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The ethical dilemma of eating to live

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Stillwater

QuoteIf I couldn't kill it myself, I wouldn't eat it.

I think this is good reasoning. I feel like people would have a lot more respect for living creatures if they were forced to kill the things they chose to eat. The distance modern society creates in a supply chain is an issue I think.
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

ThaomasOfGrey

Quote from: Krishanna on December 09, 2017, 01:34:15
If I couldn't kill it myself, I wouldn't eat it.

That is a pretty cryptic statement. What do you really mean?

I have gone out into the bush in Western Australia or New Zealand and hunted Kangaroo, Emu, Goat, Rabbit, Turkey, Boar, Duck etc. We most definitely can go out and kill animals ourselves but what does that have to do with the ethical dilemma.

I think what you are trying to say is that if you are unwilling to get your hands dirty you shouldn't be eating meat but that is a pretty flimsy argument. Most people are willing to kill an animal to feed their family or themselves when push comes to shove.

Stillwater

And many people are willing to kill and eat other people if they are hungry enough. If we applied similar logic to what it seems like you may be using here, the conclusion would be that farming humans for meat was also valid:


Some humans will harvest meat in times of need
____________

Therefore, harvesting meat in all times is justified


------------------

Some humans will eat other humans in times of need
____________

Therefore, eating other humans in all times is justified


------------------

The difference is that the "push comes to shove" part is invoking an extreme. At the extremes, all sorts of things go that wouldn't normally fly. So unless you want to also argue for canibalism in parallel as a bi-product of the argument, we have to be talking about everyday life not in a situation of need... meaning, all things being equal, if you could eat anything, what things would it be best to eat, and why?
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

baro-san

Has anybody watched "Planet Earth" (amazingly filmed !!!), or other documentaries about life of animals?

You can learn a lot of things from them, such as:

- all animals and plants exhibit intelligent behaviour well above what most of us would think possible
- even among the most peaceful animal categories there is continuous internal and external fight and aggressiveness; surely there are examples of magnificent cooperation too
- etc..

You can't not conclude that trying to force onto humans a utopian all-encompassing love of each other, and of all the cohabitant creatures of this Earth, is contrary to nature.

One of the things that distance humans from all the other creature is cruelty. Only humans can be so.
---
"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider."
- Sir Francis Bacon

ThaomasOfGrey

Quote from: Stillwater on December 11, 2017, 13:32:41
And many people are willing to kill and eat other people if they are hungry enough. If we applied similar logic to what it seems like you may be using here, the conclusion would be that farming humans for meat was also valid:

I see your point, maybe it is valid to farm humans, if it is valid to farm any conscious unit.

Quote
Some humans will harvest meat in times of need
____________

Therefore, harvesting meat in all times is justified


------------------

Some humans will eat other humans in times of need
____________

Therefore, eating other humans in all times is justified


------------------

The difference is that the "push comes to shove" part is invoking an extreme. At the extremes, all sorts of things go that wouldn't normally fly. So unless you want to also argue for canibalism in parallel as a bi-product of the argument, we have to be talking about everyday life not in a situation of need... meaning, all things being equal, if you could eat anything, what things would it be best to eat, and why?

The every day need to eat is a different kind of extreme than needing to eat a human like in the movie Alive. My example was designed to say that maybe some people prefer not to personally kill an animal, but would be willing to do so to eat on a daily basis. That is different from someone that lives under some kind of delusion where they eat meat but would be unwilling to ever kill to survive.

At some point the ethical argument has to consider health and wellbeing of the individual doing the eating too. Suppose I have a pet dog, do I feed it a natural diet like meat, or do I feed it manufactured carbohydrate biscuits that have strong links to cancer? We don't judge animals for killing each other in the wild so even vegans feed their pets meat.

In a way we all have a pet human here in this body; if a hypothetical carnivore diet become endorsed as a cure-all for Western illnesses and athletic performance, we wouldn't continue to give ourselves the cancer biscuits surely?

I think the breakpoint to this logic is that the health of the being has to have more value than the cost of keeping it alive for it to be in the realm of an ethical choice.

My personal answer to "all things being equal, if you could eat anything, what things would it be best to eat, and why?" is that we should consider a meat based diet for two reasons. Despite conventional wisdom, meat based diets might be healthier than balanced or vegan diets. We have to kill a conscious being to eat, but we can live in synergy with animals like cows by treating them right and giving them the gift of not extinction. That might sound facetious, but the likes of Buffalo exist in Australia and have gone extinct in native areas because they were not preserved as a food source, or humans took up all of the land they need.

Krishanna

Quote from: ThaomasOfGrey on December 10, 2017, 14:01:36
That is a pretty cryptic statement. What do you really mean?

