I start attacking vegetarians for eating dairy? It is totally unrealistic to suppose that the whole of the human population will give up meat. Instead, let's unite over the issue the issue of sustainability and health. Buy free range organic meat, don't buy anything from factory farms. If you eat meat everyday, try taking a day off now and again. If you are an environmentalist committed to personal responsibility, you might want to consider a change of diet. But let's face it, it is still possible to be an environmentalist and eat meat (or drive a car).

vasumurti July 10th, 2008 3:37 pm

Thanks alot Vasumurti, Usually those who quote the bible are not as informative.

Thanks again,

Future.me

All I've got is a red guitar, Three chords and The Truth.

All I've got is my bleedin' heart, and a voice cryin' out

of the wilderness to you

I see there is a way out of here,

a way to get some relief...

...I AM very small, I AM so very very small,

So small as to indwell the heart of every atom,

and I AM beyond your comprehension...

Listen to me;

I hear Wisdom calling from the highest point of the city;

*'Wisdom has built her house and She calls to all; "Come, eat my food and drink my wine and you will live abundant life and walk in the ways of understanding." [*Proverbs 9: 4-6]

Wisdom calls; "I have built it; will you come? Do you have eyes to see and ears to hear?

Holy Wisdom, the Feminine Divinity: Hokema,

Who was with The Word from the very beginning,

She is One with Him and He with Her;

Pure Being; One God;

One Creator; One Lover of All the Human Family...

...The God Head is One Pure Being;

as much male as female

as much mommy as daddy.

And we are all children of Her Universe;

And **He is the oldest personality because He is the origin of everything;

and everything is born of Him.

He is the supreme controller of the universe,

the maintainer and instructor of humanity.

He is smaller than the smallest.[**Bhagavad-Gita]

He indwells the heart of every atom and

She is beyond the Universe.

Wisdom is calling,

She is rattling your windows and shaking your walls

With some more good news of the

three witnesses,

and three always beats one

and not just that,

I've got a fourth.

Get out your Good Book sisters and brothers and CHEW on this;

Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-29, and Luke 12:10

are simpatico with gnostic Thomas saying 44:

'Jesus said: "Whoever blasphemes against the father will be forgiven, whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven."

Listen to me, God is within every sister, brother and all Creation,

wake up to your own and all other's divinity and

Get a clue Christian:

His ways are not your ways and Her thoughts are not your thoughts

Dominion never meant to rape and plunder,

but to nurture, care and love

And if you have not love, you have nothing at all

And on that final day we all will stand naked before The Creator

And we have been warned that there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth

by those who were so sure they were in, because they are the ones left out.

WAKE UP Christian!

Hear the wind begin to howl.

excerpted from "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" Chapter 17: All I've Got, by eileen fleming
http://www.wearewideawake.org/

I dare anyone who eats meat to go to a ranch and kill a cow, chicken or pig themselves. Don't forget to take your children so they can learn how to take life as well. Have them help as you tear the skin off and remove the organs.

Let us know how it goes. If you can't do that then you should not be eating meat.

Gnosis1,

how is an objective analysis of anatomy an irrational belief? I dont follow your argument, and can you please point out the fallacies of the article I linked? I actually am curious to know if it is bogus or not. It looks legit to me

The most-repeated argument against biblical vegetarianism I've gotten from Christians is that they think they are no longer under Mosaic Law, because the apostle Paul referred to his background as a former Pharisee and his previous adherence to Mosaic Law (with its dietary laws, commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals, etc.) as "so much garbage." (Philippians 3:4-8)

There is nothing in the synoptic gospels of Jesus, however, to suggest a fundamental break with Judaism. Jesus was called "Rabbi," meaning "Master" or "Teacher," 42 times in the gospels. The ministry of Jesus was a rabbinic one. Jesus related Scripture and God's laws to everyday life, teaching by personal example. He engaged in healing and acts of mercy. He told stories or parables--a rabbinic method of teaching. He went to the synagogue (Matthew 12:9), taught in the synagogues (Matthew 4:23, 13:54; Mark 1:39), expressed concern for Jairus, "one of the rulers of the synagogue" (Mark 5:36) and it "was his custom" to go to the synagogue (Luke 4:16).

