Is Vegitarianism a sin

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I have never found anything in the bible that says being a vegetarian is sinful. I could be a vegetarian, but too many meat eaters in my house, the temptation is to much, so why frustrate myself? I spent 4 years in bible college and run our churches childrens ministry, never did I see anything in scripture that says I am hell bound just because I am a lefty.

I eat as much meat as I can.

Burger and fries? NO! Burger and burger.

(not joking)

To be psuedo-scientific here, apparently a healthy human diet should be mostly vegetable matter with the occasional serve of red meat. (ie: twice a week)

Apparently...

GA

"is vegetarianism a sin?"...

oooh, i do hope so...

Who knows? Maybe it's leftover conditioning from those times I went to sunday school as a kid. Maybe I don't torture small animals because I have an empathic response that makes me feel what I think they're feeling. Perhaps my moral code is simply a matter of personal preference and could easily have been "People who let you kill them were unfit and deserved it" or "Never kill people, even if they're trying to kill you", but just happens to be "Try to minimise suffering in the world by not killing people, but don't hesitate to defend yourself or others". I think it's my empathy that does it, but I'm a sample size of 1, so there's no way to say for sure.

My morality is also shaped by my goals, which can override my empathic response. Thus, if one of my goals was to cure cancer, I might overcome my dislike of iradiating mice and chopping them up. If I really, really wanted to turn the world into a nuclear wasteland, I'd have to deal with the empathic burden of it and probably wouldn't be able to any more than I could hold my hand in a fire. Since I generally want the world to be a nice place, I don't have to struggle much, though I do find it rather unplesant when I'm digging in the garden, since I think of all the worms I'm chopping in half.

To me, relying on an external source for moral guidance sounds like a very risky proposition, and could lead to such lines of thinking as "it's ok to kill every man woman and child if god says so, and anyone who says otherwise is evil", but since most of the kids I grew up with seemed to enjoy stamping on worms when they came out after it rained (while I watched in horror and frustration), perhaps an external moral code is the best many people can hope for to make up for their empathic deficits.

Further reading:
http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/moralsource.htm
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/sn-morality.html

I do not believe that vegetarianism is a sin. It is a choice that probably will not affect our eternity and differs from person to person. We all have our different favourite foods and drinks, right?

Personally, I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't have anything wrong with people who choose that lifestyle, as long as they are doing it healthily (did I spell that right?). As long as they see to it that they're getting what their body needs to function properly (and not trying to make me be a vegetarian), there shouldn't be a problem to it. If they do not make healthy choices with what they eat, then it becomes a sin because we are supposed to take good care of our bodies.

Then it is up to us to use common sense and not kill people. Generally, this is frowned upon in society, even when authority calls for us to do so. People tend to follow, I think, because they don't think for themselves and are made into mindless slaves of the authority.

Most of the western world are living in sin then with that one then as the average diet isnt healthy. I think you need to work hard to be a vegetarian and get the right amount of iron and protein ect. A lot of vegetarians look very pale and thin to me but i notice after having a vegetarian meal my craps runs very smooth so i now try to cut down a little on meat.

This is the kind of thing that I think is confusing to a lot of people.
Who says we are supposed to ? I know, your body is your temple. It's very poetic, but it confuses people.
I prefer to look at morality as something that is very real and universal.
Something like natural law, not some set of rules that were dictated to some old guy in the desert.

It's like eamonn was saying, if you want your craps to run smooth, then don't eat much meat.

If you want your mind to be calm and peaceful then
don't eat much meat.



Of course the same goes for all other types of morality.

i am rather assuming that the question asked in this thread is supposed to be a bit of a joke.

i mean - does anybody actually think that there's a real question as to whether or not being a veggie is a sin? really?

will actholics have to confess to not eating meat in the confessional? can youimagine a priest having to deal with that?

come on, chaps - surely this isn't serious?

The only Catholic nun I know well is a vegetarian. I've assited her in running retreats...she always offers veggie alternatives...

To me, the question is how moral is it for me to eat meat, given that I believe it is healthier and takes less resources to be a vegetarian.

BeeBee

Last edited by BeeBee on 08 Sep 2005, 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If you read everything else I wrote, I meant we're supposed to take care of our bodies by making sure they have good nutrition, as well as exercise. I have heard the "your body is a temple" speech, too. Such metaphores are confusing and are not to be taken literally.

Vivi, what do you mean by a joke? I think it's an honest question that some people may have. In a society where vegetarianism is not the norm, people will question that which is different than they are.

it's the use of the word "sin" which made me wonder. perhaps i'm being particularly aspish, and taking it literally. i was a catholic for years, but people here do seem to be bringing religion and morality into it.

i became a veggie in 1980. there were certainly FAR fewer of us about then. but i was considered eccentric by then anyway, so no-one who knew me was particularly perturbed.

Namiko, I was only commenting on your use of the phrase
"supposed to." It is the kind of thing that people say all the time when talking about morality. But it just confuses things. Just as the word "sin" suggests something you are not "supposed to" do.

I didn't take this as a joke, though it may have been. Nonetheless it points to a common line of reasoning used to condemn certain behaviours. That of "we were designed for this, so the alternative is a sin."

I wish people could see morality as a natural thing, and not something that is prescribed. For instance, when I was a kid, I was pluging in something electrical, and squeezing the prongs together with my fingers.
My grandfather yelled at me. This was his way of telling me I wasn't "supposed to" do that. He was punishing my behavior so that I would not continue on that course of action.
Now when christians talk about morality, they speak of it in these terms, of God not wanting you to do something, so he punishes you.
But I think the truth is closer to what would have happened had my grandfather not been there. If I had plugged the cord in, I would have recieved a shock and I would have learned not to do that again.

This is a pet pieve of mine, forgive me for ranting.

Acutally, the protien and iron things are a myth - if you eat a variety of foods as a vegan those aren't a problem at all - the whole thing was based on studies done on rats, and, having rats as companion animals, I can attest to the fact that their little metabolisms do not work like a human's . . . I think I figured it out one time and I think if you eat a peanut butter sandwich and two of those little packets of oatmeal a day you get enough protein, according to HUMAN studies . . .

The pain is B-12 - fortunately for me, I LOVE sea weed, but the other solution is to just take a pill to save yourself the time . . .

Thanks for the response, and the links. I never really understood the viewpoint of the moral atheist before, but I think I see it now.




I disagree. What you describe, the natural effects of ones actions, could never produce morals as they are commonly defined, many things that morality (even non-religious morality) forbids produce no negative consequences for the person doing it. Lying for example, often times a lie is very benificial for the person lying.

How can it be immoral to eat meat? It's so yummy...*drolls*...Maybe I'm biased because I'm related to a butcher?