Is a compassionate/nonviolent God and religion compatible with harming animals for meat, milk and eggs?

This is an answer to: But God/Creator, or the Bible or any other religious book or Jesus or any other religious person say we can consume animal foods/use animals for clothes/religious items and other products

 

For anyone religious and/or for anyone who think it is wrong to harm and be violent towards animals for frivolous reasons:

If you are claiming that God is a loving, merciful and nonviolent God, this must also mean that we can't justify imposing suffering, violence and death on animals for pleasure/convenience or any other frivolous reasons. You must also advocate that we should help and defend those who are defenseless and vulnerable in our society, including many people and other animals.

We don’t have any nutritional need for meat, milk, eggs, and other animal foods [1]. All animals are harmed by being killed because they have an interest of living (regardless of whether they are brutally slaughtered in a slaughter house or are killed in hunting, or are killed painlessly while sleeping, etc.) There is no animal that wants to be killed by us. It is very easy to treat other animals with nonviolence, respect, love and mercy, to treat them as we ourselves want to be treated, and this is also our moral obligation. I stopped consuming animal foods this autumn. This was a very simple choice, and my choice has impacted me very positively both physically and emotionally. And most importantly: I am not longer participating in being violent towards, harming and killing vulnerable, defenseless and sentient beings. I reject that palate pleasure/tradition (including religion)/convenience are legitimate reasons   to justify the needless violence, harm and killing of animals for animal foods (including meat, milk, eggs, honey, etc.). We don’t need any animal foods for our survival or to live a life of optimal health, so consuming animal foods is to harm animals for frivolous and illegitimate reasons.

Animals are vulnerable. Animals are defenseless against the people who are violent towards them and are harming them for frivolous and unnecessary reasons. If you are not a vegan: Stop harming and killing animals for frivolous reasons. Start living as you are preaching: Treat all animals with love, respect, compassion and nonviolence; and help them instead of exploiting the vulnerable of our society. Preach nonviolence with all of your deeds – your message is not consistent or credible if you say that you stand up for nonviolence, but put violence on your body (e.g. leather, down, etc.) and put violence in your body. This includes milk from cows that are exploited and killed at an age of 5, or eggs from chickens that are exploited and killed, or any other animal product. Consuming animal foods perpetuate our society’s view that animals are resources/property, and as long as they are property they will be exploited [Further reading: See note 2]. Furthermore animals are individuals,

not resources, and should be treated as individuals, not as resources.

Don’t say that a loving, nonviolent and compassionate God is advocating completely unnecessary suffering, violence and death on animals with an interest and a wish of a continued existence, and not to suffer; and who definitively doesn’t want to be killed for humans frivolous palate pleasure/convenience/tradition of wearing dead animals, consuming animal foods, etc.

“The most violent weapon on  earth is the table fork.”  Gandhi

Please go vegan! Please live a nonviolent life towards all human and nonhuman animals!

Reject racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, speciecism and all other discrimination and violence!

Note 1: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/08/humans-can-live-and-thrive-on-healthy.html

Note 2. http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=rutgersnewarklwps

Vegan reply to: "God wants/allows us to eat meat"

"Even if you believe that you have a soul and animals don’t, and that we ought to prefer the interests of a human in any situation in which we must choose—that is, in any situation of legitimate conflict—that gets us right back to the fact that when you are deciding what to eat tonight, there is no conflict. There is only a choice. If you choose the animal product, you are participating in suffering and death in the absence of any sort of conflict or compulsion. Your only justification is that you enjoy consuming animal products or that it is more convenient for you to do so.

Think about it this way. Imagine that Michael Vick were to say that dog fighting was okay because dogs don’t have souls. Would you buy that? Imagine that Vick says God wants us to fight dogs because they don’t have souls. Would you buy that? You would respond to Vick that God’s creating us in God’s image means that in situations of conflict between human and nonhumans, we ought to protect the human interest over the animal interest. So in the situation in which a person is in a true emergency situation, such as being in a situation where she is starving to death with no plant foods to eat, it would make sense for a religious person to say that God wants her to kill and eat an animal and that she ought to do so. But saying that God wants us to eat animal foods when we are not in that sort of emergency situation is no different from saying that God wants us to fight dogs. If you outrageous perhaps—you should find the former so as well.would find the latter to be objectionable—outrageous perhaps—you should find the former so as well." Quote: http://www.eatlikeyoucarebook.com/

 

"Since it's now an established medical fact that humans have no need to consume animal products in order to live long and healthy lives I have a question for believers. If God created us in his own image He must have made us this way, so why would He then think it's OK to enslave, mistreat and murder billions of His other creations completely unnecessarily?" Quote Alan R.

I recommend you to study this: http://www.eatlikeyoucarebook.com/

 

 

 

 

Vegan/strict vegetarian reply to 'Doesn't God want us to eat animals'

Vegans are claiming it is wrong to inflict unnecssary suffering and death, and thus we can't justify consuming animals, since we can live and thrive on a vegan diet.

"Even if you believe that you have a soul and animals don’t, and that we ought to prefer the interests of a human in any situation in which we must choose— that is, in any situation of legitimate conflict— that gets us right back to the fact that when you are deciding what to eat tonight , there is no conflict. There is only a choice. If you choose the animal product, you are participating in suffering and death in the absence of any sort of conflict or compulsion. Your only justification is that you enjoy consuming animal products or that it is more convenient for you to do so.

