Is there a sound theological argument against vegetarianism?

[Boojatta]

According to some people who claim to be Christians, was Jesus mistaken when he said that God wants mercy, not sacrifice? According to some people who claim to be Christians, is a blood sacrifice essential?

[librechik]

1. when Jesus struggles with the Devil in the desert

The Devil won't take vegetables as a sacrifice, and insists on blood. The Devil wants blood, Jesus wants mercy. I guess that means it is evil to eat meat, unless you are a devil worshipper.

So no, there is no sound theological argument against vegetarianism.

[Recursion]

2. I know a wiccan...

...who is not vegan because he says it is wrong to hold plant life as "lower" or "worse" than animal life, so he just eats with as little an ecological footprint as he can (organic crops & free range animals). I also know an Mennonite organic farmer who sees animals as having an important "ghostly" (spiritual) role in farm life, though when pressed his argument is more practical: cows and pigs fertilize the fallow fields they are pastured in, and between seasons chickens ranged in that field turn the soil so plowing is very easy.

[mike_c]

3. if god didn't intend for us to eat animals...

...he wouldn't have made them of meat. Works for me!

[eppur_se_muova]

10. And what are you made of ?

[mike_c]

13. snakes and snails and puppydog tails....

And a sense of humor, for crying out loud.

[eppur_se_muova]

23. Hmmm...test your sense of humor against this...

http://www.electricstory.com/stories/story.aspx?title=meat/meat

[orwell]

4. It is up to everyone...

...to make up their own minds. Everyone's body chemistry, genetics, tastes, moral worldviews are different. Why is it that there is this growing trend toward conformity, whether religious, political or social, a need for some dictat from the external to guide our personal decisions.

It is the widening embrace of the authoritarian that is most disturbing - a fundamental erosion on personal liberty and responsibility. I'd like to think that Jesus, whether or not he existed as perceived by the multitudes, showed unlimited kindness and compassion to all living things, fully aware of the stunning beauty of the network of all life.

[mntleo2]

5. No But Perhaps One FOR Vegan Practices

...There are some traditions in both the middle east as well as in India that say Jesus studied in India under the great gurus during his so-called lost years. The apostle Thomas established his first church in India where Hinduism had already thrived for thousands of years. It would seem to me that in a vegan society that revers cattle, they would have had to take up a nutritional practice slightly different than their own... Here is an interesting link I found while poking around a search engine (Metacrawler)that might be of interest: http://www.tsl.org/Masters/jesus/jesus01.htm .

My point here is that being a vegetarian is an old, old practice in Hinduism as well as Buddhism and for sure must have influenced Jesus' dear friend Thomas, even if there is speculation about whether or not Jesus actually visited India to study as a youth. However, I would think ancient Buddhist manuscripts might be as authentic an account as anything the Nicean Council decided was important. BTW, IMO that council which appears to have been run by a bunch of Euro-Greek elitists who wanted to create a new testament that controlled the population, not enlightened them.


My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

[msongs]

6. what did jesus eat when he was in Indiana and Illiniois? nt

[Warpy]

7. Well, your last statement is certainly true, as a reading of the

Gnostic gospels would confirm. Anything that placed spiritual power within the people and away from authority was brutally excised and suppressed. The obvious huckster Paul was not only included, but he's been elevated above all the Apostles by most power structures since that council. What had been a troublemaking Jewish sect was elevated into an imperial religion.

All mention of powerful women within the early sect was suppressed and continues to be so.

Buddhists always recognize a great deal of Buddha nature in those red words in New Testaments, but most especially within some of the suppressed gospels, like that of Thomas. It's not inconceivable that a man along one of the major trade routes to the Orient would have not only run into a Buddhist, but would have studied with one.

The historical record is incomplete, to say the least, and we're just left with a myth cobbled out of equal parts of Mithras, Zoroaster and Herculese, plus a bunch of writings that were done many years after the fact.

We'll just never know any of this. Not really.

[saltpoint]

12. Anyone who calls Paul "an obvious huckster" is A-OK in my book.

What an opportunistic little sneak he was.

[Proud_Democratt]

8. John the Baptist was a part of an obscure

Jewish sect called the Essenes, which were known to be non-meat eaters. Christ disappeared for about 20 years, maybe he became one.

[Boojatta]

16. That sounds like raw materials for some kind of joke about

Baptistic Essenes or Southern Essene Baptists.

[Critters2]

22. The Essenes weren't obscure

There was a whole neighborhood of 'em in Jerusalem in Jesus' time. They were well-known, but faded away after the destruction as did other Temple-based traditions within Judaism.

And the evidence that John was one isn't really very strong.

[moggie]

9. There probably is

After all, theology is the practice of choosing what you want people to believe and then hand-waving an argument in support. Theology has promoted a great many ridiculous and contradictory positions in the past, so criticising a set of eating habits probably wouldn't present much of a challenge to a theologist.

