View of Western Meateaters

[Eastern Mind]

You make a good point about the context of a society. The west has developed its own unique brand of vegetarianism. I am not sure when exactly I realised vegetarianism was even an option ... probably at about age 16 or so, maybe even later. This is true on many facets of life. Many Indians don't know brown rice exists.

Still the misconceptions are rampant. A lot of westerners think vegetarians eat only vegetables because of the root word beginning. Herbivore would be even worse, I suppose. (Can't imagine living on herbs alone.)

Aum Namasivaya

[Sagefrakrobatik]

Pranam

vidya-vinaya-sampanne
brahmane gavi hastini
suni caiva sva-pake ca
panditah sama-darsinah


An enlightened person, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste].
(5.18)



Hindu scripture does not support your view.



rebirth is not of the species but the soul, according to its desires.



this is rubbish, the law of jungle takes care for itself,

only human with its insatiable desire to taste the meat has brought the imbalance and in the process killing off the environment.







　
　
Not really, although you have every right to have your view, they are not backed by any scriptures or even humanity. We can feel the pain if we were to witness the cruel end of this animals.

Different bodies are simply like different vehicle on the road but what matters is the driver in them.

Living force within all being is the same, only difference is the level of consciousness

We see all living being"equally" because the paramatma is situated in all of their hearts, .
Seeing the oneness of all living entities is to see the paramatma and the atma, who is the true living entity in the body.



Ideally no living life should be killed (ahimsa), but the shastra says all life lives at the expense of another's life. Even if you are vegetarian, you must take the life of so many plants to sustain your body.

According to the development of consciousness, pain is experienced by different forms of life differently. It is more sinful to harm those life forms that have developed higher conscious awareness, as their suffering will be greater. According to the scriptures, plants have the lowest conscious awareness, and therefore it is much less sinful to take the life of a plant over a human (or cow, dog, chicken, etc.). Still sin will be involved, but the harm caused is much less than the harm caused to a fully conscious living entity.

The scriptures also state that cows have the highest conscious awareness of all life forms prior to the human species. Thus of all animals it is the most sinful to hurt a cow. In addition to this, cows and bulls are given special status as they are considered our mother and father. If your mother or father was killed, it would not be unreasonable for you to protest it.

Jai Shree Krishna

I remember having a disucssion similar to this in a philosophy club were we were talking about the contemporary ethicist Peter Singer who wrote "animal Liberation." At the time i was taking a biology class and at the meeting we were talking about killing fish and insects is it ethical? Do they suffer? and one point I brought up is that do they have a Central Nervous System if so than we can deduce that it is probable that they suffer and feel pain.


I also wanted to add that I am currently reading the Ramayana and I am at the part where Ram is building a life for him and his wife in the forest. Well according to the author Ram ate meat. The Author explains that because he is a Kshastri??? Its more excuseable. There are parts of the Bible that would seem to suggest God promoting a Vegetarian lifstyle choice.

[Sagefrakrobatik]

Pranam,
I am curious, why are the names changed. For example, why is cow meat called beef and pig meat called pork? Why is goat and calves balls (testicals) called oysters? In mexico they eat menudo and barbacoa which is cow brains and linning of the stomach. In the south they eat chitterlings which is the pig intestines. Why the fancy names and not what it really is, cow brains, cow stomach and pig gutts, etc?

Namaste,

I dont know I could be wrong but i dont think you would get alot of customers to your resteraunt if you had Pig Intestines or Goat Testicles listed in your menu!! Goat Testicles EEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!! I remeber watching this movie called Faces of Death and in it this rich White people went to some non western country and ate monkey brains. It was vicious they took this poor little monkey and put him in the middle of the table and put him in this cage hanging from the table and shut the table only leaving enough room for the monkey's head. It was smaller than most monkeys and they Banged its head until they killed it then ate its brains. One could thing about being a vegetarian is you to have to be as disgusted with were your food might have came from.

Today kind of reminds me of this post. I went to an Indian Orthodox church and right before i walked in the church some guy was roasting a pig right next to the entrance!! It was not for the Indian congregation it was instead for the Polish catholic community who shares the church.