I have gone out into the bush in Western Australia or New Zealand and hunted Kangaroo, Emu, Goat, Rabbit, Turkey, Boar, Duck etc. We most definitely can go out and kill animals ourselves but what does that have to do with the ethical dilemma.

I think what you are trying to say is that if you are unwilling to get your hands dirty you shouldn't be eating meat but that is a pretty flimsy argument. Most people are willing to kill an animal to feed their family or themselves when push comes to shove.

I could not eat something that I could not kill. I always hear people saying how gross it is to kill an animal yet they are eating that animal, it makes no sense to me. Do you not realize what you are eating or how it got on your plate? I know many don't care, they just love the taste. Don't make excuses about why you are still eating it. If there is some reason lurking in the back of your head that it is wrong to eat meat, you are setting yourself up. Just own it & eat your bloody meat.

baro-san

Seth (Jane roberts):

"The eating of meat without doubt focuses the physical mechanism closely to the physical system. There is
nothing wrong with this. If you are trying to develop inner abilities however, and if you wish to allow yourself a
mobility of focus, then moderation in this respect must be used."

Session 185, Page 247

"You must not eat meat because you are killing the animals, and this is wrong. But in deeper terms, physically and
biologically the animals are born from the body of the earth, which is composed of the corpses of men and women
as much as it is of other matter. The animals consume you, then, as often as you consume them, and they are as
much a part of your humanity as you are a part of their so called animal nature."

Session 725, Page 483
---
"Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider."
- Sir Francis Bacon

ThaomasOfGrey

Quote from: Krishanna on December 15, 2017, 03:14:05
I could not eat something that I could not kill. I always hear people saying how gross it is to kill an animal yet they are eating that animal, it makes no sense to me. Do you not realize what you are eating or how it got on your plate? I know many don't care, they just love the taste.

I can remember thinking that butchering an animal was kind of gross when I was about 5 years old hunting with my Father. Most people would experience butchering an animal as gross even after doing it several times, I still think it feels gross to reach inside a warm slippery carcass and separate the skin from the meat.

Using the converse argument, one can eat things they can kill, I see flaws. If there was an organism on this planet that looked and tasted like a giant walking Snickers Bar that is secretly intelligent but shows no signs of pain or suffering, it would be a free for all to eat that being.

The above scenario is basically the way we treat plant based food. The reason I gave that example is to point out that people only care about the wellbeing of the things they eat to the extent of their limited perception. To flip the whole thing upside down I could say "I always hear people saying how gross it is to kill a living being yet they are eating plants, it makes no sense to me".

Quote
Don't make excuses about why you are still eating it. If there is some reason lurking in the back of your head that it is wrong to eat meat, you are setting yourself up. Just own it & eat your bloody meat.

There will always be reasons lurking around to not eat meat, such as attempting to rank the value of beings by intelligence or more accurately, how similar they look and behave to a human. If one can't make an excuse for why they are eating meat or plants they probably shouldn't be doing it? Excuse might be the wrong connotation, I think of it as a rationale to live by.


Stillwater

QuoteI see your point, maybe it is valid to farm humans, if it is valid to farm any conscious unit.

Ha, at least you embrace the logical consequences! I can appreciate that.

Quote
Using the converse argument, one can eat things they can kill

But by using the word converse, it indicates you are probably aware that conditionals don't imply their own converses except under special situations.

QuoteThe above scenario is basically the way we treat plant based food.

But from what we can tell of plants, they don't suffer in the ways animals can. If it turned out they could, then the ethical reasoning changes. It is mostly moot from the state of current knowledge. Sort of like saying, "if it turned out toys were alive, you would feel sorry for how you treated your dolls."

If my toys actually were alive, I would apologize to them when I found out. But is it that likely?
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Kzaal

I think it doesn't matter. Meat or vegetables it really doesn't matter.
We consume to survive everyday.
Everyone has his reasons to eat something specific.

(and no I'm not talking about cannibalism or mental issues here[I'm talking about normal stuff])

If you think eating only vegetables can make you progress spiritually faster be my guest.
But to me, once we cease to be alive here it wont matter because we wont need to eat.
Questioning basic needs is just a distraction from the real spiritual questions.
Your physical body is just a proxy for your consciousness to ask questions.
Physical body needs food, water, shelter, etc...
It's just the fuel to your personal progress, nothing more.

Ethical questions are based on current ethics. They are almost like trends, they always change based on society.
All I'm thinking is, why would I change my eating habits for something that wouldn't have any impact.
Why would I change my eating habits, when up there, they are probably not even eating because they don't have a physical body.
Why would I change something that I never felt guilty about? <- this is important
If you change to vegetarian and you get distracted, or you start questioning yourself again on the whole meat/vegetarian thing to me you're not making spiritual progress.
Same goes for vegetarians that are insanely offended when we eat meat. If you are angry then somewhere you're can't control yourself.
If I am to keep being distracted because I crave a good steak while I'm trying to think about spirituality, I become inefficient, my train of thought gets interrupted.
If my train of thought is interrupted then so does my spiritual progress.

