Now, I’m guessing here, but I think I am the only vegetarian posting on this blog. In my understanding, and all-inclusive nature, I accept your carnivorous ways but I do not agree with them - that is unless I am on my own in another country loaded to the gunwales with beer and my morals having set sail in the nearest lager fueled dinghy (strange beer/nautical metaphor now over).
Anyway, I work with a bunch of chest beating, willy-waving carnivores. I have to put up with “you’re such a poof” type comments at work pretty much every day because I don’t have meat in my baguette for lunch. With the way they carry on I can imagine their dream is to be sitting in the back of a pickup truck, BBQ blazing, having a tailgate party. Yeah, I fucking love meat. Woo yeah! Woo, all right!! USA! USA!
Sorry, I got a bit carried away there.
Anyway, it feels as if there’s no room for understanding or respect, only room for hatred of people that don’t conform. Unless that is, of course, you are religious. If I were a Hindu my colleagues would respect my vegetarian ways and, as I have witnessed, try to eat my lunch (I suspect because the food is full of chillies and they can assuage their fears that they might catch gay or something).
The reason my co-workers have respect for the Hindus in the office, and ask to try their vegetarian food (rather than my “disgusting muck”) is because those same Hindus ARE TOLD not to eat meat by their religion. Not because they reached a personal decision not to eat meat based on their own moral code, derived through independent thought, but because they are told not to. They’re not being faggy and thinking for themselves.
To me this sums up the philosophy of the religious. Do not respect the minds of those of independent thought; ridicule and bully them. If they do that enough maybe they’ll shut up and stop questioning things.
Rant over.
P.S. If you do eat meat I am not judging you, that is your choice; and as a group of thoughtful people I’m sure after due consideration you’ve made your own minds up on the subject.
5 comments:
I get a lot of pleasure from the preparation and sharing of a good meal. I have a lot of friends who are vegetarian, and I enjoy the challenge of preparing something that they will enjoy. I respect their choice. And they respect mine. I don't give it much more thought than that.
But it appears you do - which makes me wonder why you even give a shit. If people are going to give you a hard time because of what you EAT, for fuck's sake dismiss them as a bunch of wankers and come over to my house for some rennet-free risotto.
I suppose it bothers me because of the reasons they have behind their "thinking". Not so much that they eat meat but the fact that one vegetarian is respectable over another because he does it purely for religious reasons. It seems utterly bizarre to me.
Thanks for the invitation btw. I think once I'm over your side of the pond we ought to arrange a Sysministry gathering.
damn those willy waggers.
I see where you are coming from, just because your lifestyle choice doesn't come from a religious tenet, that doesn't make it less valid.
Exactly. There are many other examples of this kind of behaviour, but it all boils down to the same two things - deference to the religious because of a perceived moral superiority, and dislike of people that develop their own moral compass through independent reasoning.
What naturally follows from this is the debate on whether an athiest is a less moral person than a religious one. The argument goes something like this: -
Athiests have no moral code dictated to them by religion and are therefore amoral.
You can, of course, look at it from the opposite side of the argument. That is, if your moral stance on a subject is part of your religious doctrine then surely you are a less moral person - you are only behaving in a certain way to avoid punishment and receive your reward of a heavenly afterlife. There is absolutely no alturistic motivation behind your actions, just selfish ones. To me that makes you less moral.
Or something like that.
Bravo.
A more long-winded comment to follow.
But an extraordinarily well-written post, my friend.
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