[Hiwaunis]

I dont know I could be wrong but i dont think you would get alot of customers to your resteraunt if you had Pig Intestines or Goat Testicles listed in your menu!! Goat Testicles EEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!! I remeber watching this movie called Faces of Death and in it this rich White people went to some non western country and ate monkey brains. It was vicious they took this poor little monkey and put him in the middle of the table and put him in this cage hanging from the table and shut the table only leaving enough room for the monkey's head. It was smaller than most monkeys and they Banged its head until they killed it then ate its brains. One could thing about being a vegetarian is you to have to be as disgusted with were your food might have came from.

Today kind of reminds me of this post. I went to an Indian Orthodox church and right before i walked in the church some guy was roasting a pig right next to the entrance!! It was not for the Indian congregation it was instead for the Polish catholic community who shares the church.

Pranam,
MONKEY BRAINS! GOOD LORD!
Is it that we will eat almost anything if we don't know what it is? And then after we have eaten it, if it taste good then it's o.k. even if it is something gross and disgusting? But isn't changing the name some what misleading? I guess most people just don't even care.

Monkey brains, I'll put that right up there with puppy sandwich (hotdog).

Namaste,

[chandu_69]

I also wanted to add that I am currently reading the Ramayana and I am at the part where Ram is building a life for him and his wife in the forest. Well according to the author Ram ate meat. The Author explains that because he is a Kshastri??? Its more excuseable.

Before firing off too many questions you should mention the verses where it is said Shri Rama Ate meat.There is No mention of Sri Rama eating meat.

There are parts of the Bible that would seem to suggest God promoting a Vegetarian lifstyle choice.

As pointed out by Scottmalaysia in a different thread Biblical god changed his mind later on and recommended eating meat.

here is the post on this subject By Jndas Ji
http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/s...at-meat-2.html

[RamaRaksha]

Totally agree with Ganeshprasad's views. Good points.

We must realize that it is the atma that is eternal, we may have taken different life forms before and after. Not just human life. We are God's classsroom and each life form can teach us something.

The real issue is about causing pain, not whether we eat animals or not. Right now because of meat eaters, animals are living a life of hell. In some meat packing factories, they stun the animals senseless before thefy are killed. Unfortunately, sometimes the stunning does not work and the animal is carved alive! Imagine some knifing you while you are alive!

In most western restaurents a live lobster is dunked into boiling hot water to cook it! Imagine yourself being thrown into hot boiling water!

If you were to put a hook thru a dog's jaw and yank it around, blood flowing all over, they would call you a cruel person. But a fisherman does that same thing to a fish and it is called a sport!

This is why the ancients echewed meat. For the record, we don't have conclusive evidence that plants do not feel pain, but the ancients felt so and so far we have no evidence that they feel pain. If we do find that they feel pain, then we are no better than animal eaters.

[DavidC]

As pointed out by Scottmalaysia in a different thread Biblical god changed his mind later on and recommended eating meat.

The Nazarean Essenes (vegetarians) seemed to not consider that god to be the Biblical god and certainly did not consider what later writers wrote about Moses or any other prophet allowing meat-eating to be right. The later Essenes may have been influenced by the Buddhists, but Egyptian historical records show the Essenes were around since the theoretical date of the exodus. I think they and Egypt were influenced by Sanatana Dharma.

Whatever Scottmalaysia said would be like saying 'the Vedic god changed his mind and recommended eating meat' just because a minority of Hindus do. I stated it that way because there is also not necessarily one Biblical god and there was certainly more than one in the Near Eastern cultures that influenced the Bible. The first sentence of Genesis can be read 'In the beginning, gods created...,' and I think there were also two varying creation myths in it: one referring to Elohim and one referring to YHVH. If not there are at least Elohistic and YHVHistic interpretations--so if anyone has some idea of 'the' Biblical god they should ask for some more educated opinions in the forum about that.

This is getting off-topic, but a few relevant divine names in Judaism are 'Shekhinah (feminine) & Shaddai (almighty, which is sort of destructive,) YHVH (sometimes paired with a love goddess--and Lakshmi is one,) and Borem (creator, similar to Abrahm, who married Sara) and if those two triads sound at all familiar perhaps Bible students should see how the Essenes are similar to Sanatana Dharma and what the source of the Bible may be and how corrupted most sects versions are.