How do you Justify consuming Animal Products?

[Roy]

Interesting study. I'd say the taste answer is the one I've heard the most too when people are cornered logically. My conclusion was just more of a reach of my intuition that most people are not willing to be honest about their beliefs. I think there is more underlying psychology but I'll agree with the study and concede.

Let me illuminate my thoughts in how I view understanding. I break it down in 4 stages; Ignorance>Knowledge>Awareness>Embodiment. The example here is meat consumption because well, that's what we're discussing

Ignorance - Someone who is completely oblivious to the suffering of animals and environment impact it has. When confronted with and shown the facts they get defensive, or just willingly discard them from their reality.

Knowledge - Someone who has been shown enough to know that meat consumption is generally harmful. However it hasn't suaded them to make or consider any life changes. They go on eating meat with almost zero emotional recoil or shame.

Awareness - Someone who is deeply connected to the issue and true plight of our situation. Little to no meat consumption. They feel regret or other negative feelings if they lapse and eat any meat. They try to spread their own awareness to others. However being connected to the issue and "getting it" they react emotionally to the people of Ignorance or Knowledge below them. They don't accept the existence of the stages below them.

Embodiment - Someone who has transcended the emotional stage. Little to no meat consumption. They still fully acknowledge the true plight and harmful impacts of meat consumption, but they don't let the emotions and resonance they have dictate their actions or interactions with others. They do accept the existence of the stages below them and act carefully and effectively. Lead by example.

I think too many people at the awareness stage don't realize you can't bring up people to your level of awareness by brute force. They won't come if they're kicking and screaming because they are being treated like children. Like I said the information should be politely and surgically put before them and eventually their consciousness will "click". You can say this is too passive and possibly counter-productive that's fair. However I didn't even lay out my own personal strategy when I even engaged in this thread. I just simply pointed out that people should stop shaming others and getting emotional about the issue.

As for the human bias aspect and baby analogy, I concur that is something to consider. All I'll say against that is we're not at that level yet so I don't see how it's entirely relevant. We can't skip stages. The content and people engaged in this thread are stage green people trying to unhealthily force people from stage blue and orange to go up. I as a stage yellow vegetarian am simply trying to help illuminate their strategic blunder.

Ultimately should I have used a word like "triggered"? Probably not, but hey sometimes it's amusing to give people a taste of their own medicine, and there is the off chance they self reflect.

Also while I've been keeping an eye on this thread I made a yummy naan/veggy curry dinner hehe

https://imgur.com/a/kC3oA7R

Edited March 10, 2020 by Roy

[Forestluv]

@Roy Those are great constructs. I was trying to express upon modes of empathy and love. 

[Chakra Lion]

1 hour ago, Roy said:

Ignorance>Knowledge>Awareness>Embodiment. 

@Roy I like that a lot. 
It is hard to hear another soul give their reasons against something as if it’s coming from a higher awareness, when to you it sounds like ignorance. When I originally posted this is thought I would get the usual justifications like protein deficiency or that it’s not convenient to stop eating animals. But I never heard the excuse that nothing matters, there is no evil, it’s all an illusion. That really traumatized me a little. Because as much as I could relate to that statement, it was also being used as a reason to continue their behavior. Almost like a higher state of awareness was found and could be pulled down to use as justification for any behavior. As if the suffering that is happening is irrelevant because it’s an illusion, or that it isn't really happening. Just such a quick dismissal of something that causes so much destruction. And then accusing the ones who care about suffering as not being awake enough or moralists. That was hard to read... It feels very hopeless when people that call themselves awake use awareness and knowledge to stay ignorant, or to keep themselves from reflecting on their own choices. I guess that is the dilemma one faces when arriving at that level.

[Arcangelo]

11 hours ago, Scholar said:

Why are you focusing so much on the unconsciousness of the vegan but not focusing at all on the unconsciousness of the meat-eater

and why are YOU focusing so much on the unconsciousness of the meat-eater but not focusing at all on the unconsciousness of the vegan, making fun of meat eaters and portraying us as idiots on your cartoons?

