In regards to eating meat

[Monica]

Yes @ndy I agree about pulling the leaves out of plants… there are scientists who have proven that plants can feel pain too.

Respectfully, Meerie, scientists haven't 'proven' that plants can feel pain. They have only proven that there is some sort of reaction, when plants are approached with the intention to kill or harm them.

That reaction is subject to interpretation. There is also a vast difference between a person destroying a plant for research purposes, and a person harvesting a plant from his garden.

The question always goes back to: Is a plant sentient? Does it have individual consciousness? We know that plants have group consciousness, and that some 'grandfather' trees can develop sentience, but is a lettuce plant sentient? What happens when you tear off a cutting from a plant and plant it, and it turns into a new plant? Is the same soul, split into 2? Or is it a different soul?

A friend once gave me scraps from plants he had transplanted, pruned, etc. He was going to throw away all those scraps, but I saved them and gave them to another friend who had a green thumb. She took tiny little bits of roots, very small cuttings, and nurtured them, and they turned into huge, thriving plants!

Did those plants have the same soul as the original plants from whence we got the cuttings? If so, then a single ivy plant, if it has an individual soul, could have its soul spread out over dozens of other bodies.

Think about it. Anyone who has ever grown an ivy knows that you can take multiple cuttings and start new plants. So, if it's an individual soul, then that would mean 1 soul is spread out over multiple bodies.

Have we ever gotten any indication from Ra (or anyone else) that this happens?

And yet that is the only explanation, if you think plants are sentient.

A more plausible explanation, imo, is that plants, being early 2D, don't yet have sentience. Ra tells us that cats and dogs have their sentience drawn out by interacting with humans. I've had the same cat reincarnate several times into our family, so it doesn't appear that the process happens quickly, but over multiple lifetimes. Can a lettuce plant have enough 'drawing out' to become individually sentient?

I don't think so. I think they have group souls, which means, their life continues, even after portions of their physical manifestations are harvested. Harvesting a single lettuce plant does not affect the lettuce oversoul's incarnation, because its incarnation is spread out over multiple 'bodies.'

Right now, I have some lettuce plants growing in my garden. They were planted a few weeks ago, and I was dismayed one morning to find all their leaves cut off. I found the culprit - a very fat caterpillar!

I thought those lettuce plants were dead. ALL their leaves were gone!

And yet, much to my surprise, they are now growing new leaves!

Honestly, don’t you think that the wheat feels pain when it gets run over and plucked out by the harvester?

As an individual, no. As a group soul, yes, if the harvester has no appreciation for it. I think the group soul of all wheat, collectively, is sad about the disrespectful, chemical farming methods, and appreciative when small farms treat their crops with respect.

Don’t you think the apple would rather stay on the tree, instead of being plucked and munched by you?

Not at all. The apple will fall from the tree and rot anyway, its lifeforce going back into the Earth. It is at the end of its lifecycle.

Are you now suggesting that, not only the tree has an individual sentience, but each apple on the tree is an individual soul who can think and feel pain?

Plants are living beings and as such feel pain. Just you don’t see blood being shed therefore you think it does not matter.

Respectfully, it seems illogical that an entity who has sentience and can feel pain, would choose to incarnate into a body that doesn't allow it to escape from predators.

Personally I think as long as we are here on this planet and need to eat in order to survive, we will always tread on some beings toes.

That's true. We can't escape unintentionally killing the occasional bug. But how is that a justification for knowingly causing the suffering of creatures we KNOW feel pain?

It is debatable as to whether plants feel pain. But we KNOW animals feel pain! We KNOW animals will try to escape, and cry out in distress. It doesn't seem logical to me, to justify the suffering and killing of animals who are obviously suffer, just because plants MIGHT suffer.

I am just offering a different view here. Actually I tried to go vegetarian (hear hear!) but I just found I could not exclude things from my diet categorically.

Would you be interested in sharing why not? I am curious as to why some people seem to have such a difficult time giving up meat.

I am wondering if it's because they try to just 'exclude' it instead of replacing it with delicious, nourishing vegetarian alternatives. I've known vegetarians who would go to McDonald's and order hamburgers, with everything on it, except the meat!! Yeah, no kidding! This was before you could find veggie burgers. But now we have lots of varieties of veggie burgers, which are delicious, nourishing and satisfying, as well as lots of other delicious foods to choose from. We're not deprived!

Personally I see many fruit and veggie people here at the local organic grocery store who look emaciated, prematurely aged and have thinning hair (yes even the women sometimes)… I just wonder if their lifestyle is so healthy how come they look so bad?

Well, how do you know they're vegetarians? Lots of animal-eaters also shop for organic fruits and veggies, and LOTS of animal-eaters look sick and have thinning hair.

I got a chuckle out of that last comment, since I've been a vegetarian for 27 years, and am not thin, much less emaciated! Nor do I know any vegetarians who are emaciated! Most look vibrantly healthy! Although there are always exceptions of course. And we can't possibly know their entire situation. Many people become vegetarians because they already had illnesses. So if they look sick, it's more likely they were already sick, and are now on the path to health. I've never met anyone who was very healthy and then got sick from being a vegetarian. That's not to say it might not occasionally happen, but I would guess it was because they just 'gave up' meat but didn't replace it with healthy foods.

Meerie, I'd like to introduce you to some of my vegetarian 'sickly' friends:

http://www.markusrothkranz.com/