Site Search:
 
Speak Korean Now!
Teach English Abroad and Get Paid to see the World!
Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Why So Many Great Thinkers Have Been Vegetarians...
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... , 16, 17, 18  Next
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Off-Topic Forum
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Rteacher



Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA

PostPosted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 5:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't remember off-hand, but when I started digging back into this thread to find the answer I had to pause and gawk at this picture of a prominent vegetarian:



OK - I found the reference (that I was responding to) back in the middle of page 6. "Five Eagles" more-or-less asserted that Jesus was a glutton who washed his meat down with liquor ...

I certainly don't accept that portrayal as valid (although that if that view of Jesus has been prevalent among Christians it would account for their tending to overlook the brutal killing that occurs on such a huge scale at their slaughterhouses ...)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
Kepler



Joined: 24 Sep 2007

PostPosted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 7:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This article makes a pretty convincing argument that humans are carnivores-
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/carn_herb_comparison.html

I think vegetarians are mistaken. What do you think our ancestors survived on for millions of years in the grasslands of Africa? It has only been within the last 10,000 years that humans have turned to agriculture for food. Agriculture greatly increased the amount of plant food in our diet. Before that the majority of calories came from meat in hunter gatherer societies. Within the last 200 years the amount of plant food in our diets has again greatly increased because of the industrial revolution. This additional plant food has come in the form refined sugar and refined flour. So much of the plant food we eat today is indigestible in its raw form. Meat can easily be digested by our bodies in its raw form, but grains in their raw form are inedible in significant quantities. Our digestive systems have a hard time dealing with the starch molecule in grains. It has to be broken down by cooking. Legumes too are indigestible in their raw form. Despite the great increase in plant food in our modern diets, our digestive systems have not evolved much within the last 10,000 years and are still more suited to digesting animal food rather than plant food.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rteacher



Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If there is a bad karmic reaction from unncessarily killing animals, it's not really intelligent to do so.

Even from a health perspective, meat tends to putrify in the large intestinal tracts of humans, causing various diseases. Most real carnivores have much shorter large intestines.

Humans are equipped to eat meat, I think, mainly in emergency situations, and there is no bad karma for eating it out of necessity - or if the animal has died naturally.

From my own experience, I think that completely abstaining from eating animals that have been slaughtered has helped my consciousness - and reduced my propensity to kill others (at least somewhat ... Twisted Evil )

Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
ryouga013



Joined: 14 Sep 2007

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 3:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's funny to see all of the varying definitions of "meat" people through around. To me, If it comes from an animal, it's meat. I had a biochemist try to tell me that chicken wasn't meat... He had nothing to back his statement up with other than blind faith.

Before saying that you're a vegetarian think about what you are saying. Are you saying that you don't like the taste of meat? That you dont' eat it for health reasons? That you don't do it to be nice to animals? If you're a vegetarian for the animals, don't wear leather and don't get many of the cosmetics etc that are animal tested. Blind adherence to a "term" rather than following the rationale behind it is important.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
luvnpeas



Joined: 03 Aug 2006
Location: somewhere i have never travelled

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 3:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hitler was a vegetarian.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rteacher



Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 4:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There are good and bad vegetarians, but cows are naturally in the mode of goodness, Anyone implicated in unnecessarily killing them is bad in my book and - most importantly - in God's book. (accepting Krishna as God - which all great sages of India do...)

There are karmic reactions for unnecessarily killing other animals as well - but not as heavy as for cow killing.

"Thou Shalt Not Kill" clearly means to not kill any living things unnecessarily.

In bhakti yoga, it is recognized that unnecessarily killing even vegetation has some karmic reactions, which is why vegetarian food is first transcendentally offered to God to purify it.

All species have their naturally alloted quota of what they should eat. Many animals are carnivores, and many are vegetarians or herbivores.

Animals automatically follow their instincts without considering right and wrong/good or bad, so they are not held accountable for transgressing the laws of nature.

Humans are basically intended to eat grains, fruits, vegetables, milk products, nuts, legumes, seeds, sugar cane, etc.

