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P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat
Veganism/vegetarianism and "ethical" lifestyle choices
- Thread starter swilow
- Start date
What 23
Ex-Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2013
- Messages
- 3,905
I've met someone like that (allergic to sunlight). It was before I knew I was allergic to things, but had symptoms (life, basically). Can she not have any exposure? What happens? That would be crazy.
With respect, and appreciation for your offer, I think you underestimate what I've tried. I've tried just about everything under the sun that I can think of. There may be some things. I also isolate things, testing them separately. Been to foreign markets in search of food I haven't had.
Oddly enough perhaps I seem to do okay with nuts (sometimes I think it is symbolic/with inference, haha), as long as they are sprouted and dried properly. But im not positive lately. Some of it I wonder if it is mold issues. Mold/bacteria is everywhere. Some batches I can handle. Some I can't. Seemingly. It is hard to tell. Sometimes I think the solution is having everything pristine, fresh from the earth. Don't know. Some maybe.
I may give it some thought, though, and I appreciate the offer.
With respect, and appreciation for your offer, I think you underestimate what I've tried. I've tried just about everything under the sun that I can think of. There may be some things. I also isolate things, testing them separately. Been to foreign markets in search of food I haven't had.
Oddly enough perhaps I seem to do okay with nuts (sometimes I think it is symbolic/with inference, haha), as long as they are sprouted and dried properly. But im not positive lately. Some of it I wonder if it is mold issues. Mold/bacteria is everywhere. Some batches I can handle. Some I can't. Seemingly. It is hard to tell. Sometimes I think the solution is having everything pristine, fresh from the earth. Don't know. Some maybe.
I may give it some thought, though, and I appreciate the offer.
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ForEverAfter
Ex-Bluelighter
She tries to avoid sunlight as much as possible, by staying indoors / wearing protective clothing / using medical sunblock but it isn't really possible to avoid altogether unless she never goes outside and keeps the blinds closed at all times, so she pretty much always has dermatological allergic reactions...
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I would like to let everyone know that I ate 100% vegetarian yesterday.
I feel that it is the least I could do for my bluelight brothers and sisters. As a sign of good faith, I am going to dedicate myself to eating 100% vegetarian, at least once a week.
I feel that it is the least I could do for my bluelight brothers and sisters. As a sign of good faith, I am going to dedicate myself to eating 100% vegetarian, at least once a week.
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I know what freaks people out the most is they think they will have to change the way they live too much. And especially that they will have to miss the salty taste of meat and feel deprived that way. There is no need to miss anything. The different flavours from meat are mostly made up from salt, fat, and some kind of aroma so it can be replaced (especially better than cheap meat).
Some who become vegetarian just start eating Tofu and soya sausages, etc. but you don't have to do that. Many believe living as a vegetarian means following a super-healthy diet and just eating things like nuts and seeds all day, but most don't do that. To make the transition as painless as possible you should try to live as much like what you're used to as possible, unless it's really poor. You don't have to subside on raw vegetables.
If you eat sandwiches for lunch, continue to eat sandwiches, just without meat in them, etc. You can eat scrambled eggs with vegetables for breakfast, and something like pasta for dinner, so you won't even think about what you used to eat. But it takes some time and effort unless you have someone to prepare it for you.
Some who become vegetarian just start eating Tofu and soya sausages, etc. but you don't have to do that. Many believe living as a vegetarian means following a super-healthy diet and just eating things like nuts and seeds all day, but most don't do that. To make the transition as painless as possible you should try to live as much like what you're used to as possible, unless it's really poor. You don't have to subside on raw vegetables.
If you eat sandwiches for lunch, continue to eat sandwiches, just without meat in them, etc. You can eat scrambled eggs with vegetables for breakfast, and something like pasta for dinner, so you won't even think about what you used to eat. But it takes some time and effort unless you have someone to prepare it for you.
murphythecat
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2011
- Messages
- 812
you can repeat that, I feel the same way
killing is not for me and I cannot kill anything anymore and I dont eat meat because of that: animals are beings just like us.
fuck humans for eating them as if animals are inferior: they are not. as if because you can kill a animal and eat it, you should do it. I take control of my responsibility in this life and see clearly that when I buy a piece of meat, it came from a animal I wouldn't have dare to kill and that the more we buy, the more we have to kill to supply the demand.
