Korean Job Discussion Forums

[The Bobster]

[littlelisa]

[The Bobster]

[littlelisa]

[Plume D'ella Plumeria]

Where are you, Bob? You're supposed to be here, taking one for the team. Don't stay silent for too long. This thread is amusing me no end.

The lowly hot dog? Great smothered in chili, as well as in sauerkraut.

Vegetables? Wonderful critters and no, we shouldn't kill them unmercifully. Spare them pain as best one can. Eggplant is a personal favourite of mine. But meat ... pretty wonderful stuff too. Bacon and eggs on a Sunday; nothing can beat it.

I agree that the girls (along with the teacher called R) can be pretty insufferable in their elevated status ways of thinking about themselves. And that woman, who is rather militant in her views of meat eating, etc. She is not one I'd ever like to encounter face to face.

Keep fighting the good fight, Bob. Eating meat is not a sin, despite what some might say, and I am thinking of Rteach here. Meat tastes good, cooks well and fills the stomach in the most satisfying way. And smells darned wonderful during the cooking process. I am thinking of leg of lamb here ...

[kermo]

[Plume D'ella Plumeria]

Right.

[kermo]

Why I Am A Vegetarian:

I've wanted to be a vegetarian since I was a little kid. I knew that meat came from animals but I wasn't comfortable with the idea of someone killing them on my behalf, so I announced to my family that I was no longer eating meat. My dad jeered at me and waved bacon under my nose until my resolve crumbled.

When I was a teenager, a couple things got me thinking about vegetarianism again. I loved A&W Teenburgers, but started to feel ill after I ate them. One day I accidentally made a burger without meat-- I had just gotten carried away with the pickles, mustard, cheese, etc., and forgot the patty. I bit into it, and really liked the taste. I gradually stopped eating meat because I still felt that if I couldn't stand to see an animal killed, it wasn't very honest of me to eat the result.

I started to do some research into how I could keep my diet properly balanced, and I came across a lot of information on how energy-efficient and environmentally friendly a vegetarian diet would be. That encouraged me, and it felt good to be doing something about all the scary environmental messages I'd been hearing in school.

My family wasn't very happy about it. My mom worried about my protein intake and my father saw it as bleeding-heart-liberalism. I didn't know a lot of other vegetarians. Most people I knew were pretty rural, so they tended to react with anger and disgust.

I know that everything I eat has an ethical cost. I don't eat meat, which is good for the environment, but I do continue to drink a lot of Coke, which is not a corporation known for its environmental or human rights practises, and I eat a lot of chocolate, which is often sourced using exploitative labour. I've done the research, and ultimately I hope to have a much more responsible diet, but I'm not really even close right now.

Do I think *everybody* should be vegetarian? No, I don't. It's just not realistic for some cultures, and it's not necessary in order to save the planet. I do know that today's Western eating and farming practises are unsustainable and unhealthy. I'd like to see a lot more organic and cruelty-free shopping going on. However, I don't see the problem with using animals for food, as long as we're doing it responsibly. I'm taking a rather extreme position by not eating meat at all, but right now I'm hoping it will make people more aware of the problems with the meat industry right now (I don't preach, but a lot of people have asked me to explain, which I'm happy to do), make people think about eating less meat, or just balance out the extreme carnivores.

I feel I'm doing the right thing, but I know that doesn't make me better than others. You recycle, right? Do you recycle just because it makes you feel superior to others, or do you do it because you are concerned about the environment? Actually recycling is a bad example, because it's something that's well accepted in society. Nobody is going to yell at you for recycling. People don't usually admire me for being a vegetarian. Plenty of people have given me their unsolicited opinion on my dietary choices.

Bobster, I think your argument has started to rely upon imaginary scenarios (for which there are actual counter-examples,) hyperbole, and finally, a real watering-down. Of course we're all arrogant sometimes. However this whole thing smacks of hypocrisy. Ideally, you'd go find another group to denounce, and then some nice vegetarian will invite you over for dinner and make you a meal that doesn't leave you "missing something."

[The Bobster]

[mistermasan]

hotdogs? really? i like meat but hotdogs are about as crap as you can get. a slab of beef? oh yeah. seafood? BBQ chicken? yes. but hotdogs? all the left over stuff, heaps of preservatites and nitrates...

please, eat all of them you want. and the braunschweiger as well. just keep the preserved meats away from me.

we had some nice korean BBQ last night, my first meat of the year. it was delicious.

