Saturday, March 27, 2010

Banning Beef?

Why do you oppose ban of cow slaughter?
This is a clear move to impose hindutwa agenda on Hindus, followers of other religions and non religious people. India is a secular country and wishes of one sect should not be imposed as law.

But Hinduism prohibit beef eating.
It doesn’t. Vedas have several verses on gomedham (cow sacrifies) and vedic rishis ate beef. Upanishads follow the same approach towards beef. Great phyisicans and surgeons of ancient India advocated beef. None of the Hindu gods advocated vegetarianism. Ram and Shiva ate meat. I couldn’t find any saying in any hindu religious texts that prohibits beef.

But a religion can change and have new set of rules.
It sure can. But regarding prohibition of beef, it never happened to Hindus. From the vedic times to modern times, beef was always a part of diet for most of the Hindus . Ashtamga hridaya, written around 10th Century advocates beef as good meat. Bhavaprakasha, another ayurvedic text written in 16th Century prescribes beef diet for quick muscle gain, curing sinusitis and several other chronic conditions. Two most revered Sages of modern times - Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekanada were non vegetarians. Vivekanada ate beef and appealed to Hindus to stop being kitchen-centric and turn person centric instead. Today, Hindus of Sikkim, Meghalaya, Misoram, Assam, several parts of Bengal, Kerala eat beef in plentry and a sizeable portion of Hindus in other states do it too.

Why are you so worried about cow slaughter ban? Would Saudi Arabia allow pork sale?
Saudi Arabia is an Islamic country and India is a secular one. I wouldn’t advocate ban of pork in India either. If religious text of Muslims prohibit pork, let them decide not to eat it. Others should have the option. Saudi Arabia is not India’s role model anyway, we do not want pick pocket’s hands to be cut and people to be beheaded for crimes.

You are from Kerala. Havent you heard of Sri Narayana Guru’s speech that coins cow to your mother? Eating a cow that provides you milk during infancy is like killing and eating your own mother according to Sri Narayana.
With great reverence to all the good deeds of Sri Narayana , I differ from him on this. Cow did not visit my house and feed me out of love. Somewhere a cow was enslaved, impregnated without her consent, the food she produced for her offspring was stolen by force and fed to me. I owe no gratitude to her or the people who tortured her to produce milk- for monetary gains. Then I was fed formula milk- I do not consider chairman of Glaxo as my mother. When I had lactose allergy, I was on Soymilk. I don’t consider those bean plants as my mothers either.

Research says meat eating is bad for health.
There is no research available that says meat eating is bad for everybody. Those who live on affluent protein rich diets should go really low on meat, diary, sugar and oils. Majority of Indians are having protein insufficiency and their options should not be reduced. Even if every single Indian is having an affluent diet, banning beef does not make any sense, when there is no call to ban milk, sugar and oil that are euqally harmful for affluence related diseases, banning beef is certainly not in good intention. Butter, ghee, hydrogenated vegetable fats and refined food are far more dangerous for chronic conditions. You should be addressing these first if you are so cautious about these conditions.

Vegetarians live longer according to research.
These researches are done on people of rich countries who adopt a healthy and expensive plant based diet, give up oil and refined food, exercise and monitor their health on a daily basis. Life expectancy of Indians is far less than comparable beef eating countries - Thailand and China for example.

Humans are basically monkeys and are natually vegetarians.
We are not. Evolution changed us. We need Vitamin B6, which can be obtained from non vegetarian diet . B6 deficiency is appalling in India. By the way from where did you get the idea that all monkeys are vegetarians? How many animals you know drink milk produced by an entirely different species?

If we allow cow slaughtering, milk cost will increase.
It will increase if we stop cow slaughtering. Unproductive cattle population will increase if we cannot use them for food and cost of diary industry will un-necessarily increase.

Isnt slaughter an act of cruelty? Would you like to be slaughtered?
Yes. And we are curel by nature. Look at this, we tie up cows and enslave them, we rape and impregnate them, then we steal the milk it produces for its offspring. I certainly would prefer death than being treated like this!

I respect cows. It is part of my belief. Who are you to get into that?
Great. I was just waiting for this. Honey, you respect cows. I do not. You can chose not to eat beef. If you have to suffer for what you believe, it is fine with me. If I HAVE TO SUFFER for what you believe, it is fascism. Terrorists also believe I have to suffer for their belief.

20 comments:

  1. One can replace a word 'human flesh' in the place of beef..

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  2. hmm i like this one.
    eat beef and be merry.
    cheers!

