In regards to eating meat

[Monica]

It appeared to me that you mistakenly felt that my original post was aimed at you, as I said it was not. You and I were apparently typing our posts out simultaneously, and somehow something that I said struck a chord within you somewhere. But I wasn't even writing toward you. Looking back, I can see how it might have looked that way, but it was not at all the case.

Your post went up at 12:07, Pickle's at 1:07, mine at 1:26. I had been composing it the entire time. The only person's view I refer to in the post is yossarian's. You, my dear, felt compelled to stand up and defend yossarian's view, and I concluded that you must feel that his view is an extension of your own.

Thank you, Tenet, for taking the time to explain! Your explanation sheds a lot of light on it. :idea:

This is a verrrrry long thread, with a lot of depth, that has been spanning many months. A lot of the original players aren't even around any more! I haven't seen Yossarian around lately, and even though you did mention him in your initial post, I had actually forgotten that you had initially responded to him, and didn't realize that your subsequent posts were still directed at him.

Thus, when you said stuff about vegans being zealots, naturally I thought you were directing those comments to the vegetarians/vegans who were currently participating in the discussion! (Me and a few others.)

Furthermore, I thought your comments were in response to the current discussion, and I didn't know whether you had ever read the whole thread (which is why I invited you to do so).

Add to that, the cross-posting, and that explain a lot.

That's how we got embroiled in this kind of non-argument, where apparently we don't actually disagree at all.

We don't disagree about how to deal with people on a daily basis, but we do disagree philosophically.

So it really does appear to me that you took something personal and kind of came at me. I can acknowledge that it may appear the exact opposite way to you, but that doesn't mean I will agree with you.

Yes, I felt offended by the links to the vegan 'zealots' and your use of such strong words as zealot to describe those who choose to not eat animals, because, to me, that is akin to showing an example of a rapist who happens to be black, implying that all black men are rapists!

Add to that, my not realizing you were responding to yossarian, and even had I realized it, since my views are very similar to yossarian's, it still seemed that the other current veg. participants and I were being lumped in with zealots.

Add to that, unbeknownst to you (apparently) a couple of other people, earlier in the thread, referred to us as extremists. Not for feeding our kids a deficient diet...not for living on fruit only (and I don't even see why that's extreme anyway)...not for trying to make meat illegal, or anything like that...but just for not eating meat!

It took many, many heated exchanges to get that one worked out! And then, just when I thought we were having a respectful conversation, up pops the word zealot!

Can you see why it might have, er, pushed my buttons a bit?

Especially since, apparently, you missed many months' worth of detailed conversation, and thus missed the progress we had already made. It seemed to me that, oh no, here we go again, back to the tired old argument of "vegetarians are too extreme and want to step on my air hose" again.

My posting here is almost entirely a reaction to yossarian's claim about the BEST diet

Thank you for that clarification! That is the crux of the misunderstanding. Other than your initial post, and even that I forgot about, I thought your comments were all directed to me and the other couple of vegetarians currently participating in the thread.

A lot of ground has been covered. Yossarian hasn't been involved in this discussion for many months.

that I believe would actually make some of my patients' conditions worse.

I've attended several Functional Medicine and Chiropractic seminars, attended by chiropractors, homeopaths and naturopaths. I was struck by the overwhelming trend towards more meat and less fruit. Perhaps because some of these classes were hosted by a supplement company that sells glandular extracts? I was actually quite appalled. Regardless of one's stance on meat, I cannot fathom why it has suddenly become popular to disparage fruit. Fruit is Nature's gift to us. No entities were killed. It is a sign of a sick society that it cannot eat fruit.

I already agreed with you that promoting a raw vegan diet to your patients/clients is probably not practical. This discussion forum is, well, rather advanced. The Law of One is advanced stuff. So is the raw vegan diet.

I attempted to speak about it in a way that didn't divulge any details of my personal or professional life, but I did not seem able to communicate what I was trying to say, as evidenced by your repeated declaration that you had no idea where I was coming from.

