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Vegan Values
Comments by Erin Oldford - 30 Jan 2003

Hi Colin,

Glad you're back! You bring up an interesting point, one that I have been "pondering" and praying about a lot recently and I was wondering if I could get some input from the group on this.

You made the statement "eating meat is a natural thing for many creatures and is not wrong".

Most people I know use Genesis 9:3 to justify eating animals. I know this does not justify the cruelty involved but I still have such a HARD time believing that God gave us permission to eat meat as a GOOD thing, something we can do "guilt-free", something that is "good" for us. I just don't believe it is that simple.

If eating meat was a "gift" he gave us (as I've heard stated by Christians), why would it be so unhealthy for us, why would our bodies be so ill-suited to digest it, and why would death have to be involved?

Was God's permission to eat meat simply the way that animals would suffer from the introduction of sin into the world? Is it really something we should be able to do and enjoy even if the animal has been raised humanely and killed "humanely" (such a contradiction of terms!!)?

I used to buy my meat (before I stopped eating it!!) at a rural packing house where locally farmed animals were slaughtered and processed. Even though they were raised well and this was not a huge commercial slaughterhouse, I still felt the oppression and fear and dread and "blackness" of the place when I was there surrounded by all the dead carcasses.

Even if an animal has its throat slit right there on the beautiful farm it was raised on where it was able to run and be free and languish in the sun, it's death, I'm sure, is still terrifying, hideous and awful. I cannot "wrap my brain" around the idea that this is something we have been given permission to feel comfortable doing or that it's just one of those uncomfortable necessities of life (which is another comment I hear a lot).

Does the Bible give us any indication that eating "humanely raised" animals is ok??

Erin

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