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  3. Replacements can be made only with suitable substitutes, Exact Man. Mango and Odollam are similar in appearance, but they are not substitutable.

    This is what happened when people 'replaced' beef with human flesh.

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  4. What is the problem in banning beef....And I know even terrorists have human right in India and all the so called secularists are supporting that......Let Hindus happy atleast one day..........

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  5. 2 Sathyardhi, Imagination can be used here. The biological as well as common man's view suggest that the flesh of animals are more similar than anything else. If beef is the flesh from cow, then human flesh can also be eatable. Go and eat some and then comment.

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  6. It is very good statement. I am living in a place were some of Hindus regularly eats dead cow because of their poverty. this acts lasts up to 1930 s. there is nothing wrong in eating beef. if eating beef is wrong then eating chicken, which was sacred to some Buddhas is also be banned. Then we can stop eating pork and then eating fish and we can starve

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  8. I agree 100%, the freedom of many should never be restricted based on religious sentiments.

    @Exact-Man: Why extend human equality only one way? If animals are replaceable by humans, why not the other way?

    If you say we should not eat animals because it is like eating human flesh. Would you sentence a man for murder if he killed 10 cats? 5 dogs? 20 ants? Should I head to the gallows because I fell on an ant-hill? Should one get life-imprisonment for committing the genocide thousands of termites infesting his furniture?

    Why not give animals "human" rights?
    Why not have sex with horses? After all it can be "replaced" with human flesh?

    No thank you, we already have a parliament of monkeys.

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  10. 2 Xitij Sobti,We can think in anyway. Animals are animals and should behave like they are. And never will say 'rational'. Only some humans says they are ahead of them all. Its so poor and pathetic that beings are here in the natural world and using language as their tools to dominate. The day surely will come and all will recognise at that time only that, beings are mere part of this universe - soon or later.

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  11. Me not against killing or something else. But one should not take control over the nature as it is above our capacities. The Cow, goat, pig, rabbit or any animal should not be used for a business purpose. Just because, when a day come our next generation definitely will use fellow humans for their business purposes. It is already in the business as well. Organ selling and blood business etc. were the aftershocks now a days. If one can take these examples into strong points, never do it on any natural thing. Beware of the future. All of them were going to struggle in the next coming days.

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  12. Exact-man,
    If you feel "the cow, goat, pig, rabbit or any animal should not be used for a business purpose", you should be hell bent against diary industry- how unnatural and cruel is it to tie down cattle impregnate them and steal their milk. Isn’t it against rules of nature ? Cattle emission is hostile to environment. Shouldn’t we stop rearing cattle?
    Extreme poverty forces people to sell their organs and save lives. That has got nothing to do with the topic we are discussing here.
    If anybody really cares for the generations to come, we have polluted environment, exhausting resources, unstable economy, horribly high population, non-committed politicians who represent insensitive citizens. On top of all these, we have religious, communal and racial hatred passed on to them from us. Right to food is a basic human right that should not be denied- especially in the county that has the highest number of hungry people .

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  13. I like Exact-man's view point. A few clarifications though. Are you against meat eating, cattle raring, cruelty towards animals, man dominating nature, or just man making it all into a business? If I can't have chickens or cows in my farm, can I hunt for them some where? If you are against all killing how can you digest the rice you just ate? Thousands of insects would have been killed in the process of growing that. Or does your humanitarian feelings towards nature stop with animals alone?

    I'm sick of some Brahmins preaching ahimsa when it comes to meat eating. I find their wives clad in kancheevaram pattu, a product that's made by mass murdering millions of silk worms.

    I'm also interested in what the 'save the cow' campaigners plan for old cows and bulls. Should the farmer just let them loose into the streets? Or will these cows be let free into a wild sanctuary? We don't have a system to take care of our old and desolate. How will we protect animals when we can't even protect humans.

    I like my beef. And my pork. And my chicken. I will be happier if I know that the guys I eat were treated well and were happy when they were alive. I may not have the guts to kill my chicken but I have the guts to cut him up and cook him if some one else does the killing. It's a complex life, I agree. I don't think a lion or tiger would spare me if they get me at their mercy. They shouldn't. It's the law of nature. Nothing personal about it.

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  14. Blindly people say rishis ate beef. No citation of a vedic verse or a verse from Puranas has been included. We don't first of all understand even a bit of what Vedas is about and comment on them!! Even saints like Sankaracharya did not make bhashyas on Vedas but they made on upanishads. When Vedas speak of Pashu bali it the bali of the Pashu nature in man. Vedas are not books but are aspects of evolution of human consciousness. They are not so cheap to lay out dictums on what to eat, what to wear etc. Don't show your ignorance by speaking so . Hahahaa ..