I understand its easy to see the industry as bigger then us and feel that even if we stop, millions of others wont and will continue to eat meat. but that's not how it works. we all have the responsibility and if we all stop eating meat, the carnage would stop.
anyways!
killing is not for me and I cannot kill anything anymore and I dont eat meat because of that: animals are beings just like us.
fuck humans for eating them as if animals are inferior: they are not. as if because you can kill a animal and eat it, you should do it. I take control of my responsibility in this life and see clearly that when I buy a piece of meat, it came from a animal I wouldn't have dare to kill and that the more we buy, the more we have to kill to supply the demand.
I understand its easy to see the industry as bigger then us and feel that even if we stop, millions of others wont and will continue to eat meat. but that's not how it works. we all have the responsibility and if we all stop eating meat, the carnage would stop.
anyways!
I truly wish to avoid suffering to all beings especially the most innocent, children and animals. And if it can't be avoided, indeed I can do my part which I do daily, helping them and not eating them for God's sake. Ever look into an animals eyes? They are live beings like all of us and deserve compassion and respect.
Those that hunt for kill, sport - I will never understand and I cannot be friends most often with folks of this horrible mindset… There is something missing there indeed… and it saddens me deeply
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ForEverAfter
Ex-Bluelighter
You either kill or you die. Your body kills living things all the time in order to live.
You can't condemn killing, across the board. It doesn't make any sense.
Would you kill a virus, so that you might live?
How do you prevent your body from doing so?
Don't you kill living plants and eat them?
Some animals are inferior, aren't they? I'm not suggesting that people should eat them, but I don't see how you can argue that a mouse isn't "inferior" (in many ways) to a human... Intellectual and functional superiority is pretty much a fact, but that doesn't mean that "inferior" animals deserve to die.
There are too many cows bred for slaughter. They cannot be released into the wild. So they must die, in one way or another... Keeping them alive and healthy costs money. I take it you're not willing to spend your own money on this? If everybody stopped eating meat, we could stop breeding animals for slaughter and prevent future deaths. Domestic chickens must cease to exist. There is no place in nature for them. Chickens have been so inbred, that - when re-introduced into the wild - they constantly lay fertilized eggs (far more than they can care for) and their chicks end up being slaughtered by predators.
There is no way to save these chickens, overnight, that I can see.
Releasing domesticated species into the wild is problematic.
There is no point in getting upset about people eating meat, or judging them, just because you're fortunate enough to be part of the initial movement. Given different circumstances, you might not be who you are. It's not really an accomplishment.
The animal rights movement will take a long time to introduce permanent change.
People will still be eating meat when you're a 100 years old.
That doesn't mean people are evil. Don't say "fuck them!"
You exist as a result of meat eating.
Everything takes time.
We'll get there.
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Smoky
Bluelight Crew
Good point, but some may kill wild animals as they feel they are superior but not all 'eat' animals cos they see them as inferior. I guess some people just are so accustomed to eating meat. I'm accustomed not to eating meat so when I do my body rejects it kinda. I can hardly digest it.
My x bf did a documentary of the slaughter process. It was truly awful to watch… I've also seen 1000's of tiny chicks that just came into this world immediately dumped in a huge machine and compressed to death while they were peeping. It broke my heart, I can't watch those videos at all.
I take responsibility as well.. I can't change anyone else choices, but I can continue to make mine every day.
I don't judge non-vegetarians like you do, Murphy. That way you'd have to judge everyone you meet and humanity as a whole and it just doesn't work in the long run. But I've also been vegetarian for a long time and you just can't do it that way.
I don't interefere with how other people live in any way and I sure can't be bothered starting that argument with many. But it can get to me when people start talking down to vegetarians and try to make themselves come accross as superior as there are no grounds for that. But it's like they see your existence as an implied judgement on themselves and want to get there first before you have the chance to say anything. It's annoying, but I don't see much of that in real life, except for people who are extremely aggressive about making their own way of life seen as the best.