 

This is exactly the holier than thou attitude I am talking about.

 

 

 

You guys need to get off your high horse.

 

 

Arc

[Heaven]

On 3/8/2020 at 0:26 PM, Serotoninluv said:

Imagine if AI robots arose that ate humans for energy. The robots don’t need to eat humans for energy, yet they like the crunching sound human bones make when eaten. The robots then create massive concentration camps in which humans suffer. 

How would humans react to this scenario? . . . This highlights how human-centric and self-biased humans are. 

I love this example.

The goal is to be conscious to the universe and reduce suffering.

We are evolving to this direction and the awake people need to be part of the change.

To say nothing matters is the absolute but reality is still going on so why not make earth to heaven?

[Preety_India]

This thread is one of those that can go on forever without a resolution. 

 

I do eat meat but sometimes I feel guilty about it. Can't explain it. 

[Arcangelo]

When are you vegans gonna realize that life is a dream?

You guys are dreaming about some cows getting killed. Why do you even care? Probably the same reason why I care about posting in here and pointing at the paradigm shift you will eventually have.

Listen to the video you might have a paradigm shift.

 

 

[Chakra Lion]

@Arcangelo Brother, just stop. You might think it’s all a dream, but others are awake. There is nothing wrong with loving animals and peace & love for everyone. I’m going full hippy on you right now cause my heart is full and overflowing with love.  Be at Peace 

[Arcangelo]

You are right about me not being at peace. But you were not at peace when you started this thread. From time to time I get trapped in these stupid vegan threads. I am done.

You guys can eat whatever the EFF you want. IDGAF.

 

Time for some peace.

 

Arc

 

[Chakra Lion]

@Arcangelo The souls in this community can really go deep. Nothing but respect & love for your opinions. Check out my new post that I wrote after reflecting on this post & let me know what you think ❤️?

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Chakra Lion

[karltiboleng]

Oh dear...

I am not trying to justify any behavior. I am trying to point out the pitfalls of green ideology. This is essential when approaching this topic, as we need to be aware of our underlying assumptions we put forth a position. Why do we identify more with animals than other beings? Because they walk like us? They shed blood like us? When we identify with animals and not other beings, we are expanding our sense of self but not for the entire cosmos. Notice this at play here. It is a scary notion to think about, I know. This is the most emotionally laborious work one can do. Our sense of reality and life itself is at stake here. But this needs to be addressed when going into this work. "Oh, I would be singing a different tune when my baby was killed!" Yes, of course. I am aware of this survival bias. But it is what it is, a bias. Without survival life cannot function. Transcending survival is pretty much one of the hardest things to do. We are all agents in God's divine plan, all sentient beings included.

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by karltiboleng
wrong link

[karltiboleng]

 

9 hours ago, Roy said:

So many triggered stage green vegans in here, this thread is a classic and should be posted in the green examples mega-thread.

You are creating your own suffering. You need to learn and practice acceptance.

Accept the reality that in nature animals consume other animals to survive. Accept that humans are animals and participate in this reality. Accept that humanity is not at the place where they can give up most meat consumption, otherwise they would.

You are not raising humanities consciousness by proselytizing and demonizing those who haven't realized their destructive ways and adopted your own. You are making them emotionally reactive (like yourself when you get mad at THEM) and entrenching them deeper into their own ignorance and delay the entire process further.

Accept where they are at and meat (heh) them at their level with compassion, understanding, and love.

 

Perfectly put, thank you.

[Chakra Lion]

4 minutes ago, karltiboleng said:

When we identify with animals and not other beings, we are expanding our sense of self but not for the entire cosmos.

