07-07-2011, 10:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-07-2011, 11:05 PM by Bring4th_Austin.)
(07-07-2011, 08:07 PM)Bring4th_Monica Wrote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: I believe, rather than having food designed for us in that sense, the atmosphere was designed in which we, as living/evolving beings, were tasked with the objective of surviving. Some beings evolved to sustain off of provided 1D elements, some like us (unfortunately) evolved to sustain off of other 2D beings.
We didn't evolve here. Our souls were invested into ape bodies, which had already evolved to that point.
The ape bodies are what I was referring to, because it is what we inhabit. And I was more illustrating the point of "design for food" by the Logos. I don't think any being was designed to be eaten, but rather it became that way as a matter of survival.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: Like I said, if the Logos had this sense of control, why would it not give us a design which allowed us to sustain on 1D?
Indeed. That is a very good question. My answer would be, why would it? If plants aren't entities, then there is no harm in eating plants.
But we know plants are living entities. And there are carnivorous animals. Why wouldn't the Logos design another type of food for them?
Quote:The Logos didn't intend for Earth's new human population to become violent:
That's dealing specifically with the "type of warfare we experience." We came out of 2D rather naturally violent. And I must reiterate again, eating animals doesn't have to be violent. We circle back to the murder of plants vs. murder of animals.
Quote:So, the Logos didn't intend for humans to use their thumbs to commit acts of violence against one another in the form of war. While they were using their thumbs to create weapons to kill one another, the humans apparently also used their thumbs to create weapons to kill animals as well. Those seem to go together. It logically follows, then, that the Logos probably didn't intend for humans to use their thumbs to kill animals either, just as they didn't intend for humans to use their thumbs to kill other humans.
We also created weapons to kill plants. I illustrated this point in my last post responding to your lawn-mowing question.
Quote:In contrast, it was apparently planned that they eat plants, being that the ape body was already being nourished by plants. (And nourished quite well, I might add...gorillas are obviously quite strong!)
Taking the logic of what we do in 2D is inherently what we should do in 3D can backfire on you pretty quickly. I understand your point but I have to dismiss the logic and classify the observation as circumstantial. Not useless, but circumstantial.
Quote:You seem to have misunderstood my premise. I don't think it's ok to kill plants because they are less evolved!
It's not about how evolved they are. It's about whether they are classified as entities.
I have explained this previously, in this thread. The entire debate hinges on whether or not plants are individual entities or not.
If they aren't, then consuming a single plant is akin to drinking a glass of water.
Once a 2D entity becomes self-aware, it no longer merges back into the group soul, but begins its own journey of evolution. (My understanding of this is based partially on the Edgar Cayce readings, which I find compatible with the Law of One.)
That starting point of individuation is what I am proposing as the demarcation between 'life force' and 'entity.'
My belief is that most plants aren't entities.
Ra seemed to support this, by saying that some trees might become sentient enough to be harvestable to 3D. If this were common among plants, then Ra wouldn't have stated it the way they did, as though an exception.
I have already built a sufficient case supporting this premise, and I'm dismayed that this point was missed. (It's ok to disagree with me of course; I'm just dismayed that what I thought was my central point, wasn't understood.)
Basing this argument on Ra, it's clear that an entity doesn't become "individualized" until it graduates to 3D. No matter what, a 2D soul returns to the group consciousness after incarnation. I'm not buying your argument here, a plant is a 2D entity, and goat is a 2D entity, neither have reached individuation. If I have two plants of the same nature standing next to each other, and two similar goats, I can kill one plant and it's gone, the other remains. I can kill one goat and it's gone, the other remains.
Either way, the soul returns to group consciousness. So why is the pain of death worse on animal group consciousness and not plant group consciousness? We return to the argument of plants being "designed" for us to eat.
Quote:But surely you will agree that the vast majority of humans (in the US at least) wouldn't want to bite into a freshly killed, bloody rabbit?
I think it can safely be stated that most humans don't find bloody carcasses appetizing. Hence, the popularity of reality shows, wherein contestants are grossed out by eating bugs etc. Americans don't like bloody carcasses. They prefer their animals neatly wrapped in plastic at the grocery store, or tucked between 2 buns. That's why they're fascinated by the reality shows.
Well, we did like raw meat at one point. The world has obviously gotten used to the idea of fire, using it to cook meats. We've become cultured to cooked meat, and evolved out of our ability to eat raw meat. It wasn't uncommon for hunter-gatherer tribes to eat what they could off of a freshly killed carcass before smoking the rest to be saved.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: And what of the squirrel I watched get eaten alive by a hawk? It was a very gruesome sight and I guarantee you that squirrel suffered much, does it get no consideration from the Logos? Why would the Logos allow the evolution of carnivores if it were so sensitive to the suffering?