Jesus began his ministry by teaching the multitudes not to "give what is sacred to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine." (Matthew 7:6) Dogs, like swine, were considered foul and unclean by the Hebrew people. (Deuteronomy 23:18; I Samuel 24:14; II Kings 8:13; Psalm 22:16,20; Matthew 7:6; Luke 16:21; Revelations 22:15) These words were used by the children of Israel to describe the neighboring heathen populations.

When sending his disciples out to preach, Jesus instructed them not to go to the gentiles, but to "go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matthew 10:5-6) When a Canaanite woman asked Jesus to heal her daughter, he replied, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel...It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." (Matthew 15:22-28)

Jesus regarded the gentiles as "dogs." His gospel was intended for the Jewish people. Even the apostle Paul admits that the gospel was first intended for the Jews, and that the Jews have every advantage over the gentiles in this regard (Romans 1:16, 3:1-2).

When a scribe asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the Torah, Jesus began with "Hear O Israel, the Lord, thy God, is One Lord." This is the Shema, which is still heard in every synagogue service to this day. "And you shall love the Lord with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength...And you shall love your neighbor as yourself," Jesus concluded.

When the scribe agreed that God is one and that to love Him completely and also love one's neighbor as oneself is "more important than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices," Jesus replied, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." (Matthew 22:36-40; Mark 12:29-34; Luke 10:25-28)

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus himself said, "Do not suppose I have come to abolish the Law and the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill...till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle pass from the Law till all is fulfilled. Whoever, therefore, breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven...unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:17-20)

Jesus also upheld the Torah in Luke 16:17: "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the smallest portion of the Law to become invalid."

Nor do these words refer merely to the Ten Commandments. Jesus meant the entire Torah: 613 commandments. When a man asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus replied, "You know the commandments." He then quoted not just the Ten Commandments, but a commandment from Leviticus 19:13 as well: "Do not defraud." (Mark 10:17-22)

Jesus' disciples were once accused by the scribes and Pharisees of violating rabbinical tradition (Matthew 15:1-2; Mark 7:5), but not biblical law. At no place in the entire New Testament does Jesus ever proclaim Torah or the Law of Moses to be abolished; this was the theology of Paul, a former Pharisee who never knew Jesus, but who used to persecute Jesus' followers. Paul openly identified himself not as a Jew but as a Roman (Acts 22:25-26) and an apostate from Judaism (Philippians 3:4-8)

Sometimes Christians cite Matthew 7:12, where Jesus says "Do unto others..." and this "covers" the Law and the prophets. But Jesus was merely repeating in the positive what Rabbi Hillel taught a generation earlier. No one took Hillel's words to mean the Law had been abolished--why should we assume this of Jesus?

If Jesus really did come to abolish the Law and the prophets, Simon (Peter) would not have resisted a divine command to kill and eat both "clean" and "unclean" animals (Acts 10), nor would there have been a debate in the early church as to what extent the gentiles were to observe Mosaic Law (Acts 15). When Paul visited the church at Jerusalem, James and the elders told him all its members were "zealous for the Law," and that they were worried because they heard rumors that Paul was preaching against Mosaic Law (Acts 21).

None of these events would have happened had Jesus really come to abolish the Law and the prophets. Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law, he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals!

While teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years. He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath. "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked. (Luke 13:10-16)

On yet another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath. "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?" (Luke 14:1-5)

Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep. He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock:

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. What do you think? Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home,he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

Paul, on the other hand, said if anyone has confidence in Mosaic Law, "I am ahead of him" (Philippians 3:4-8). Would that include Jesus, who said he did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets? Would that include Jesus, who said whoever sets aside even the least of the laws demands shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:17-19)? Would that include Jesus, who taught that following the commandments of God is the only way to eternal life (Mark 10:17-22)? Would that include Jesus who said that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the smallest portion of the Law to become invalid (Luke 16:17)?

Paul may have regarded his previous adherence to Mosaic Law as "so much garbage," but it should be obvious by now that JESUS DIDN'T THINK THE LAW WAS "GARBAGE"!

If Christians assign greater value to Paul's teachings over those of Jesus, then "Christianity" really is "Paulianity". Bertrand Russell referred to Paul as the "inventor" of Christianity.

I'm not saying Christians should all be circumcised and following Mosaic Law. The Reverend Andrew Linzey, the foremost theologian in the field of animal-human relations and author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals (1987), rejected such an approach in a 1989 interview with the Animals' Agenda.