To be honest, that totally is what I’m trying to do. To expand my consciousness out of my self and into the world. Maybe it’s compassion or maybe I’m more empathetic than you, but knowing that animals are being abused and treated in a way that no being should ever experience, it just makes me sad. This post was just to share my passion for it. To ask for clarification on why a person continues to put that karmic energy out there. Unless you don’t believe in that, or that you as a being are capable to expand your consciousness and awareness to create a beautiful world around you. Maybe that’s just me.
I don’t identify as myself, Identification is nothing that matters. It’s like clothing. Based on societies standards and the people’s ideas. 

[LfcCharlie4]

I haven't read all this thread, but this is one area I happen to disagree with a lot of teachers, even my own as they aren't vegetarian/ Vegan. 

From the absolute perspective, nothing matters, however relatively talking we can always embody these teachings in a relative sense and live the understanding. 

Ramana Maharshi actually talked about the complete equality for all living sentient beings, including Animals, and would NEVER kill an animal for food, and this was way before the factory farming practices that we have today! 

I'm definitely not saying you need to be vegan or whatever to awaken, as you don't, you need nothing to realize the truth of your own being. 

However, embodying love for ALL beings, and knowing that all animals are literally YOU, why would you want to harm them unless you absolutely had to for survival reasons? Like if we HAD to I completely get it, but it's 2020, you can thrive as a Vegan EASILY, there's so many plant-based doctors and the like to help with that.

I personally, do not see any need to eat meat or dairy, and even if it was slightly healthier, surely another living beings' life is more important?

Question: Is it not killing life to prepare meat diet?
Ramana Maharshi : Ahimsa [non-violence] stands foremost in the code of discipline for the yogis.

Non-Violence can easily be applied to our eating, and out of true Love for all beings, why would you want to kill someone for your pleasure? 

 

[Scholar]

4 hours ago, Arcangelo said:

and why are YOU focusing so much on the unconsciousness of the meat-eater but not focusing at all on the unconsciousness of the vegan, making fun of meat eaters and portraying us as idiots on your cartoons?

Because that is how societal evolution goes. Orange must progress into Green, and humor is one of the best ways to create such progress. The same was true in the past and it will work this way in the future.

I am fine making fun of you while you are fine holocausting sentient beings. Your bad feelings are a sacrifice I am willing to make for the evolution of mankind. We made far, far greater sacrifces in the past. Look at how the world dealt with the Nazi's or the slavors.

 

When I am among vegans, I focus solely on the unconsciousness of vegans, their dogmatism, the way their identity makes them vulnerable to blind-sided thinking. I for example extensively criticize vegans for the one-dimensional health claims they make, or when they have black and white thinking about how their diet effects the world. To me for example there are very compelling arguments for why being a vegan body builder is immoral, or why overconsuming in general is immoral.

There are also many systemic issues with the attitude and values of stage green. But this is not what any of you here criticize. People in here criticize veganism from below, not from above. You don't go about focusing on criticizing the church or religion in a society in which stage red is prevelant, where they need a healthy transition into stage blue. That is nonsensical, not integral and completely lacks systems thinking.

 

There is no one size fits all solution. In this forum I act in a very specific way for very specific reasons, even in this particular thread I have developed a very particular identity to let the dynamics play out.

 

In the end, I focus on the unconsciousness of meat-eaters because their limited value set poses the biggest threat to the ecology of this planet since the last mass extinction, and it is also the main cause of human-caused suffering in this world. There is no issue that is comparable as far as suffering and destruction goes, there is no issue in which adopting responsibility is more helpful and effective.

Most of you are indoctrinated and will not change. The younger generation will use these discriminatory tools to create a culture which self-perpetuates itself. They will make fun of carnists, they will discriminate against them, until that form of mind is going to be extinguished from this planet and only few sparks will remain, much like White-Superiority, Human-Superiority will be viewed the same way in the future.

 

The objections I had in this threadwere pointing at the mechanisms of your mind, not simply veganism. I find it far more disturbing how unconscious people in here are of the way spiral dynamics and integral theory plays out. As I said, the lack in distinction between Real Self, Authentic Self and False Self leads to very dysfunctional behaviour.