Personally, I don't see the sense in taking dietary advice from a 2000-year-old book when there's better-informed contemporary advice available.

[Boojatta]

17. Was eating the sacrificed animal essential or was it simply a matter of

not allowing the dead animal to rot and be wasted?

[saltpoint]

11. Your last question in your post is very provocative & interesting.

In a world where sacrifice is not necessary, mercy would be obsolete. Because the world is sad and unjust, mercy is a requirement of an ethical construct.

A difficult paradox of messianic faiths is that nails must be driven into innocent flesh before there can be redemptive blood.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. The only one I can think of is ritual cannibalism

done as a sign of respect to ones ancestors, by a few people like the Fore.

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s938896.htm

There may be some religions where some other kind of meat eating is held to have religious significance. I'm not sure how 'compulsory' eating lamb or other meat is for Passover - can any observant Jews here comment?

I can't work out why you've phrased the body of your post as questions. Are you really stating them as facts, and inviting us to guess which group of Christians you're talking about? I can easily answer both questions 'no', because there are some Christians who think Jesus was right, and who think a blood sacrifice is not essential. Did you mean "Are there any Christians who think Jesus was mistaken ..."?

[Boojatta]

18. Is this clear?

Did you mean "Are there any Christians who think Jesus was mistaken ..."?

No, I don't think so. Consider the following two sentences:

(1) There is some entity that is not a barber and that shaves people.

(2) There is some entity that is a barber and that shaves itself.

Obviously no entity is both a barber and not a barber at the same time and in the same respect. Therefore, any particular object that takes the role of "some entity" in sentence (1) is not the same as any object that takes the role of "some entity" in sentence (2).

They are simply two independent sentences. Had I wanted to bind the variables in both sentences to a single existential quantifier, then perhaps I would have combined the two sentences into a single sentence.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. I wasn't talking about whether your two questions were linked

What was confusing me was your way of starting each question. Your examples in your above post don't help, since they are not questions. Without using "...", I'll say:

Did you mean

"Are there any Christians who think that Jesus was mistaken when he said that God wants mercy, not sacrifice?"

and

"Are there any Christians who think that a blood sacrifice is essential?"

(or did you mean something else, such as "There are some Christians who think that Jesus was mistaken when he said that God wants mercy, not sacrifice - who are they?" and "There are some Christians who think that a blood sacrifice is essential - who are they?")

[Igel]

15. I personally think you're mixing two issues.

There's no longer any sacrifice required to be offered, under most standard Xian theologies. The sacrifice has been offered; rejecting it or accepting it makes no difference to the sacrifice's having occurred.

There was a theological argument--and presumably, might still be, for conservative Jews (although someone that knows more Jewish theology than I should certain chime in here)--for non-vegetarianism. During the Passover, everybody was to partake of the lamb; moreover, during the sacrificial system, each person offering a sacrifice was to eat part of it. You break the law, you pay; vicariously, perhaps, but because of your mistake some creature had to die; that dead critter provides life in some sense (hence also the ritual from the last supper is simply parallel to this, when we are told to vicariously eat part of Jesus, since he was the passover lamb and the final sacrifice, in standard Xian theology). The death of the animal may be lamentable because it involved spilling blood, rather a lot of it, in fact, or because livestock was important to the family's livelihood. But it was lamentable for most people. Note that even Jesus, who said that God wants mercy and not sacrifice told a leper who was cured to offer the appropriate sacrifice.

In this sense, the sacrificial law was a tutor; rather like my English teacher didn't want the essays I wrote, but wanted the end result of my writing essays. Yahweh never wanted sacrifice per se, one would have to conclude from Jesus' word (and, presumably, he should know). But unless you know you've done something wrong, you won't repent; without repentance and stopping from doing wrong, there is no righteousness. Moreover, consciousness of our own shortcomings yields mercy. If you've never done anything wrong, and can brag of it, why be patient with others' shortcomings?

I can't think of a strong Xian argument against vegetarianism; nor can I think of a strong argument for it. The weak ones I've heard all involve exploring some of the religious reasons for it, and arguing against those--as though all vegetarians hold precisely those rationales for not eating meat. The arguments for it I've found uniformly specious.

[struggle4progress]

20. If we aren't supposed to eat meat, then why do we have big fangs & claws?

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. I can't tell what you're asking or why they relate to the subject question

Are you asking if some Christians believe that Jesus was mistaken? And then are you asking if some Christians claim that blood sacrifice is essential?

And how do "sacrifice" and "vegetarianism" get connected together in your thinking? They are completely separate ideas.

You've also not stated which theological framework you are talking about: Christian? Muslim? Jewish? Hindu? Buddhist? Other?