Such foods are in the mode of goodness.

Meat (and liquor) are in the mode ignorance.

People who die with a mentality primarily in the mode of ignorance generally take their next births in lower species of life in the evolutionary cycle.

Humans are intended to evolve above the lower modes of ignorance (and passion) and be established in the mode of goodness. We are held to a higher standard than animals, and if we choose to degrade ourselves by our actions - including food choices - then our fate will be controlled by laws of karma, which could lead to our embodiment in more suitably ignorant forms of life.

Of course, my assertions are based on my understanding of Vedic philosophy. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of modern times, arrives at a roughly similar conclusion:

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
- Albert Einstein

http://www.diet-and-health.net/Diet/veg_diet.html
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
thepeel



Joined: 08 Aug 2004

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 6:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

luvnpeas wrote:
Hitler was a vegetarian.


He also didn't drink or smoke. If your insinuation is that because Hitler was veg, veg is bad then I guess we should all start smoking and drinking for fear of turning into a nazi.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Justin Hale



Joined: 24 Nov 2007
Location: the Straight Talk Express

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 7:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

luvnpeas wrote:
Hitler was a vegetarian.


Ah yes, the "Hitler did X, therefore X is bad/false/wrong" fallacy.

This is what working in a hagwon does to you. Laughing
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Biblethumper



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Location: Busan, Korea

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

luvnpeas wrote:
Hitler was a vegetarian.


To clarify: the observation that Hitler was a vegetarian is a counter to the original poster's observation that great thinkers are vegetarians. In other words, an isolated idea whould be judged on its own merits not on its endorsers'.

"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things...

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man."
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rteacher



Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 3:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great doesn't necessarily mean good. Hitler was certainly a great personality in terms of his influence.

Aside from that, he was certainly not a pure vegetarian (he was prescribed a vegetarian diet by his doctor, but he frequently strayed from it ...)

Many words in the Bible translated as "meat" (especially in the King James version) differ greatly in meaning from what we consider to be meat today.

Here's a passage from "You Mean That's in the Bible?":

Many Bible scholars persist with the theory that Christ ate animal flesh, obviously swayed in their opinions by personal habits. The desire to accede to prejudice and uphold existing tradition has been a human characteristic for many centuries, but truth appears now even more important as man exerts his independence in so many aspects of life.

Respected Bible scholar Rev. V. A. Holmes-Gore has researched the frequent use of the word "meat" in the New Testament Gospels. He traced its meaning to the original Greek.
His findings were first published in World Forum of Autumn 1947. He reveals that the nineteen Gospel references to "meat" should have been more accurately translated as follows:


Greek - No. of References - Meanings

Broma ---- 4 ----- "Food"
Brosis ---- 4 ----- "the act of eating food"
Phago ----- 3 ------ "to eat"
Brosimos ---1 ------ "that which may be eaten"
Trophe ------6 ------ "nourishment"
Prosphagon- 1 --------- "anything to eat"


Thus, the Authorised Version (KJV) of John 21:5 'Have you any meat?' is incorrect. It should read: 'Have ye anything to eat?'

"Fish" is another frequently mistranslated word in the Bible. Its reference is often not to the form fish of swimming life, but to the symbol by which early Christians could identify each other. It was a secret sign, needed in times of persecution, prior to official acceptance of Christianity as a state religion.
The sign of the fish was a mystical symbol and conversational password deriving from the Greek word for fish, 'ichthus.' As such, it represented an acrostic, composed of leading letters of the Greek phrase, 'Jesous Christos Theou Uios Soter' 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.'

Frequent references to fish are intended as symbolic of The Christ, having nothing to do with the act of eating dead fish. But the symbol of the fish did not meet with Roman approval. They preferred the sign of the cross, choosing to concentrate more on the death of Christ than on His brilliant life. Perhaps this is one reason only ten percent of his life record appears in the canonical scriptures. Most of His first thirty years is omitted.
How many worshippers go home from church and sit down to a feast cut from a once proud beast in defiance of the very commandments they have just been advocating?