A few of your statements sounded cryptic to me and I asked for clarification. Now I know why, if you were trying to convey ideas without divulging your profession. (Although, I don't see how that would have mattered, had I known your profession earlier.)

So I tried to bring in a personal, medically-related angle to illustrate some of the more subtle complexities of considering whether or not a particular belief about meat-eating is "STS" or "STO".

If fruits and veggies were obviously unhealthy, or if meat were needed in the human diet, that might complicate matters. But even the most mainstream medical sources all now acknowledge that meat isn't needed in the human diet, and that even a vegan diet is adequate, provided some basic guidelines are followed. The days of doubt about a veg. diet are long gone.

I realize there are many practitioners, like the ones who follow the advice of that glandular supplement company, who believe humans should eat meat, but that is based on their own particular theories. Undoubtedly there are vegans who are deficient (just as there are meat-eaters who are deficient, or sick...) but it can no longer be said that a vegan diet is inherently deficient or inadequate for most humans.

I believe that eating large amounts of fruit would make many people's conditions considerably more severe,

I assume you are referring to those with Candida conditions? If so, some raw vegan proponents claim that the Candida clears up after the body is detoxed, and excess fats removed from the diet. Something about the insulin receptors being coated with fat...

Dr. Cousens subscribes to a different school of thought. (Yes, there are variations of raw vegan.) He recommends that those with Candida avoid fruit for a few weeks, while on a raw vegan diet with a higher fat ratio. Then, after the body is cleansed of the Candida overgrowth, the person may enjoy lots of fruit.

(For what it's worth. )

[quote='Tenet Nosce' pid='46506' dateline='1310276024']
so I get a little angry when somebody is telling others what to do with their health when they clearly don't know what they're talking about, and are blinded by absolutism and zealotry. Because veganism has killed people,

Whoa, hold on! Just how many people has veganism killed?

Now, how many people has a meat-centered diet killed?

Have you done the math?

and for better or for worse, there are people out there looking to this very thread for guidance on what and how to eat.

This is spiritual website, and a very specific spiritual website at that. Do you really believe people who are very sick, are going to rely solely on a Law of One website for nutritional guidance?

You can't wax philosophical about dietary choices without making it practical.

Sure we can. This is a spiritual website, intended for Law of One students. We're not obligated to babysit everyone about anything, most especially diet of all things! There are tons of other websites that specialize in dietary advice, and in fact, it's a jungle out there! All anyone has to do is google diet and they'll get thousands of hits! They already have to discern for themselves, because there are thousands of diets and they're all different!

And even if we did have an obligation to 'make it practical' then just which diet do you propose we recommend to the hapless passerby who happens to stumble upon our website? How could we possibly decide what is "practical" when we can't even agree on whether killing animals is in alignment with our core principles?

The Law of One isn't a religion. And this website is for serious study of the Law of One. We're aren't responsible for giving dietary advice. Maybe you are, in your line of work. But you can't apply your own responsibilities to those of a spiritually-oriented discussion forum.

Eating is about as practical as it gets. So if one's philosophical principles of ethics are under threat of breaking down the moment they eat a snack, well, then maybe there is something wrong with their principles, and not the snack.

I don't know any vegetarians whose principles break down whenever they eat a snack. I've been a vegetarian for 30 years. I have a 23-year-old son who has never had a bite of meat in his life. We've had lots of snacks, with nary a problem.

So I guess it's just a matter of who feels the need to protect what. Just like PFC JoeBob who feels duty bound to protect the Afghani village. I suppose we all have a little Savior in us.

By all means, if you feel inclined to speak up on behalf of your convictions, then you are free to do so! But please understand that others do the same. Others whose views are different from yours. That doesn't make them zealots any more than it makes you one.

I think the word zealot is a lot like the word liberal. It is often aimed at anyone whose views are different from one's own.

