vegetarians in paganism

I've done some reading on paganism but I was wondering how does the pagan belief see vegetarianism?
I know pagans have a great respect for nature, so do they aprove of killing animals for food, clothing, experiments and other things?

I like learning about diferent beliefs and religions and I wanted to see how well my beliefs fit in to paganism.

 

Eating meat is a major part of my beliefs actually. Respect for nature doesnt mean hugging trees and bunnies, it means going the course that nature is, staying with natural cycle. Its the same sense as a Lion, living his natural course in nature, and is a meat eater. To be a vegetarian would be changing his natural way.

But, on the flip side, some pagans would disagree with me, strongly, and they have that right, and are just as pagan as I. Thats the beauty of it, there isnt a set dogma.

 

The Cherokee believe that you must ask an animal's forgiveness before you kill it. If you dont then it causes a new disease to enter the world. Plants like people so they create a cure for that disease.

 

That's an interesting idea

Would certainly explain BSE, avarian flu, et all.

I have been vegetarian (and indeed pro animal rights) just slightly longer than pagan, so my reasons for the diet change were secular. Though for the most part the two kind of evolved together and make sense being interlinked.

Do respect nature and understand. Have no delusions about the meat industry and how far removed it is from that. Am tolerant enough of free range farms those who hunt out of necessity and respect for nature, it's just that most people don't tend to live like that any more.

I couldn't bring myself to kill another creature, unless my life absolutly depended on it (which it never will). So have the honesty to live by that and forgo meat rather than being a hypocritical coward and getting meat all clean and pretty in plastic wrap and living in denial about the methods behind it.

My connection to the cycles of nature is though the growth and harvest of plants. That is just as key to human survival, and has been all through history. Have the utmost compassion and respect for animals, and express that by not having them killed on my behalf.

 

I was a vegan for medical reasons for several years. Then one day I was driving through Baltimore and passed Polock Johnny's hotdog shop... caught a whiff of brats on the fire and the rest was history.

But we only eat meat once a week or so.

 

the cycle has already been broken... and theres is no respect for animals in the slaughterhouse, it just to make money. Have you seen the way they are treated...
We are not cave men anymore... we can think for ourselves and decide what is good for us and for nature. Animals hunt because it's in there nature, and I haven't seen a lion go to buy an antilope all nicelly packed and seasoned. It is totally diferent for un humans... We cant see ourself like animals in need of meat. Cause we don't need it to survive like wild animals do.

Do you know how much land and forest is destroyed to raise animals for food?
And how much food it takes to make these animal fat? The amount of grains used to feed cows could feed many many hungry people around the world.
I'm not starting a fight...don't get me wrong.
I just would like people to understand that it's more than just not wanting to eat animals.
I suggest you read up on it. It is very interesting. Even if you think i'm wrong... just read up on the facts and how it afects the planet and the ecosystem...

www.goveg.com is a good source of info
I would like to know what you think about that

 

It's all an option. I'm a pagan and I see the commercial market for meat as wrong. I think factory farms are wrong. If you are going to eat meat, hunt for it yourself, where animals have been free and not bred to become a slab of table meat.

And I side with Heron on the respect for nature thing...

 

I totally agree with you there Silent, my Veganism goes hand in hand with my Paganism. Although if I wasn't Pagan I'd still be Vegan.

Trying to 'get people to understand' is a near pointless battle. People generally come to it on their own, very few are ... converted, for lack of a better word. And would you believe that a hell of a lot of people know about most of the comments you mentioned above but it's their choice after all.

Everyone has their own beliefs, respecting eachother's beliefs is the biggest battle, whether we believe they're right or wrong

 

Silent, we are animals, it was when we took on the ideas of being special and seperate that we had to seek religion.

When we were just animals, we never had to ask, we just were.

Believe me though, i think agriculture is the worst thing we ever
discovered, it lead to war and over population, and i would love
to live off the land and hunt my own food all the time. But sadly
that isnt very easy to do, i think the goverment would take my
children away if we lived in a cave and only hunted our food.

But, had it not been for raising food for slaughter and crop for reeping,
then 80% of us wouldnt be here to make this debate.

 

Well said, Heron.

It is okay to kill an animal as long as you do so respectfully and don't waste. There's no difference in killing a plant and killing an animal--both are alive and both have consciousness. Of course, some pagans might refute what I have said here.

One thing I don't understand about vegatarians is that (a) they don't see that other animals are meat-eaters and if they were hungry and had the chance they would kill a human for food. That's the law of life. (b) The mass propagation of fields for totalitarian agriculture is just as destructive to animals as killing them directly because it destroys their homes and generally exhausts the planet's resources.

