First of all let me say that I like meat. Meat is good and that’s why I am wondering what rationale vegetarians hold to in regards to their eating habits. I’m just curious, not trying to start a fight or trash vegetarianism or veganism(If you don’t wanna eat meat that’s fine with me, more for me that way. Mmmm meat).
Is it because they don’t think we have the right to kill other animals for out sustenance, or that they don’t believe we evolved as carnivores. Also, what is the basis of vegetarianism in some religions. I would like to get responses from actual vegetarians and vegans who can enlighten me on their philosophy.
I have used the search and most of what I’ve found is people making fun of vegetarians, and while usually I enjoy a good vegetarian bashing, that’s not my intention here and what I’m looking for is an answer (preferably from a vegetarian or vegan) to my honest question. I didn’t put it in GD because I don’t want to open a big can of worms and get a bunch of three page rants from both sides of the debate. I’m just curious, OK?
I first started toward vegetarianism at 11 when I saw fish hauled up and gasping. In my young mind, that was the first time I had equated what you eat with killing. It didn’t sit well, and I refused to eat fish after that. My parents being marine biologists, with six kids, fish was a main source of free food, so my proclaimation was greeted with “Well, OK, but you have to fix your own dinner.” Fair enough, and, laughably, I’d stubbornly fix myself hot dogs, which was all I could muster at that age.
Of course, hot dogs are wayyyy worse fare than fresh-caught fish, but it really was making the connection of killing other creatures to live that made eating 'em abhorrent. I figured out the hot dog thing soon enough. As that awareness grew, I realized that it was important to me not to kill others in order to live. I’m lucky enough to live in a society that I don’t have to, and have stuck pretty much to it for a couple of decades. I have eaten meat, usually when eating meals that folks have generously offered, and my system pretty much gets sick, but, well, hell, it keeps ya real.
Why do people rollerskate? What are they thinking?
Why do people wear the color red? What are they thinking?
Why do people drive SUVs? What are they thinking?
Why do people own ferrets? What are they thinking?
Why do people watch WWF? What are they thinking?
Why do people keep starting vegetarian threads? (Funny how I don’t see too many vegetarians starting meat-eater threads…) Why can’t they use the search function if they’re so all-fired curious about vegetarians? Why can’t they use Google? Why do they even CARE why someone else doesn’t eat something?
People make personal choices all the time. Why care? Is it any of your business? Why does it (apparently) bother you so much that some people don’t care to eat something that you like? Hey - after all - they are leaving MORE meat for you, aren’t they? So whatzit to you, anyway?
Thanks a ton for pointing me to that thread Muffin. I don’t know why I didn’t find that in my searches.
Yosemite, what’s with all the hostility. I was asking an innocent question about vegetarianism. I was careful not to word it in an inflammatory way and said in the OP that I wasn’t trying to bash anybody. I also haven’t been on the SDMB very long and didn’t find any good old threads like the one Muffin pointed me to when I searched for vegetarian stuff. Besides, isn’t this the point of the board, to ask each other stupid questions. In other words, chill.
Doughboy, if I had been really hostile, you would have known it! And my apologies for coming off too harsh, and welcome to the board!
But I have to explain this a little bit: if you were asked the same damned frickin’ questions over and over and over again, would you not get sick of it? Wouldn’t you get a little testy sometimes?
I guess it’s just come to that for me. Just recently I did a search of this board, and you would be AMAZED what comes up when you type in the word “vegetarian”. And almost all these threads have a common theme. Some meat-eater wants to know “what’s wrong” with those vegetarians. Some meat-eater wants to know if veggies are hypocrites. Some meat-eater wonders if a certain product or practice is consistent with vegetarianism (in other words, they want to point out some suspected hypocrisy.) And on and on. It gets old.
You might want to read my semi-gentle rant about this issue. If you really want to understand more about vegetarianism, this will certainly give you some insights.
The weirest thing for me is that the thought of killing an animal and gutting it to eat is disturbing to me to say the least. If I had to kill the cow or chicken, I would most definately become a vegetarian.
But the way it is now, our food is packaged so asthetically and cooked in so many creative ways - the fact that I am eating the carcass of a living thing is lost.
