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Spirituality: The Enemy of Veganism
(www.youtube.com)
A community to discuss anything related to veganism.
(Haven't watched the video yet); As a spiritually-inclined person who is also vegan, I do think that is something that other religious people need to come to terms with. Particularly when it comes to witchy and neopagan communities, there's too much (ie., more than zero) interest in reviving the dead practice of animal sacrifice.
On the other hand I would like to see some data on which proportion of people in each religion are vegan. Which belief systems have the highest percentages of vegans, relative to their own populations?
Buddhism and other neighboring systems tend to arrive at veganism being virtuous
That's also my hunch - that Buddhism in particular has a high percentage of vegans. I still would like to see the data though.
Just to add to the mix: Third Day Adventists encourage going vegan, and quite a few of them are vegetarian. It’s not a huge religion, but I know that they’ve even been studied for their longevity.
I Adventist health studies are amazing.
The only animal product you're required to consume in Christianity is the body and blood of Christ.
Yeah but that was given consensually (ostensibly), so it's still vegan.
consent is not mentioned in the definition of veganism from the vegan society
It's implicit in their stance against exploitation. A chicken, for example, cannot give their eggs to a human, with informed consent, and therefor taking their eggs is a form of theft and exploitation.
chickens can't consent to anything at all. it's absurd. I oppose exploiting fossil fuel deposits, but that has nothing to do with consent either.
Okay, but that's a whataboutism and has nothing to do with animals. Think about the lowly bee, for example. People often get tripped up when it comes to bugs and veganism. They're smaller, and must be dumber right? And anyway their minds work in such an alien way to our own that we can't assume they even perceive things the way that we do.
And yet if you poke a beehive, the behavior of its inhabitants appears to be something that's functionally identical to anger, and they begin defending their colony in a way where they seem to be expressing something that strongly resembles a lack of consent to having their home assaulted. So even in this case of such a vastly different kind of animal it's natural to conclude that any taking of their honey is not wanted - not consented to - and thus is a form of exploitation.
There's nothing absurd about valuing consent.
it's fine to value consent. but it's absurd to talk about consent from something incapable of it.
If a dog is excited to see you, and trying their best to chase your hands with their head, is that not a form of the dog giving you consent for pets? Animals to some limited degree can give consent for things like that at least. But most other things, if they can't give consent then you should assume that you shouldn't do the thing.
A chicken has eggs for their own reasons. They can't give consent to give them away, but be realistic - do you really think there's a chance that a hen would consent to you taking what she believes are going to be her children? They are not yours to take. Why is my position of respecting consent and not exploiting animals absurd, as compared to concluding wholesale that they just can't give consent and therefor... what? Do we just do whatever we want to them?
she would need to believe that. i have no evidence that chickens believe their eggs to be their children.
You don't need to know what a chicken believes to recognize that their behaviours indicate they do not want others to steal their eggs.
as far as i know, chickens don't recognize property claims. they cannot possibly have a moral opposition or even a personal revulsion toward theft.
Let’s say they don’t recognize property claims. Why does that then make it right for you to take their eggs?
Many say the native Americans didn’t understand the European concept of owning land (property claim). I’m not sure whether that’s true, but if it were would that then mean it was okay for Europeans to take their land?
Your logic doesn’t make sense to me. “They can’t say ‘no’ and they probably don’t understand property so I’ll just go ahead and do what I want.” Lame
i'm saying there is no reason it's not ok to take the eggs, and recognition of property rights can't possibly be a good reason not to do so. it's possible there is some reason, but it can't be that the chickens think the eggs belong to them, since there is no evidence for that claim.
i think it's fine to oppose exploitation. it's absurd to premise that opposition on consent.
I wouldn't say that I premise exploitation on consent. Afterall I'm being exploited at a minimum wage job, and that is something that I more or less consented to.
But in the case of animals, consent has to play a significant role, because a core part of their oppression is the complete absence of their bodily autonomy. There is a great deal of intersectionality between women's rights and non-human animal's rights.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Sexual_Politics_of_Meat.html?id=aU28CgAAQBAJ
i'm saying you premise your opposition to exploitation on consent. and i'm saying that's absurd.
I wouldn't say that consent is the premise of my opposition, just one important component of it. I don't remember this discussion so well anymore, but earlier you had pointed out that exploited workers often do consent to their exploitation - and I would agree that exploitation can occur even with consent.
It would be absurd to mention in any practical context.
I agree but somehow I think it's not for the same reason
What do you mean?
Too much mercury from all the fish