A collection of essays and rants, inspired and taken from a series that I have been writing for several years concerning this subject. A stirring account of how certain issues are poisoned by organized religions and why we as a society would be much...
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"Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish." – Anonymous
I have a few friends who eat from a very limited menu. When I get together with these friends the only place where we can all eat together is a Chinese buffet because that's the only way we can all get something accustomed to our eating habits. A few of these friends are unable to eat certain things because of allergies. One is allergic to shell fish (meaning no crab, lobster, shrimp) while another is allergic to wheat gluten, which is rough because a lot of stuff has wheat in it either as preservative or coating of food such as batter. The third is lactose intolerant which means she cannot have any dairy products such as milk, cheese or ice cream. I do not begrudge these friends because they did not choose to have these issues with certain foods. If they ingest these particular foods, their bodies will respond with pain and suffering that could last through the entire night or even take their lives depending on how severe the reaction is. An aunt on my father's side has an allergy to shell fish so bad that even the smell of cooked shell fish will cause her throat to swell and cut off her air supply. I don't have any allergies to any particular foods (that I know of) and am grateful that my body doesn't rebel against my choice of diet.
But then I have friends who are unable to eat certain foods because of a moral objection. These are the people who have no physical reason to reject these foods, many that would nourish their body with minerals and nutrients. Yet they choose not to eat them because they object to ingesting something they believe to be immoral. One good example of this would be my vegan friends who refuse to eat a single product that comes from a living thing. They refuse to eat any kind of animal as well as the by-products that come from those animals such as milk, eggs and cheese. They refuse to eat these foods because in their humble opinion meat is murder. Their refusal to eat any living things is almost as hypocritical of their religious counterparts, because science has proven that plants are also living beings. I learned in grade six science classes that plants go through a process called photosynthesis and have living cells, so these vegans are in fact killing something when the ingest a salad or a stalk of celery. So the idea that they do not eat any living things is absolute rubbish, but they claim to stay away from the animals merely because they are a more advanced being than the average plant.
As an atheist, I have no qualms with eating meat of any kind. I am a strong believer in the theories of Charles Darwin such as natural selection and survival of the fittest with regards to the primal order of the food chain. We are not at the top of the food chain but we're really, really close to it. There are times when we are at the top when we best other animals like sharks and lions, but I am also aware that if I was ever caught alone without anything to defend myself, that shark or lion would make a fine meal out of me and would be veggin' in the sun for the rest of the day with a belly full of yours truly. That's why I feel no guilt when I put a shark steak on my George Foreman grill because I know that little bugger wouldn't hesitate to take a bit out of me if the tables were turned. I also don't feel bad when I eat meat because it's a natural for us to do as predators with teeth similar to other common carnivores.
