Comment by sky-kedge0749 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sky-kedge0749 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I'm vegetarian and not vegan partly because the full purity and ingredient checking and all that is not good for my mental health. So maybe I understand where you are coming from, sort of, in a secular way.

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 trust 2,000 years of accumulated wisdom in my spiritual tradition more than I trust my own judgement. I don't completely disregard my own judgement, but I also recognize that I am easily deceived, I lack discernment, and that I cannot always trust my own motives, nor am I always aware of the consequences of my actions. That's why I have a priest, and why I rely on the traditions of my faith.

There is plenty of meat available that is almost cruelty-free. A factory farmed broiler chicken lives its entire 60,480 minutes (six weeks) in agony, while a hunted deer or pastured cow might only suffer a few minutes, and for the deer you might be saving it from an even worse fate. Maybe you are already buying meat that way.

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.

My meat intake all comes from locally raised meat where I physically go to the farm and can see how the animals are being treated.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com