Veganise Me

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.

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

About a month ago I came across this documentary that I believe everybody should watch before their next meal.

http://www.tinyurl.com/earthlingsdoc

It explains the term “specism” and shows what goes on behind the scenes of a few industries that use animals as if they were products and not like the sentient beings that they are.

If you can’t stomach it, then you shouldn’t stomach the resulting product either.

Eating meat is an unnecessary cruelty. We can live perfectly healthy lives (even healthier than meat eaters) without putting innocent creatures through pain and suffering – so why do it?

“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”
~Leo Tolstoy

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?

   Continue reading

Below is a collection of quotes about vegetarianism, most said by some of the greatest minds that have walked the earth including Leonardo DaVinci, Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Pythagoras, Buddha, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison and Paul McCartney.

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“Truely man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”
~Leonardo da Vinci

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“I don’t hold animals superior or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable of imagination, rationality, and moral choice – and that is precisely why we are under an obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.”
~Brigid Brophy

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“…The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
~Jeremy Bentham

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“If we don’t NEED to eat animals to survive, is taste a good enough reason to murder them without pity?”
~Edward Sanchez

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“Deep inside, everyone’s a vegetarian. I just eat a few less animals than most. Once you come to terms why you don’t eat dogs, cats, monkeys and dolphins, you’ll begin to understand why I don’t eat cows, pigs, chickens and lambs.”
~Edward Sanchez

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“Unlike any other animal, you have a choice. You can choose to kill and destroy, or you can choose to save and create. I chose the latter.”
~Edward Sanchez

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“Why do we find it so horrible to kill a baby? It’s because they are voiceless and defenceless. The same applies to animals. Killing them is cowardice.”
~Edward Sanchez Continue reading

selfish |ˈselfi sh |
adjective
(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure

I often do a lot of thinking, especially about the state of the world, humanity, the future, etc… so I was wondering, if there was a single word that could explain most of the problems in the world, what would that word be?

Selfishness

Continue reading

I am currently reading an amazing book called ANIMAL LIBERTATION – I think this is a must read for anyone who cares about animals and also to those who don’t but are willing to have their views debated.

It is written by a guy called Peter Singer who I now idolize. He writes so well and explains things in such a way that it is impossible to argue with him. Apparently most people who read this book turn vegetarians if they are not.

A passage of the book, quotes Jeremy Bentham when writing at the time when black slaves had been freed by the French but the British dominations were still being treated in the way we now treat animals.

The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to caprice of a tomertor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, “can they reason?” nor “can they talk?” but, “can they suffer?”

Will leave you with that thought.