- Should Buddhists normally be vegetarian, choosing not to eat meat?
Since buying meat in a supermarket or ordering it at a restaurant does cause new animals to be killed, it seems to me that the First Precept of Buddhism does mean that Buddhists today, although perhaps less so in the past, should not normally eat meat and thereby cause the killing of animals. - Irrespective of any religious teaching, should we all be vegetarian on either moral or health grounds? Why or why not?
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Reference
I think normally Buddhists not be vegetarian. As I remember, Buddha has only prohibited in some kind of meat such as dog or human, just like others religion, they have only prohibited in some kind of meat, not all of meat.
ReplyDeleteI think vegetarian is good for health but some nutrition can not get from vegetable, they only get from meat.
When he says that "normally Buddhists not be vegetarian," I think that Bass raises a point worth checking (check everything).
DeleteAre most Buddhists vegetarians or not?
What are the statistics?
How important is this?
according to the first question I think all Buddhists should be a vegetarian because it has stated in the 5 basic moral from the Buddha. The first of all fifth is don't kill animal. However I think people have a right to do everything they want. Even though there is this moral, but people still eat meat until nowadays. In my opinion, Eating meat can provides us a high quality protein which can't get from vegetable and taste of meats are more delicious, so the Buddha forbid us to do this killing circle.
ReplyDeleteIrrespective of any religious teaching, should we all be vegetarian on either moral or health grounds? Why or why not?
ReplyDeleteI think every religious teach their people to be a good person. And some of them believe that Vegetarian is help the animal's life. In my opinion, that's true but we all should not be a vegetarian on either moral or health grounds. For the first reason, if we consume some meat as a proper portion, it doesn't matter about the moral and it also a good diet for your body. Secondly, the vegetarian will lack of something that contains in some meat such as a real protein. Although the vegetarians can eat some protein from eggs, but our body are designed to consume some meat. So we should not all be a vegetarian.
When Pear writes that "every religious teach their people to be a good person", I wonder if this is true.
DeleteChristianity for example, the religion I was brought up in, has some teachings in the Bible that seem to me very bad. When I say "bad" I mean "immoral." For example, the whole book of Exodus in the Bible seems to me a terrorist manual - isn't killing all the oldest children of an entire race of people terrorism? But this is exactly what the god of the Jews and Christians did. Does it stop being terrorism just because god did it? Does something stop being morally wrong, or start to be morally right, because some god or other authority, or sacred text, says so?
I do not agree that every people should be vegetarian. I think it is not healthy for our body because I think we should consume food which contain all 5 important nutrition. Even though many people argue that we can get protein from other sources like soy bean instead of eating meat, I think it is not enough and it might cause them problems because they eat the same ingredient every meal which might contain high level of some element that exceed our bodies need. For the moral issue, I think if we kill the animal which we feed them for their meat, it is fine but do not kill the wild animal.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be a popular belief, although there is also some disagreement in the comments.
DeleteWhat do we need here to settle this sort of disagreement?
1. I am a Buddhist and always learn the teaching of the Buddha that we must not kill other animals. However, it related to the aim of your mind, if you are aiming to kill them your are a sin but if they die without your intention you free from sin. This is why Buddhist eat meat because they not kill them directly. But if we talk frankly, the doing of you that cause the troubles for other lifes, it a sin.
ReplyDeleteIf I pay someone to kill another person for me, I think that means I'm still guilty of the murder. All of the intention was mine, the person who pulled the trigger on the gun was just doing what I paid him to do. Similarly, when I buy steak, or a pork chop, or khao man kai, I'm effectively paying someone else to kill animals for me so that I can enjoy their yummy bodies; again, the intention to kill so that I can eat them is mine when I pay for my steak, my pork chop or my khao man kai, not the physical killers who are merely doing what they are paid to do at my request.
DeleteIt's not healthy to eat vegetable only in the rest of your life because there are many nutrient can not find in the vegetable, especially is protein. It help you to build up your strong body and against to the flu.But you can be a vegetarian several days a month.
