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NYC_Gal 2.0
Joined: 10 Dec 2010
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 12:58 am Post subject: |
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Rteacher wrote: |
NYC_Gal 2.0 wrote: |
Rteacher wrote: |
Things don't have personal attributes, but some ideas are more intelligent than others with respect to improving both the human condition and the greater environmental context.
Unnecessarily killing animals based on lust for the taste of their flesh and blood is neither intelligent nor wise. However, there is no harmful (karmic/sinful) reaction for eating animals when there is not enough vegetarian food (or for eating animals that have died naturally).
I agree with spiritual traditions that promote living in harmony with nature (rather than brutally conquering it/ wiping out entire species) and the minimization of violence to all living entities. Originally, I think all major religions stressed this principle, but meat-lovers gradually exerted a corrupting influence that resulted in promotion of the "slaughterhouses are good"/ "meat is wonderful" idea. |
You call it unnecessary, I (and my doctor) say that my skin is healthier. Again, stop it with the blanket statements. |
My understanding is that laws of karma are very intricate and are subtly processed on a case-by-case basis in this world of relativity. What may be unnecessary for one person may be necessary for another person (much as one man's food is another's poison). The (Supersoul/Paramatma) expansion of God within the heart of every living being totally understands all the circumstances and ultimately makes arrangements for the gradual spiritual advancement of all living entities - though it may take millions of years and lifetimes for many souls to transcend the evolutionary cycle because illusory energy (maya) is so powerful. |
Then stop with the blanket statements. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 6:30 am Post subject: |
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My approach to the issue of meat-eating is philosophical (not health-based). There is a difference between making blanket statements in ordinary contexts and making generalizations in the context of philosophical discussion, wherein generalization functions as "the essential basis of all valid deductive inferences...The process of verification is needed to determine whether a generalization holds true for any given situation..."
http://www.answers.com/topic/generalization
A (not properly referenced but still useful) Wikipedia article elaborates a little further:
When the mind makes a generalization, it extracts the essence of a concept based on its analysis of similarities from many discrete objects. The resulting simplification enables higher-level thinking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalization
Unfortunately, when issues become politically/emotionally charged some individuals and groups may take offense at and have zero tolerance for any type of generalization that they feel might be insulting if personally applied to them. My own intent is not to insult meat-eaters (especially since I used to be a big one myself...) |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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Fox wrote: |
Rteacher wrote: |
My understanding - based on Vedic literatures - is that there have always higher and lower classes present in human societies on Earth, and each class has its prescribed types of work and dietary laws aimed at promoting overall material and spiritual progress. The intellectual (brahmana) class is strictly vegetarian; the administrative (ksatria) class includes warriors who hunt, kill, and eat forest animals; the mercantile (vaishya) class includes farmers who protect cows (rather than kill and eat them) and conduct business; while the forth (and largest) social class - general laborers or sudras - also restricts killing animals in general and cows in particular. The four social orders function in tandem with four spiritual ashrams and are based on nature/quality of work - not birthright (which the corrupt caste system degraded to...) |
Even the Brahmans were animal killers in Ancient Indian society, they simply killed animals as sacrifices rather than for consumption. To a true believer, this may be trivial, but you'll find it much harder to convince the rest of us that "vegetarianism + animal sacrifice" is ethically supreme (or even ethically excusable, really). I like Ancient Indian culture, I do, and there's probably even some truth within it, but, "The most refined thing you can do is to stop eating animals and sacrifice them instead!" is probably not a part of said truth.
Moreover, given most people clearly are not members of the intellectual caste, even the system you're prescribing would not necessarily mandate vegetarianism for the majority of people.
