Veganise Me

Original post by George Dvorsky on Sentient Developments http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2007/08/meat-eaters-are-bad-people.html

If you eat meat you’re a bad person.

And you’re probably deluded too, desperately clinging to quasi-sensical rationalizations that are supposed to justify your cruel and filthy habit.

Yup, you guessed it — I’m through being Mr. Nice Guy when it comes to dealing with meat eaters. I’ve passed a personal tipping point, so to speak, mostly on account of my having to suffer through far too many dinner conservations in which I’m exposed to ridiculous and unfounded arguments intended to support the practice of eating flesh.

Ultimately, when it comes right down to it there is no excuse for eating meat.

Let me repeat that.

There is no excuse for eating meat.

All justifications for doing so – including those rare arguments that actually manage to make sense – are weak to the core. There’s no possible excuse that outweighs the damage and suffering caused by consuming meat.

I would now like to take the time to debunk some of the more common fallacies I’m forced to listen to (and supposedly tolerate) on a regular basis:

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Let’s pretend for a moment that meat was an absolute necessity for human survival. Shouldn’t we, as the superior beings that we are, uniquely capable of imagination, speech, art and ethics do our utmost to ensure that animals live a good and comfortable life and die in a nanosecond without any chance of feeling any pain?

Now, since we do not need meat to survive, and in fact are healthier without it, then shouldn’t treating animals with such disregard and killing them so callously be considered a doubly barbaric act?

Until we are collectively able to use our intelligence to care about the well-being of all others and stop thinking solely about ourselves and our superiority,  it doesn’t matter whether we’ve been to the moon, built pyramids or iPhones –  we’re still no better than beasts.

WHAT’S AHEAD?

• I ask you questions that you might not have asked yourself before.
• I tell you about my own experience being a vegetarian.
• I lay out all the good AND all the bad things about it.
• I present you with a challenge.

I genuinely hope to see you on the green side! ;-) Continue reading

For many years now I have been constantly trying to improve myself as a person. To take people’s criticisms, suggestions, and try and work on it. If someone says “you talk too much” I’ll question myself and if I agree with it I will then try to talk a little less – at least to that person anyway.

But in this constant chase for perfection I have achieved things that others can’t quite even comprehend. It’s like trying to explain to a 1 month old baby what “inconspicuous” means, when it doesn’t even know what “apple” means.

Or in another example, try to tell a 5 year old child to sit up straight. You can say it over and over and the child simply never learns… Continue reading

I am an atheist and am completely against religion. But I have found in Buddhism 5 moral precepts that before even finding them I already lived by.

1. To refrain from taking life (non-violence towards sentient life forms)
2. To refrain from taking that which is not given (not committing theft)
3. To refrain from sensual (sexual) misconduct (not committing rape, etc)
4. To refrain from lying (speaking truth always)
5. To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness (specifically, drugs and alcohol)

Number 1 on that list is the one thing that over 95% of the world don’t do. Their morals stop with no hurting humans as if they were somehow more capable of feeling pain and more deserving of being respected.

So the main reason the world doesn’t get better because most of us don’t believe we can make a difference. It’s like we’re all passing the buck and expecting others to do it for us.

• Save energy? meh, why bother, I won’t make a difference! I like my halogen light bulbs too much.
• Not buy from companies who use sweatshops? Nah, they sell millions already how will me not buying make any difference?
• Buy Fair Trade? These people live miserable lives anyway, how will 20p more change anything?
• Become a vegetarian? The animals die anyway, millions of them – it’s not me who’ll make it stop.

The problem of course is that when most people think that, indeed the difference made is not as big as it could be, exactly because of that. But difference is still made! The more people realise that each and every one of us does make a tiny % of difference, the more we’ll see the world change. It’s simple maths really!

And the process is also viral of course. You change your lifestyle > your friends see you do it > you talk about it > they change their lifestyle > and the message gets passed on. Slowly but surely the world will become a better place!

In the words of the amazing Gandhi: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. And I very much live by that.

So, do your part! In whatever cause that’s dear to you! I guarantee you will sleep much better at night with clear conscience that you are doing the right thing instead of “passing the buck”.

There are 7 very simple reasons that I am a vegetarian.