[kermo]

Bobster, can you please address the majority of what I've said instead of picking and choosing, and then asking questions that have already been answered in the text you left out?

E.g., I've already explained that not all non-vegetarians are doing "the wrong thing."

I don't have to pretend that a vegetarian diet is an environmentally positive decision. Meat consumes more resources, requires more antibiotics, more water, more land. Want links?

[cdninkorea]

[Rteacher]

People who believe that all humans are equal in class tend to be influenced by atheistic Marxist philosophy.

There have always been higher and lower classes of people, and meat-eaters are generally among the lower classes.

Philosophically, hedonism is a relatively low-class philosophy.

I accept that God presents the highest philosophical understanding in Bhagavad-gita:

According to that view, all living beings are in essence non-material spirit-souls - and in that sense equal - but materially we are all different according to our association with the three primary modes of material nature: goodness, passion, and ignorance.

In terms of purity of consciousness, goodness is higher than passion, and passion is higher than ignorance.

The original Vedic social system (dividing society in four main social divisions and four spiritual orders) was based on one's nature and quality of work in terms of goodness, passion, and ignorance.

While the original Vedic idea became corrupted by caste brahmans (who claimed superior social position by birthright rather than actual qualification) the original idea was that a person can either elevate or degrade oneself by associating with persons, places, and things (analyzed in terms of goodness, passion, and ignorance.)

In terms of food, vegetarian foods and milk products are categorized in the mode of goodness, hot spicy foods (and onions and garlic) are in the mode of passion, and meats and liquor are considered to be in the mode of ignorance.

The Vedic model resembles a pyramid in that it's understood that the top class (brahman priests and intellectuals situated mainly in the mode of goodness) would include the fewest number of people while the next highest class - ksatriya warriors and administrators working mainly in the mode of passion- would include a greater number of people, the next highest class - vaishya businessmen and farmers mainly influenced by mixed modes of passion and ignorance would include even more people, and the fourth class of people - sudra laborers and craftsmen predominantly influenced by the mode of ignorance would constitute the greatest number of people in society.

According to the Gita, this was the original social order designed by God, and in a functional "social body" model, the brahmanas correspond to the head of society, the ksatriyas correspond to the arms, the vaishyas to the stomach, and the sudras to the legs of the social body.

Although these divisions have become more blurred with time in any given society one will still find a relatively small number of people who are real intellectuals or priests, a larger number of administrative/military types, an even larger number of productive business persons, merchants, and farmers, and most of the masses will be general laborers, craftsmen, and artisans.

According to Vedic culture, the highest class never eats meat. Second class people eat meat - of animals that they kill themselves. Third class people eat meat - but Vedic injunctions enjoin that farmers have a religious duty to protect cows from being unnecessarily killed. Fourth class people eat a lot of meat (and liquor) but they also are prohibited from eating cows - unless there isn't enough vegetarian food available.

Brahmanas tend to be guided by higher intelligence and philosophy (usually based on or consistent with revealed scriptures) while lower classes tend to be guided more by just trying to serve the sensual demands of their tongue belly, and genitals (encouraged by materialistic philosophies ...)

So by associating with vegetarian food and with vegetarians who actually have a higher philosophical understanding (which on these forums seemingly includes only me ...) one could gradually elevate their consciousness and become fixed in the mode of goodness - which is a prerequisite to higher spiritual realization.

This isn't my concocted philosophy - it's based on Krishna's philosophy presented in Bhagavad-gita.

Other than that absolute authority, we can only speculate as to what is truly "good" "better" or "bad" in this temporarty world of relativity and duality.

I for one am convinced that it is better that we all cooperate (without criicizing or feeling superior) to help elevate ourselves as far as possible.

I think that it's significant that a very high percentage of people considered to be "great thinkers" in the history of the world have advocated vegetarian diets - and at least at some point in their lives became vegetarians themselves.

Most reasonable, intellectually honest people would consider many such great thinkers who advocate a vegetarian diet to be intellectually superior.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?p=1480032#1480032

[NightSky]

[The Bobster]