In regards to eating meat

[Monica]

Just by paying my federal income taxes and living in the USA I am contributing to unnecessary suffering. You can ask the native Americans about that, because they are some of the people that have suffered because of what my tax dollars support, and there are right now many people and animals all over the world suffering because of my tax dollars. But I am not planning on leaving the country or not paying my taxes.

We don't have much choice about paying taxes.

We do have a choice, a relatively easy choice in most cases, regarding whether to eat animals.

Basically I hear you saying "Do you believe that the wages of sin is death?"

??? How did you get that out of what I said? I don't even believe in sin.

Ah, I get it. You're saying I'm sounding like a religious zealot? is that it?

To which I would say, "There is no death, death is an illusion"

But there is death. Bloody, painful, terror-filled death. Just ask the cows.

I do believe feelings of guilt that have arisen due to a programmed guilt -complex are best liberated by removing the programming. Other than that, I don't think any feelings should be eliminated. It's important to feel in order to heal, and healthy remorse can be a positive catalyst.

Great! Then that rules out programmed guilt-complex, in the case of any guilt felt by meat-eaters, because we haven't been programmed that eating meat is bad. Quite the contrary: we've been programmed that eating meat is ok, normal, and even good.

(An example of programmed guilt would be guilt regarding sex, felt by someone who was taught as a child that sex is dirty. Not so with meat, since virtually all of us were taught that eating meat is acceptable and normal.)

Therefore, any guilt arising from this discussion, is in the category of healthy remorse, not programmed guilt.