07-30-2015, 03:24 PM
(07-29-2015, 06:52 PM)Nicholas Wrote:(08-26-2014, 03:27 PM)Bring4th_Plenum Wrote: diet really is as personal as one's sex life.
I found this to be the wisest quote on this thread from a metaphysical perspective.
Yes, it is a personal choice. But consider. Sex is a choice, but unless it is sex with one's self, it must include another being. So now there is more than one's self involved. It gets more complicated. Is the sex consensual? How do you know? For example, it has been common for women to just "go along" with what the man wants, especially in past centuries. Hopefully that is changing now, but it still exists (trophy wives come to mind). So even consensual is complicated if there is no honesty.
Diet is a personal choice. But eating involves others (2D entities). Is the eating consensual? In the case of using animals for food, upon observation—no. Perhaps as some suggest the animals have consented in some spiritual way, but this is conjecture (based possibly on wishful thinking, but though one may wish it does not mean it's not true). Is it consensual with plants? It's hard to say and also complicated (considering that plants are commercially farmed). But some plants need animals to eat them to spread seeds, to propagate—so in that sense it is consensual. You can trim a plant and it will continue to grow. You can't take part of an animal and have it thrive afterwards. What we DO KNOW is that animals do not want to be slaughtered. We do know that factory farming conditions are cruel and unnecessary (though necessary for farming profits).
To relegate diet to being a personal choice is both a simplification and an egocentric view, IF one is considering other beings. And we could say that the personal choice includes consideration of other beings, but it does not follow that this is inherent in the statement. Of course, one doesn't have to do anything in a free will zone. But if one is moving toward being one with all, it seems like a necessary step to include consideration of others in one's choices.