Thinking logically, in a survival situation, if you were a vegetarian and were stuck on an isle and died because you decided you would not eat a chicken do you really think it would boost your karma? I think that following human behavioral ways even god would not understand why you chose to not eat the chicken to survive a little longer.

If I had plenty of time to plan every meal I cook, every ingredients I choose, every week,
if I had plenty of money to hire a nutritionist that could tell me what ever works best for a vegetarian,
and whatever taste better without having to touch meat again for the rest of my life, then sure! I would do it, I'd switch to vegetarian.

I'm not rich, I don't have time, and neither does society.
And no, my brain filled enough as it is with existential questions, I'm not gonna add "learning to cook vegetarian 101" to it.

That sums pretty much sums it up for me.

P.S.: I know this is long but here another thought: Do you think we would have decided to eat meat while we were kids if our parents never told us what it tasted like? I'm pretty sure we would've went straight for the fruits and vegetables just because of their colors. Things that you do all your life are hard to change, even if it would be spiritually beneficial.
I mean, I feel sorry for the animals that died to feed me, but honestly every time I eat meat, I hope the animal died fast and that they're good wherever they are now. That's my only way to be grateful. May they rest in peace. I can't do much more than that unfortunately.
The partial becomes complete; the crooked, straight; the empty,
full; the worn out, new. He whose (desires) are few gets them; he
whose (desires) are many goes astray.

ThaomasOfGrey

Quote from: Stillwater on December 18, 2017, 22:57:46
Ha, at least you embrace the logical consequences! I can appreciate that.

But by using the word converse, it indicates you are probably aware that conditionals don't imply their own converses except under special situations.
It is an interesting predicament really. I have recently heard a lot about Reptilian beings that eat humans on Earth. Supposedly the fact that we eat animals enables them to eat us. They say that if we stopped eating meat the Reptilian would somehow become spiritually bound to not eat us either. Who knows if Reptilians are real but it is a useful thought experiment to pretend that there are animals that may kill and eat humans now.

The "converse" phrase I fabricated reads very stupid, that was sort of the point to illustrate that the original phrase was also unclear. You are right that you can't just flip the words around in these statements and maintain the logic.

Quote
But from what we can tell of plants, they don't suffer in the ways animals can. If it turned out they could, then the ethical reasoning changes. It is mostly moot from the state of current knowledge. Sort of like saying, "if it turned out toys were alive, you would feel sorry for how you treated your dolls."

If my toys actually were alive, I would apologize to them when I found out. But is it that likely?

I think we do have to use our best judgement to figure out what causes the least suffering or we flap around in uncertainty, however, capacity for suffering is just one metric. Brightness of consciousness is another; some plants can demonstrate very complex conscious properties. Clam versus Cannabis plant. Venus fly trap versus fly. Cannabis is a particularly interesting example because people often sense that the plants are "hyper alive" unlike other plants when in their presence. Plant brews like Ayahausca are even known to literally communicate with the consumer.

Isn't there a breakpoint at which suffering is no longer the primary concern?



ThaomasOfGrey

Quote from: Kzaal on December 19, 2017, 02:03:11
I think it doesn't matter. Meat or vegetables it really doesn't matter.
We consume to survive everyday.
Everyone has his reasons to eat something specific.

(and no I'm not talking about cannibalism or mental issues here[I'm talking about normal stuff])

If you think eating only vegetables can make you progress spiritually faster be my guest.
But to me, once we cease to be alive here it wont matter because we wont need to eat.
Questioning basic needs is just a distraction from the real spiritual questions.
Your physical body is just a proxy for your consciousness to ask questions.
Physical body needs food, water, shelter, etc...
It's just the fuel to your personal progress, nothing more.

Reminds me of the Buddhist view, I like it. Does eating vegetables really make us progress faster spiritually and why? I am skeptical that this is really the case.
Quote
Ethical questions are based on current ethics. They are almost like trends, they always change based on society.
All I'm thinking is, why would I change my eating habits for something that wouldn't have any impact.
Why would I change my eating habits, when up there, they are probably not even eating because they don't have a physical body.
Why would I change something that I never felt guilty about? <- this is important
If you change to vegetarian and you get distracted, or you start questioning yourself again on the whole meat/vegetarian thing to me you're not making spiritual progress.
Same goes for vegetarians that are insanely offended when we eat meat. If you are angry then somewhere you're can't control yourself.
If I am to keep being distracted because I crave a good steak while I'm trying to think about spirituality, I become inefficient, my train of thought gets interrupted.
If my train of thought is interrupted then so does my spiritual progress.
I can see it being a problem to flip flop between various ethical diet programs. That is why it is probably foolish to dogmatize the beliefs of the various diet camps with broad stroke rules. You need to be committed to the principle rather than the act in my view.

