Hello,
I know a lot of SC users are also on a spiritual quest. I am thinking on Alchemist, Sage Immortal…
How do you see the connection between developing your spiritual side and eating meat?
Thanks!
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I like meat and I don’t feel as if it made me less spiritual. 
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There is a belief that when people eating meat may absorb the pain and suffering of that animal. As human we are capable of transmuting any kind of negative energy into human energy. Unfortunately most people who have not experienced a spiritual path would carry that pain and suffering from eating animal.
If that animal meat is cooked right (in humane manner) and you set an intention for the food to be the best, then the food will serve you well.
Food is energy, and every energy can be transmuted
You may, when you just starting to meditate or on spiritual path, may hate eating meat.
This is because the body is dense, no light energy to transmute the energies yet.
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Poor Lions and other carnivore creatures. They have to be in a constant negative state 
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It depends on which spiritual path you follow.
Obviously the western approach underestimates animal suffering.
Instead, the Eastern approach is quite clear: eating meat carries karmic consequences.
It’s a matter of belief
The industrial world we live in distracts us from certain realities.
It outsources part of the infliction of pain to other living beings.
If you really like eating hamburgers and you had to kill a calf every week with your own hands, your question would find an answer quickly.
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Meat is the healthiest food you can eat, dont degrade your health and body for the sake of spirituality.
Advance in your spirituality but keep eating meat.
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In general: meat build a lot of energy and grounds you, non-meat smooth and helps circulates energy.
So it can be useful to include phases of both depending on what qualities are you currently developing.
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My first year in college i took an ethics / philosophy class and we spent a day on the morality of eating meat. This isn’t totally “spiritual” but more philosophical and thought provoking. here are my notes and what we discussed:
[long post]
Part 1: What You Believe
- Other things being equal, a world with less pain and suffering is better than a world with more pain and suffering.
- A world with less unnecessary suffering is better than a world with more unnecessary suffering.
- Unnecessary cruelty is wrong and prima facie should not be supported or encouraged.
- We ought to take steps to make the world a better place. 4b. We ought to do what we reasonably can to avoid making the world a worse place
- A morally good person will take steps to make the world a better place and even stronger steps to avoid making the world a worse place.
- Even a minimally decent person would take steps to help reduce the amount of unnecessary pain and suffering in the world, if she/he could do so with very little effort
- I am a morally good person
- I am at least a minimally decent person
- I am the sort of person who certainly would take steps to help reduce the amount of pain and suffering in the world, if I could do so with very little effort.
- Many nonhuman animals (certainly all vertebrates are capable of feeling pain)
- It is morally wrong to cause an animal unnecessary pain or suffering
- It is morally wrong and despicable to treat animals inhumanely for no good reason
- We ought to euthanize untreatably injured suffering animals to put them out of their misery whenever feasible
- Other things being equal, it is worse to kill a conscious sentient animal than it is to kill a plant
- We have a duty to help preserve the environment for future generations (at least for future human generations)
- One out to minimize one’s contribution towards environmental degradation, especially in those ways requiring minimal effort on one’s part.
Part 2: The Reality of Modern Factory Farming
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“before they come someone’s dinner, most farm animals raised in the US are forced to endure intense pain and suffering in “factory farms”
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factory farms: “intensive confinement facilities where animals are made to live in inhospitable unnatural conditions for the duration of their lives” – i.e. emphasis on efficiency and production
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scale: the numbers are staggering: approximately 8.5 billion animals are raised and slaughtered annually; 25 million per day; ~300 per second
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1st step: separation of mother and offspring
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2nd: offspring house in overcrowded facilities
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problem: bad conditions cause chronic foot and leg injuries, cannot move, and stuck in own waste
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overcrowded, unsanitary conditions cause boredom, stress, cannibalism, and preemptive mutilations
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3rd: to spur growth and prevent disease, fed constant stream of growth hormones and antibiotics; low-quality feed made up deceased animals, cement dust, feces, garbage, etc.
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4th: inhumanely loaded and shipped long distances (millions are injured or die here)
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5th: human slaughter practices not enforced; animals frequently are frequently conscious when killed
- “Suffice it to say that no other human activity results in more pain, suffering, frustration, and death than factory farming and animal agribusiness”
- conclusion: factory farming causes extremely large amounts of pain and suffering
Part 3: What’s The Relationship Between Your Beliefs And The Facts?
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combining your beliefs with what we know about animal agriculture, you get a number of moral “facts”
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1: animal agriculture increases the amount of pain in the world; thus the world would be better without it
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2: that meat is entirely unnecessary for human survival, and done for no good reason
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3: factory farming is wrong and ought not to be supported or encouraged; so, you should stop purchasing meat from them
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especially because…
- it takes little effort (easy to substitute out meat)
- you are the kind of person you think you are (a minimally-decent/good one!)
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so: you should think you ought to quit buying and eating meat
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- is factory farming wasteful, and why does that matter?
- extremely energy inefficient fossil-fuel wise
- extremely water-inefficient
- soil erosion
- extremely energy inefficient protein/calorie wise
- large amounts of hazardous waste (remember the hurricanes?)
- “The moral of the present section is clear: consistency forces you to admit that meat consumption is immoral and, thus, necessitates your becoming vegetarian immediately.”