I'm merely saying that Christianity for the past 2000 years has been based on a misunderstanding. My friend Rankin Fisher (a former Missionary Baptist minister), quoted a Methodist minister friend of his as having admitted, "We (Christians) aren't really following Jesus. We're following Paul."

You guys are ridiculous.

This is the perfect example why nothing positive gets done to move our nation forward. People are so closed minded and want to hold on to their current lifestyle so bad, they can't even see the point trying to be made in the article.

Just firing back and forth on what our bodies were made for and bible versus that support either view.

First. If you still use the bible to argue a point you must have been living under a rock the past 2000 years and missed what religious texts have done to our world.

Second. Eat meat if you choose. But don't pretend that your actions don't impact the rest of the world.

But here is something I would like you all to meditate on.

The point I would like to make is those who can mass slaughter hundreds of thousands of animals not to feed people but as a profit use the ideal that "They are just animals". As to express the inferiority of the species. This is why blacks are looked at as a commodity. We are just animals here to serve a purpose and then can be disposed of. Iraqi's, Hispanic's, Asians, Native Americans, etc, are treated with callous disregard because they are seen as inferior. The superiority complex of many Anglo Saxon's comes from the herding culture. The culture expressed in the mass herding and slaughter of animals.

Native Americans were systematicly removed from the face of the planet. Jews during the Holocaust were treated the same way. Picked up and hauled off to concentration camps then systematically destroyed for no true purpose. The Japanese Americans during the war were treated the same way in internment camps. Blacks the same during the Civil rights period, and those of Middle Eastern decent are treated that way now.

The key to being able to eat meat is realizing that animals are living feeling beings. And as long as you are conscious in the fact that this living entity gave its life to allow you to continue yours then you are more likely to appreciate the lives of other living entities.

You see all life as precious. You see all people as equals. As Humans. Not as Gays or Straights, Whites, Blacks, Reds, or Yellows. Not as elites and the disheveled. But as people banded together for a common cause; which is to ensure the healthy and fruitful survival of all of our nations, its peoples and the planet that we inhabit.

The same reason people continue to eat meat is the same reason they continue to smoke. Pure ignorance and laziness. You know that is bad for your and its bad for everyone around you yet we continue to do it because we are a stupid species who will self destruct.

I am tired of trying to pretty it up with eloquent words and narration. We are stupid. We are going to deliver an uninhabitable world to our children and our childrens children filled with pollution and contamination which will kill most of them. And those who live will be trapped within and Orwellian fascist police/militarized state.

Their food will be even more processed and chemically engineered and radiation filled. The air will not be breathable, and they will have been stripped of all rights. And it will not be a world that any of us would be able to recognize. This is our gift to them for our malfeasance, laziness, and unwillingness to take responsibility for our own actions.

Future.me

I'm glad to see so many recent articles here on vegetarianism. Mostly because I agree with them as I am a vegetarian myself. I became one after much reflection on the inner turmoil caused by passionately opposing the slaughter of war while feasting on the flesh of slaughtered animals. I could easily have alleviated the turmoil by being dishonest and convincing myself that the two are not related, but deep in my heart I knew they were.

But I'm also glad to see these articles because it shows just how much improvement the peace movement needs. I'm talking about all our pro-peace/devout meat-eating posters here who lash out in veritable rage at the suggestion that vegetarianism is an important step on the path to peace. The words in the above article merit a sincere and quiet reflection. And if you're only reaction to it is anger, then there is something within you that needs addressing and correcting if you are truly to be an instrument of peace.

There is no better tool to have in engaging supporters of war than a clear conscience, consistency in thought, word, and deed.

All this anger at vegetarians shows that there is something tearing you apart inside. Seek it out and rid yourself of it.

If we will all go vegan, the Earth will be able to carry more people. How wonderful!

Of course, we should recall that one of the evilest, most warlike and hateful men who ever lived---Adolf Hitler---was a vegetarian, and a passionate one.

Mr. Dear is correct.

Eating meat is violence.

Look at how meat comes to your plate.

I'll list some films (if you dare watch them):

"EARTHLINGS" (excellent)

"Peaceable Kingdom" (also, excellent)

If you must eat meat, then at least make sure its from a local farm that at least gives the animals a humane life.

Peace. (and Vote Nader)

Problem feeding meat to your cat? Eat your cat. No problem.