Not sure about that, lot of people are completely fine with human being killed for several reasons (punishment for robbery just to give you an example).
Life survives on life. Something died so that you could live today. I think about that often, and I think that growing up confronting the reality of surviving as a person by eating food that was once alive in a very immediate way helps me not take food for granted and to always be grateful for the daily sacrifices that are made so that I can live.
In my will, I have outlined that I want my body to be put into a burlap sack with no embalming fluid and be returned to earth as soon as possible after my death so that I can be part of the same chain of life for other living things. Life lives by the death of other living things. We cannot change that, but we can at least be grateful and present with that reality.
Saying a prayer doesn’t change anything. You didn’t give the animal the best life you could. You gave it the best life until you decide you wanted to consume it for your pleasure. Not survival, pleasure.
And vegans are well aware that life consumes life. Vegans consume living things. They just don’t consume living things which are capable of terror or depression and suffering.
Say a prayer all you want, but harming an animal when you don’t need to is the act of abusing an animal for pleasure. I can say a prayer and be remorseful and thank a dog for its sacrifice after I put it in a dog fight and it got ripped apart, but that’s still animal abuse. It’s still wrong. And like eating animals in the developed world, it’s for pleasure.
We were not wealthy and did not have a store close enough to run to every day for fresh produce. We took care of our animals because we relied on them for our survival. We did not take that for granted, and we did not do it for pleasure.
I understand that in an urban environment, surrounded by bountiful food (most of which is raised in other countries and is only available, out of local season, because of a complex web of global trade) the idea of killing and eating an animal can seem cruel or unnecessary. But your lack of experience of true poverty and lack of access to that sort of bounteous and constant source of non-animal products does not make all meat eaters inhumane and uncaring.
I find your broad, general statements of moral superiority because of your vegan lifestyle to be ignorant and a result of having grown up in opulence and wealth, surrounded by bounty and options, with little reflection or concern for those who did not grow up in those circumstances, or consideration as to whether they could still be moral and respectful in their desperation and struggles to survive.
There is no moral obligation in a situation with a lack of choice. However, the VAST majority of people are not in situations where animal products must be eaten to survive.
But are you in that situation now? Do you need to eat animals to survive? If not, why do you do it?
We are called to walk the Royal Path, and for those in the workaday world, that includes eating meat sometimes, and not eating meat sometimes. Regardless of what we are eating, however, we offer prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving and sorrow for living by the death of other living things.
If I were an Orthodox Christian monk, I would follow the restrictions I listed above all the time because those foods are known to enflame the passions, but are more necessary when one is working for a living and raising a family. I would spend much more time in prayer than my current schedule allows, however, but that is not my path at this time.
If I'm interpreting this correctly, you're saying you eat meat for 2 reasons. The first is that not doing so would make you too prideful, and the second is because it's in the "Royal Path", which we are called to.
I think the pigs, sheep, chickens, etc. would prefer you feel a little prideful, compared to what happens to them when you eat to them [1]. As for the "Royal Path" can you elaborate? Why does the Royal Path condone violence against non-humans?
It seems unfair to me that sentient animals need to die in your very personal battle with pride. Do you not see that as unfair?
Also, are you prideful when you abstain from eating baboon? Or when you abstain from eating hippopotamus, or giant squid? Why is it that pridefulness comes from abstaining from pig and chicken, but not any other animals you already don't eat?
I don't think this will make sense to you, and I understand why it wouldn't, but I trust the traditions of my faith, and the teachings of the Church Fathers in my tradition, more than I trust my own judgement.
The "higher path" in Orthodoxy is the monastic life, which includes not eating meat, dairy, eggs, (and only rarely eating olive oil and wine), but I am not a monk. And the "lower path" in Orthodoxy is to live in the world and to fast from those things for more days during the year than not. I follow the liturgical calendar, and I follow the teachings of my faith because I trust the accumulated wisdom of my faith more than I trust my own judgement, because I lack discernment and spiritual maturity. May God have mercy on us all. Please forgive me for not having a clearer or more satisfying answer for you.
That said I think it's important to remember that eating meat is not about you or me, it's about the animals we are (not) eating. The animal doesn't care about our reasons. If you imprisoned a cat and some days you tortured it and some days you left it alone, the cat would not care why. It could not even understand why and causing it pain for one's own spiritual growth seems, respectfully, prideful to me. There is no ethical middle path between sometimes torturing a cat and sometimes not. Probably if you told your priest about an imprisoned cat you were sometimes torturing he would tell you to release it immediately.
I'm sorry that I compared what you feel to be a religious necessity to eat meat to torturing a cat. That was disrespectful. Discussions on eating meat should be less all-or-nothing. For example there is a tremendous amount of food wasted in the U.S., including animal products: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22890292/food-waste-meat-.... Reducing food waste is something I think everyone can support.
I also agree that the "all or nothing" kind of tone that many people who advocate against eating meat takes is a hard line to sell. A "try a plant-based meal once a week" would be a much easier sell.