AmericanPapist Comments
Vegan comes from a Cherokee word; it means "Bad Hunter".
no Chinese Cadbury please
Even if this is true, does it mean anything?
After the fall the first thing God did was to slay an animal to provide them clothes. Then you have the whole sacrificial economy in the Old Testament along with later Jesus eating the Pascal lamb and even eating fish after the resurrection.
So this has nothing to do with the morality of eating meat.
The real problem is that many folks who are vegetarians or vegans do have convictions of religious intensity about not eating meat. Unfortunately, they allow a good thing (a desire to abstain and a love of animals) to stomp all over another good thing (other people's desire not to abstain, and a love of tasty animals). So they try to bring Jesus or God or Eden in, to show that nobody should be eating meat.
Of course, a lot of us meat-eaters have trouble being gentle about defending the scriptural basis of carnivorousness, because there's nothing like blackening innocent behavior to madden us. I still feel guilty about my own behavior toward a fellow blogger on this issue, and I'm afraid I helped scandalize him.
But we have to defend meat, seeing as Jesus did not scorn it. We just have to be gracious about it (as you have just been).
Thomas, this is a literal reading of Genesis 1:27-29; 9:3. God, when creating mankind, at first only permitted the eating of seed-bearing plants and their fruit. After the flood, God's covenant with Noah made licit the consumption of any living creature, but the creature must first be dead before eating. The proscriptions against pigs, sharks, shrimp, etc. came in the Mosaic Law.
Tom,
Fruits and nuts only in the garden. But . . . the world has changed and we cannot again sail into Westernesse. Ergo, meat and milk are licit and not unjust, though their source of licitness may be. Think about it this way: doesn't that also mean that true Christians should be nudists?
God himself gave Adam and Eve leather to replace their fig leaves. Is it a stretch that they would also eat animal flesh rather than waste it when making new clothes.
Having spoken with someone on the PBC about this some years ago, the point is minute but true. According to the literal reading we do not get the commandment to allow meat eating until Noah. The trouble here is the literal reading of a genre that is not to be read literally without going on to the theological.
The mythic nature of the cosmogeny found in Genesis allows for a literal as well as theological reading. For the most part interpretation should never stop at the literal, especially these early chapters of Genesis.
The early stories are to convey the theological understanding of how we got where we are now. NOW we are meat eaters, Now we sin and are inclined to sin. How did this come about?
Genesis addresses these things and quite well. You could take the Genesis stories of creation literally but you run into trouble after the first chapter because there is a different story. The "myths" convey salvific truths not necessarily history text truths.
"Think about it this way: doesn't that also mean that true Christians should be nudists?"
exactly. well put.
Perhaps the key is to be found in the structure of the Noah account. It is written in the form of a reverse parallel. The first part parallels the last, the second parallels the second to last, the third=the third to last, ect. The parallels are built around the section marked XXX.
A1) 6:9-10 Righteous Noah and his sons
B1) 6:11-12 God sees that the earth is ruined. All flesh has ruined its way.
C1) 6:13-22 God's instructions in preparation for flood. Instructions concerning food.
D1) 7:1-9 Men with clean animals and birds.
E1) 7:10-16 Flood begins, ark closed. Seven days, forty days.
F1) 7:17-20 Water rises, mountains covered.
XXX 7:21-24 Climax: All life on land dies. Noah and all in the ark spared.
F2) 8:1-5 Water recedes, mountains uncovered.
E2) 8:6-14 Flood ends, ark's window opened. Seven days, forty days.
D2) 8:15-21 men and beast exist the ark. Clean animals and birds offered to God.
C2) 9:1-7 God's instructions to Noah for renewal of the earth. Instruction concerning food.
B2) 9:8-17 God promises never to ruin the earth or all flesh again. God will see his rainbow.
A2) 9:18-19 The sons of Noah repopulate the earth.
...so you're saying I shouldn't be a nudest?
If humans are currently designed as omnivores, and lions as carnivores, does that mean we/they had herbivore-style teeth and gastro-intestinal tracts back in the Garden of Eden? Did bees lack stings? Were we created without an unnecessary immune system in a perfect world where pathogens did not exist? Did we lack a liver to metabolise toxins in a toxin-free world? Back when we were perfect, was the gene that allows vitamin C synthesis functional, or were we and the other primates created with a defective gene? Were we radically redesigned after the Fall, into something that could only be a different species, biologically speaking?
If the answer to these is "Yes", what did our pre-Fall ancestors look like, and why did Jesus look like us and not them, if he was not fallen the way we are?
The road this sort of theology leads to is weird indeed ... worthy of an epic scifi trilogy in four parts.
This is a sick joke, placing a picture of wings on the site. Now I'm hungry.
In relation to the outline I gave above it should be noted that the sections labeled "C1" and "C2" parallel one another. In C1 Noah is commanded to build an ark and take his family and also animals into it. This seems to have some relation to the fact that God will establish a covenant with Noah, but little is specifically said at this point. In the D1 section Noah is ordered into the ark, the reason being that he alone has found favor with God. It is only because of Noah's favor with God that any animals survived. They were put into the ark in view of the covenant promised in C1 and established in C2. In C2 it is explicitly stated that the animals share in the covenant God makes with Noah and his descendants.