 

 

Don't forget, Tier 2 is able to become the soldier who slaughters the Nazi's, if the situation asks for it. They can fall into unconsciousness, act out what must be acted out, and reemerge from it when other tools are appropriate. Identity is a tool, a tool necessary for the evolution of mankind. You will not get dispassionate nihilists's fight for the survival of mankind.

 

The reason why I am so harsh about this is because I have never personally convinced anyone to become vegan by being compassionate. It always was the case when I was harshly criticizing the carnist position, by for example criticizing a certain person, while another person, who is carnist but who I was not directly talking about, listened to me and was compelled by my arguments. Much like the cartoons are doing. The ones who identify too much with carnism are in my view too hard to convince, it is better to focus people who are already susceptible to the new identity.

I don't criticize sv3rige to turn him into a vegan. I make fun of him so that the people who are ready can see the absurdity in it and come to conclude to this themselves.

I predict that there will be a lot of division in the future. As the identity of the carnists gets more and more threatened, both position will become more and more extreme.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Scholar

[Scholar]

One additional problem is that you can't really make an Orange Value person come to value animals like a Green Value person does. You could persuade the Orange Person of a Green View, but it would most likely do nothing to change his core value. He would still look at humans as superior in worth, even if he might not agree with that intellectually.

There are however quite a few Green Value people around who have not yet the Vegan View. By showing them how absurd the carnists arguments are, these people can be compelled to adopt the Vegan View, as they already include animals into their self-identity.

 

This dynamic is key. This is why you have so many people who do veganism for health for example, and then sliding back to carnism. It is because they remained at orange and adopted a Green Ideology or View. Their identity as far as the inclusion of animals goes never truly changed.

This is not what I seek to change, as I would not even know how to begin grappling with this issue.

 

Vegetable Police is an excellent example of this. His values were always grounded in orange, and even his view of animals is grounded in an orange identity. Sure, he finds animals cute and doesn't like hurting them, but this is not the same as green. Even blue can have compassion for animals. Orange will of course have more compassion and than blue had, yet green has a fundamentally different type of identity.

Compare it to for example Blue people having compassion for their black slaves, and then compare it to a orange person viewing it as unthinkable and disgusting to enslave any other race in the first place.

This is the "animal welfare" vs "holocaust abolitionist" viewpoint. Yellow is not about "sustainable, ethical animal holocaust", that is part of orange.

 

The argument you think that come from yellow are like as if you would think a yellow person would argue for "Ethical enslavement" and be super concerned about the dogma of people who are fighting slavery. This is so obviously backwards, but because many of you have either not transitioned or integrated green in a healthy and complete manner, you overlook this completely.

 

The problem with yellow is that a lot of their viewpoint and focus is determined by how they have integrated the lower stages. This is essential to understand, this is why any person who has emergent yellow will seek to reintegrated lower stages and work on their shadow. Yellow could for example have a huge lack in green, as most yellow people infact do have, and be arguing in a dysfunctionally systemic way. Because they do not have a complete picture, their view of the system and their concerned for everything to work together in union will be hindered.

There could be a "yellow person" (if we forgo the nuance of developmental lines and so forth) for example protecting their incomplete identity that is weighted at orange, or even blue!

Edited March 10, 2020 by Scholar

[tenta]

19 hours ago, Scholar said:

 

 

I'll just let your group go vegan and I won't because you didn't prove one person makes a difference by going vegan, which is what vegans are arguing for

Edited March 10, 2020 by tenta

[Scholar]

4 minutes ago, Keyhole said:

Try less criticism.  Less of this "you people are this, or you people are like that and I want you to be this way" and find a better, less dogmatic way to make your point.  Your energy just makes me want to poke at you a little bit.  My gut says that you're not as integrated nor as healthy of a person as you try to come across as.

These are your words from another thread back in October.  So when people mention what they see with your comments, and you rebuke it... you're either in a backlash, or you're comfortable with overlooking your own shortcomings in order to push an ideology.  Even if it a beneficial one, it still is what it is.

