First, I read this:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/sarah-ross/an-open-letter-to-the-lutheran-church-missouri-synod/10151202745810771
And then I wrote this:
I wasn't able to comment on this letter because I read it through a friend of a friend, but I feel compelled to share it because it is so beautifully written. I don't talk much about religion or my own journey in and out of organized Christianity, but Sarah sums up not only my problem with the LCMS, but with the ELCA and every church I have ever tried to be a part of with the exception of the incredible First Congregational Church, Santa Cruz. http://www.fccsantacruz.org
I was a member of the ELCA; a church I have a lot of love for because it gave me a solid foundation and love-filled home as a young person and I won't throw throw the baby out with the bath water. Nearly every denomination of Christianity does good and great things to commend it along with the ways each denomination is steeped in hypocrisy.
(Note: Hypocrisy isn't even really my problem; we're all hypocrites when it comes down to it. That's just the way the world is set up. None of us get a free pass. My problem is with the inability to acknowledge and accept one's own hypocrisy.)
My eyes were opened to the painful truth about my own church when I was in college. My mom went to seminary and was treated unfairly and not on equal ground with men or even other women by any means. As a single woman and single mother, she was asked wildly inappropriate and personal questions about her dating life and desire to remarry, questions that never would have been asked of a man. She wasn't given equal consideration for ordination in her chosen field of ministry as others on her same career path. All in the name of dogma and fear. (And I won't even get into the politics of homosexuality--and wasteful spending around it--in that church, but it's not something, I decided, I could continue to associate myself with as an adult.)
If it's not dogma about women in ministry or the acceptability of interfaith services, it's wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars "studying" something controversial before taking a stand for what is right. If it's not fear, it's complacency.
I love FCC Santa Cruz because they don't claim ownership of a "true" gospel. They don't force absolute doctrinal agreement on their members. They value being in relationship over being right. They value growth over certainty. The pastors give sermons about big questions and problems and don't try to provide small answers in pat Bible verses. Christ is glorified, but what that means to each individual is allowed to be personal. Communion is open to all who wish to partake--baptized or not, Christian or not. Their church service on Santa Cruz PRIDE Sunday is held walking down the streets, inviting and welcoming all to love and be loved within their walls. They take a stand in a way I have yet to find another church take a stand. I love them and I miss them.
I respect everyone's religious and/or spiritual path, except those that determine that anything different is bad or wrong. Sorry if that makes me the loathed and dreaded "post-modern" Christian, but that's how it is with me, after all I've seen in this world and all of the outstanding people I love: Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic and everything in between.
And that's really all I have to say about religion.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Follow me! :)
Quick post: I added widgets to make it easier to follow this blog via reader or email, since I don't and won't post the links on Facebook. Hence the name of the blog. :) So, follow if you want to keep up.
Also, I'm making a new blog dealing entirely with plant-based nutrition, cooking, gardening and home ec that you may also follow if you wish, and here is the link: http://veganlearner.blogspot.com/
Also, I'm making a new blog dealing entirely with plant-based nutrition, cooking, gardening and home ec that you may also follow if you wish, and here is the link: http://veganlearner.blogspot.com/
Thursday, March 7, 2013
On Veganism: Part 2 (Cats!)
Cats, cats, cats... I LOVE them. I love dogs too, but dogs are more adaptable to a vegetarian diet than cats and thus, cat ownership puts the vegan in a very sticky spot that most have not really discussed in great depth. For every bit of anecdotal evidence that a cat can thrive on a supplemented vegetarian diet, there is a horror story of a cat becoming severely ill, and suffering a painful death. Cats are carnivores. They kill animals not out of choice, and not cruelly (this requires an awareness cats do not possess), but because, unlike us, they absolutely must for survival. But domestic cats rely on us. Most, excepting maybe those who live on farms, can't hunt enough of their natural prey to sustain themselves.
It is impossible, here, to be dogmatic about vegan philosophy. The only possible solution to feeding other animals to domesticated cats is to euthanize most if not all of them. And obviously, I am against choosing to kill animals--for food or any other reason. Oh, the quandary. Technically, the way dogs and cats are euthanized is at least more 'humane' than the way turkeys and chickens are slaughtered. So if I were to outright choose the lesser of two evils in terms of pain and suffering, I'd have to admit that euthanizing house pets would be the way to go.
But. Not only am I very selfish in my reliance on my cats--they lower my stress, help my anxiety, help me sleep, and my relationship with them is as true as my relationship with any other friend--but I have to stop and wonder: if we did away with all domesticated and farm animals (note I say 'farm' not 'FARMED'), how would we form the kinds of relationships with animals that give us our compassion for them in the first place?
