Eating Animals/Consuming Animal Products?

[Sketcher]

In Genesis the world becomes corrupted when Adam and Eve sin doesn't it?

But I'm not really Orthodox so I'll just say I believe the physical world is completely corrupted and that satan is the "god" of this world. I don't think that is much of a departure from being Orthodox.

Be careful with that, because we believe Jesus was born of a woman with a physical body, yet he was not corrupt. It is not Christianity that teaches that the physical world is completely corrupt, but Gnosticism. Not attacking, just clarifying.

 

[Xpistis sopheiaX]

Good to know, and that's much better to focus on. What we should want has nothing to do with eating or drinking, but rather to love God increasingly, and to love people increasingly. That's what we are to do every day as Christians.

I apologize for not letting this go, but I have to disagree.

I feel like God doesn't want me to drink alcohol, so I don't drink alcohol. I feel an increasing burden, as I have had some burden for the last ten years, to stop eating meat.

If God asks something of me I should obey Him. I don't expect He will ask the same thing of everyone else, as I am only one person, and He has His own plans for all of his children.

Yes loving people and God is extremely important, however anything you are asked to do is important. For me I think abstaining from meat (if I can) is an act of restoration; of my desire for resurrection of the physical world.

 

[Xpistis sopheiaX]

Be careful with that, because we believe Jesus was born of a woman with a physical body, yet he was not corrupt. It is not Christianity that teaches that the physical world is completely corrupt, but Gnosticism. Not attacking, just clarifying.

*shrug* I consider myself Gnostic Christian, but I will be the first to say I don't think theology is ultimately important.

"we believe Jesus was born of a woman with a physical body, yet he was not corrupt."

I agree. Whether or not the physical world is corrupt did not affect the spirit of Christ. You are not your body. I don't think there is any difference between Gnosticism and Orthodoxy when it comes to that.

 

[Incariol]

*shrug* I consider myself Gnostic Christian, but I will be the first to say I don't think theology is ultimately important.

"we believe Jesus was born of a woman with a physical body, yet he was not corrupt."

I agree. Whether or not the physical world is corrupt did not affect the spirit of Christ. You are not your body. I don't think there is any difference between Gnosticism and Orthodoxy when it comes to that.

You do realize that Orthodoxy is about as far on the opposite side of the spectrum from Gnosticism as you can get, right? Your claim that Orthodoxy and Gnosticism are the same is downright ludicrous.

 

[Xpistis sopheiaX]

I've been in Protestant churches my whole life. I went to a Baptist school for 13 years. I've studied Gnostic Christianity 7-8 years on or off. There are real differences, but since most Gnostic interpretations deal with metaphors and underlying truths most of the differences seem more like hair-splitting. Of course there was no "Gnostic" group per se, so they had, as I have, our own multitude of beliefs and ideas.

 

[Sketcher]

I apologize for not letting this go, but I have to disagree.

I feel like God doesn't want me to drink alcohol, so I don't drink alcohol. I feel an increasing burden, as I have had some burden for the last ten years, to stop eating meat.

If God asks something of me I should obey Him. I don't expect He will ask the same thing of everyone else, as I am only one person, and He has His own plans for all of his children.

Yes loving people and God is extremely important, however anything you are asked to do is important. For me I think abstaining from meat (if I can) is an act of restoration; of my desire for resurrection of the physical world.

If God asks something of us, then of course we should do it. What we must not do though, and I learned this the hard way, is conflate what we think is the voice of God for what God actually says. We have to discipline our minds to have clarity, otherwise we go around saying "God told me to say this" or "God told me to do this" or "God promised me this" when in fact God hadn't done any of those things. Sadly, many Christians dishonor God with that kind of thinking (extreme example - abortion clinic bombers). For God's sake and for ours, we must treat God's Word as holy, and seek the truth in the Bible, which is what he has already revealed to us. And the key to that is to take a broad view of it, balancing one passage with another to get the full picture. It's alright for people's convictions to differ (Romans 14), but they must not run counter to the big stuff we find in Scripture.

 

[DCJazz]

If you feel you shouldn't eat meat, I won't stop you. But I don't think God is telling you to stop... unless maybe for health reasons, I don't know. You should be very careful, though, to make sure you aren't putting words in God's mouth.

 

[grasping the after wind]

Matthew 15:11“It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.”

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

I don't think eating meat in itself is bad. However, some of the consequences of eating meat produced in our mass-market, globalized world could be considered un-Christian.

For example, if you raise your own cow and slaughter it to feed your family/neighbours and don't waste large portions of it, then I don't see anything un-Christian about this. Or if you hunt a wild deer for food, I don't see anything un-Christian about this. Jesus ate meat and it is likely that most meat in his era was made via one of these methods.

However, today there are other ethical considerations that weren't important in 1st century Galilee. For example, most animals today are not raised free range in your backyard and given a good, healthy life. They are likely kept in small pens and are essentially tortured from the moment they are born. They are fed hormones and are seen as dollar bills rather than creatures of God's creation.

Similarly, there is a huge amount of waste in the food production industry that isn't using the animals to their fullest potential in terms of feeding us. And it costs so much to feed them with grain that contributes to rises in grain prices due to economic shortages. If you're raising a cow in your backyard on a farm then all its doing is helping mow your lawn rather than contributing to grain shortages.

So I think there are definitely other ethical factors to consider in the 21st century with regards to vegetarianism. I'll once again state that I don't think eating meat in itself is bad. It is the modes of production of that meat that is morally questionable and should be put under ethical scrutiny from both Christian and non-Christian POVs.

 

[Xpistis sopheiaX]

If you feel you shouldn't eat meat, I won't stop you. But I don't think God is telling you to stop... unless maybe for health reasons, I don't know. You should be very careful, though, to make sure you aren't putting words in God's mouth.

This strikes me as a tad condescending.


"So I think there are definitely other ethical factors to consider in the 21st century with regards to vegetarianism"

This is absolutely true. I don't think it's good to just sit back and judge the value of our actions based on the lives of people 2000+ years ago. We live in a changing world with a rapidly increasing population and diminishing resources.

 

[Merlin]

How do you feel about non-animal meat?
Scientists Grow Meat in Labs

 

[Xpistis sopheiaX]

I've heard of that and I'm 100% for it. I don't know if I'd want to eat it b/c all I can picture is piles of spam growing and growing lol!

But with our global population at 7 billion and growing I see that being an absolute necessity in the coming years...