I’ve bookmarked this for further reading… 🙂
“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
Someone remarked that according to this book, non-vegetarian food is supposed to be the costliest in terms of the natural resources consumed.
“consciousness grows more complex and intense the higher we rise in the
animal kingdom.”
– William James, the founder of modern psychology
Someone had asked…
> First of all why do you think it is your right to kill plants for your food?
> neither I am telling it is someone’s right to kill animals … .
> why do you think it is lesser evil to kill plants compared to “kill” animals ?
For which I had answered…
“consciousness grows more complex and intense the higher we rise in the
animal kingdom.”
– William James, the founder of modern psychology
With amoeba and stuff like that at the bottom, plants are at a lower level,
and it goes on to all the way up to to the most known advanced life form
i.e. humans. Please this is not something I invented – I am talking about
the the same heirarchy chart we have seen right from school days! 🙂
Of course for us, our species is most important compared to any other, since we have the abilitity to think, imagine, create, have emotions, be self-aware, compassionate and all that – all these are the implications of consiousness. But though we might not like to admit it… animals do have subsets of these abilities too, to varying degrees. And sometimes even beyond what we commonly speculate, for example the link that Sudhir posted a while ago…
Parrot’s oratory stuns scientists
I hope this also explains the difference between bananas and cows/calves!
Non-vegetarianism may be a personal choice, what I try to emphasise is atleast the treatment of the animals when they are alive.
At the age of around 12, my friend of the same age told me that with he had dissected live frogs. He justified it with his Karma theory “it was the frog’s Karma that he has to suffer, so it suffered, it was inevitable”. It might look like a ridiculous explanation now – or rather a misuse of a profound concept by a kid – but the Al Queda today use such philosophical concepts such as “merely executing Gods word” etc to justify their attrocious acts of terrorism – including the recent sawing off of a hostage’s head with a knife while he was screaming in pain (and then airing it on TV for all including his family to see).
The kid as much as the terrorist in the two examples were using their intelligence to justify *any* kind of action that they like to do, using only their brain and not their heart. That was the point behind the
examples.
We humans feel so miserable when we go through any injury – say accident or surgery or even just an injection. Yet we do not hesitate to inflict the very same misery on other creatures by using our intelligence to justify it. Here again I am talking not about vegetarianism but atleast humane treatment of live animals.
I understand cruelty is also part of nature, human nature being no exception. But I believe we always have a choice.
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