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  15. We have to realize that religion does not dictate anything to those who eat for enjoying and live to eat, but religion is meant for those who eat just to live and live for a higher goal. So these useless discussions will go on between people like us who are more interested in the eating part of it than the one who is eating! Bhagavad Gita says if you are a spiritual seeker then you have to reduce your rajasic qualities and animal qualities. So in all ashrams vegetarian food is suggested because if you want to evolve then why do you want to eat animal flesh and get animal behavior? And there is an intricate law of nature which has been mentioned in the Bhagavata Purana, in the Vritrasura's episode that nature permits man to eat those which have the capacity to grow again. Plants come under these and also when you are taking milk, cultured hindu families make the calf to have its share first and then they would collect cows milk and old cows are not abandoned but taken care. I think you have to once visit the goshalas at Kanchi, Sringeri, Mantralayam, Puttaparti etc to see how cows are handled. Just because we have free internet we just blog some useless rubbish!!

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  16. @ Prasanth Lade:

    I doubt if you have read and understood Vedas and Upanishads. The way of Vedas are different from those of Upanishads. Take it from me, one who had been through Vedas and several Upanishads for which Sankaracharya made bhashyams and few others for which bhashyams are made by other religious scholars of ancient and modern times.

    Upanishads follow a philosophical path, with a non-linear path. The language used in Upanishads itself is more complex, cross logics are built in and have to be read in conjunction with other Upanishads. This is why bhashyas were required for many of them (some are really simple too). Vedas are straight forward, can be as simple as an instruction manual once you are used to the way of presentation.
    Now, I am not here to teach you Vedas. You can take care of your own erudition. Once you are done some day, come back here we can start a dialogue on whether it would be even remotely possible to interpret animal sacrifice mentioned in several verses ( quick example from memory- Yajurveda Prapathaka VI) .
    When vedic rishis jotted why do you need to do an animal sacrifice, from your herd of cattle how to select the appropriate one for each deity, how the homa kunda is to be set up, how to butcher the animal, how to skin it, how to cut meat, what vessels to use, how to cook, when the meat is ready to be served, what the aroma should be like, to whom all it be distributed, they had no other meaning attached to it than serving ghee or other edible stuff offered in Yagas.
    We have additional proof that these verses are meant this way. Learned sages of several ancient empires like Mauryas performed animal sacrifices . Also Valmiki cannot go wrong when he depicted an ashwamedha in ramanaya. I hope you wouldn’t claim your vedic knowledge is deeper than his.

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  17. Regarding your second comment, I have a few questions.
    You say all ashrams serve vegetarian food. So Sriramakrishna Paramahamsa violated this ashram principle? Also, you say nobody should eat what cannot be grown again. Cattle are reared, the farmer grows it again by the very same process he does to wheat plants. But he cannot grow forest produce. During vanavasa, did Ram violate this rule?

    Finally, whole of India is not an ashram. If someone wants to live in an "Ashramic way" there are plenty of places available.

    You yourself state in your view hindu religion does not dictate what to eat and what not, thats the message of this post! Why some food should be prohibited in the name of religion, when it doesnt say what to eat and what not?

    (Even if you assume it did, I wouldnt agree to a prohibition, even if every single religion in India say something shouldnt be eaten, it cant be law. There are people who do not follow any religion)

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  18. Thank you for your reply Sathyardhi, The seeker of Truth! For your first comment please can you post the vedic verses in sanskrit and I can read and interpret its meaning with those who know sanskrit? Why are you comparing ourselves to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Rama? We always have convenient philosophies. Was it not Ramaksrishna Paramahamsa and Rama who have preached non-violence. And rememeber that they have gone beyond spiritual enlightment. We are not so. We are constrained by the food we eat and the thoughts that we have. And it is for us to decide whether we have mastered ourselves or not. Don't use Vitarka while arguing. When I said anything that grows again, it is the same plant. If we remove the fruits or leaves of a plant or tree it again grows back. But in the case of cow, the entity of life in it lost and a new entity has to be created. And never use the logic like Jesus ate fish, Rama ate meat, Rishis ate meat, they are not restricted by any food habits! Coming to Vedas, if they are simple, why did Max Muller who had given perverted meanings like you finally had to say at the end of his life that Vedas have such seriousness and enormity of thought that it is difficult to interpret them in a life time! Good that you are knowing about Vedas but as I told earlier veda is not a book. Come out of that perception! 4 vedas are the 4 creative principles in man.

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