ReplyDeleteAccording question No.2, As for me, I sometimes be a vegetarian because i think it's good for my body. I read some articles talking meat or high protein stuff is not good for your health, but in the everyday life, it's easier to eat food which majority eat it.
ReplyDeletewe should not be vegetarian because you can get some of nutrients only in meet that it make some problems if you are vegetarian.
ReplyDeleteI think Buddhists should be vegetarian but it should depend on the situation because we should not adhere to what we are eat.
ReplyDeleteI think, it is not necessary that Buddhist have to be vegetarian because it is not conform the main idea of the religion. Buddhism teach Buddhist not to heart any creature but it not mean you have to eat only vegetables.
ReplyDeleteTo anyone who thinks that we as humans have to eat meat to stay healthy,
ReplyDeleteThis link, http://www.saveourearth.co.uk/blog/2009/09/be-a-vegetarian-and-help-animals-and-combat-climate-change/, will bring you to a post in the topic of "Be A Vegetarian and Help Animals and Combat Climate Change" on "Save Our Earth" blog. It is written based on the saying of Dr. Art-Ong Jumsai Na Ayudhya, a famous Thai scientist who has invented the landing system of the space craft to Mars, who proposes the assumption that our humans' bodies are designed to eat only vegetables. He provides tangible evidences on the anatomy of our teeth and intestines that point our why humans should be herbivores, not omnivores. Additionally, there is a research which points out that Protein in vegetables have higher quality than Protein in animals. Furthermore, with the same amount of natural resources, we can grow more vegetation than animals. Hence, being vegetarian is also another way to help our world survive from global warming.
I feel surprised to hear that being vegetarian relate toglobal warming.
DeleteUnfortunately, on this topic Dr. Art-Ong Jumsai Na Ayudhya looses credibility because the article begins with the wholly unsupported claim that "you can see very famous people in the past who were vegetarians Sir Isaac Newton, Aristotle, Mark Twain, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jesus Christ, Confucius, Plato, Pythagoras, Einstein and Abraham Lincoln."
DeleteA couple of these might have been vegetarian for short periods, but some of them definitely were not: Jesus Christ, who was a devout, meat eating Jew, Aristotle, Plato, and most likely also Pythagoras, for whom such behaviour would have been against the prevailing religious practices of ancient Greece. Nor, in the absence of some solid evidence, would I believe that anyone else on the list was a vegetarian.
Dr. Art-Ong Jumsai Na Ayudhya is likely very good at engineering, but he seems much less well informed on vegetarianism. Or perhaps he never said what the website claims he said: the author does not cite any source for what they say he said.
But I like the website: it can teach as some useful lessons about approaching sources. This one seems unreliable and not to be trusted, and that must make us suspicious of everything there.
The ascription of vegetarianism to Pythagoras reminded me of when I was studying him and other pre-Socratic philosophers. I was a bit surprised that he seems to hate not meat, but beans, as Aristotle tells us according to Diogenes Laertius (VIII.1 [19]).
DeleteEven better is Laertius's report of Aristotle on Pythagoras at VIII. 1, [34].
DeleteThe ancient evidence is so contradictory that we can not with any confidence make any claim as to whether Pythagoras ate meat or not.
I also like the way Yui correctly notes that if we use an argument in one case, then that same argument is likely applicable in other relevantly similar cases, hence the connection she makes between abortion and the popular habit of killing animals to eat their meat (Sujichantararat, 2013).
ReplyDeleteIf we think that it's OK to kill animals to eat their meat, then as Yui points out, the same considerations would seem to apply to abortion. Thus, if we want to argue that abortion, the killing of a living human embryo or foetus, is not also OK, we need a good reason to treat the two types of killing as different.
Is there such a relevant reason for this discrimination?
Reference
Sujichantararat, S. (2013, September 24, 8:45 PM). Re: Stirring up the pot [Web log comment]. Class Blog - AEP at AUA.Retrieved from http://peteraep.blogspot.com/2013/09/stirring-up-pot.html
As we read Law over the next few days, you might like to see which of the arguments here he discusses, and whether he agrees with them or not.
ReplyDeleteMore importantly, how strong are his arguments?
Does he persuade you that his strongly stated thesis is correct?