Mkoll wrote:I don't know much about economics, but I would think that this is a simple matter of supply and demand. If there's a demand for meat, people go into business to supply it and that involves the slaughter of animals as a matter of course. If demand goes down, supply will follow and fewer animals will be slaughtered.
Wtith your previous statement then, you'd agree that desiring baked chicken is no more unwholesome than desiring a fruit smoothy? Even though the desire for meat supposedly breeds animal slaughter (I'm still not convinced that it does either) of which by implication we can say is on equal footing with the negative effects of top soil errosion, worker mistreatment etc?
David N. Snyder wrote: The First Precept is to not kill or cause to kill.
Some Buddhists follow a vegetarian diet to better practice the first precept and not contribute to the killing of animals.
Is that really the first precept? I don't remember reading that although it can be deduced via various other rules and teachings, and it's certainly debatable as to whether buying meat in and of itself without the intention of causing harm, but simply providing your family with sustenance from meat which has already been killed is "causing others to kill." This is what I want to know.
These are two different issues. If this were really the case, why did the Buddha allow his monks to eat meat at all if the act of simply eating it caused others to kill?
Coyote wrote: Perhaps because of two reasons. Firstly, meat cannot, by it's very nature, be consumed without entailing the death of an animal. So no matter how animals are farmed and processed, even without those problematic side-effects you mention, it will always entail the death of an animal.
Secondly, those problematic side-effects of meat production are hidden. When you buy a piece of meat you can clearly see that it is the flesh of a dead animal. That's not the case when it comes to the mistreatment of workers, top-soil erosion, ect.
Where did you read this? From my understanding vege Buddhist don't generally argue that desiring meat is immoral, or more wrong than desiring anything else. It's rather more to do with reducing the amount of deaths caused by meat production and contributing to the decline of said meat production, out of compassion for the animals killed. Supply and demand, as others have mentioned.
Which brings us back to the basic question of why the Buddha would allow the consumption of choice cuts if it truly did support the slaughter machine.
Where did I read it? Well other than your very statements "Buddhist don't generally argue that desiring meat is immoral, or more wrong than desiring anything else." and this :"It's rather more to do with reducing the amount of deaths caused by meat production and contributing to the decline of said meat production"
Not trying to be antagonistic but didn't you just contradict what you said in two consecutive statements? If stopping meat consumption supposedly frees more beings from pain and suffering, how then can we say that Buddhist don't generally put a value judgement based on what desire has manifested? whether it be for kfc or tofu?
And I'll mention that Retrofuturist says in The great vegatarian debate that he doesn't "desire meat" in much the same way that the Bhikku sangha doesn't, as do many others in that thread. I also remember watching a video by Bhante Yuttadhammo in which he says the optimal route to take is to refrain from "desiring meat" of which he wasn't necessarily clear as to what that entailed because he says it could be acceptable to go and out and purchase it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zisXgVnv-cI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
seeker242 wrote:It's worse because desiring a fruit smoothy causes much less harm to others, than meat does.
Says who? This is the common asumption and of course we can say that "desiring meat is bad" but that's the equal case with everything! And so if "desiring meat" held a special place amongst those things of which we should not seek out because it leads to countless suffering then why wouldn't the Buddha at least say to his lay followers "Ok kind of take it easy on the meat guys" But he didn't do this, now I don't think he would want his lay support to be accumulating all kinds of bad merit by feeding the beef machine...right?