Apart from that, it's just one of the ugly sides of life I don't like to think about much, so I try not to think about it. If you were to think about the conditions of animals in this world all the time, like the fur industry, it would drive you insane. But that is how people generally live with eating meat, aswell, by not thinking about what they're really doing, and most find it very unpleasent to be reminded as well.
I don't interefere with how other people live in any way and I sure can't be bothered starting that argument with many. But it can get to me when people start talking down to vegetarians and try to make themselves come accross as superior as there are no grounds for that. But it's like they see your existence as an implied judgement on themselves and want to get there first before you have the chance to say anything. It's annoying, but I don't see much of that in real life, except for people who are extremely aggressive about making their own way of life seen as the best.
Apart from that, it's just one of the ugly sides of life I don't like to think about much, so I try not to think about it. If you were to think about the conditions of animals in this world all the time, like the fur industry, it would drive you insane. But that is how people generally live with eating meat, aswell, by not thinking about what they're really doing, and most find it very unpleasent to be reminded as well.
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swilow
Bluelight Crew
The wise human knows when to look away...
The world is not as dark as we are led to believe anyhow. There is plenty of light out there, plenty of hope. I encountered it today with my niece and nephew, happily gurgling away, fascinated by their toes, making obscure proclamations at random times...
I try not to also. Its futile and unfair to judge people for one part of their behaviour. Unless you have it all figured out, then I think it best to reserve judgment. 'Best', not always easiest. But agressive vegetarians like our brother Murphy cause problems for the rest of us who are not proselytising. It lumps us into one unreasoning category, and even happened in this thread. It makes this all harder. I have no wish to be in conflict with people; other people seem to enjoy it. Others just cannot see that we are all individuals trying to figure out what the fuck we are.
The world is not as dark as we are led to believe anyhow. There is plenty of light out there, plenty of hope. I encountered it today with my niece and nephew, happily gurgling away, fascinated by their toes, making obscure proclamations at random times...
Ninae said:
I try not to also. Its futile and unfair to judge people for one part of their behaviour. Unless you have it all figured out, then I think it best to reserve judgment. 'Best', not always easiest. But agressive vegetarians like our brother Murphy cause problems for the rest of us who are not proselytising. It lumps us into one unreasoning category, and even happened in this thread. It makes this all harder. I have no wish to be in conflict with people; other people seem to enjoy it. Others just cannot see that we are all individuals trying to figure out what the fuck we are.
If someone wanted to be a vegetarian they would be. If they were open to or interested in it they would say so. If they don't say anything it's likely they're trying to be polite and you can't get anywhere with them.
It's not so much if you're vegetarian or not that cause problems, it's more to do with how someone relates to other people. There are some who feel the need to assert themselves as superior in any context and many are used to being able to bully anyone who are different if they can get away with it in real life. But this is something you can't defend that easily when everyone has time to think about it and it's not possible to make everyone admit that a vegetarian lifestyle is inferior.
That's setting your sights too high no matter how well you usually argue for yourself.
It's not so much if you're vegetarian or not that cause problems, it's more to do with how someone relates to other people. There are some who feel the need to assert themselves as superior in any context and many are used to being able to bully anyone who are different if they can get away with it in real life. But this is something you can't defend that easily when everyone has time to think about it and it's not possible to make everyone admit that a vegetarian lifestyle is inferior.
That's setting your sights too high no matter how well you usually argue for yourself.
RichardMooner
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2014
- Messages
- 351
I think it's always problematic when people start venturing into the territory of absolutism. It's okay to be an absolutist, but it's not okay to be an absolutist if you're going to blindly agree with the culturally pre-defined principles of whatever absolutes you believe in.
With the Organized Christian Church, I see it a lot in the way sins are defined. In the Christian paradigm, stealing is a sin, concretely, but how exactly do you define stealing? Is it a catch all term for taking something that is not yours, or is it dependent on context? Christ says that if an apple falls from your neighbors tree and you eat it, it is theft. But how do you determine the ownership of the apple of tree? If the seed that the apple tree sprang from was blown in by the wind, is it your neighbors, nobody's, or is it the owner of the apple tree the seed came from?