That's a whole 'nother subject; one which has been discussed in other threads. But you seem to have missed my point, which is that, it's bad enough that the animals are killing one another...that is distressing enough! And I plan to tell the Logos that I find it despicable! But now, on top of that atrocity, you're telling me that every time a cow chews on some grass, the grass is writhing in agony too?
My point was that, by your logic, the Logos obviously "planned" for meat to be eaten too (by carnivores), why give the plants preferential treatment? Just because when 3D humans come along, it's what they're "supposed" to eat? 3D will be a blink of an eye in time/space terms on Earth, and many many carnivores have inflicted much suffering on animals, I don't think the Logos said, "Well...plants are cool...they don't have to care about dying." I don't think the Logos would pick and choose who got to suffer based on what it wanted 3D humans to eat.
Quote:If so, then it's far, far worse than I thought!Maybe it is? Or maybe it's not? I'm not contending that plants suffer when they die, I'm contending that non-violent killing of an animal is akin to non-violent killing of a plant. The animals don't have to suffer!
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: This is the concept behind "non-violent slaughter" which must be understood. When we process a chicken or a goat, the animal does not know it's going to be killed.
When a woman is murdered in her sleep, she doesn't know she is about to be murdered. But it's still murder, nonetheless.
Back to the murder of plants. In my eyes, murder, none the less. My point was, like I just stated, slaughter of plant and animal can be similar.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: Dr. Temple Grandin, advocate for animal rights as well as autism awareness, has put forth a lot of evidence behind the fear and anxiety felt by animals on their way to be slaughtered, and humane slaughter facilities work with her evidence to reduce anxiety, reduce fear, and promote humane treatment of animals. Animals suffer less being processed in a truly humane facility than they would being eaten in nature.
That's all very nice, but the point that is still being missed is: Why go to so much effort? Why not just quit eating animals? I mean, really, there is such a simple solution, which would actually benefit the whole planet as well. Why go to such great lengths? Why not just...quit...eating...them?
Effort? I spend much, much (MUCH) more time in my garden trying to grow sustainable, responsible, organic vegetables to feed people. As I've stated before, I slaughter hundreds, THOUSANDS more 2D beings in my garden then from my herd.
What sort of effort does it take to responsibly raise and non-violently kill a goat? It's easier than being violent. And it takes much less effort than it does to take care of my garden!
The horrendous meat industry conditions were a result of corporate thinking. It's easier to get rich treating animals bad. It's also much easier to get rich growing crops irresponsibly. It's much easier to get rich doing ANYTHING irresponsibly.
If it were about effort, I'd concentrate less on my garden and more on building a herd. It would be MUCH easier, especially when humane treatment comes naturally.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: Do we know if a plant suffers when being killed? No...but we can also be sure that the animal does not suffer either.
Maybe that small minority of animals, sure. But all that effort that's going into 'humane' slaughter could be better spent educating people about the vegetarian diet, and thus reducing the slaughter of all those factory farm animals, who do indeed know they're about to be killed, and are indeed suffering.
Oooooh Monica, you KNOW I do what I do because of the factory farm animals. People are becoming educated and want responsibly, humanely raised meat. True story, in the past week I've had two vegetarians buy goat meat from me because they simply stopped eating animals because of inhumane animal treatment. Now they know how to find farms which treat their animals humanely, and are ready to start eating meat again. I'm happy people are getting educated about the state of the meat industry as well as the availability of humane meat.
And, like I said, the "effort" of humane slaughter isn't effort at all. Using research about what makes animals anxious or scared and being conscientious about these things doesn't take any more effort.
Quote:It seems to me that, although the effort appears commendable on the surface, it is actually perpetuating the problems, by contributing to people's mindset that eating animals is acceptable. And, the 'humane' farmer can feel less guilt about his own small herd of meat, but that isn't helping the animals in the factory farm down the road.
Incorrect, the inhumane meat industry is dying because of the efforts. Farmers' Markets are exploding, and almost every single customer that buys meat, eggs, or vegetables from me asks me plenty of questions about how it was raised and processed. We have visitors to the farm that want to know about where their food comes from. There's a movement to become more conscientious about where your food comes from, for vegetables AND meat.
I could flip it around on you and say that promoting vegetarianism makes people think it's okay for the irresponsible crop farmers to do what they do. Believe me, there's much more suffering and pain on many levels from factory crop farmers than there is from human meat farmers.
