Life Is Sacred
A dead cow or sheep lying in a pasture is recognized as carrion.
The same sort of a carcass dressed and hung up in a butcher’s stall passes as food,” writes Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Time and again, over the centuries and across the cultures, the subject of animal slaughter and flesh diet has been discussed. Also since time immemorial, many cultures have avoided animal slaughter and flesh diet. These cultures were built on the philosophy of peaceful coexistence with nature and the principle of nonviolence. Read more... Mother And Child
By Venerable Wuling (A Buddhist monk), May 2008
One morning, in the spring of 2004, I opened my window blinds, sat down at my desk in front of the window, and glanced out to look at the lawn and pond. Several yards in front of the window, I saw a tiny bunny hovering over the body of a full-grown rabbit. The rabbit had apparently died in a small indentation, about a yard across, in the ground. Throughout the day, I watched as the young bunny ran back and forth over and over across the lawn chasing away a large bird that was trying to get at the dead rabbit. Read more... Hunter And The Sage
Once upon a time the great saint Narada went to Prayaga to bathe at the holy confluence. On the way he saw that a deer was lying in the forest and that it was pierced by an arrow. It had broken legs and was twisting due to much pain. Farther ahead, Narada Muni saw a boar pierced by an arrow. Its legs were also broken, and it was twisting in pain. When he went farther, he saw a rabbit suffering similarly. Narada Muni was greatly pained at heart to see living entities suffer so. When Narada Muni advanced farther, he saw a hunter behind a tree. This hunter was holding arrows, and he was ready to kill more animals. The hunter’s body was blackish.
Read More... Strictures Against Animal Killing - Islam
“…but to hunt…is forbidden you, so long as ye are on the pilgrimage. Be mindful of your duty to Allah, unto Whom you will all be gathered.” ~Koran, surah 5, verse 96 (In Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, no creature can be slaughtered and that perfect harmony should exist between all living beings. Muslim pilgrims approach Mecca wearing a shroud (‘ihram’). From the moment they wear this religious cloth, absolutely no killing is allowed. Mosquitos, lice, grasshoppers, and other living creatures must also be protected. If a pilgrim sees an insect on the ground, he will motion to stop his comrades from accidentally stepping on it.)
Read more... Christianity And Animal Killing - A Conversation
The following conversation between His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and Cardinal Jean Danielou took place in Paris on August 9, 1973.
Srila Prabhupada: Jesus Christ said, "Thou shall not kill." So why is it that the Christian people are engaged in animal killing? Cardinal Danielou: Certainly in Christianity it is forbidden to kill, but we believe that there is a difference between the life of a human being and the life of the beasts. Read more... Legalized Terrorism - Animal Abuse And Killing
Barely a few years into it, the twenty-first century is already clearly marked as the “Age of Terrorism.” The attacks of September 11, 2001 marked a salient turning point in the history of the U.S. and indeed of global geopolitics. The U.S. declared its number one priority to be the “War on Terrorism,” and its domestic, national, and international policies have changed accordingly. In his address to the nation shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Bush used the terms “terror,” “terrorism,” and “terrorist” thirty-two times without ever defining what he meant.
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Modern Life Is Founded on Disregard For Life and Nature
Modern life is characterized by a total lack of reverence towards life, both human and non-human.
Inspite of the availability of so much food, billions of animals are mercilessly raised, transported and slaughtered every year. The reactions are equally severe. Human beings also die in riots, bombings and wars in the same brutal fashion. Read more Good Bye!
By Bob White
All animals connect. It is us who disconnect. Even fish connect. I had a group of fish for 5 years. Every morning, the largest one would make a huge loop around the tank to say, “Good Morning”. (It was a vertical loop, not a circling feeding loop.) As this fish was dying, I sat vigil with it for 3 days. it was barely breathing. I looked and it made the effort to make one huge verticle loop around the tank and then died. I’m sure it was saying, “Good Bye”. Read more... Truth About Vedic Sacrifices
Vedic society was a strictly vegetarian society because a vegetarian diet is conducive to higher spiritual realization. Meat eating is one of the greatest obstacles on the path of spiritual progress. Despite farfetched interpretations, no scripture in the world recommends meat eating—although some scriptures may make a concession for individuals who are unable to control their tongues.