There are many normal people that require a high animal fat diet to perform well at a range of tasks, physical and mental. On the other hand it was pointed out earlier in this thread that eating for performance can become a vampirism.
Quote
Thinking logically, in a survival situation, if you were a vegetarian and were stuck on an isle and died because you decided you would not eat a chicken do you really think it would boost your karma? I think that following human behavioral ways even god would not understand why you chose to not eat the chicken to survive a little longer.

If I had plenty of time to plan every meal I cook, every ingredients I choose, every week,
if I had plenty of money to hire a nutritionist that could tell me what ever works best for a vegetarian,
and whatever taste better without having to touch meat again for the rest of my life, then sure! I would do it, I'd switch to vegetarian.

I'm not rich, I don't have time, and neither does society.
And no, my brain filled enough as it is with existential questions, I'm not gonna add "learning to cook vegetarian 101" to it.

That sums pretty much sums it up for me.

P.S.: I know this is long but here another thought: Do you think we would have decided to eat meat while we were kids if our parents never told us what it tasted like? I'm pretty sure we would've went straight for the fruits and vegetables just because of their colors. Things that you do all your life are hard to change, even if it would be spiritually beneficial.
I mean, I feel sorry for the animals that died to feed me, but honestly every time I eat meat, I hope the animal died fast and that they're good wherever they are now. That's my only way to be grateful. May they rest in peace. I can't do much more than that unfortunately.

In a survival situation I think you have to treat yourself with the same respect you would give to another human. It is kind of ridiculous to suicide so a rabbit can live. We have little logical choice other than to value our own existence in terms of both the suffering impact and the potential constructive impact.

Some people theorize that humans seek energy from food but don't really have a taste for anything except what is learned. They just have a suckling reflex that begins the sugar addiction. I heard that most babies will reject vegetables until they are conditioned to eating them. The flavor of fats and sugars are appealing energy sources.

I think the best thing we can do for farmed animals is support the businesses that treat them best. It usually means paying more but the real effect is to boycott unethical production of meat. Co-ordinated people have crazy power to immediately withdraw the demand for something and make it non-profitable. Look at Sea World and the documentary Black Fish.

Krishanna

Quote from: ThaomasOfGrey on December 16, 2017, 16:04:38
I can remember thinking that butchering an animal was kind of gross when I was about 5 years old hunting with my Father. Most people would experience butchering an animal as gross even after doing it several times, I still think it feels gross to reach inside a warm slippery carcass and separate the skin from the meat.

Using the converse argument, one can eat things they can kill, I see flaws. If there was an organism on this planet that looked and tasted like a giant walking Snickers Bar that is secretly intelligent but shows no signs of pain or suffering, it would be a free for all to eat that being.

The above scenario is basically the way we treat plant based food. The reason I gave that example is to point out that people only care about the wellbeing of the things they eat to the extent of their limited perception. To flip the whole thing upside down I could say "I always hear people saying how gross it is to kill a living being yet they are eating plants, it makes no sense to me".

There will always be reasons lurking around to not eat meat, such as attempting to rank the value of beings by intelligence or more accurately, how similar they look and behave to a human. If one can't make an excuse for why they are eating meat or plants they probably shouldn't be doing it? Excuse might be the wrong connotation, I think of it as a rationale to live by.



What I am saying is that it is all subjective.  My old guru said it did not matter in the slightest if you ate meat. It would not make any sort of difference in your spiritual quest. He was enlightened and ate meat without any problems, he still had his abilities, there was no suggestion that you would attain any sort of advantage by refraining from animal products.

I have my diet truly based on health reasons alone but people don't seem to buy that. So I thought about it & what I came up with to try to explain to someone in the simplest terms is that I wouldn't eat something I couldn't kill. And no I could not kill a walking snickers bar, that would be a tragedy. Also, I don't think it's healthy to eat snickers so it's not even in my diet. In my experience, you get the best results in all areas of your life when you choose what makes you feel the healthiest. Not everyone has the same reactions to foods, dairy makes me feel quite ill, so I stay away but to someone else it might make them feel strong. It's all very personal and one should not force their diet/way of life on another purely based on ethical beliefs.

With that said, I despise the animal cruelty that goes on in factory farming for cheap meat. Something will have to change about that. I read they are growing meat in labs now, so I guess that is the next logical step.