I feel like the education should be "Know where your food comes from/Know your farmer," not "Eat vegetarian." Vegetarians who buy from mass producers are supporting an industry very much akin to the mass meat industry. Admittedly not as bad, but definitely not better than humane farming in any sense.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: Also, I don't personally contend that plants can feel physical pain, but I have no doubt they can feel spiritual and mental pain.
Definitely. But I contend that it's the group soul that feels the pain...the tomato oversoul, not each individual tomato plant.
Well, the goat's soul travels back to the mass consciousness immediately after death, how is it different for the goat?
Also, it might be silly for me to point this out to you, but the tomato plant is one of the best plants that requires no killing to utilize :p
Quote:When is it an individual plant? If a friend gives me a cutting from her ivy plant, and then I cut off a piece to give to another friend, how many plant entities do we have here? Did the 1 plant have babies? Will it keep making new souls every time I cut off a leaf? Is each blade of grass in your lawn an entity? Or is the entire lawn an entity?
I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say that when you follow a plant to its roots, that is the entity. Who knows the metaphysical mechanics behind cloning plants, but I don't doubt individual plants are individuals.
Quote:As I've stated before, I do commend you for your efforts! But this discussion has gotten deeper. If they are all individual entities, there would be no difference. I contend, as I have all along but the point seems to have gotten missed, that most plants aren't entities. That is the crucial difference. All else is moot without understanding this point. (Even if you disagree, just understand.)
We'll have to hammer out this "plants as entities" thing to continue this discussion. I'll put a relevant Ra quote at the end of this post.
Quote:I've addressed this previously, multiple times. I don't believe the plant's life is being ended.
Because it's not "individual?" An individual carrot is an individual carrot, and when it ceases to have a 2D body to inhabit, its soul goes back to the mass consciousness. Same as a goat.
To take the point a little further, let's use the example of the plant which responded to the thought of its leaf being burned. Do you think every plant of the same type all around the world responded in this way when it was threatened? Or was it just that single plant?
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: Of course violent slaughter of an animal is notably different from violently slaughter of a plant
How is it different? Can you elaborate?
Well, as we've discussed, plants don't have pain receptors. Luckily it's just as easy for a small farmer to painlessly kill animals. I could attempt to tortuously kill a plant and it wouldn't do much physical trauma. Definitely trauma of some sort, but no immediate physical suffering, like an animal would experience. But it takes no more effort to insure painless processing.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: I'm not sure if I agree with the idea that plants and animals exist in separate degrees of individuation. Maybe the book holds more for this discussion.
That's from Ra, not from the book.
Can you provide the reference? I will provide the quote where Ra says 2D entities return to mass consciousness until harvested to 3D, if you could provide reference for plants existing in a separate state of 2D individuation than animals.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: It's funny you should mention that! Not necessarily, but ever since I was a small child I thought mowing the lawn was a very backwards thing to do. You plant all this seed, asking this grass to grow, and then you go and cut it down, stopping it from growing! I've always looked at yardwork as sort of a war...yard tools are the weapons, you prepare for battle and go out and wage war on nature by pulling weeds, killing bugs, and cutting off plants' limbs and appendages. I don't think its slaughter because you're not killing the grass, but I do consider pulling a weed slaughter. Why wouldn't you? You're killing a living being!
But unless you use lots of herbicides and have eradicated all your dandelions and thistles, every time you mow the lawn you are indeed killing weeds. And how do you know you're not killing individual blades of grass? Wait! Did you just say you're not killing the lawn? Well you're not killing the whole lawn, but you are killing parts of it. Where does 1 lawn 'entity' end and the next one begin? Is your back yard lawn a separate entity from your front yard lawn? Or is each blade of grass an entity? or...each cutting? After all, a single cutting can turn into a whole new lawn! Or...
I don't think the concept is as confusing as you're making it seem. Pointing out the idea that there are weeds on the lawn, then yes, it is slaughter. The dandelion was an individual dandelion, and you killed it...slaughtered it. Undoubtedly you killed some bugs...slaughter. The grass specific to the lawn has it's own mechanism for establishing roots and growing. If you were able to pull apart your grass in your back yard without tearing any roots, you'd find that grass grows in "tufts." If you kill a tuft, you kill a grass entity. If you chop off it's blades, it will regrow, and you didn't kill them. If you cut it down to the ground and it regrows, they're not new entities. It would be akin to cutting lettuce in a "cut and come again" style.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: This definition is biased towards animals. We can take number 1 and extend it to 2D beings, so "killing or butchering of cattle, sheep, beets, carrots, potatoes, etc. especially for food."