In D1 it is stated that the reason Noah is to take the animals into the ark is to preserve them and their future offspring (see 7:3). This point is re-emphasized in D2 when God tells Noah to release the animals "and let them abound upon the earth, breeding and multiplying on it" (8:17). It appears that man's activity in relation to the "D" sections is part of the exercise of his dominion over creatures. Part of that dominion is to save them so that they can be fruitful and multiply. No doubt breeding was part of the domestication of animals shown to have been in existence since nearly the beginning (Abel). Since man saved and fed the animals during the flood (C1), the animals in turn now feed man (C2), for man, in virtue of the covenant God made with Noah, the father of renewed humanity, continues to save the animals. "I am establishing my covenant with you, that never again shall all bodily creatures be destroyed...(9:11).
It needs to be said that man's dominion over animals brings with it responsibilities, including the preservation of species, as the catechism teaches:
http://www.kofc.org/un/publicati...=2415&
ParType=7
j madden:yes.
sam: so true.
so whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. For i am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.[the believer's freedom in Christ]:1 corinthians 10:23....8:13: if what i eat causes my brother to fall into sin, i will never eat meat again...Saint Paul, always looking out for the other's salvation.
ROMANS 14:19 Let us make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification...accept him whose faith is weak....
I do not consider it at all immoral to eat meat. Jesus Christ most probably ate Lamb at the Passover meal, but I am a Pesceterian and I think its a good thing to think about in this day in age with our limited resources. It is much more efficient to not eat meat as far as world food supply is concerned. I heard once America cutting its meat consumption by 10% would create a situation which could keep people in the Third World from starvation.
So I agree that people who hold religous convictions about eating meat can seem a bit self-righteous, but let that remind us to avoid self-righteousness; even about what is True. There are also very many sincere vegetarians out there who just are trying to do the right thing.
Thomas,
I don't know if it'd be necessary for Americans to cut meat consumption in order to keep people in the Third World from starving. My understanding is that we can produce plenty of food, we just can't get it to the starving people....either because of pure logistical issues, or because of import regulations some places have against genetically modified crops, or because of tyrants who take all the food and let their people starve.
How is it that John Paul II can make a careful reading of the details of Genesis and the Theology of the Body is the result.
But when one of those details speaks of diet, we throw it in the trash?
If God had a plan for human sexuality, why wouldn't he have one for human eating?
Contrary to popular thinking, humans are NOT designed as omnivores. Study the taste receptors on Cats (true carnivores), Dogs (true omnivores) and humans. What you will find is that Cats have taste buds for acids (proteins), but not carbohydrates. Doges have both taste buds. Humans only have receptors for carbohydrates.
What does this mean? It means we are designed to have a taste for and eat complex sugars, not complex amino acids. The fact that we do is a result of the Fall.
The simple fact is that the human body runs better on a vegan diet because it is designed to do so.
The theology is one thing, but look at the science. They support one another on this issue.
Don't you think it is interesting that the eschatological meal before consecration are grapes and grain?
What is God saying?
Take a closer look.
You're right; God was wrong to tell the Israelites to eat lamb at the Passover seder; Jesus was wrong to eat lamb; Jesus was wrong to eat fish.
Bill912,
I think you are missing the point. No one is saying that it is a matter of moral right or wrong - my only point is that there is solid scientific evidence that clearly indicates that human beings are herbivores, not omnivores.
My point is that there is a purpose to what we read in Scripture about diet. There is rich meaning to be found. There is a far gulf between that and asserting the immorality of eating meat.
No one said it was immoral or a sin to eat meat, or that God was wrong to instruct the people of Israel to eat lamb.
"Humans only have (taste) receptors for carbohydrates."
Then I just imagined that I tasted the steak I ate tonight.
"What is God saying?"
By His example, He seems to be saying: "When I walked the earth, I ate meat and fish."
There is a lot more to our classification as omnivores than taste buds, which I can't find a reference for and sincerely doubt.
Our intestines, and how the cell types are designed to handle protein and not fermentation; our teeth and jaws; our salivary glands; our liver; our iron metabolism; etc etc etc.
It doesn't mean we can't adapt to a vegetarian diet. It doesn't mean that personal spiritual preference is wrong. It just means that biologically, we are omnivores, and we should not base preference for vegetarian / vegan diets on false science.
Or false theology. WWJD? WWJE? A balanced theology is better, like a balanced diet, and, to paraphrase Paul (1 Cor 3), there is the milk version and the meat version.
Here is an article from a vegetarian source no less that debunks the humans-are-herbivores myth: http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/omni.htm
Just blow the dust off your Holy Bibles and read Romans CHAPTER 14. Pope Benedict also spoke about this on Wednesday,briefly.
I think the most importint thing when eating meat is how the animal was treated. I am not a vegetarian, nor do I eat only "free range" meat(maybe I should) but I think that the factory-farm method of raseing animals is bad, not only dose it show no repect for the animals, but think what it must do to a person to work in a slaughter house all day. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with the methods used in the time of Christ, and still in some farms today.
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