On Sun, 7 May 2000 07:40:46 -0600, Snowlight <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Ken Stuart" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> I've never yet heard a good response to the question put to "ethical
>> vegetarians" - "Why not be ethical towards carrots?"

If you read Khalil Gibran "The Prophet" (very nice reading IMO)
you can read that you should even respect the death of the apple
which is munched towards your eating.
Eating will always harm some other creatures, we can't live from sunlight
(alone, in the end we do it of course).

If you think further about ethics, then you only can choose the extent of
the harm you cause. Indian ethics give us a hierarchy, that it causes
less "carma" to kill an insect than to kill a pig or a human.

I think if you changed from supermarked-industrial-produced meats toward
a self-hunted meat this would mean the biggest step in
avoiding to harming animals.

Btw you needn't be vegetarian if you don't want to cause the death of the
animal you eat. Some animals die naturally (e.g. in the mountain, or carrion
in the savannah).

>  My Father (fed up with my
>vegetarian eating habits) would really chastise me for being a plant
>murderer at the dinner table.  Told me I was a ruthless killer, ripping up
>those carrots from the garden and eating them still alive!

To be honest - such statements are *very* annoying to me.
Like "You eat all the grass away from the cows..." and such nonsense.

Was it the same for you father to rip and kill a carrot or a
pig? (possibly yes, but for most no)

Of course he knew the difference in feeling for you -
so it sounds more than like he felt an urge to justify his own
beloved habits (which he felt attacked, and this is better not attacked).

regards

Amadeus S