1. UNESSENTIAL: WE DON’T NEED MEAT TO SURVIVE
   Humans don’t need meat to survive and live a healthy life. They eat it because it tastes good. That alone is not a good enough reason to put animals through suffering.
2. HYPOCRISY: YOU COULDN’T KILL, GUT AND CHOP IT YOURSELF
   Most people don’t like the sight of an animal being killed, let alone could they do it themselves. Eating them is therefore hypocrisy.
3. COMPASSION: ANIMALS FEEL PAIN AND FEAR TOO
   Farm animals feel pain just like us and just like your pets. Electrocuting/cutting their throats is barbaric and inhumane. Farm animals are treated like a product and not like sentient beings that they are. They are fed hormones, are beaten and thrown about and live in confined spaces with complete disregard for their well-being.“Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to yourself”.
4. COWARDICE: LIKE BABIES, ANIMALS DON’T HAVE A VOICE TO FIGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS
   Slavery was once legal. Women once didn’t have right to vote. Gays don’t have the right to marry in some places. But they all have a voice to fight for their rights. Animals can’t beg for their lives or freedom but that is not enough reason that they should be stripped from those rights. In the same way that killing an innocent and voiceless baby is the most horrific act of violence, so is killing and mistreating an animal.
5. HEALTH: VEGETARIANS ARE HEALTHIER
   Vegetarians live longer and have 40% to 70% less chance of getting cancer and other diseases than meat eaters.
6. ENVIRONMENT: ANIMAL FARMING IS BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
   Half the rainforests in the world have been cleared for grazing; methane from livestock causes global warming; soil is eroded by cattle; slurry poisons waterways; and the seas are laid to waste by overfishing. The global appetite for meat and the industrial techniques of the meat industry are destroying the Earth. Farming contributes to 18% of all greenhouse gases produced by humans. That’s more than all forms of transport put together.
7. HUNGER: GRAIN THAT’S BEING FED TO ANIMALS COULD GO TO STARVING PEOPLE
   While 750 million people go to bed hungry every night, one-third of the world’s grain is fed to farmed animals. A typical Western meat-based diet can only feed 2.5 billion people: a plant-based diet will feed every one of us.

If you want more reasons follow these links:

http://philipngcc.homestead.com

http://www.watchearthlings.com

http://www.goveg.com

http://www.goveg.com/theissues.asp

http://www.meat.org

I have often a strange feeling that I am living in ancient times – it’s like the world has not quite yet caught up with my views. We often hear about slavery, human sacrifice, and disabled babies being thrown out of cliffs, with a feeling of detachment because it’s something that happened so long ago – something associated with old barbaric cultures of the past.

Indeed one of the reasons the holocaust is obviously so shocking to us is because it happened less than a century ago, which is really unimaginable. Yet it’s very strange for me to see people living their lives with no guilt whatsoever when as a direct consequence of their diet, billions of animals are being murdered every year. And were this happening out of utter necessity and the need to survive I wouldn’t question it as it would be part of nature. But at this day and age with food choices so plentiful the reasons for consuming animals are purely because of its taste and nothing more. That of course is an act so selfish that it angers me.

Just so that people have a tasty meal on a daily basis they subject live sentient beings to the most gruesome lives and deaths. Animals who have no voice of their own to fight for their rights like blacks, women and gays have had.

I think it’s time people become more conscious about their actions and the direct consequences of them. I think it’s time that happened with the masses and not only with a few who have access to information and the time and intellect to ponder about it.

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So, not everyone can get used to being a vegetarian – for those people, perhaps it’s worth trying Flexitarianism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexitarian

That means a person who’s mainly vegetarian but on occasion will eat meat for social or cultural reasons.

I think this is a great way to start off, then you slowly eat less and less meat until you can be a full vegetarian.

Any cut in meat consumption helps, so I highly encourage you all to try this out!

As a vegetarian I get asked many questions and statements… here are a few common ones and the answer to them.

1. Why are you a vegetarian?
   Because as any human being I do not need meat to survive and I disagree with making an animal be treated like a product and then be murdered just because it tastes good.
2. What if the animal died by accident, would you eat it?
   No, the thought of eating a carcass disgusts me no matter how it died. Of course, if someone puts a gun in my head and tells me to choose between eating an animal that died accidentally and one that was murdered I would choose the one that died accidentally – but by choice I still wouldn’t eat it – I don’t NEED it and that’s the point.
3. But other animals eat meat too, you can’t make a lion into a vegetarian.
   For starters, we’re not lions. Lions don’t have a conscience nor a choice, they have large sharp teeth, they eat meat raw, from an early age they display hunting instincts; put a human baby next to a rabbit and check if it kills and eats it like a lion cub would. If you force feed lions with a diet of potatoes and vegetables they won’t be able to eat it nor will they live very long because they were made to be carnivores. Lions also defecate in front of each other and kill the cubs that were not fathered by them – should you do that too?

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