I can't understand this perspective and since it has come up in a few recent threads I figured it deserved its own topic. Overall I'm not saying that people who believe in a Bible should feel guilty about being allowed to eat animals; I just don't understand the flippant attitude some have, since it came with such a huge cost.

So here's how I understand things, and this might get a little confusing as I'm using mostly Genesis and that book starts off with 2 different creation stories and 2 different Flood stories.

In the first creation story God gives humans dominion/stewardship over all the other animals but He makes everyone plant eaters and sees this design as very good

In the next creation story humans are still fruit-eaters (Genesis 2:16) but this one gives the reason the Lord God created the non-human animals; the man was to find a partner (wife?) among them.

Then there is the Fall and the Flood. God comes to terms with the wickedness of humankind and satisfy their lust for power and killing He allows them to kill and eat animals in order to divert them from committing violence against other humans. But even though humans are now permitted to kill animals (for more than clothing and offerings) the life of the animal must still be respected.

So to me if one who believes in the Bible celebrates the allowance to eat meat one is celebrating the wicked nature of humanity.

I've heard others say that God allowed humans to eat animals simply because the Flood destroyed a lot of the food. But even then humankind* still had to majorly screw up twice before being given permission to eat animals. So this is a concession that God made that is very far from His ideal and, to me, that's not something to be proud of.

*Although, based on the text I can't blame humans or snakes for the Fall.

I've seen it claimed the vegetarianism in a sign of weakness because of this passage
But I think that was written in the same line as the verses below and refers only to a very specific, religious reason for avoiding meat

Maybe I'm interpreting things completely incorrectly, I've seen plenty of Biblical interpretations that I can't understand at all and it's not an anthology I've really studied. And although there is some beautiful wisdom within, the Bibles are not something I would use as a moral guide for human rights, let alone animal welfare. But I want to discuss this as most people I run into are Christians and the thoughtless attitude towards how humans were given meat to eat according to their scripture seems to be common.

My reading of Cain and Abel suggests that meat eating would have begun soon after the eviction from Eden. Abel is portrayed as a herdsman, in some translations a hunter, practicing animal sacrifice, which is seen as pleasing God. Hunting and eating meat preceded the domestication of livestock, and Abel was a practiced slaughterer, and that was many generations before Noah. There's no way they weren't eating meat by then, or that we're to believe this was considered a transgression. I mean, if you're looking for literal rationales in these old stories. Mainstream (as compared with fundamentalist) Christians don't interpret those texts literally, but as wisdom about how we should behave now, and with the understanding that they are reading translations of translations, and that the translators would have had a hard time with idioms, etc. In fact, many Christians don't read the Old Testament at all for its laws. They maintain that the laws in the Old Testament were mitigated by the coming of Jesus, after which God was seen as more merciful and less harsh than previously. I would never argue with a Christian that he was violating his own religion by eating meat, only that his religion doesn't compel the practice. It would be interesting to read just how much meat people actually consumed back then. I expect it was far less than people do now, more for special occasions except among the wealthy and the priests.

Interesting subject; however, because it is primarily theological, and potentially political, in nature, I'm moving it to the Compost Heap, our forum for friendly debate. Please continue the conversation.

I'm not Christian myself, but I know a family of Seventh Day Adventists who are vegetarian based on the idea that it was God's chosen diet originally.

The bible often contradicts itself...It was written so long ago that any comments it makes on ethical issues need to be critically appraised in the context of 21st century thought/ morality...It seems fairly clear that people were only supposed to eat fruits until the concept of sin arose...So technically Christians should be eating fruits alone...

Eden was where they didn't have to work for their food; it was all just there for the taking. Once out, wearing the animal skins God handed them as they were being shown the door, they had to work for everything they ate. I have to think that would have been the beginning of hunting. All that "this fruit shall be as meat for you" was only about Eden itself, I think. Kind of like our pre-human and early human ancestors in Africa, before their territory started drying up and they had to strike out for other regions and learn how to hunt and gather, and eventually, as humans, to herd and farm. I've thought of the Eden story as possibly having its roots in ancient oral history about leaving Africa, where life had been easy for a long time, and leaving for places where gathering food was harder so they had to start growing it, fighting weeds and quarreling with one another. That would make the Eden story kind of a parable about becoming more fully human than when they were in the Garden. In line with God's warning that from then on (from when they started walking upright???) childbirth was going to be a lot harder, and that now that they were getting more verbal they'd be arguing all the time, and that they'd also have to grow crops, fighting weeds every step of the way. None of those had been issues for them until they were, maybe once their heads got to be of a certain size and self-awareness kicked in. Or maybe it was more of an ancient fable created to answer the question, "Why is life so freaking hard?"

