In regards to eating meat

[Monica]

Good polarities of discussion here.... We are given a developed globe of resources, states of matter and starter seeds. What do we make with all of this? Can we co-create harmonies or do we trump it all with STS delusions?

Well said!

To ignore how much clean water and discordant energy is wasted.

Would you ever open your refrigerator, pull out 16 plates of pasta, toss 15 in the trash, and then eat just one plate of food? How about leveling 55 square feet of rain forest for a single meal or dumping 2,400 gallons of water down the drain? Of course you wouldn't. But if you're eating chickens, fish, turkeys, pigs, cows, milk, or eggs, that's what you're doing—wasting resources and destroying our environment.

from http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-...nment.aspx

It is more STO to seek and experiment for a harmonious whole, life as one.

That seems like a no-brainer to me.

There is utterly no way to feed 7 billion humans any professed meat diet.

Absolutely TRUE. This isn't opinion; it's fact.

And even with 'humane' farming methods, it still won't work. Think about it: Why has the meat industry adopted these atrocious factory farming methods? Why are chickens crowded to tightly that they can't even move? Why are chickens and cows fattened up to obscene sizes with hormones?

To increase production.

They do this to keep up with demand and increase profits. 'Humane' farms can't keep up. Even if all the farms and ranches switched to 'humane' methods, it would be impossible, yes, impossible, to raise enough animals to feed the population.

Doesn't that tell us something?

Feed countless carnivorous pets also? Is this love? By clear cutting the amazon to grow plant proteins to grow meat sources, to wage war for gluttonous diets, killing off oceans, proliferate toxicity, etc.... Then just say "we tried so hard". I have lived the pastoral life too, but admitted that we need to reflect all ramifications of what we profess. Multiplied by 7 billion fellow humans incarnate.

A recent United Nations report concluded that a global shift toward a vegan diet is necessary to combat the worst effects of climate change. And the U.N. is not alone in its analysis. Researchers at the University of Chicago concluded that switching from a standard American diet to a vegan diet is more effective in the fight against climate change than switching from a standard American car to a hybrid. And a German study conducted in 2008 concluded that a meat-eater's diet is responsible for more than seven times as much greenhouse-gas emissions as a vegan's diet is. The verdict is in: If you care about the environment, one of the single most effective things that you can do to save it is to adopt a vegan diet.

According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off U.S. roads.

from http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-...nment.aspx

The argument of "well vegetarians kill plants!" is completely moot, being that far more plants are killed to clear land for grazing animals, as well as feed the animals.

According to the United Nations, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) now uses a staggering 30 percent of the Earth's land mass. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals, and according to scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed worldwide every minute to create more room for farmed animals.

Livestock grazing is the number one reason that plant species in the United States become threatened and go extinct, and it also leads to soil erosion and eventual desertification that renders once-fertile land barren.

While factory farms are ruining our land, commercial fishing methods such as bottom trawling and long-lining have virtually emptied millions of square miles of ocean and pushed many marine species to the brink of extinction. Commercial fishing boats indiscriminately pull as many fish as they can out of the sea, leaving ecological devastation and the bodies of nontarget animals in their wake.

from http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-...urces.aspx

In light of this, the best way to reduce the killing of plants, is to quit eating animals!

It takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie from animal protein as it does to make one calorie from plant protein.

...Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food.

Knowing what we know, it's simply reprehensible to continue supporting this destructive industry. It's raping our Mother.

In light of all this, how can eating meat be justified? Oh, because we "like the taste"? Don't we have a responsibility to take better care of this beautiful planet we've been entrusted with, and all her creatures? How can we expect to transition to 4D, with this foulness taking place? Taking all these environmental facts alone, without even considering animal suffering, it's an atrocity.

Furthermore, it's simply not sustainable. Unless we all go poof next year, we are leaving an enormous mess to our children and grandchildren.. They will be forced to all go vegan, just to survive. They won't have the choice everyone speaks so fondly of. And it might even be too late for them.

I've heard Christian pastors proclaim that there was no need to be concerned about the environment, because "God gave us the Earth to take dominion over" and "Jesus is coming back soon anyway." I can't help but wonder if this religious programming is still playing in the minds of many people, even though they've left Christianity behind.

Could we have just traded the Christian version of rapture ("Jesus is coming back soon so go ahead and destroy the planet") with a New Age version? ("We will all go poof in the next year, to 4D, so the 3D planet doesn't matter.")

There is much controversy about whether or not we'll be going poof in the next year. Can anyone really say with 100% certainty that we won't be here after 2012? Although some Ra quotes suggest that, we're told by Q'uo that some of us will stick around, to heal the planet...during a transition that may last as long as 700 years!

If this is true, then it's utterly impossible - yes, impossible - to sustain a population with the current system. Unless one is banking on most of the population being wiped out, and even then, is it really justifiable to destroy so much plant life and fragile ecosystems, just to satisfy a lust for flesh?

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but we've been going round and round for months now, and I really think the main points are being missed. People are continuing to argue...what? What exactly is being argued?

That it's ok to eat animals because, well, animals eat animals

That it's ok to eat animals because eating plants is cruel too, so we might as well be cruel to animals

That it's ok to eat animals because that's how the Logos designed it and who are we to question that?

That it's ok to eat animals because vegans are zealots and hypocrites

That it's ok to eat animals because we still have some leftover teeth that used to be fangs (never mind that they're now dull and no longer fangs)

That it's ok to eat animals because global warming is a myth

That it's ok to eat animals if they're treated well before they're killed

That we might as well keep eating animals since our dogs and cats do and we have no right to make them vegetarians


That pretty much sums up the opposing viewpoints, as far as I can tell.