Think about it this way. Imagine that Michael Vick were to say that dog fighting was okay because dogs don’t have souls. Would you buy that? Imagine that Vick says God wants us to fight dogs because they don’t have souls. Would you buy that? You would respond to Vick that God’s creating us in God’s image means that in situations of conflict between human and nonhumans, we ought to protect the human interest over the animal interest. So in the situation in which a person is in a true emergency situation , such as being in a situation where she is starving to death with no plant foods to eat, it would make sense for a religious person to say that God wants her to kill and eat an animal and that she ought to do so. But saying that God wants us to eat animal foods when we are not in that sort of emergency situation is no different from saying that God wants us to fight dogs. If you would find the latter to be objectionable—outrageous perhaps— you should find the former so as well.

Francione, Gary; Charlton, Anna (2013-06-24). Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals (Kindle Locations 569-570). Exempla Press. Kindle Edition.
Quote: http://www.eatlikeyoucarebook.com/

There is no ethical justification at all of taking the life of a sentient being: http://articles.philly.com/2009-08-14/news/24986151_1_atlanta-falcons-quarterback-vick-illegal-dog-dog-fights

God does not want us to kill animals

Detta inlägg har blivit uppdaterat.

Jag rekommenderar https://www.jesusfilm.org/watch?configure%5BruleContexts%5D%5B0%5D=home_page

Our true nature is peace, love, wisdom

Cruelty, greed, arrogance and injustice exists. There's no denying it. They are facts, but they are not real. Ultimate reality, which some call God, is good. And we, as active parts of the universe, active parts of God, are also good. We've been given the power to reshape our world and recreate our lives in wonderful ways, and to manifest, through our thoughts, words, and actions, the experiences we desire in accordance with our highest understanding of who and what we are. Greed, cruelty, and arrogance are manifestations of forgetfulness. The problem is we've forgotten who we really are. We are in the process of awakening to the wisdom that is deep inside, and to our connection and kinship with others. We are in the process of remembering who we really are. And who we really are is Peace... is Love... is Wisdom. That is what's real.

 

Written byDon Robertson

Counter argument to “God wants us to kill “kosher” animals”, and "Humans are the top of the food chain"

I would like to comment on your statement on Twitter about being at the top of the food chain.

First of all, you intuitively know that it is wrong to kill and harm innocent animals. The intuition and empathy of you heart is in conflict with those who are saying that you are disobeying the “will of Hashem” by arguing that it is wrong to harm and kill animals.


Why would a Loving and Compassionate Creator endorse causing harm and death to sentient beings, whom want to live, not to suffer, don’t want to die and want to treat other beings with love and compassion, by taking their life and purpose, destroying their family bonds and creating lots of pain and misery.

Who invented this notion of “being the top of the food chain”? Some humans who wanted to justify killing of and stealing the purpose of animals? I think both killing and stealing are two unethical actions. What is the species in the world with the highest morality? Why? I think one cannot say there is any, but that it depends on the actions of the individuals of that species. The individuals with the highest morality are those choosing actions of love and compassion, including actions that are not causing harm and death to other beings – regardless of species.

Humans do many things to rationalize our actions. When humans want to justify the killing of animals, they come up with erroneous excuses such as “they are of lower intelligence”, “they lack free will”, “god wants us to kill “kosher” animals”, “it is okay to kill predators because they are so barbaric in their treatment of their victims”. Or humans even excuse themselves by claiming ”animals kill other animals”. However many other times humans condemn different animal behaviors (such as rape, or killing individuals of their own species), and say that we are more ethical than them. So really it is a “pick-and-choice” in order to justify what your intuition and inner being know is unethical. If we look at some predators as role models, we can virtually “justify” any unethical behavior.

And why don’t instead look upon the compassionate herbivores of the world and follow their ethical example. Humans have the body of a herbivore http://sites.jabyte.com/health/Home/humans-are-herbivores ; http://bloganders.blogspot.no/search?q=herbivore

The ethical approach would instead be, you don’t defend unethical actions by claiming “it is okay, because another being did it”.

Humans evolved. We chose a lifestyle of non-cruelty to other sentient beings. Now animal products are bad for our health (including products from “kosher” animals): http://www.drmcdougall.com/ ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNeWCvLZaFM


Quite recently some humans started hunting, and even more recently – 10000 to 15000 years ago – humans started with domestication, which is taking animals their freedom, life and purpose away from them.

Furthermore, the milk industry and other animal industry, has a vast environmental impact and is causing poverty, starvation, a vast amount of greenhouse-gases and subsequent deaths by droughts and floods because of climate change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fws0f9s4Bas&feature=em-uploademail


We can never justify hurting and killing other humans or other animals.

Killing, hurting or enslaving an animal is depriving precious animals on their rights to live a life in freedom: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/what-are-the-roots-of-freedom-and-slavery/


More about animals, their free will, their intelligence and ability to show empathy: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/03/science-shows-that-animals-are.html


We already know the truth in our heart – the truth about how to live an ethical life. When we stop oppressing other sentient beings and turn vegan, we realize more and understand more about the ethical lifestyle that is our purpose. The authors and/or redactors of Torah and many other religious books failed to realize these essential truths since they were living a life of stealing, oppressing and taking the lives of other sentient beings. The truth is written on our heart, in our inner being, and can easily be found by anyone who stops to oppress other beings and spend all their time with spreading love and compassion to all beings. Authors/redactors who don’t understand this basic truth have also misunderstood much more about the truths of our life and purpose, and the essence of our Loving and Compassionate Creator. We have a choice – either to steal other individual’s purposes by killing/harming them and taking what belongs to them and their family (e.g. milk) and losing our purpose, or stop oppressing other beings and extend love and compassion to all beings, and find our true and only purpose. To take other beings peace and well-being and to lose true peace, or to extend love and compassion to all beings, and find true peace.


I really recommend this book: http://www.worldpeacediet.org/ [Also available on Spotify (www.spotify.com , I think you got in USA) as an audio-book legally and for free ].

What do you think?

Take care my friend! :)