Many people practice vegetarianism as part of their religion, but two people practicing vegetarianism are not necessarily hoping to achieve the same goals. I thought it would be interesting to think about the variety of religious goals that might motivate the practice of vegetarianism.
(1) Depriving the brain of nutrients in animal meat might be a way to create an altered state and contact the spirit world. Vegetarianism requires a lot of nutritional knowledge to keep the brain healthy. My psychotherapists have always emphasized the importance of a good diet with lots of protein.
(2) There is the odd treatment of fish in Christianity and Judaism. During fasts it is sometimes o.k. to eat fish but not land animals. This might indicate some interesting beliefs about fish spirits versus land animal spirits, but what?
(3) There is the belief that humans are reincarnated into animals but never into plants as far as I know. This might be part of the motivation for vegetarianism in reincarnation religions and suggest some religious distinction between animals and plants.
(4) In Genesis there seems to be an acknowledgement that eating animals is a necessary evil rather than an ideal, because this was not allowed by God until after Noah's flood. Again this is evidence of a belief that killing an animal is somehow worse than killing a plant.
(5) In Judaism there is a special treatment of blood. The life is somehow connected to blood. Plants do not have blood, so this might explain the distinction between killing animals and killing plants. Fish often do not have very much blood compared to land animals, and that might be a factor in the allowance for eating fish while fasting from meat.
My hypothesis is that beings have both a collective spirit and an individual spirit. The individual spirit is more pronounced in animals than in plants, so killing an individual animal is more spiritually consequential than killing an individual plant. This is why vegetarianism is often desired in religions.
(1) Depriving the brain of nutrients in animal meat might be a way to create an altered state and contact the spirit world. Vegetarianism requires a lot of nutritional knowledge to keep the brain healthy. My psychotherapists have always emphasized the importance of a good diet with lots of protein.
(2) There is the odd treatment of fish in Christianity and Judaism. During fasts it is sometimes o.k. to eat fish but not land animals. This might indicate some interesting beliefs about fish spirits versus land animal spirits, but what?
(3) There is the belief that humans are reincarnated into animals but never into plants as far as I know. This might be part of the motivation for vegetarianism in reincarnation religions and suggest some religious distinction between animals and plants.
(4) In Genesis there seems to be an acknowledgement that eating animals is a necessary evil rather than an ideal, because this was not allowed by God until after Noah's flood. Again this is evidence of a belief that killing an animal is somehow worse than killing a plant.
(5) In Judaism there is a special treatment of blood. The life is somehow connected to blood. Plants do not have blood, so this might explain the distinction between killing animals and killing plants. Fish often do not have very much blood compared to land animals, and that might be a factor in the allowance for eating fish while fasting from meat.
My hypothesis is that beings have both a collective spirit and an individual spirit. The individual spirit is more pronounced in animals than in plants, so killing an individual animal is more spiritually consequential than killing an individual plant. This is why vegetarianism is often desired in religions.
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