Murphy seems to draw his lines extremely thin. Which is a dangerous thing to do, imo.
ForEverAfter
Ex-Bluelighter
Murphy is a Buddhist fundamentalist, which can be just as dangerous as being a Christian fundamentalist IMO.
I've been trying to tell him this for some time...
...
I'm not familiar with the apple tree parable. I tried to google the keywords apple / jesus / theft and I couldn't find it.
Can you provide a link?
Thanks.
I've been trying to tell him this for some time...
...
I'm not familiar with the apple tree parable. I tried to google the keywords apple / jesus / theft and I couldn't find it.
Can you provide a link?
Thanks.
Whoa...that's a bit of a semantic trap there...or a form of get-out clause that can be applied to everything.
I don't think so much of the concept of "Absolutism" or how it's often used as so many seem to use it as an excuse not to take a stand or to blur the lines between what is good or bad (or even claim there is no such thing as all is subjective, etc). Like arguing rape isn't always rape as a nod can mean a shake in another culture.
So I don't agree with things like that and don't even know how it can be taken seriously sometimes. That way all moral arguments can be reduced to "Let's just agree there is no such thing".
swilow
Bluelight Crew
I don't think there should be any moral absolutes. Such absolute's are often irrational and overly emotional and are therefore easily transgressed because they have no solid ethical framework and collapse under the slightest pressure (Temptation I guess...). Transgression leads us to guilt and self-punishment and the creation of more absolutes to fail at. It seems futile.
Nearly every organised religion is based on them; look at the state of those institutions now. They are left trying to defend the most illogical and unreasonable crap and it, the very thing which gave them their power, is killing them.
Nearly every organised religion is based on them; look at the state of those institutions now. They are left trying to defend the most illogical and unreasonable crap and it, the very thing which gave them their power, is killing them.
RichardMooner
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2014
- Messages
- 351
I think you're nitpicking.
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RichardMooner
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2014
- Messages
- 351
After consulting Strong's, I have absolutely no idea where I got that. Perhaps I remember it from some patronizing explanation of theft given to me as a child in Church, or something. So weird because I can almost here it word for word in my head, but I can't find it anywhere. Nevertheless, there are two verses in the old testament that essentially work just the same.
Exodus 22:5
If a man lets a field or vineyard be grazed bare and lets his animal loose so that it grazes in another man’s field, he shall make restitution from the best of his own field and the best of his own vineyard.
Deuteronomy 22:1-4
You shall not see your countryman’s ox or his sheep straying away, and pay no attention to them; you shall certainly bring them back to your countryman. 2 If your countryman is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall remain with you until your countryman looks for it; then you shall restore it to him. 3 Thus you shall do with his donkey, and you shall do the same with his garment, and you shall do likewise with anything lost by your countryman, which he has lost and you have found. You are not allowed to neglect them. 4 You shall not see your countryman’s donkey or his ox fallen down on the way, and pay no attention to them; you shall certainly help him to raise them up.
LOL. I think you made an easy get-out. Examening an "anti-absolutism" in a critical way is no worse than taking a critical view of absolutism (as far as I can see). In that case you might as well say these two outlooks have no substantial difference and aren't even worth mentioning.
But those parables seem pretty straightforward?
ForEverAfter
Ex-Bluelighter
I didn't understand your reaction to what you quoted, either.
Or, at least, I don't think it warranted that sort of reaction.
What RM said made perfect sense to me.
While I'm not sure that this is meant to be interpreted literally, it functions literally... so, it doesn't really matter either way.
What is literally described in that passage is intentional (and undeniable) theft, isn't it?
You can't let your cattle graze in a paddock that doesn't belong to you, without asking.
It's a serious issue and it (still) happens all the time.
There should be payment / consequences.
This passage doesn't even pertain to what we're talking about and - again - I don't disagree with it, if it is interpreted literally. Possession may be nine tenths of the law, but the right thing to do when you find someone else's property is to take care of it and return it to them.
swilow
Bluelight Crew
I think Ninae felt that an an absolutely anti-absolutist stance was tautological .