Plant eating

[Polaris]

Disclaimer: this is not an attack on christianity. I am merely trying to understand stuff by asking questions and throwing ideas around. I think it's still on topic, but @Minuend can split thread if it's getting too woo....

Not woo-woo enough.

...that's as much woo as I can muster up, I'm afraid

Look at the Bible verse I posted earlier in this thread which states that a compassionate person will be kind even to an animal. This is despite believing that only humans have souls. Yet, they may still eat meat because the act of eating meat doesn't imply an explicit cruelty on the part of the consumer.

I was referring to "the average human being" in that paragraph, implying that most people, if given an exuse as per the misinterpreted prescriptions of a so-called higher authority, will take the easy way out, thereby contributing to indirect or direct abuse through their choices (I am by no means excluded from this group). As much as we live in a secular society, our entire moral foundation is still more or less grounded in the remnants of the christian belief system.

During my upbringing christianity was taught in a dogmatic, prescriptive fashion with not much room left for interpretation. Humans were above animals, and men were above women. Wam, bam, thankyou mam. How is average joe blow/jane wane going to interpret that? With nuance and careful consideration? Most christians I encountered were not interested in studying the bible with any degree of scholarly fervour. More often than not, I witnessed abuse as per the convenient interpretations of the bible.

This is what I mean by conditioning; people justifying hierarchial abuse through religious absolution, and then carrying on with the same behaviour, but under a different banner because religion is not considerd cool and edgy in the current social landscape.

If mind and matter is the same, there is no heaven or hell

How does this follow?

I kind of explained that in the rest of the paragraph? I think this logic makes more sense than the heaven/hell narratives, to be honest.

If humans are taught to rely on primitive external motivators/fear based social imprinting such as the imminent threat of doom, or the reward of eternal bliss, how is that going to result in actions from a genuine desire to be good? Isn't that just setting up for serious self-sabotage? An intrinsic motivation to act 'good' can only come from a place of recognition of the self as being intrinsically bound to everything. We don't need christianity to acknowledge that. We already understand that intuitively, if we open our horizons a little bit more.

Okay, I've officially gone full woo-woo in public.

 

[Black Rose]

Robin William was in a movie called "What Dreams May Come". According to the movie, when you die, the spirit realm exactly matches the way you viewed yourself during every part of your life. Take it that most people go on not really questioning life or anything. Things are the same in the next life as they are here. A video I saw said that some people give themselves over to complete evil. That can't pleasant place in the hereafter. But it is only hypothetically based on a movie by Robin Williams so...

The meaning of soul is just the singular subjective existence of a being. I am not my dog. My dog is not you. You are not me. Each has a separate subjective existence (subjectivity) so that is the soul. Can plants have subjectivity? A soul? Maybe. But why. Why must matter allow subjectivity in one form but not another? Why my dead body have no subjectivity but my animate body does? Where did the subjectivity go or is it still in the atoms but spread apart?

I have a subjective existence.
No philosopher nor scientist knows why.
Materialism vs Idealism. ?

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

I was referring to "the average human being" in that paragraph, implying that most people, if given an exuse as per the misinterpreted prescriptions of a so-called higher authority, will take the easy way out, thereby contributing to indirect or direct abuse through their choices (I am by no means excluded from this group). As much as we live in a secular society, our entire moral foundation is still more or less grounded in the remnants of the christian belief system.

I guess people will use any excuse they can find, then, won't they? The Bible, even in saying that a person is worth more than hundreds of an animal, isn't then saying to go and abuse the animal. But it does give permission to eat animals.

Though, eating meat could perhaps be considered indirect abuse. Like buying clothes made by labourers in poor conditions could be considered indirect abuse. I actually feel cognitive dissonance in having pets but eating meat. I try to give my pets a good life, but then go ahead and buy the meat of an animal which has certainly not been given a good life.

During my upbringing christianity was taught in a dogmatic, prescriptive fashion with not much room left for interpretation. Humans were above animals, and men were above women. Wam, bam, thankyou mam. How is average joe blow/jane wane going to interpret that? With nuance and careful consideration? Most christians I encountered were not interested in studying the bible with any degree of scholarly fervour. More often than not, I witnessed abuse as per the convenient interpretations of the bible.

This is what I mean by conditioning; people justifying hierarchial abuse through religious absolution, and then carrying on with the same behaviour, but under a different banner because religion is not considerd cool and edgy in the current social landscape.

Well, being above someone/something doesn't justify abuse. It's still the case that one should extend kindness to all. But if people have unkindness stored within them, then this will be expressed in whatever way that they can find. I guess we can say that Christianity hasn't succeeded in creating universal kindness amongst people (if that was ever its goal) but that may be due in large part to the possibility than many people are unable to ever understand its message.