That's a good question. Although numerous academic scholars have translated, critiqued, and interpreted Vedic literatures, often using texts like Bhagavad-gita to propagate their own speculative philosophies (or to discredit what is perceived as a competition from a sectarian point of view) it's essential that a sincere seeker of transcendental knowledge approach a spiritual authority who transmits the original message without adulteration.. My understanding (from my pure source) is that Vedic animal sacrifices were only prescribed in an earlier cosmic age when priests were so powerful in their use of mantra technology that when old animals were offered into the sacrificial fire, they were seen to emerge from the pit as young animals. Practically no priests have that kind of power now, and the only form of sacrifice recommended in this age of argument and confusion is chanting, dancing, and (vegetarian) feasting.
(see link to quotes at bottom of post)
Rteacher wrote: |
My notion of "living in harmony with nature" includes understanding the ultimate purpose of temporary material nature in relation to the eternal spiritual consciousness from which it originates. Only when spirit-souls evolve to the human form and are capable of philosophical/religious thinking are they held accountable to laws of karma. Humans who fail to make any spiritual progress at all in the human form run the risk of falling back into the evolutionary cycle of sub-human species (according to Bhagavad-gita) http://www.harekrishnatemple.com/chapter17.html |
Well, fair enough if you believe that, but given that is not what most people mean when they refer to "nature," you should perhaps be more linguistically clear. |
Nah, I took an online linguistics course that I thought was pretty tough - this is probably as clear as it gets from me ...
http://www.vaniquotes.org/wiki/In_the_Vedas_there_is_recommendation_for_animal_sacrifice_in_some_sacrificial_ceremony,_not_ordinarily._And_that_sacrifice_is_meant_for_testing_the_power_of_chanting_mantra |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Location: Earth, Solar System
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Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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Can someone PLEASE answer the OP's question instead of yammering about the finer points of food theology?
I would really like to go to such a place if it existed. Are there any? I know of "normal" vegetarian restaurants, but I would be qurious if there is such a place. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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I made a post about it on the Seoul Veggie Club site but got no replies. How about settling for a "Cauliflower Popcorn" recipe instead...?
http://afatgirlsfoodguide.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/cauliflower-popcorn/ ... Actually, that site also has some restaurant reviews that might be useful for folks living in Korea (but the blogger seems to still be a meat-lover...) |
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roguefishfood
Joined: 21 May 2011
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Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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Steelrails wrote: |
Can someone PLEASE answer the OP's question instead of yammering about the finer points of food theology?
I would really like to go to such a place if it existed. Are there any? I know of "normal" vegetarian restaurants, but I would be qurious if there is such a place. |
Am I out of my mind or is the whole point of a bbq place to eat meat?
Why would a vegetarian bbq be a thing?
Am I missing something? |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 1:28 am Post subject: |
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Yep. BBQ is a method of cooking. Vegetables are very tasty cooked on a grill. Same as with meat: tasty if done right; awful, if not. |
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NYC_Gal 2.0
Joined: 10 Dec 2010
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Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 4:41 am Post subject: |
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True barbecue takes hours, if not all day. I believe you mean grilling. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA
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Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2013 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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I \Googled and sure enough there is vegetarian barbecue (but I think it requires at least some mock meats.)
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/cookingtipstools/qt/vegbbq.htm
There's also more than one meaning for the word barbecue ...
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/barbecue
Actually, the Seoul Veggie Club had a vegetarian barbecue once on Mount Namsan - featuring veggie burgers that I made from brown rice, some vegetables, sesame seeds, almond butter (and I forget what else). It was pretty far out - we took the monorail all the way up to the top, and then we hiked about two-thirds down the mountain - carrying all our supplies in a procession - before finding a nice spot for a picnic. I think I posted a picture of it on this forum before - I'll see if the search function is working... |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012 Location: Gangnam
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Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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A 20-yr vegan, admits vegetarianism is all screwy.
"The Vegetarian Myth"
http://youtu.be/rNON5iNf07o |
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KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012 Location: Gangnam
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Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 1:38 am Post subject: |
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Kepler wrote: |
Taubes got some things right such as saturated fat not being unhealthy. However, the whole "carbs=insulin=fat" theory doesn't explain a lot of things we see happening in the real world such as Asians eating a lot of rice and not getting fat. |
Okay, but until someone has a better explanation the Taubes "white-carbs --> insulin --> fat accumulation" should be the bible for curing obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, etc. To bring up the Asians eating rice thing because it is one small thing people can't yet explain and say that invalidates all the knowledge mankind has accumulated doesn't make sense. Sorry.