It's the standard definition, generally accepted by society. People don't generally think of eating salad as slaughter.
I don't think it would be "generally accepted by society" that weeds contain consciousness. People don't always think of eating chicken nuggets as slaughter, does that mean its not? (I'm sure you know that many are oblivious to where their food comes from)
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: Personally, I wouldn't consider our hair individual entities like I would plants.
Then I invite you to expand your thinking to include the Earth...close your eyes for a minute and imagine what it might feel like to be Earth...what would be the equivalent of hair on a planetary being?
It's all a matter of perspective.
If I were Earth, my hair might be 2D beings...but I'm not :p. My single hairs are not instilled with 2D consciousness, plants are.
Quote:Actually, water changes very much. People think all water is the same, but it isn't. It varies wildly, with many constituents. (I am in the water business.) It may have a variety of minerals, chemicals, toxins, microorganisms, etc. as well have different properties regarding pH, oxidation reduction potential, structure, surface tension, etc.
Water doesn't stay the same. It's constantly interacting with its environment.
And rocks change too. It just takes them a lot longer, so to us it looks like they're staying the same.
But it's still water, right? Regardless of what's in it. Rocks too. They change form, shape, containment, but it's still water/rocks. A beet is no longer a beet after you eat it, but water is still water when it's part of your body (you could find the H2O molecules).
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: Again, let's extend the concept to this density as you are doing. More heinous to murder a less spiritually aware person?
No. That's a stretch. I have given a very precise demarcation. We might not always know whether the entity has reached that point, which is why I would err on the side of caution and never kill any animals, which are clearly higher 2D entities. Nor would I ever cut down an ancient tree (or any tree for that matter, if it can be helped).
Well, if you don't differentiate between different levels of 3D life as far as ending its life, why differentiate between levels of 2D life? This may go back to the individuation discussion.
Quote:(07-07-2011, 05:22 PM)abridgetoofar Wrote: So why not discern that we shouldn't kill entities very close to being very close to being human? (Yes I typed that right :p)
You seem to be implying that I am advocating some sort of elitism. Not at all. The demarcation is the qualifier that Ra gave us, for self-awareness. This is just my opinion of course, but again, until we are able to exist only on sunlight, it seems the most logical demarcation to me.
Not at all what I was implying. You'll see in the quote below that the demarcation Ra gave us for self-awareness was 3rd density. It's something our yellow ray body awards us.
Quote:20.3 Questioner: So more and more second-density entities are making it into third density. Can you give me an example of a second-density entity coming into the third density in the recent past?
Ra: I am Ra. Perhaps the most common occurrence of second-density graduation during third-density cycle is the so-called pet.
For the animal which is exposed to the individualizing influences of the bond between animal and third-density entity, this individuation causes a sharp rise in the potential of the second density entity so that upon the cessation of physical complex the mind/body complex does not return into the undifferentiated consciousness of that species, if you will.
A consciousness does not experience true self-awareness of individuation until it is harvested to 3rd density. I do not place a line between plant and animal the way you do not place a line between less spiritually aware person and more spiritually aware person. If I could, I'd place the line between 1D and 2D, but our Logos was a jerk. Maybe we should go on a hunger strike? Protest our Logos' choice of environment encouraging us to eat 2D entities.
(07-07-2011, 09:37 PM)zenmaster Wrote: I interpret what Ra says differently. 'Love' is an expression of the logos. It is what has been uniquely actualized from that template. If we've evolved past the emotional need, then we have the beginnings of compassion - not the longing-for-acceptance stage experienced from late 2D to early-mid 3D.
That 2D dog's 'love' is the expression of the logos of an entity striving to enter 3D experience of self. It's a reflection of 3D catalyst offer to the 2D mind - a type of patterning. There is no capability for willed action, psychological projection, hopes, dreams, etc. 2D green-ray use does go beyond the point required for 2D harvest. It's also not the eventual green-ray activation point in 3D evolutionary learning where incarnations cease to become automatic and self-determination (use of will) is made.
The next-door neighbor's 'love' is similarly limited, not by what the 2D-experience of mind can provide, but by 'polarity' of an enspirited entity. Comparing that 'love' to 4D 'love' is like comparing a line to a plane or circumstantial understanding to certain understanding. It diminishes the concept of love in both cases.
You have a way of describing these concepts very concisely. Thank you for this explanation.
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The only frontier that has ever existed is the self.
The only frontier that has ever existed is the self.