You say what about the animals? I say what about the animals? You and I are humans debating about human behavior. We have no clue what the animals are "thinking". Are you kidding me? I can't figure out what most humans are thinking. I don't know- I suppose the Universe has something totally unpredictable in store for us and them. I didn't set up the game such that some animals eat other animals, some animals won't eat humans (your cat, by the way, probably would ), most humans eat animals, but most humans do not eat other humans. There just seems to be a natural delineation there in the way the Divine Logos created the rules to physical life, and I don't see any reason to make it wrong or "unspiritual". I'm trusting that it is all working just fine, as intended, and does not require intervention on my part.

Ah, I see another area of miscommunication illuminated! :idea:

There seems to be 2 schools of thought here on this forum, that I have observed:

1. The Logos designed this planetary system this way and who am I to question it? (Variation of the Christian version: "God said it. I believe it. That settles it.")

2. We are Wanderers, from higher densities, and might have had a bit of say in the design of this planetary system. According to Ra, this planet is unusual in many respects. We're wondering if maybe one of the reasons we incarnated here was to observe the effects of this experiment firsthand. And we have concluded that the experiment involving a heavy veil and lots of suffering has been taken a bit too far. We intend to report back to the Logos our findings, and thus prevent future creations from having to endure so much suffering on such a widespread level. Furthermore, we intend to do what we can to minimize the suffering while we're here, and plant seeds of change among the humans and among our pets, so that, by the time they graduate (to 4D or 3D respectively) perhaps they can inhabit a reality that is different...that has less violence and less suffering.

These 2 different outlooks have been discussed on this thread and in others. As I said, this is a very long thread. It's not just about which diet is the 'healthiest.' It is about questioning the very design of this planet. Some of us subscribe to #2 and are doing just that.

It's ok if you don't agree. But at least now you know where we're coming from.

War, on the other hand, is not a rule of physical life, although some might make it out to be.

I guess we all have our buttons, eh? You just said you get angry when people talk about diet in an absolutist way. (I'm using more politically correct lingo, heh.) Well, I guess my buttons get pushed when I perceive double standards.

Animals eating animals is unquestionably a way of physical life, at this point. Although, as unity100 has pointed out, that 'way of Nature' has changed before, so there's no reason to think it can't change again. But at this particular nexus, yes, animals kill and eat one another.

However, if one is going to argue that eating animals is a way of life for humans, then it logically follows that war is too.

Because, humans have been killing other humans (war) as long as they've been killing animals.

In fact, some historians have found a correlation between meat-eating and war. Matriarchial, vegetarian societies were peaceful. So there is actually a connection between humans eating animals, and humans waging war against other humans.

But to say that humans eating animals is 'natural' and humans killing other humans isn't, is simply not accurate. Both are historically rampant.

Conversely, if we can hope to eliminate war, then we can just as reasonably hope to eliminate the slaughter of animals by humans. We might not be able to do anything about animals killing other animals, but we surely can do something about humans killing animals.

This is the reason I was suggesting analogies between your views on war, and my views on animal slaughter. Not to 'get back at you' or anything juvenile like that, but to convey what I considered to be a very important point.

I think I know where my "harvestability" and "polarity" lie, so therefore anything I am doing must be sufficient enough to make the grade. Beyond that, I am not so sure. I will remain agnostic until my perception affords me the ability to accurately discern.

This isn't about you personally, or about anyone personally.

If I were to hunt a deer, and consume its raw bleeding flesh ripe with fear from the chase, it would still be food for my body. I would not be too concerned about the spiritual residue of fear, if it exists, because if it exists, then I can easily overcome it with my own vibration of love and gratitude. Maybe that is my "purpose". :idea:

Well, if that's what you want to do. But it sure seems inefficient to me, to have to exert so much effort overcoming those fear vibrations, when eating a karma-free diet would free up all that energy for something else.

And, again, overcoming those fear vibrations serves only you. It does nothing for the deer.

What I -do- know is that when a lion takes down a gazelle, they will eat the organ meats first, and leave the muscle tissue for the scavengers. I take this to be a cue that the lion instinctively knows where the nutrients are, and goes for that.

Respectfully, I consider this irrelevant, for the simple reason that the human anatomy is drastically different from that of a lion.