In his book EATING ANIMALS, Jonathan Safran Foer makes a powerful connection between owning and loving a dog (or cat) and eating other animals. Historically, and in many countries still, people eat and have eaten dogs. In the USA, we are disgusted by that idea. We were outraged at the cruelty to dogs inflicted by Michael Vick when his dog fighting scandal made newspaper headlines in 2007. Certainly many were outraged while reading the morning news over bacon and eggs for breakfast; the pig that bacon came from likely treated just as cruelly--and sharing many mental, emotional and social traits with dogs.
Once we stop soothing that cognitive dissonance with flimsy, emotion-based justifications, we understand that eating a pig is just as morally reprehensible as eating a dog or a cat, animals that we count as beloved friends and family members.
Without that point of reference, how would humans find compassion for animals at all? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a real question and concern I have.
I'm not going to deny that humans are natural meat eaters. I'm not going to deny the myriad pitfalls and challenges of transitioning from to a balanced, healthy, well supplemented plant based diet. (Many stuck in the western way of eating simply 'go vegan' by cutting animal products and increasing the unhealthy carbs they've always eaten, a sure road to failure.) But the truth, the way I see it, is that the planet is simply no longer able to support a fast-growing, meat eating human population. It's evolve into herbivores or die, basically.
Sure, if we all ate perfectly ideal meat from perfectly ideal farms and slaughterhouses (or hunted our own meat in the wild) at a perfectly ideal (ie. 10x reduced) consumption level, this would help. But it wouldn't change the fact that our population is going nowhere but up, and the planet still can't sustain human carnivism in the long run.
So there is no perfect answer. I'm a hypocrite just like everybody else. I firmly believe that killing animals for food is morally wrong, but I buy their flesh nonetheless, processed into pellets to sustain the lives of my beloved cats. I don't know what to do about that at the moment, but denying it certainly doesn't help.
I hope that by spreading a message of facing the truth about our planet, our bodies, and what we eat head-on, that I am at least part of a larger movement for a more compassionate human species.
It is impossible, here, to be dogmatic about vegan philosophy. The only possible solution to feeding other animals to domesticated cats is to euthanize most if not all of them. And obviously, I am against choosing to kill animals--for food or any other reason. Oh, the quandary. Technically, the way dogs and cats are euthanized is at least more 'humane' than the way turkeys and chickens are slaughtered. So if I were to outright choose the lesser of two evils in terms of pain and suffering, I'd have to admit that euthanizing house pets would be the way to go.
But. Not only am I very selfish in my reliance on my cats--they lower my stress, help my anxiety, help me sleep, and my relationship with them is as true as my relationship with any other friend--but I have to stop and wonder: if we did away with all domesticated and farm animals (note I say 'farm' not 'FARMED'), how would we form the kinds of relationships with animals that give us our compassion for them in the first place?
In his book EATING ANIMALS, Jonathan Safran Foer makes a powerful connection between owning and loving a dog (or cat) and eating other animals. Historically, and in many countries still, people eat and have eaten dogs. In the USA, we are disgusted by that idea. We were outraged at the cruelty to dogs inflicted by Michael Vick when his dog fighting scandal made newspaper headlines in 2007. Certainly many were outraged while reading the morning news over bacon and eggs for breakfast; the pig that bacon came from likely treated just as cruelly--and sharing many mental, emotional and social traits with dogs.
Once we stop soothing that cognitive dissonance with flimsy, emotion-based justifications, we understand that eating a pig is just as morally reprehensible as eating a dog or a cat, animals that we count as beloved friends and family members.
Without that point of reference, how would humans find compassion for animals at all? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a real question and concern I have.
I'm not going to deny that humans are natural meat eaters. I'm not going to deny the myriad pitfalls and challenges of transitioning from to a balanced, healthy, well supplemented plant based diet. (Many stuck in the western way of eating simply 'go vegan' by cutting animal products and increasing the unhealthy carbs they've always eaten, a sure road to failure.) But the truth, the way I see it, is that the planet is simply no longer able to support a fast-growing, meat eating human population. It's evolve into herbivores or die, basically.
Sure, if we all ate perfectly ideal meat from perfectly ideal farms and slaughterhouses (or hunted our own meat in the wild) at a perfectly ideal (ie. 10x reduced) consumption level, this would help. But it wouldn't change the fact that our population is going nowhere but up, and the planet still can't sustain human carnivism in the long run.
So there is no perfect answer. I'm a hypocrite just like everybody else. I firmly believe that killing animals for food is morally wrong, but I buy their flesh nonetheless, processed into pellets to sustain the lives of my beloved cats. I don't know what to do about that at the moment, but denying it certainly doesn't help.
I hope that by spreading a message of facing the truth about our planet, our bodies, and what we eat head-on, that I am at least part of a larger movement for a more compassionate human species.
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