Here is what mankind knows. We already know paleolithic man didn't have white-carbs and didn't have the problems modern man does. We already studied the remaining hunter/gatherer tribes all over the world in 1930 when they still existed and noted that when white-carbs were introduced by traders people became unhealthy, while the same tribe close by who did not eat these white-carbs did not get unhealthy. We already did the experiment of telling the American people to eat 60% white-carbs and watched them become obese, get heart disease, lower their testosterone, get depressed, and get diabetes.
It's pretty easy. What more evidence is required? It's white-carbs, done. The human body is not adapted to them, they trigger fat accumulation, and they push-out the important foods like animal flesh and vegetables.
Eating vegis is good. Eating meat is also good. Eating white-carbs and other man-made creations from the farming and processed food eras is not good.
Dear human race - let's be smart. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA
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Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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Eating meat may-or-may-not be good from strictly a health point of view for humans - but it certainly isn't good for the health of the billions of animals that are slaughtered (and sometimes tortured). In ancient times, hunters killed and ate relatively few animals, and there were no slaughterhouses. Many vegetarians/vegans are motivated by ethical, environmental, and spiritual reasons as well as any health issues. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA
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Kepler
Joined: 24 Sep 2007
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Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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KimchiNinja wrote: |
Kepler wrote: |
Taubes got some things right such as saturated fat not being unhealthy. However, the whole "carbs=insulin=fat" theory doesn't explain a lot of things we see happening in the real world such as Asians eating a lot of rice and not getting fat. |
Okay, but until someone has a better explanation the Taubes "white-carbs --> insulin --> fat accumulation" should be the bible for curing obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, etc. To bring up the Asians eating rice thing because it is one small thing people can't yet explain and say that invalidates all the knowledge mankind has accumulated doesn't make sense. Sorry.
Here is what mankind knows. We already know paleolithic man didn't have white-carbs and didn't have the problems modern man does. We already studied the remaining hunter/gatherer tribes all over the world in 1930 when they still existed and noted that when white-carbs were introduced by traders people became unhealthy, while the same tribe close by who did not eat these white-carbs did not get unhealthy. We already did the experiment of telling the American people to eat 60% white-carbs and watched them become obese, get heart disease, lower their testosterone, get depressed, and get diabetes.
It's pretty easy. What more evidence is required? It's white-carbs, done. The human body is not adapted to them, they trigger fat accumulation, and they push-out the important foods like animal flesh and vegetables.
Eating vegis is good. Eating meat is also good. Eating white-carbs and other man-made creations from the farming and processed food eras is not good.
Dear human race - let's be smart. |
The best rebuttal I've seen to this claim is:
"Refined carbs are rarely if ever consumed in the SAD [standard American diet] without considerable fat consumption. The ensuing metabolic derangement can be no more attributed to just carbs than it can be attributed to just fat. This conclusion is also contradicted by numerous examples of cultures consuming high carb diets with low rates of obesity and CVD."
http://carbsanity.blogspot.kr/2010/10/11-critical-conclusions-of-taubes.html
I don't think that white or refined carbs are necessarily unhealthier than other kinds of carbs. I know someone who says whole wheat causes her digestion problems but white bread does not. People never really adapted to eating grains but the refining process often removes a lot of the things in grains that cause people problems. It's true that American food manufacturers often make sure that their products are both high fat and high carb. That's because that combination tends to stimulate the pleasure center of the brain a lot so it's one way to get people to overconsume your products. Taubes made other ridiculous claims such as saying that exercise does not help people lose weight. So we could all live the lives of couch potatoes and stuff ourselves with cubes of butter all day long but remain skinny as long as we avoided refined carbs? I don't think so. |
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