Just to clarify: anatomically modern humans originated in Eastern Africa about 200,000 years ago, mitochondrial DNA evidence confirms this...These anatomically modern humans migrated out of Africa and colonised the rest of the world...The early anatomically modern humans would probably have been "gatherers" before progressing to being "hunters"...Eventually farming practices developed, but these were much more recent ~ 12,000 years ago or so...

Your 200,000-years date is controversial and minority. Maybe homo sapiens goes back that far, maybe not, but I'm sure I read that Homo erectus, an ancestor of our anatomically modern people, gathered and hunted. But that's all beside the point. I was writing about how fables and legends can have their roots as oral history until the capacity develops for writing them down, the order of events less significant than the messages they hold.

In evolutionary biology, 200,000 years is the generally accepted amount of time that anatomically modern humans have been on planet Earth...

In response to Joan Kennedy,

I never read a translation where "hunter" was used, interesting. I didn't go reread the Cain and Able story when I was preparing this thread but I did wonder what he was up to with those sheep. I could easily explain it with "clothes and offerings" since such a big deal was made about nakedness earlier and someone had to make clothes for Adam and Eve and all of their children.

I'm not entirely sure why I only went with the literal translation of Genesis as I think that a literal interpretation is a relatively rare view point (and this is my very uneducated assumption). I guess I was just thinking about all of the 'God gave us animals to eat' arguments I've come across. These people were usually trying to take the Bible literally and although there are many places in the Bibles that deal with meat-eating, the only place the I'm aware of that states why God made non-human animals is in the beginning of Genesis. I live in a place where a lot of people believe 'you can't have a reason for Jesus's sacrifice without having a literal Adam and Eve messing things up'.

Ok, I still haven't reread Genesis 4-7 so I could be wrong here but if we were to take Genesis literally it doesn't mention eating animals before the Flood but it does say that people were doing a lot of violent things. For all we know, the writers could have envisioned that people were eating animals but not with God's permission.

"There's no way they weren't eating meat by then, or that we're to believe this was considered a transgression." I think there's no way a lot of the things depicted in the first 10 chapters of Genesis could have happened, so having them not eating meat (with permission) doesn't sound that strange to me by comparison.

"I would never argue with a Christian that he was violating his own religion by eating meat" I don't see how that argument could even be made ( but there are a lot of denominations out there with very diverse beliefs...)


Sounds reasonable to me. I figured it would end up there eventually, I just didn't want to place it in automatic-debate-land right off the bat.

Yeah, there are several Christian groups that, if not believe it is good to completely abstain from meat, believe it is a good idea to fast from meat occasionally- some Catholics, mainly in the Middle Ages I think, Eastern Orthodox Churches, the church in Ethiopia.

Well when people were kicked out of Eden they were punished by being forced to work hard in order to eat the "pants of the field".

Ancestors (Homo erectus) of anatomically modern humans also hunted, also gathered. Ancestors of anatomically modern humans left Africa and began colonizing the world. That's why you find Neanderthal remains in Europe and Denisovan remains in Asia, among others who preceded Homo Sapiens. These relatively recent near-human cousins share our Homo erectus common ancestor, as I understand it. By the time Homo sapiens is on the scene, hunting is already in practice.

Homo neanderthalensis is not an ancestor of anatomically modern humans...

The Out of Africa Theory says that anatomically modern humans left Eastern Africa/ the horn of Africa and colonised the world...By tracing mitochondrial DNA back to Eastern Africa, this has been confirmed to be correct...

These anatomically modern humans either wiped out Homo neanderthalensis or bred with them, thereby assimilating their gene pool...