 

I think I made a good case for why I do what I do. I don't try to come across as healthy, which is the reason why I allow myself to express myself authentically. For example, I do not care if you think I am at stage Yellow, because I myself am not concerned with at what stage I am. This is the fundamentaly difference. The post you quoted is actually when I was starting to realized the toxic and repressive nature of this whole pseudo-spiritualistic attitude many people in this community have.

My view previous was: "Identity is bad! Avoid falling into identity, try to be the most open minded, integral person possible. Always come off as reasonable, calm and collected! Try to avoid ALL DOGMA!!!"

My view now is: "Play with identity, fall into identity, observe your identity. Notice how it is playing out, notice your authentic expression and actualize your authentic expression. Look at your emotional attachments, feel them, let yourself go in them while you are conscious that they are happening!"

This has helped me tremendously, it helped me resolve many dysfunction.

 

In this thread for example I was always aware that I was falling into a green identity. I was enjoying it, I was playing with it. I saw my frustration, I lived my frustration, and I do not judge myself for it. Now I am calm, there is no feeling to protect myself, but rather I can explain to you my authentic expression and thoughts. I view this thread, how you react to it and what I learn from it as an exploration, not merely a utlity.

 

I do indeed have concerns about this community in many ways. I do not view it as an inherent problem of Leo's work, but rather how some people tend to work with it.

 

As I said, I do not agree with the persuation tactics, because I do not believe it is one dimensional. There are enough apologetic vegans around, in here and outside. If my family members got raped and someone was arguing for why it was okay for them being raped, I would not judge myself for being judgemental.

And I would certainly not take someone serious who claims it is fine to rape my family member and tell me that I need to work on my persuation tactics, or that I make them want to poke me, or that I am comfortable with my shortcomings and pushing my ideology on them.

 

So no, right now I do not feel like trying less criticism, much like you don't feel like giving up on your position that holocausting sentient beings is all fine and dandy.

[tenta]

19 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

This is an individualist view that excludes a collectivist view. If I personally stop buying meat in a store, it will have a very small effect. My meat purchases might be only 0.01% of the meat sales in the grocery store (I am only 1 of 1,000 people that buy meat in this store). Obviously, if demand goes down by 0.01% it will go down. Yet I am also buying non meat-products so that demand goes up by 0.01%. As well, I am no ordering vegetarian dishes in restaurants, which means demands for meat dishes goes slightly down and vegetarian dishes goes up. I've been vegetarian for about 20 years and have noticed vegetarian dishes in restaurants keeps increasing. This is because more and more people (including myself) are asking for vegetarian options. As well, I've noticed 100% vegetarian restaurants appearing. And now, there are all sorts of meat-substitute options in grocery stores. Did I personally cause these changes by myself? No. However, I personally participated and contributed to a rising consciousness of what we eat. Both in terms of benefits to animals and benefits to the person's own health. I can't tell you how many times I've order a vegetarian dish in a restaurant and the person I'm with also orders a vegetarian dish. Or the person might make a comment like "I should probably eat less meat". I don't say anything about vegetarianism. It is a collective interaction. . . Collectively, this has an impact on demand for meat and change the meat industry. This could be positive or negative. For example, the meat industry might see the changing cultural attitudes and create a market for "cage free" meats and animal products. Or the meat industry may respond by starting a propaganda campaign that vegetarian diets are unhealthy and meat is needed to get enough protein and vitamins. I still see many people with this attitude.

Individual, social and systemic changes are all inter-related and important. At an individual level, someone might go vegetarian - this could peak the interest and curiosity of their friends and family. They could be a good example of living a healthy vegetarian lifestyle. At a systemic level, there could be investment into developing lab grown meats. Both have an impact and are inter-related. It's not like only one has an impact. 

