Vegetarianism
Why I Find Both Liberals & Hindutva People Hypocrites Apropos To Animal Activism
One’s religious reasons to protect animals and other’s personal reasons to protect animals — aren’t consistent at all.
People ask me oftentimes, do you consider beef eating Hindus — Hindus? That’s a rather weird question. Last I read, Hindu scriptures vaguely mentioned about meat eaters & to an extent, beef eaters. Now, I’m a deist Hindu, I reject the religiosity of scriptures and take them as mere philosophical treatises. I’d judge a person by the content of their character and not by their stomachs, right? No. The belief system of right & wrong, & morality transcends any justification of inflicting pain upon other living beings. That’s the core belief system I — as a human — subscribe to. Thou shalt treat people how you want to be treated by them. You can’t testify to protect cows & eat fishes and chickens in the same breath, simultaneously. Consistency is a core tenet of moralism.
I'm more concerned about those people who advocate for one type of meat but prohibit another type of meat. I think about the beef eating Hindus the same way I think about chicken or fish eating Hindus, if you claim one meat is sacred while devouring another type of meat, then you are a hypocrite. If you think there's God (meh.) residing inside a cow, then it should be there in other animals too, right? All type of animals are connected by one common factor, and that is the animal kingdom. Or are you implying to say all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others? So what's common between all the animals?
- They all want to live;
- They all are living beings;
- They all are a part of the natural diversity;
- They all provide for the nature in one way or another;
Then what is so sacred about cows but not other animals? As a lifelong Vegetarian myself — I believe it is morally wrong to kill any living being, if you walk into a supermarket and see two things to eat for the dinner — fresh fish and cabbage — and you choose to eat fish, then you’re not acting in a moral way, even though you had a choice. Between a human’s death & an animal’s death, there’s one common factor which makes their death equal; and that is Suffering.
Back to the question; If beef eating Hindus, or Muslims — or any kind of people — advocate for one type of meat while prohibiting other types (Beef & Pork) then they are just hypocrites, & the act of indifference is called Cognitive Dissonance; as eminent philosophy student & YouTuber Alex O’connor calls it.
My opposition to beef comes not from religion or scriptures but from ethical point of view & from a moral perspective about pain. The religious stance is very weak & could look fragile at times; a meat eating; mutton eating; corpse gobbler don’t have an ethical stance against beef in the first place if they consume other kinds of meat but not cow; it’s hypocritical of those. They eat meat because scriptures says so (Shakta), they disregard beef because scriptures says so (Vaishnava). Their arguments comes crashing down if not for scriptures. I’ve called out the traditionalists on this as well as the nontraditionalists. On the other hand; ethical point of view is based on animal suffering & pain; it rejects both, the left & right, on meat & beef. I don’t understand why one can’t be a Hindu if he eats beef but one can be a Hindu if he eats meat; they still are gobbling on dead corpse; and that’s just unjustifiable when you are living a privileged life where you have varied choices under the capitalist free-market umbrella; eating meat isn’t one of them. If you aren’t in a village full of aquatic creatures, cattles, crabs, and fishes; then you are eating meat just for the sake of taste. A village folk is justified killing a fish, or boiling a crab when he is starving and can’t pay for the green leaves; he goes out for fishing at a river bank; or a person living in flood prone area, is totally justified surviving on a fish when you can’t grow veggies; there you have the survival point of view. Metropolitan citizens don’t have that dilemma in front of them; either you take beefsteak instead of a vegetable, when you visit a supermarket, and commit a morally reprehensible act, and duly encourage it; or you take the healthy path, and reject animal suffering & reject factory farming. Doing the act of choosing the latter one en masse would truly mean we are depriving animals of great suffering & pain; therefore actually being humans.
Stop eating all types of animal meat, & then lecture on Vegetarianism, but if you are eating tons of chickens while at the same time beating up people for eating beef then you’re not a rational person. Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t be a stupid. I don’t care what your religion says about killing animals and then devouring them, if you aren’t consistent with your ethics then you should consider rejecting it altogether.
My argument isn’t a religious one, or else I’d be believing in an omnipotent God, but a moral argument. I find both the Leftists & Right–Wingers hypocrites in this regard, they’ll (each and everytime) advocate for some kind of meat, instead of no kind of meat at all.
As Peter Singer said: believing that only human lives are sacred is a medieval thinking. You can’t claim to be moral & ethical and choose to slaughter goats in front of God, or Allah while advocating for Cows & Pigs. You can’t. If you do then there are only two things possible as a reason for believing in that crap:
- Your religion don’t consider a goat’s life & a cow’s life equal–to other beings
- Or God is indifferent to its followers’ stupidity & irrationality
At the end of the day, it’s not my business what you choose to eat, but remember, you’re acting morally wrong; and I’m not reminding you of that, at all.
“The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval.” “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” “We have to speak up on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves.”
— Peter Singer.