I didn't say he was. I said Homo erectus is the common ancestor we share with Neanderthal and Denisovan, among others. It was Homo erectus who first left Africa, and you wont find Neanderthals in Africa. You find their fossils in Europe. Another descendant of Homo erectus is Denisovan, whose fossils you find in Asia. As I wrote, Denisovan and Homo erectus are our cousins.

(Again this is my uneducated opinion) I think that Genesis was intended to be etiological fables- explaining why life is hard, why snakes don't have legs, why childbirth is so much harder for woman than other animals, why woman love the ones who subjugate them, etc. But I think it's cool that this story seems to agree with reality about why childbirth is so difficult in humans; the large brains, which allow for 'a knowledge of good and evil,' along with bipedalism means larger head through a narrower birth canal = more pain. Maybe I shouldn't be so impressed but didn't a lot of cultures believe that thinking and/or morality came from organs (or even non-physical) other than the brain?

If you are referring to common ancestors then I see what you mean...I think Neanderthals were first found in Germany, rather than Eastern Africa, as you say...

That's how I see it too. That's what I was getting at in post #6, but mine was wordier. Okay, a lot wordier. And you're absolutely right that pulling on the string of the Eden Fall story really messes up the narrative of the need for a redeemer to come bail us out from the fallout of that Original Sin. Committed moments before they even knew the difference between right and wrong, so I'm not sure how much of a Sin it should have been considered. As one friend of mine put it, "Eden isn't the story of a banishment, it's the story of an escape from a slave colony." Harsh, but I do see what he would have been getting at.

Yes I think a lot of ancient cultures placed little value on the brain - the ancient Egyptians didn't think too highly of brains - they just scrambled them up during mummification...Even Leonardo da Vinci didn't try that hard when drawing the brain, compared to other organs...I think that ancient peoples often assigned more value to the heart...

Romans 14 is actually pretty easily dealt with.

He was using an example of then current controversies to push his own theological views and interests. Catholic, protestent, Eastern Orthodox, whatever -- we're all plying variations on Pauline Christianity. At that time there were THREE belief systems that could lay claim to being Christianity. Jewish Christianity, Gnosticism, and Pauline Christianity.

Jewish Christianity is the beliefs of those who first followed Jesus. They were still Jews and still did "Jewish" things. Like follow the food rules.

Gnosticism's relationship to Christianity is complex, and I was pretty much telling tales when I said it could lay claim to BEING Christianity, but what's important here is that many Gnostic sects had food rules.

Along comes Paul. His view is that faith trumps things like food rules. Martin Luther later picked up that football and ran with it, but that's beyond the point here. Following things like food rules is a sign of weak faith to Paul. His decleration that the person who doesn't eat meat is weak in faith isn't commentary that the non-eater is weak in faith because he's not eating meat, rather because he's following an arbitrary rule. The Jewish Christians had a set of food rules. His example points to the Gnostics though. Many Gnostic sects practiced meat abstention as a food rule. Paul is wagging his finger and saying "Nope. It's faith, stupid. Not rules."

I hope that made sense

In a nutshell, the Bible is the progressive revelation of God's dealings and revelation of Himself to mankind. Any "Christian" who rips scripture out of context to try to prove God is either for or against vegetarianism....or for/against meat-eating doesn't know their Bibles as they ought.

The Pauline literature in the New Testament speaks of meat that was sacrificed to idles. In that day, meat sold in the market place was in many cases meat that was used in a pagan ceremony. Paul was writing to new Christians whose faith (and conscience) was "weak" in that in their new born desire to please the One True God they were worried that eating such meat was a sin.

He was telling more mature Christians whose faith was stronger and who had no problem eating such meat to be careful when with the "weaker" Christian so as not to make them "stumble."

Today a corollary would be the use of alcohol. The Bible teaches to not get drunk. It doesn't speak of total abstinence except in the case of a Nazarite vow and maybe one or two other exceptions.

So a "strong" Christian who has no problem having a beer or two, a glass of wine or two needs to be careful exercising that freedom of conscience and faith when it comes to a "weak" Christian who may think drinking a beer is a horrible sin. Out of love and understanding for the "weaker brother" it is the right thing to do NOT to drink ("eat meat") in front of that brother.