One very good source on this issue is Daniel Quinn, whose website is www.ishmael.org. You can go to the Q&A section and click vegatarianism to see his views---he is very much in consensus with the core pagan beliefs, in my opinion (even though he is not purely pagan).

One book he published very recently, The Tales of Adam, is a wonderful text on this subject, and he discusses at length the law of life and giving/taking from the gods and living in balance. Although I am not quite finished yet, I would highly recommend it.

 

A) Vegetarianism is all about CHOICE! Do you think we're that stupid that we don't that other animals are omnivores and carnivores? If a tiger or lion decided to eat me then fine, I'd make a nice snack for it, but if I had to choose to eat it or not then I would not because that is my CHOICE!!!

B) When you grow plants for food in fields you have to rotate the land you grow on all the time, thus giving the land time to heal. Have you thought about cattle farming white raven?? Have you looked at how mass farming is destroying the land the animals are grazed on? Have you heard about how much rainforest has been lost because of cattle-farming? And what about the methane gases that are let loose a million-fold into the atmosphere causing the holes in the ozone layer?
Lastly, how can you say that taking a seed, planting it, growing it, harvesting it and then re-sowing it is exhausting the planets resources???

 

Exactly

Nothing is perfect, and never will be. But a plant based diet is I suppose the lesser of the two evils. Am just trying to lessen my burden on the planet and do what seems right.

Do respect other choices, have to for the sake of sanity and harmonious living arrangements. Still after three years of studying, and almost two and a half of living, a vegetarian life do not take very well to the same absurd arguments or the subtle slurs to my intelligence/knowledge. Still shall try to address them because, hmm whatever...

A) Think you'll find most animals aren't carnivores, certainly the ones that wind up on dinner plates are. Even amongst true carnivores very few have the inclination or capability prey on people. Seriously, when was the last time a spider or cat took down a human?
Humans are top of the food chain. It is very rare for wild animals to attack people, they'd rather eat their natural prey. Just like they've been doing for centuries without human intervention.

B) If you care that much about the damage of agriculture then you should definetly be a vegetarian. The amount of food grown to feed animals could feed many times that many people.
Again lesser of two evils.

 

Why not just not eat beef then? or only buy beef from local farmers?

Or why not hunt cows? lol, they are really easy prey, they just stand there.

Religion, eco-sense, and diet all be damned, I like meat, because I am a meat
eater, hence my nice pointy meat eating teeth.

 

Well said, Heron. The way I see it, if someone wants to be vegetarian, or vegan, hey, I respect that. I don't agree with it, but I respect it. It's a hard diet to follow. Besides, it means more meat for me! LOL

I'd much rather raise my own food humanly and peacfully, or hunt for my food. However, the government interjects with too many laws, making it financially unfeasible for me. So I go to the supermarket.

 

You have to consider that herbivorous animals are always the dumb ones too.

Eating meat is what caused our brains to grow the way they did, and without
it we would still be sitting in a tree eating apples. We ate meat, which led to
being smarter which led to being able to hunt which led to being smarter.

Meat eating made us what we are.

 

Hey Heron, come on over tonight. I have a pot of black bean and venison chili (not ground, but an entire shank) cooking right now. And celtgrrl is picking up some cornbread... plenty for everyone!

 

No need to get angry, I was not meaning to insult anyone. Yes, I know that cattle farming is destroying the earth as well, and that is why I support local small farmers. But you cannot deny that the ground is being stripped of its nutrients by mass-market agriculture.

It's your choice if you want to be a vegatarian, and I have absolutely no problem with that. But I hear the plants talk to me, and I see the spirits in them just as much as I hear the animals speak. And to me, to hack down a living plant is not a lesser evil than killing an animal. Nor is it, I think, an evil to need to live. It is how life works. I live off of the world and take only what I need to take. If an animal wanted to kill and eat me for nurishment, then that is the way the world works and none should curse the animal for wanting to receive the gods'. And if I want to kill an animal and eat it for nurishment, then that is the way the world works and none should curse me for wanting to receive the gods' bounty.

I have many vegetarian friends whose views I respect, but I do not respect those who call me a murderer because I am attempting to eat. No one respects the animals more than I do, and that is why I treat them with utmost respect, and I know that the animal's spirit lives on through me. It is a cycle.

And please, there's no need to get militant. I was not trying to cause hostility.

 

Again, I'll say what I said to Lazuli Blue.