Factory animal farming is brutal to animals. It causes a lot of pain. It's not like I'm making this up. If anyone visited a factory animal farm and saw the treatment, I don't see how anyone could perceive it as humane. To see it otherwise, one would need to be totally desensitized to the suffering of other beings or create some sort of bizarre story about how it's not really suffering because the animals don't have a sense of self. Or that animals don't really feel pain, or that they don't matter. . . The question then becomes whether a person decides to participate within this or not. The thought of "My behavior won't change anything" does not justify participating in the behavior if one finds it inconsistent with their behavior. For example, a lot of people are tortured for crimes they did not commit. I may think "My behavior won't stop the torture". Even if this is true, it doesn't mean I now have license to participate in the torture. I doesn't mean I can now send money to fund people that torture innocent people. 

There are people who have been vegan for many years and convinced others to go vegan, but the "evil" hasn't been eliminated, meaning you're going vegan but not achieving the goal, if a big collective were to go vegan then yes but the vegan argument is that you should go vegan. More efficient capitalism and lab meat would be better solutions.

That isn't propaganda, vegans admit that if you go vegan you'll have to take supplements. (but you probably don't if you're going vegetarian)

Buying a finished product isn't telling the meat industry that they're doing a good job, nor directly funding them AKA not participating in the torture, it's different from donating to people who torture others. So it's not inconsistent to be against some of the practices of the meat industry and still buy meat.

[Scholar]

17 minutes ago, Keyhole said:

I've tried vegetarianism in the past and I have a gut and autoimmune condition, my doctor recommends I eat meat.  I notice a huge and positive difference in my digestion when I supplement about once a week, and then more often during menstruation.

People have different dietary needs.

I understand. But this is a problem of identity, not a problem of action. You are viewing this far too superficially. The fact that you have issues adopting a diet that is plant based does mean you must remain in your limited identity. This is the fundamentaly problem of identity.

You have a problem of survival, and that evidently limits your identity. This is how identity works, you must contract your Self-identity so that your survival is not compromised.

 

You are not here saying veganism is good, but that you simply had difficult implementing a completely suffering free diet. You are not saying for example that it is wrong to holocaust animals, but that you must act this way for survival.

Your survival problems limit your identity to orange, how do you think spiral dynamics works? This is precisely how any constriction of identity works. Our work it to expand our identity despite this. I struggle greatly on the vegan diet, yet because I view animals as an extention of myself, I can deal with the struggle, I am overcoming it. If I could not, I would still contribute to the extention of identity. I would still encourage people to be vegan, to extend their self-identity.

Dietary needs have nothing to do with this identity issue.

 

17 minutes ago, Keyhole said:

It's sad that you know that it doesn't really help anyone by throwing your dogma around and don't want to change that, that you feel that criticism works.  You had made that post a little over 4 months ago and are still at it, without any awareness.  Weird.  When I act that way, I have awareness of it and inspect it later.

Basically you just wanna talk down to people and then not do the work required.  That's very lazy, not very scholarly, and not remotely advanced at all.

You should really look into what gaslighting is, because this is what you are doing right now. I do not agree that I am throwing my dogma around and I do not agree that my criticisms are ineffective. Just because they do not achieve what you view as important does not mean they do not achieve what I view as important. Notice how you are focusing on me here, when we are talking about the animal holocaust. Notice how you keep changing the topic from what is happening to who I am, to my faults, to my limitations.

I never denied I have limitations, even if I had limitations that would change nothing about the substance of what I am arguing.

You are literally trying to shame me into the same toxic ideology that I have told you that I have abandoned. It's like you haven't read anything I wrote and all that came to your mind is:

"THIS GUY IS SO UNCONSCIOUS LUL LET ME TELL HIM HOW UNAWARE HE IS!"

Where is your consciousness? Where is your effective way of helping me see my unconsciousness? Do you believe that calling me out like this is going to increase my consciousness?

 

How can you not see that you have the very same limitations but are denying that you have them? Atleast I admit it, atleast I recognize that there is no way to avoid identity and that it is a process of learning. And a process of being open about it and being vulnerable about it. All you did so far is basically use my vulnerability against me without any hint of trying to actually help me.

How can you not see this?

Edited March 10, 2020 by Scholar