Genesis 1:29. "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Genesis 9:4. "But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."

Genesis 9:5. "And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man."

Isaiah 1:11. "To what purpose [is] the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

Isaiah 1:15. "And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood."

Isaiah 7:14. "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

Isaiah 7:15. "Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good."

Isaiah 66:3. "He that killeth an ox [is as if] he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, [as if] he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, [as if he offered] swine's blood; he that burneth incense, [as if] he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations."

Leviticus 17:10. "And whatsoever man [there be] of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people."

Leviticus 3:17. "[It shall be] a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood."

Matthew 3:4. "And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey"...

http://www.salagram.net/Veg-UmeanItsinBible.html
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
Bramble



Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Location: National treasures need homes

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 3:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here we go again.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
mistermasan



Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hitler is dead. jesus is dead. i ate the meat of jesus and drank his blood (wiping chin). the blood was intoxicating but the meat was wafer thin and bland. musta been white meat.

processed meat causes cancer with the nitrates and all. modern manufactured milk is more like pus and steroids. have all of those you want. you can have my share too.

but...god must want us to eat meat because he gives us his son to cannibalize upon.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
A Slacker In Seoul



Joined: 30 Dec 2007

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 10:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This has got to be a wind up. I reckon a bored, genius ESL teacher has decided to encourage hippy-hatred in people and found the perfect way to do it.
I particularly liked the joke about how vegetarianism is a pre-requisite to higher level thinking despite Einstein not being a vegetarian until the last year of his life (presumably concerned about weight, cholesterol etc... http://www.ivu.org/history/northam20a/einstein.html) and therefore the single biggest intellectual breakthrough of modern times* came while happily chowing down on meat.
But his name is in that list implying otherwise, anyway! Hahah hahah, ah...
I also laughed heartily at the implication that anyone who disagrees, presumably meat-eaters, are of a lower-level of intellect (due to meat eating) and therefore their opinions can be discounted - and all people who actually believe vegetarianism makes you smarter can continue with their delusional world view!
Hahahaha hahaha oh oh... hahah, hee hee! Oh the savage, brutal irony! You really should think about becoming a professional comedian. Stop wasting your gold on message boards.

(*I'm talking about constant, invariant speed of light here, people - opening the door to all counter-intuitive physics and laying the basis for quantum mechanics. If you really wanna understand the universe, don't waste your time with silly spiritual crap; read up on quantum mechanics. Too hard? Maybe The Man is sneaking meat in to your diet...)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rteacher



Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA

PostPosted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, the link you so intelligently provided doesn't seem to work, but - since my name's on the list of great thinkers - I was able to find it. Cool

Although the article indicates that there is no hard evidence that Einstein followed a perfectly vegetarian diet till his last year-or-two (remember he couldn't perfectly follow his wedding vows either...) he publicly advocated vegetarianism many years before that.

For example, he wrote this letter to a German vegetarian magazine (25 years before he passed away in 1955):

"It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind." - Letter to 'Vegetarian Watch-Tower', 27 December 1930

David Hurwitz, who contributed the quotes at the top of this page, has added the following:

Alice Calaprice, has released the latest edition of her collected and edited quotes by Albert Einstein entitled, "The New Quotable Einstein." Now there is a solid source for the quote, complete with a document number in the Einstein Archive.

"Although I have been prevented by outward circumstances from observing a strictly vegetarian diet, I have long been an adherent to the cause in principle. Besides agreeing with the aims of vegetarianism for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind." Translation of letter to Hermann Huth, December 27, 1930. Einstein Archive 46-756]
http://www.ivu.org/history/northam20a/einstein.html
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
Rteacher



Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA

PostPosted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Though some may say she's "Clueless", I'm adding her to the list ...

[/img]
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Yahoo Messenger
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Korean Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Off-Topic Forum All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... , 16, 17, 18  Next
Page 17 of 18

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group

TEFL International Supports Dave's ESL Cafe
TEFL Courses, TESOL Course, English Teaching Jobs - TEFL International