Most people find the organ meats to be the most repulsive part of the animal, and eat only muscle tissue.

Or maybe it's a natural evolution....humans no longer salivate when presented with a bloody carcass...next step might be eating muscle meat instead of organ meat...next step might be eggs instead of meat...next step might be raw milk...next step might be vegetarian...

Many humans believe that pizza is nutritious because it contains "All Four Food Groups". Some humans apparently think that their belief in nutritious pizza will magically "make it so" because they "create their own reality".

Why not? How is that any different from "vibrating above the fear hormones and transforming them"?

If fear hormones can be transformed into love, then why not transform sticky, gluey cheese into nutrients?

So where do we go from here, in midsummer '11?

Well, apparently a lot of people, even on this forum, think that we can just continue eating junk, continue slaughtering animals with no regard for their suffering, and then someday we will just goo poof and suddenly be in 4D, sipping nectar.

I find that absurd. I do subscribe to the idea that we create our own reality, to some extent anyway. If we want to be in 4D sipping nectar or consuming only living foods, then we need to start now, working towards that. That is my opinion.

As for philosophical dispositions toward life, to each their own. Personally, what I've found is that when I try to strive for some unattainable ideal, it just makes me feel more inadequate and out of control.

Then why not strive for an attainable ideal, instead of an unattainable ideal?

Truly, I don't see how eliminating, or at least reducing, meat is unattainable. Lots of people do it.

I know that no matter what I do, I will never be good enough.

That sounds like a psychological issue. According to the Law of One, we are each already 'good enough' and beautiful where we're at. We don't displease the Creator. We only displease ourselves, if we fail to meet the goals we set ourselves.

This is why I believe people feel they need gurus and saviors. To fill that artificial gap between themselves and the ideal they have chosen to uphold.

Yup. It removes the responsibility from them. "I am worthless without Jesus."

And this does make us hypocrites because that's how Universe works. It shows us that we are not just one thing, but all things.

Um...I don't quite follow that.

I am not pointing fingers at hypocrites. I do believe there is a way to move forward in all areas of life that does not require us to take up a personal cause and have a light-saber fight, and then have to defend ourselves against the inevitable claims of hypocrisy.

We all have different personalities and dispositions. Some people have taken on a mission to be in the public spotlight, while others work quietly behind the scenes. Some are out there on Greenpeace boats, confronting the whalers, while others are quietly meditating for world peace on mountaintops. Some just quietly donate to charities, but are unwilling to spend any actual time, but then refer to the activists on the front lines as extremists. Meanwhile, the activists think the quiet ones are lazy and apathetic. When in actuality, each is doing according to their nature and abilities. It's all good. We just each have to do what we feel guided to do.

Several times you have referred to my comments in another thread about war and drawing a comparison of your chosen cause to my chosen cause. War is not my chosen cause. I do not have a chosen cause. I feel confident in my ability to choose for myself a purpose in a moment as it is given. All I tried to offer in that thread was that plotting war might have been part of the reason Ra mentioned that Patton was not harvestable.

I addressed this earlier in this post. I will add here, that your comments were very strong in that other thread. It was much more than a mere 'mention.' I was very impressed, actually, by your clarity and articulation on that issue. I hoped we might find some common ground, which is why I referenced that other issue which we agreed on.

All I did was try to make a simple comment when somebody else swooped in with their Project Bluebeam Kit, and I argued back loudly. As I am somewhat prone to do when somebody is attempting to project their personal hell onto my otherwise peaceful life. Military my a$$.

I hope that, by now, you can understand that some of argue back loudly, when others attempt to project their personal hells onto the peaceful lives of those we care about (the animals).

You jumped in, cheering me all the way. Which was very nice, but I didn't ask for any defense.

I wasn't trying to defend you. I could see you didn't need defending. I simply agreed with you, and expressed that.

I came over to this thread. Read the first two posts. Basically said I think yossarian is full of it and here is why, and you rushed in like the White Knight to defend his honor.

I didn't "rush in." I've been participating in this thread consistently, for well over a year now.