Why I do not eat meat

Any mind that seeks to genuinely encompass and engage with reality will seek out the truth about their food. If they eat meat, they will seek to know up close and personal the reality of what meat is, walk through a slaughter house, analyse their emotions and question their part in the chain of causation.

There is a reason why, with no conditioning to counter my emotions, I will feel deep empathy with a cow if I see it having it's throat slit, screaming, blood pissing out and kicking on the ground. The core of what is good in human nature will naturally find this painful. Empathy.

There is also a reason why when I pick an apple from a tree, I feel completely fine about it.

I you really want to know what meat is, visit my website and watch a few videos:

http://www.richardbergin.org/why-be-vegetarian

There is a evolutionary reason, an ingrained biological predisposition which benefits humanity as a social species, accounting for why we empathise with animals.

A heirachy of empathy seems to exist, where the human mind recognises the genetic similarities in other species, similar character traits and the species function (friend or enemy), and assigns a level of empathy towards the species.

Cute little lambs, dogs, monkeys etc. rank highly, because they share more genetic material with our species. Whereas jelly like blobs at the bottom of the ocean do not and we don't naturally feel as much empathy. Or take reptiles, harmless little lizards nice, poisonous snakes are not generally liked.

I'm not saying you're sociopathic if you eat meat. I would claim however that you are either:
1. completely sheltered from the reality of meat, too far removed from it.
2. molded by cultural norms passed down, generally based on necessity from hunger
3. desensitised to the act of killing

If you live in the west, you don't have to eat meat, it's not necessary. It's socially acceptable not to eat meat.

So if you do, you're unnecessarily taking life, causing harm and in most cases, especially the case of factory farming, participating in massive environmental destruction and the torture of animals.

If you eat chicken, you should be able to comfortably pick up a knife and saw off a chickens head like this man does. If you can't, there is no moral justification for simply paying someone else down the chain to do that work for you. If you do not need to eat meat, but choose to, you are creating unnecessary death, pain and often torture to animals. Again, it would be fine, if we didn't empathise with the chicken we're killing, but humans naturally do empathise.

The reason humans can happily pick an apple from a tree, not feel guilty, is because this is natural. If this child was asked to hack off the neck of a chicken, he would be traumatised, as would many adults. It is just as violent if you ask a butcher to do this on your behalf.

Can you be happy living in denial? Take a tour through your typical meat factory and wake up to reality. Then at least you can make an educated decision about your 'food'. If you still want to eat it after that, be my guest.

If you genuinely want to find out more about the meat industry that produces your food, check out a documentary called Earthlings:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6361872964130308142#