Part 4: Objections
Objections #1: meat eating is necessary for optimal nutrition
- meat eaters have more disease (cancer, heart disease, etc.) and die younger
- An article in TheJournal of the American Medical Association concurs, claiming “the American Dietetic Association, the leading nutritional organization in the country, to assert: “Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases and conditions, including obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer. . . . It is the position of The American Dietetic Association (ADA) that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” The evidence is unequivocal: A vegetarian diet is nutritionally superior to a meat-based diet.” —
- Quote from: “Effects of Stress Management Training and Dietary Changes in Treating Ischemic Heart Disease,"Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 249, no. 1 (19831, pp. 54-59. These findings were confirmed in the Lifestyle Heart Trial. See Dean Omish, et al., “Can Lifestyle Changes Reverse Coronary Heart Disease?”
Objections #2: animal suffering outweighed by human gustatory pleasure: taste > suffering!
- response:
- 1) you probably don’t think this… we allow animal torture for fun?
- 2) the pleasure we get from eating meat vs. not eating meat probably isn’t that different—compared to eating nothing at all
- 3) remember humans also suffer from meat industry (disease)
Objections #3: Perhaps plants feel pain
- Maybe… but you don’t believe they do ( you trim your grass, mow lawn, prune plants, etc.)
- You would never trim your dog, or step on your cat like you do with grass.
Objections #4: God intends for us to eat meat, or eating meat is natural
- People often attempt to justify their carnivorous habits by claiming that God intends us to eat meat, citing their preferred religious text as evidence of God’s will. This "justification"is particularly puzzling since all major religions teach compassion for all living creatures. Islam advocates kindness to animals; the Hindu doctrine of reincar- nation encourages equal respect for all animals; and the First Precept of Buddhist ethical conduct is not to harm sentient beings.67Both Judaism and Christianity accept the Old Testament, which states: “And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food”
- So why think that God intends us to eat meat? Finding writings in these texts which contradict the teachings mentioned here won’t resolve the matter, since if these texts’ teachings are self-contradictory, then we are left with no clear guidance as to what God intends us to eat.
- Fortunately, we can bypass this unpromising hermeneutical project altogether. There is a much more compelling refutation of the “God intends us to eat meat” defense. If God intends us to eat meat, then God is either ignorant, irrational, or malevolent. If God doesn’t know that eating meat causes heart attacks, cancer, strokes, etc., then he is ignorant about nutrition. If God knows that eating meat is harmful to our health but intends us to do it anyway, then either he is malevolent and wants bad things to happen to us, or he is irrational since, despite wanting us to be healthy, he intends us to eat a diet detrimental to our health. Since, by definition, God is neither ignorant nor irrational nor malevolent, it is incoherent to believe that God intends us to eat meat.
- religions contradict themselves on diet; eating meat inconsistent with God being benevolent.
Objection #5: Free Range Fantasy
- What’s wrong with eating “free range” animals which are raised humanely and killed painlessly?
1. in admitting that eating factory farm-raised meat is morally wrong, you have just admitted that it is immoral to eat over 90 percent of the meat you eat.
2. the terms “free range” and “free roaming” are not indicative of humane animal husbandry practices. According to the labelling division of the USDA, “a free range bird is one that has access to the out- doors,” no matter how small the outdoor pen. The term “free roaming” just means birds which have not been raised in cages.
3. the painful mutilations described above are also routinely performed in both “free range” and non intensive farms. Plus, even if the “free range” animals had it good while they were on the farm, there are no humane livestock transportation companies and no humane slaughterhouses. The only way to be sure that the animal you are eating was raised humanely and killed painlessly is to raise and kill her yourself. Third, even if you had the time, space, and will to raise and kill your own "dinner,"you would still be jeopardizing your own health and the health of your loved ones, as well as wasting resources which could be better spent helping to alleviate human hunger and malnutrition
4. other things being equal, it is worse to kill a conscious sentient creature than it is to kill a plant
1. Suppose we could perform a human-benefiting experiment on either a dog or a plant with equally reliable and equally valuable results, but that the experiment will inevitably result in the death of the test subject. Anyone who accepts this will surely admit that we ought to perform the experiment on the plant.
Objection #6: Survival
- What if I need it to survive on a dessert island with no vegetation.
- Yes. Then it is morally expectable. But you are not in that scenario, so the argument is irrelevant.
Objection #7: So what? Why not just deny conclusion and reject one of my beliefs
- You can’t just stop believing something. Just like how you can’t stop believe that humans and animals feel pain.
- You can’t just stop believing in something
- all of those beliefs cohere one another
- you also wouldn’t want to reject any of the ones we mentioned
if someone is interested in reading the chapter and looking at all the citations, here you go
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I guess that this site doesn’t function anymore
I found it instead here
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I don’t know, lol. I like to think of myself as a spiritual person and I love steak… hahaha
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Well, an in-depth analysis of the industrial system for the slaughter of animals can quickly turn into a criticism of the foundations of the dominant economic-political system and this into an ideological debate which is not recommended in this forum.
No way to know. I did have most of my spiritual epiphanies as a near vegan but I don’t think I was too healthy. And certainly we are ‘supposed’ to be healthy.
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