VEGETARIANS ONLY: Religion and vegetarianism?

Question

I'm just curious about what religion my fellow vegetarians are. So what's you're religion? Does it have any influence over your vegetarianism? Or vice-versa? Also, what kind of vegetarian are you? I'm curious if certain religions are more likely to have more percentages of a certain type of vegetarian than another (for example, ovo-lacto vegetarian, ovo vegetarian, lacto vegetarian, pseudo-vegetarian (eats chicken, fish, etc., but not beef and pork), part-time vegetarian, vegan, etc.

I'll start:
My religion is Deism. My religion plays a huge part on my ethics and morality, and my vegetarianism comes from my ethics and moraltiy. So my religion has an indierct relationship to my vegetarianism. I'm lacto-ovo vegetarian, because with eggs and milk, animals are not killed like they are for meat.

Answer 1

Atheist

I'm not sure there's any connection between my vegetarianism and my atheism.
I'm an atheist, well, for the obvious reasons. I don't believe in any god/goddess/higher power etc etc. I have read and learnt quite a lot about many religions, and remain unconvinced by any of them. I believe in nature, the beauty of this planet, and that every living thing deserves to live out its natural life without human interference.
Humans seem to believe that their ability to affect the environment and surroundings and lives of other species, is what makes the human race superior. It is precisely the fact that it chooses to act on that ability that to me suggests that the human race is inferior.
My vegetarianism simply stems from the fact that I absolutely do not believe that I have the right to cause the death of any other living thing (and before the "So isn't a plant a living thing?" brigade start chirping - you all know that this means with a heartbeat/face etc).
No animal evolved or exists so that I can chew my way through its dead carcass, swallow its blood and end its life prematurely.
The day a chicken or a cow or anything else is able to say to me "No really, I wish to be strung upside down from a wire, have a bolt put in my brain that doesn't quite kill me, then have my throat slit and slowly bleed to death" then fine, I will make the decision on whether or not to take it up on its offer. Until then, I choose to live my life causing as little suffering, upset and distress as possible.
I don't do this for any reward, financial or otherwise. I certainly don't do it so I can enter a fictitious afterlife, or come back with my karma intact. I do it so I can sleep at night.

Answer 2

I'll start with my diet, Technically I'm lacto-ovo simply because I occasionally use commercially prepared analogs (meat subs) that contain dairy/egg, other than that I'm a total vegetarian. I don't use terms like 'almost' or 'pseudo' [insert five letter V word here] because that's an insult to vegans.

My faith? I'm one of the few that still follow central European pre-christian beliefs (most who wouldn't convert got burned 1300-1500 years ago). Lacto-ovo is required for those of us that are selected to be leaders/preachers/sources/teachers/advisers (take your pick of terms- it doesn't translate well) but isn't required/needed for anyone else. I started to become veggie at 8 years old because I chose to follow this path when it was offered to me (so it obviously influenced my choice to be veggie).
Does that answer help?

Answer 3

Hi, I'm Christian and have been vegetarian for over 20 yrs. I don't discuss it now with anyone - having learnt discussing it and answering peoples questions can turn into an argument I'd rather not get into. In the past I've had ppl quote the scripture about Peter seeing the sheet come down ( "get up Peter kill and eat" ) they haven't read it in context and God is actually saying to Peter His message is for the gentiles as well as the Jews - God chose the forbidden food from Leviticus to show this to Peter - that no-one is excluded from the gospel message - that Jew and gentile alike were loved by God. The majority of Christians i know mistake this text for being against vegetarianism. I've learnt if I'm asked why i don't eat meat to say it's a personal choice - this way no-one can argue that I'm wrong and no-one can criticise me. I have many valid arguments for not eating living creatures and if ppl heard them they would give up meat eating completely - but i keep it to myself b/c it's my personal business and i won't get involved in ppl telling me how to live my life. So i believe the best thing to do if your being hassled by anyone is to find an answer that works for you and stick with it if you don't want to discuss it - it's your business. So yes i have met some Christians who have a problem with it and some that don't see it as a problem at all. God is interested in our hearts - and He certainly doesn't command we eat meat.

Answer 4

I'm a Catholic Vegan.

I went vegetarian around 14 years ago when I learned that if America alone cut its meat consumption in half we could end world hunger. As a good Catholic wanting to feed the hungry how could I not go veg.

I've never been much of a meat eater and always been a big animal lover. The transition was very easy.

Last year I attended a "Farm Animal Forum." I thought I was pretty savy about what we were doing to the animals. The evils involved. I was ignorant beyond my wildest dreams.

Two of the speakers were Catholics. A Catholic Vegan who works for Vegan Outreach of PETA and a Catholic Vegetarian who works for Farm Sanctuary. One of the speakers was Howard Lyman. I don't know his religion, or if he has one at all.