The New Testament teaches that symbolically eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus (cannibalism) is holy. The entire faith centers around the killing of Jesus (murder) as the only way to "salvation." It's not too surprising Christians might take pride in brutal behavior, as a result.

Any religion based around an ancient book is going to be morally outdated today. That said, I think that the New Testament is a lot more benign than many other ancient texts.

Completely ridiculous

That story is something isn't it? Abel the righteous presented god with meat offering and got approved while Kain the tiller offered his fruit & grain and got rejected, now due to jealousy and anger Kain kills his brother. Logically this story has about as much sense as the Trials of Job, but some feel its a Hebraic folklore about how their ancestors came to be sheep-breeders.

As for the question of this thread, I don't know if Christians are proud to eat meat because of their religion or because their family always were meat-eaters. Lets face it technically Christianity is a Roman-Pagan religion with primary roots in the European nations which spread to the whole earth afterwards. Its the Jews who have kosher laws (as demanded by God the Lord), not the Christians, that's because of their European diet which conveniently ignored the Tanach where not negotiable. It has nothing to do with religion.. just the heritage and regional diet continuing on.

LOL! LMAO!!! Where do you guys come up with this stuff?

Going back to the original question of this post; Just like any other group or religion, you're going to have some individuals or segments that go off the rails with strange interpretations and what not that do not represent (or misrepresent) the "mainstream" if you like. There's nothing scriptural or Christ-prescribed that supports Christians as being particularly "proud of" being meat eaters.

Without getting into a discussion about the short comings of religion, a few things come to mind that are aimed at people of religious persuasion. The heart of the issue is honesty, integrity and awareness without being selective.

From my observations, the religious are the least likely to be critical thinkers, Its easy to be a good religious person without any depth of thought, hey you don't want to be drawn into discussion about animal abuse because you love your lamb roast, and then you would have to think about the ethics of the whole process.

If they in fact felt guilty about eating animals, then they should have the honesty and integrity to address that guilt, how many times have we all heard the " I'm uncomfortable with animal farming but I couldn't live without my meat" ? I've heard it a lot! the same people continue to eat meat and be selective about their ethical behavior.

I never write anything related to religion without expecting sceptical/hostile responses. While I'm no expert in the matter most of the terms I say can be verified using history. The 1st and 2nd centuries were an interesting time for religion, or should I say unification of religions. The 3rd week of December was a Roman-Pagan festival called Saturnalia, loosely related to Hanukkah but never on the same days, later it was decided that December 25th would be the official day of Saturnalia (beginning from midnight), it was also called Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (birthday of the everlasting Sun), this accompanied the fact that Dec 25th was winter solstice and people celebrated the beginning of a new crop season. Easter/Eastre was a word used in Germany to denote the change of season from summer, typically in the month of April. Eggs were supposedly symbolic of a new beginning in those days and was used to symbolize Easter, this resembles the Jewish festival Passover but not completely. The cross has long been a pagan symbol in Egypt, Rome & Greece, some explanations point to a constellation of a similar shape, some feel its a symbol of God. Saint Nicholaus or Santa Claus also had its origins from Europe (he was a German-origin saint from European border of Turkey). Germans celebrated his acts of kindness as an example of why charity should be done.

I'm not writing any of this to offend you or any religion, just pointing out a few influences of Christianity which are proven to be older traditions followed in the B.C era. Most other modern-day Christmas traditions came from various European countries which symbolized their unique faith.

Not the dreaded "my meat" comment! No! I always hear this

"I need my meat"
"I love my meat"
"I couldn't live without my meat"

As we were saying in another thread it's NOT YOUR meat and it never was!

I completely agree that Christianity absorbed the pre-existing Roman religion and other pagan religions.

I also think once the Roman empire decided to adopt Christianity as its official religion the Romans would have been involved in deciding precisely what would remain canon and what would be cut out so they did play a role in directly shaping the religion as well.

OK then...You a little more accurately point out actual history here summarized neatly here:

That's a FAR CRY from Christianity being a Roman-pagan religion.