Vegetarian By Choice

Most vegetarians look down upon meat eaters because they believe that you should not take life to sustain yours. And when faced with the realization that they also kill plants for food, the justification given is that killing a plant is not the same as killing an animal.

Ask them why? And the two main reasons given are:

1. All life is not equal and the value of each species of life is different. The reason for this conclusion is that we humans have a special place in the universe. Another argument is that if we regard all life as equal then all life is fair game when it comes to food, including humans. Nearly all cultures forbid the killing of humans for food while rarely questioning the right to kill animals for food. Even vegetarians kill insects without thinking twice and that also shows that we place different value on different forms of life.
2. Plants do not feel pain as they do not have a Central Nervous System, pain sensors or emotional relationships like animals and hence it is all right to kill them.

My position is that I disagree with both these reasons. Today, I will however, discuss the first of the above two – namely value of life of different species.

The arguments that I would like to put forward against the assertion that the value of a plant’s life is less than the value of an animal’s life and hence it is all right to kill plants for food are as follows:

1. Regarding all life as equal does not mean that all life is fair game when it comes to food, including humans. There is a “small” thing in this universe called nature. And nature itself does not allow a man to eat another man for food. The same nature does not make a dog eat another dog, or a tiger hunt another tiger for food. All meat eating animals hunt members of species other than their own for food. So when carnivores do not kill their own, a “sentient” being like human obviously will not do that.
2. The thought that we human beings have a special place in the universe is the biggest misconception that we humans have! The Darwinian theory of evolution has clearly proven that we evolved by hit and trial over a couple of billion years to become what we are. Just as the misconception that Earth is the centre of the Universe took a few thousand years to be thrown out of the window, I think this notion of humans as special should also be put in the waste paper basket.
3. And to prove my point, let us do a thought experiment – just think that the entire human population of this earth has mysteriously disappeared jut as the dinosaurs did more than 150 million years ago. Will the evolution produce humans again? No way. Just as evolution did not reproduce any of the extinct species ever. So where is the special place that we humans have?
4. We justify plant eating because we can, that is, we have the power. It could have been the reverse. Remember the movie, “The Planet of Apes?”
5. According to me we try and justify things always from our own point of view and hence they are always relative. But there should be certain principles that should be absolute, because truth is always absolute. That is the only way principles, beliefs, values and religions can exist. One truth can be “cruelty is bad”. But the moment you start to make it relative – cruelty to humans is worse than cruelty to dogs and that is worse than cruelty to frogs and that is worse than….. You end up exposing yourself.
6. A thief is a thief whether he steals 100 bucks or a million bucks. You may term as small thief or big thief. But thieves they are. Similarly a living being is a living being and that is it.
7. I would also like to have another thought experiment done. Take two buckets. Fill one with tomatoes that are cut into 4-6 pieces each. Fill the other one with boneless chicken pieces of one cubic inch size. Blindfold a person who has not seen the two buckets being so prepared. Now ask him to put his arms in both these buckets. What do you think will happen? My guess is that he will not be able to tell the difference.
8. The moment you start to accept that the value of different forms of life is different, you are also open to the Nazi idea that the value of different human ethnicity is also different. So why Hitler was wrong when he talked of Aryan supremacy or why were the whites wrong when they thought blacks and browns were lower and hence should be enslaved? Why do we then look down upon slavery in the US, apartheid in South Africa, holocaust in Germany or the caste system in India?

I can go on and on, but I think I have made my point quite clear if not acceptable. I believe that all forms of life are equal. When GOD created life and different forms of life, I do no not think he said that this is inferior to that one. WE make that judgment to suit our own stands. And the argument that plants are different is a vegetarian’s way of justifying what he eats. Else what will a vegetarian or a vegan eat?

We need to arrive at the right reason to eat plant based diet. And that is the only way we will be able to convert the meat eaters into our form of living – by compassionate and logical reasoning. Not by confrontation.

I will come to that, but tomorrow I’ll take up the next negative argument of a vegetarian, namely plants do not feel pain as they do not have a Central Nervous System, pain sensors or emotional relationships like animals and hence it is all right to kill them.

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