So, the behaviours continue after the religion has left not just because the effects of the religion linger on, but because they were stemming from innate parts of the human soul, or some human souls.

I kind of explained that in the rest of the paragraph? I think this logic makes more sense than the heaven/hell narratives, to be honest.

If humans are taught to rely on primitive external motivators/fear based social imprinting such as the imminent threat of doom, or the reward of eternal bliss, how is that going to result in actions from a genuine desire to be good? Isn't that just setting up for serious self-sabotage? An intrinsic motivation to act 'good' can only come from a place of recognition of the self as being intrinsically bound to everything. We don't need christianity to acknowledge that. We already understand that intuitively, if we open our horizons a little bit more.

Well, one should do good not out of wanting to be rewarded or avoid punishment, but simply because it is good.

My behaviour has not changed a great deal from when I was agnostic to now that I am religious. However, one thing that has changed is that I have a more accepting attitude to life. I am more able to deal with unpleasant situations with a state of acceptance because I understand that things will be set right in the end. I am no longer angry at the wrongdoing of others or the happenings of chance, because it is not my place to set things right for others, and chance is something of an illusion.

It says do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. To me, this means that we should act out of pure selflessness, but yet we know that we will be rewarded for it. Yet, we only receive the true reward if we do not expect to be rewarded for what we do. So, why were we told about it at all then? Like I said, one reason is that it does lead to a kind of inner peace.

I don't know what you mean by the self being intrinsically bound to everything. To my mind, the motivation to be good comes simply from the recognition that other beings exist and are conscious just as you are, and just as you would want to be treated with kindness, so too should you treat others with kindness.

Okay, I've officially gone full woo-woo in public.

No shame; the woo is the way!

 

[The Grey Man]

I don't completely follow, but does this amount to a rejection of the soul?

It's a rejection of the conception of the soul as something that has "longitudinal" continuity backwards and forwards in time in its past and future selves and not "lateral" continuity in the other beings that inhabit the world. I think it has both. I'm "me", you're "me", we're all "me": this is is because "me" is a metaphysical indexing term which marks the speaker's present mental state. Its physical (objective) counterpart is "here", which indicates one's present location in space. It is as natural to think of one's "longitudinal" self as the central axis of one's life as it is to think that the Sun revolves around the Earth, and no less erroneous. The idea that one's own wellbeing is of greater importance than that of others is as insupportable as the geocentric model of the solar system, though it is taken for granted by many, who suppose that they will never be those others. Still, they will be, have been, are. To say, when I go to sleep, that I will wake up in the morning "as myself and no other" is meaningless. Everyone is "myself".

But I also think that when we treat nature in a way which increases its sustainability - something we should be doing anyway from a purely anthropocentric perspective - then we would probably be roughly acting in line with the utilitarian principle when applied to both living and non-living aspects of the world.

It's unclear to me how you came to this conclusion. If pain is resistance to a system reaching equilibrium and if by sustainability you mean the prolongation of the existence of organized life on this planet, then wouldn't sustainability increase pain since organization = order = resistance to entropy?

 

[redbaron]

 

[Black Rose]

Why Meat is the Best Worst Thing in the World

 

[ZenRaiden]

Eating meat is human instinct. We are instructed by the tongue and by the brain instinctively to eat meat. Its natural. That doesnt mean its correct. Eating meat everyday or twice daily is bad for your health. People who eat meat at such amounts are likely to hurt themselves in the long run. People do it, because no one usually dies instantly after eating a steak nor after many steaks. Science of diet however still tells us universally that its bad. WHO has specific amounts of meat per week that are healthy, but there is growing body of evidence and great many scientist, diet experts and doctors support the idea of vegganism. If you really are worried about missing the vitamins from meat you can get enough of it just by eating few grams of meat every month once.

Pracitcally speaking meat production is not ecological nor sustainable in the long run.
Its also not as nutritious as plant diet filled with variety of plants. Vegans forgo milk as well as they very well know that calcium can be gotten from plants in more digestible forms. That leaves us with plants, but humans dont like plants. Most vegan recieps suck, because they are filled with all kinds of flavours and suggars in order to make plant eating more enjoyable. But also makes vegan recieps as bad for health as normal diets given the amounts of salt and suggars used. Overall the reason most people avoid veganism is simply, because its just not that tasty and our brain prefers instinctively meat over broccoli. In the olden days people ate meat in lesser amount and it was more justifible since resources were more scarce, overall though meat was bad for people always the same way. Eskimoes whos diet was all meat had terrible health as science suggests.
Bottom line if you eat meat its not, for rational reasons, but probably, because its convenient way to satisfy human taste buds.