Vegetarian Debate

[Sequoiarealm]

Sorry if I expressed this poorly, the crowding I was talking about is the horrific crowding on the way to slaughter, so tight that the animals hardly have room to breathe, and that often causes severe injury to smaller animals and sometimes death, and yes I do think humane killing is better than keeping animals alive in horrific conditions.

My point was, I don't support either. And I do my best not to be drawn into the "better" game. It usually implies there are no other answers. And it often leads to somebody with a large belt buckle spitting some tobacco and saying, "Well this is the best gall dang country in the world, I'll tell you what".

Peace,
Sequoia

[Lady Nimue]

I think this debate is going really well...just as Aigeann said, thanks for participating with such respect.

[Nineflowers]

I've seen this type of thread soo often, maybe too often on various pagan boards, so forgive me if my response seemed direct, or jaded. But as I said I come from a long line of Yorkshire farmers - and we're famous for our bluntness.  I can't couch it in different, fluffier terms, although I have in the past.

I'd just like to say there's no implicit judgementalism in being direct and straightforward.  There are no tacit 'better thans'. As I said, I have absolutely no problem with pagans eating meat - if they're prepared to kill it, themselves.  

It's an important issue though because it's just one more little thing that is symptomatic of the way people are now divorced from the land, and the realities of life. And food production is about as fundametal as life gets. I'm not big on sentiment and I think many people on my 'side' of the argument have clouded vision, too - seeing animals only in a sentimental way which actually denigrates them. I think we should live the pagan life as authentically as passionately as we can, and so to tone down the fairly black and white way I see this issue would be a cop out.

[meghanst]

I totally agree Nineflowers. If you’re not willing to kill it, you shouldn’t eat it. It’s all very sanitised getting a nicely packaged piece of food and forgetting where it came from.

The Hindu belief, if I understand it correctly, is that if you have to eat ‘live’ food, there is less karma involved in getting someone else to kill it. But even while I normally follow Hindu philosophy, this seems a cop out. It seems logical that if a person eats part or all of an animal they have the karma because the animal wouldn’t have been killed if no one would buy the meat.

Isn't the Druid belief that if you kill an animal with prayer and thanks and don't waste it then that is a normal part of life and death? Of course it's much more complex today given all our environmental problems and the conditions animals are kept and slaughtered under.

The pig in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ summed it up very nicely when he was upset that Andrew Denton didn’t want to choose part of him so he could be killed and eaten (the live pig was brought round on a platter so people could meet him first and he could recommend his tastiest bits). The pig had been bred especially to want to be eaten and to ask to be eaten and was very distressed that Denton didn’t want to eat him after meeting him. However he was mystified that Denton would have been quite happy to have a piece of normal meat on his plate from a pig that didn’t want to killed.

[Sequoiarealm]

Meghanst,
   
   Let me first remind you that I in no way judge meat-eaters. I want to put that out there so you don't think Im attacking you. I do want to speak to an idea that you an many hold though. For me discussing ideas is different than saying somebody is "bad".

You said,
"Isn't the Druid belief that if you kill an animal with prayer and thanks and don't waste it then that is a normal part of life and death?"

I would wonder about any "Druid belief". Thats sticky...try getting two Druids to cop to a belief at the same time and have it in fact be the same belief is, I have found, a rare bird indeed. But Ive heard the "when you kill it's the natural cycle of life and death" scenario before. I agree that death is a good and natural part of the cycle of things. Death is occurring to all things all the time. But death ordinarily occurs at the END of NATURAL life. For humans to kill something doesnt allow for what would be a "naturally occurring end". Killing is a pre-emptive, premature taking of life. This however is just one Druid'S belief.

Peace be upon you,
Sequoia

[meghanst]

I don't eat meat myself (only seafood) even though I think that others have the right if they are willing to kill it themselves however this is a good reason not to eat it. This appeared in today’s Sydney Morning Herald newspaper – good timing for our discussion.

“A study of pre-menopausal women examined the effect of diet on different types of breast cancer and found that those who ate the most meat - especially in processed forms such as hamburgers and sausages - were at the greatest risk of hormone-sensitive breast cancers. …Eunyoung Cho, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the study, said there were several reasons red meat triggered this type of breast cancer. They included the treatment of American beef cattle with hormones to speed up growth, carcinogens created when meat was cooked at high temperatures and the presence of a certain form of iron in meat.”

[Aigeann]

Unfortunately, though, many times these studies contradict each other over time.  

Please understand that I am by no means dismissing the article.

Instead I would like to state that I think it is a personal choice.  Just like most things in the Druid's path are a choice.  A choice between leading, forming, joining a seed group or being solitary.  A choice between holding formal scripted rituals with others or simply winging it whenever you feel motivated.  A choice between forms of divination or alternative healing skills or between which books to read or avoid....the list is endless.

For every person that passionately feels one way about any aspect of this path and can back up their opinion, another can feel 180 degrees differently, with just as much passion and because of solid reasons/sources.

All of this is a personal choice.  No one has all the answers.  No one is "right".  And that's okay if you really think about it and/or meditate about it.  

               Blessings, Aigeann

[Sequoiarealm]

Aigeann,

  Yeah! That's what methinks too.

Sequoia

[meghanst]

Thanks Cernos for bringing up this topic again even though it's been discussed before. It has taken a different path this time. It's a complex issue and it's interesting and helpful to read different views when discussed in a logical way without being emotional or condemning even though it's an emotional topic. It's an important issue and I think it needs to be discussed regularly because things change over time and place.

For instance when I referred to eating meet being acceptable by Druids, I was thinking of ancient Druids but of course they were not suffering from climate change and over population and the world is a very different place and views should change. On the other hand I have read that the Dali Lama doesn't want to eat meat but becomes very ill if he doesn't because that is what his genes and body have adjusted to. It's not easy growing vegetables in ice and snow which is what Tibet mainly is.