I was devistated. If any lacto-ovo veggies heard these people speak, they'd give up the milk and eggs immediately. A life of extreme torture is no better than being raised just to be killed.

I went vegan for Lent right after the forum. It was easier than I thought.

Since that time, I've learned that you can't fight for peace and justice and consume animals or animal products. You can't fight for animal rights and consume animals or animal products . You can't rescue animals and consume animals or animal products. You can't fight for ecology and consume animals or animal products. You can't be "pro-life" and consume animals or animal products.

Factory farming in all it's forms is conducive to racism, sexism, world hunger, world poverty, the culture of death, etc... It's staggering. Each person, on average, eats about 111 pounds of meat a year. But we consume 580 pounds of dairy (including eggs) each year.

sorry. I'll climb off my soap box now.

Answer 5

Vegan. Seventh Day Adventist. I could talk on this subject for days!!! Religion is a major factor for me. To summarize...
Starting in Genesis, we were created vegan. Gensis1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. After the flood, all vegetation was destroyed, so God allowed some eating of meats for survival, but he specified between clean and unclean meats to eat. See Leviticus chp 11. This is not the ideal situation in which we were created. Soon, vegetation regrew (obviously). In Daniel chp. 1 Daniel ate vegan and was proved to be 10 times wiser. Jesus also taught compassion and mercy. Today, man's greed has reached its peak so that we treat animals as commodities, regardless of how horrible, just to make money. How are we being stewards of God's creation? Were Adam and Eve naming the animals pork chops and hamburger? No, of course not. Looking to the future, Jesus is coming again soon. A new heaven and a new earth will be created. Revelation 21:1 1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. There will be no more death. So we will be vegan here. Why not prepare now? Why not eat what we were created to eat? Our maker knows what fuels us. Ok, I will stop my summary now.

Answer 6

i am a lacto-vegetarian and have been since i could choose my own food. i have never been very religious- i go to a youth group every week at church but that's about it. i guess you could call me semi-agnostic. religion has never really influenced me in my vegetarianism, all though i recently found out that in the Book of Daniel in the Bible Daniel abstains from meat and alcohol and becomes very good looking. so christianity obviously supports vegetarianism, but i would still be vegetarian if it didn't. my diet IS however the biggest indicator of my moral standards, because i believe it is cruel to kill animals for food.

Answer 7

I grew up being Jewish but I'm slowly turning to agnostic. My religion had absolutly nothing to do with my decision to become a vegetarian. The type of vegetarian I am is lacto-ovo vegetarian (I think that's the one where you still consume dairy products)

And the person who said "I'm a semi vegetarian"....theres no such thing as a semi vegetarian.

Answer 8

I'm what people call vegan, although I dislike the word myself. I prefer to just be "human".
I'm not religious.
No, not atheist, I don’t like the implications of that word.
I think that religion is just as empty as believing in science.

Maybe I’m wrong, but Buddhism is the only large organized religion I know of that is not based upon superstitions, gods, and such but follows nature and the universe. To Buddhists, Buddha was just a person, a philosopher with wise words. Not a god. I’m not a follower of Buddha’s teaching either.

In the end, none of us knows anything.
Yet, I know enough to see that nature works all by itself without our ‘help’ or understanding and that following nature is the best path in life. I also believe that doing more good than evil (to put it in black and white terms) is the way in which everyone should live. It’s as simple as understanding the difference in helping or harming. It’s plain to see. Family, friends, and village should be the focus of our lives and the more we become disconnected from nature, the further we separate ourselves.

Answer 9

I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian and a Catholic. Religon isn't a big deal in my life right now, I dont go to church and stuff, but I pray and try not to lose my faith. My faith, however, is currently on the back burner. That sounds bad but: it doesn't make much sense to me right now, Catholics believe animals don't have souls, and acorrding to my grandmother "God put animals on this world for one reason and that was to serve man". I don't believe it, but if that was true I would not be religous.

Answer 10

I grew up in a family of baptists
and became an atheists. After
becoming Vegan I discovered
Buddhism and found that it made
perfect sense to me. There's no
real deity only a role model and
code to follow. Also there's no
damnation for not being Buddhist
nor any promises of a blissful
afterlife. The true motivation is
the ability to stay grounded and
centered and maintain peace of
mind. "My religion is kindness".
Make good moral choices in
order to be in harmony with all,
THE DALI LAMA.

The two biggest appeals
to me were the concept of
respecting all life and the ab-sense
of a place of torment. Someone
saying worship me only or I'll send
you to hell creates the wrong
motivations for a lot of people.

I call it, "spirituality under duress".

I respect the religious choices of
all others even though only this
one works for me.