Harming Creation II: Exploiting, Killing, Consuming Animal

[TomS]

And all those sinful monastics forgoing meat really are sinners because they abstain from eating meat?

In some cases there is a need for not eating meat:

Cultural:
Poor -> Meat is expensive and hard to come by.
Overpopulated -> You can feed more per acre using grains than meat.

For everyone else (not health related)

It's Pride.

For Christians: It is simply a prideful way to set yourself apart from your fellow man and appear more pious. "We didn't eat meat in the Garden!"

For Non-Christians: 1) Being a freak gets you attention 2) allows yourself to feel superior to others.

[gphadraig]

Sir, I think you dodged the point of my post? Yes, there are many reasons for some not eating meat and you have listed some important ones. However ascetic strugglers and monks in the Orthodox Church abstain. Given your clarity I look at this long practice and your assertion and cannot reconcile the two? Even John Calvin saluted the early monastic strugglers and their abstinence while railing against the gluttony and comfort of the Roman monastics of his time. (That revelation came as a shock to me).

Elective vegetarianism and veganism ordinarily tend to make my eyebrows raise, I think because of the aggressive rejection of meat eating by SOME practitioners of this lifestyle.

[TomS]

Sir, I think you dodged the point of my post?

"And all those sinful monastics forgoing meat really are sinners because they abstain from eating meat?"

Sorry -- I didn't mean to. What I am saying is that they are using this to set themselves apart from the "common" man. And it has not a thing to do with Godliness.

[gphadraig]

Interesting, TomS. May I then follow with your reference to your earlier reference to 'God commanding Peter to eat meat'.

"I was in the city of Joppa, he said, at my prayers, when I fell into a trance and saw a vision. a bundle, like a great sheet, came down from heaven, lowered by the four corners, till it reached me. I looked closely to find out what it was, and there I saw four-footed creatures of earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and the birds that fly in heaven. And I heard a voice saying to me, Rise up, Peter, lay about thee and eat. So I answered, It cannot be, Lord; nothing profane or unclean has ever crossed my lips. And a second utterance came from heaven in answer, It is not for thee to call anything profane, which God has made clean. Three times this happened, and then all was drawn up again into heaven. And at that very moment three men appeared at the door of the house where I was, with a message to me from Caesarea. The Spirit bade me accompany them without misgiving; so these six brethren came with me, and together we entered the man's home. There he told us how he had had a vision of an angel in his house; this angel stood before him, and said, Send to Joppa, and bid Simon, who is also called Peter, come to thee. He will have such a message for thee as will bring salvation to thee and all thy household. and then, when I had set about speaking to them, The Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as it was with us at the beginning. Then I was reminded of what the Lord said to us, John's baptism was with water, but there is a baptism with the Holy Spirit which you are to receive. And now, if God has made them the same free gift, which he made to us when faith in the Lord Jesus had gone before it, who was I, what power had I, to stay God's hand? At these words, they were content, and gave glory to God; Why then, they said, it seems God has granted life-giving repentance of heat to the Gentiles too.

(Acts 11: 5 - 18)

Given the context of at this time there being a controversy about holding to the tradition of the circumcision it is clear, is it not, that God's commandment to the Apostle Peter is not a commandment that one must eat meat but relates to how the Gentiles who wish to embrace Christ's teaching are to be accepted?

[gphadraig]

Forgive me, a snafu occurred making the above post, which appeared mysteriously and refuses to be corrected -

The text is from Acts, chapter 11, verses 5 to 18

Sorry

[TomS]

Given the context of at this time there being a controversy about holding to the tradition of the circumcision it is clear, is it not, that God's commandment to the Apostle Peter is not a commandment that one must eat meat but relates to how the Gentiles who wish to embrace Christ's teaching are to be accepted?

I don't dispute your point. However must it ONLY have this meaning?

[Mor Ephrem]

I don't think it necessarily must have only one meaning, but I think it is dangerous if we start reading different/alternate meanings into something which is pretty clear if you read the context. For instance, I read something in Leviticus (I think) where it said something like "All fat is the LORD's": it had to do with the rites of various sacrifices, and I wouldn't be justified, I don't think, in taking this to another level and saying that obese people and fatty foods are especially beloved by God. It's pretty clear that the passage has to do with the dietary restrictions of the Mosaic Law. And since we have no proof that St. Peter was a vegetarian (we have no proof that he wasn't, but I think we can assume that he was a meat-eater), I don't think the alternate meaning in question is implied at all in the text.