In vedic system, animal sacrifices are classified into two categories. First category is for testing the efficacy of mantras chanted in a fire sacrifice. Read more... Strictures Against Animal Killing - Judaism and christianity
"Thou shall not kill"
~Sixth Commandment, (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17) And God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so." ~Genesis 1:29-30 Read more... Humanity Turning Into Walking Graves
Meat eating is similar to consigning a corpse to an earthly grave. Both entail burying a dead body, in the belly in the first case and in the ground in the other. Only difference is that one grave is stationary and the other is mobile.
George Bernard Shaw rightly puts this in his famous poem: We are the living graves of murdered beasts, Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. Read more... All Nations As Terrorist States
But if terrorism is linked to intentional violence inflicted on innocent persons for ideological, political, or economic motivations, and nonhuman animals also are “persons”—subjects of a life—then the human war against animals is terrorism. Every individual who terrifies, injures, tortures, and/or kills an animal is a terrorist; fur farms, factory farms, foie gras, vivisection, and other exploitative operations are terrorist industries; and governments that support these industries are terrorist states.
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Animals Have A Soul And They Feel Just Like We Do
Some of the world’s religions erroneously propound that only human life is sacred because only human beings have soul. But this is a dangerous and irrational fallacy; and a completely nonsensical and absurd proposition. We eat, sleep, mate and defend and animals do the same, where is the difference. We feel pain and pleasure and so do they.
Read more... Religious Philosophy And Attitude Towards Animals
Whether we are actively religious or not, religious belief permeates the very fabric of our existence. Namely, it influences, if not directly shapes, our personal, economic, social and ethical life. It is then only logical to surmise that religion also influences how we, individually and collectively, treat animals.
What role does religion play in shaping our attitude towards the animal world? One answer was proposed in 1967 by UCLA History Professor Lynn White, Jr., who wrote an article entitled, "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis" (Science 155, 1967). Read more... Strictures Against Animal Killing - Buddhism
“For the sake of love of purity, let the Bodhisattva refrain from eating flesh, which is born of semen, blood etc. To avoid causing terror to living beings, let the disciple, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating meat... It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order to kill it, when it was not especially meant for him.”
“There may be some people in the future who, being under the influence of taste for meat will string together in various ways sophistic arguments to defend meat eating. Read more... Jesus Ate Meat, Why Shouldn't we?
Another common objection to vegetarianism is, "Jesus Christ ate meat, so why shouldn't we?" But vegetarian Christians point out that the ancient Greek, from which the New Testament was translated, does not support the contention that Christ ate meat. For example, Greek words like brosimos, prosphagion, and trophe, all of which mean simply "food, or "nourishment," were loosely translated as "meat. (except in the New English Bible). And, vegetarian Christians assert, where the Bible states that Christ was offered fish and a honeycomb and accepted ‘it’ (singular), it means the honeycomb.
Read more... But What About Killing Plants?
One of the strongest objections animal killers raise against vegetarianism is that vegetarians still have to kill plants, and that this is also violence. But it is nonsensical to equate fully sentient animals like cows with lowly vegetables. Certainly, plants are as alive as cows; modern experiments prove that plants have feelings, and the Bhagavad-gita, the essence of all Vedic teachings, confirms that all life forms contain spirit souls qualitatively equal to one another.
Read more... Why Is Cow Considered Sacred In India?
When used in a modern sense, the term holy cow or sacred
cow sums up the idiosyncrasies, superstitions, folklores and primitive obstinacies of a backward India. The average Westerner (or a person with that mindset) finds this highly amusing that Indians ‘worship’ cows. Time and again in last two hundred years, this fact has been brought up, much to the astonishment of giggling school girls in London and Newyork. And this idea has found plenty of takers in all parts of the world, including India with the spread of Western values and ideologies. Read more... |