And I realize that humans are generally are at the top of the food chain. But you cannot tell me that a lion who has been starving for days and comes across a bushman will not devour him? And besides, I was referring more to the idea that there is no morality in the animal world that prevents them from eating meat; there are many herbivorous species, but they do this because evolutionary adaptations make it more advantageous for them to eat plants. A bear does not ask whether or not it is murder to kill a fish and eat it--it just does.

As far as the whole agriculture thing--yes, I agree the farming of animals harmful as well as the harvesting of crops. That is why I support small farmers and encourage hunting. However, I think that totalitarian agriculture is causing many problems through mistreatment of the land---desertification in Africa and the stripping of nutrients from the soil will prove to be major issues soon. Pity we can't return to the hunter-gatherer days... (although I suppose there's nothing stopping you, it's just impractical for most people with all the urbanization and everything today)

But as the topic originally intended, this is a very good excerpt from a modern writer that I think aptly describes the view of ancient paganism on eating habits:

"God is life in abundance wherever life is found, but not for all every season. When the locusts thrive, the birds feast and the bison and the deer go hungry; still that place is as full of life as it was before and as full of life as it can be. No place where there is life is a desert, except to man.

... (a portion I have taken out for length in which Adam and Abel find and kill a goat on the hunt, and then Abel almost kills a rabbit before Adam stops him; when Abel asks his father the reason for this behavior, Adam says the rabbit has business to tend to)

'Here's a story for you. One day my son Abel went out hunting by himself and his path crossed the path of a lion returning to its den. This lion had been hunting all day without luck and knew its mate and cubs would be hungry. So it fell upon Abel, killed him, and carried him off to its den. Now tell me what you think of this story and what I would do if it happened to you in fact.'

Abel thought for a while and said, 'I think you would grieve for me.'

'You're right,' Adam replied. 'I would grieve for you, but I wouldn't be angry with the lion for taking what the god had sent for its hunger. Now here's a second story. One day Abel went out hunting by himself and his path crossed the path of a lion returning to its den. This lion was carrying a goat in its jaws, but seeing Abel it dropped the goat and fell upon him, saying to itself, 'I will have the goat and the boy as well.' Now tell me what you think of this story and what I would do if this happened to you in fact.'

Abel thought again and said, 'I think no lion would do that.'

'You're wrong,' Adam replied. 'A certain kind of lion would do that, and I would track it down and kill it, because it's a lion gone mad, a lion that kills whatever it sees, beyond need. It's thinking: "If I kill everything I see, then the gods will have no power over me and will never be able to say, 'Today it's the lion's turn to die.' I'll kill everything in the world so that I alone may live. I'll eat the hare that would have been the fox's, and the fox will die; I'll eat the antelope that would have been the wolf's and the wolf will die; but I will live. I shall decide who eats and who starves, who lives and who dies. In this way I shall live forever and thwart the gods." And this madness makes the lion into a murderer of all life.'

Then Adam went on: 'The goat and the rabbit we saw today both belonged to the life of this place, which is god; both were living in its hand, as were we. But the rabbit was not ours to kill. The goat was ours; the god sent it to us as its gift. But the rabbit still belonged to the god; it had another hour or another day or another year to live in the god's hand. To have killed it would have been to steal what belonged to the god, and that would have been murder.'

...

So it was that, in those days, the gods were allowed to tend the garden they had sown. Where they sent the fire of life, there it flowed, and where they turned it aside, there it ebbed, as they would have it."

-Daniel Quinn, Tales of Adam

 

Very interesting passage, thanks for that.
Some good ideas, and can appreciate those ideas. Still think we've thrown nature too out of whack to really live and be that way.

I don't have a problem with meat eating purely in itself, was raised omni and all. It's the modern industry with its inherent cruelty I object to and boycott. The evolutionary stance is fair enough, can appreciate that, but we've come far enough have the options and intellect to make choices. Paraphrasing Mark Twain here ... We may have intellectual superiority over animals, but the fact we can and do inflict such cruelty doesn't say much for our morality as a species, we're still a long way behind these supposedly lesser animals.

Have the utmost respect for hunters (well those who hunt with respect and out of necessity) would be wonderful to do back to the past ways of living in that respect. Then we could be like Adam & Abel, rather than that crazed lion humanity has become.

So really don't mean to angry or militant, but it's the nature of debate. Far as those go this is actually a really good one.

 

I don't know a whole lot of pagans in person (that is, off the net), and so I can't claim to speak for everyone. However, more of the pagans I know are non-vegetarian than vegetarian.