http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF5THhPeBQE

So if eating milk causes cows to be slaughtered then is this devotee getting upset hypocritical? Keeping a few pet cows is hardly informing the unwashed masses on how to protect the humble cow.

Or is it another case of WIIFM?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrl1FnHH5qw&feature=related

Ha! I just looked at the title spelling...that's what happens when one has a one year-old on one's knee while using two fingers to hunt and peck.

Am I the only one to stress out over these matters? Milk=veal that is?

there is ample suffering in all species including humans, therefore, no, I don't get stressed out

The fire in my belly concerning suffering and how I may help alleviate a tiny part of that suffering has never died down.

Tilting at windmills? Or, From Little Things, Big Things Grow?

I still take spiders outside instead of squishing them.

I like that sentiment. I feel the same way.

I dont step on spiders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc

I do believe that beer is more necessary for devolutionists than milk , hence the real liquid religion,because Im lactose intolerant and only fresh horse milk gives a buzz anyway

I liked the video a lot (although getting distracted by Clannad's dreamy Na Laethe Bhi). It was to the point, not overstated, not hysterical like some other similar ones. It made some very good points.

But the part about how cows naturally are, how they love their young, etc., I found naive. Cows are tame animals, bred by humans and for humans. They wouldn't survive on their own. The original wild cows lived in forests and are extinct since a long time. (In Poland, since 500 years.) They probably did love their young, but their lives were not more idyllic than those of deer or moose. Forests were full of predators and not always full of food.

Wow, that's Sanatan Goswami dasa, who used to live in the Potomac Temple around 22 years ago. He has a few videos chasing guru's around and calling them murderers of Prabhupada, the most famous being the one where he confronts Ravindra Svarupa at the New York Ratha Yatra and calls him a cockroach repeatedly. He used to be this mellow laid back devotee who lived outside the temple with his family and sold paintings for a living. Then something happened and all hell broke loose in his life and mind, but now it looks like he has settled down with a brand new family in a small town in upstate New York and has his own house/temple complete with cows and a video camera. The beat goes on, and that small town at least has got something to talk about besides the economy going bad.

I find this chilling. Every year the farmer below us separates the calves from the mother cows and the wailing of the mother cows goes on for several days, night and day.

Are you saying that if a living being has been bred by humans for food then they somehow do not feel pain and suffering? It seems incredulous to assume this.

I often hear the argument about what would happen to all these bred-for-food animals if we stopped eating them. It is as if we are being kind to give them a life at all and without this cycle of artificial breeding we are being unkind.

How many humans would survive without the support of the supermarket?

The parallels between the way animals are exploited and humans are exploited, to my eyes, looks to be obvious.

Many white people believe they are at the top of the evolutionary tree and those who are unfortunate enough to be black/yellow/brown skinned are not actually human enough to love their children or to enjoy any of the rights afforded to their white masters. Therefore they can be exploited for the higher good in the service of their masters of a superior race.

The American Indian is an example of how genocide of the most abhorrent nature was perpetrated based on the belief that they were heathens/savages, less than human and therefore they could be exterminated with impunity. There are many more examples.

Predators in the forest keep things in balance. They do not build enormous infrastructure to breed their prey.

Then there is the argument that we somehow need animals in order to be in optimal health. This is simply another version of the superiority complex. It has been scientifically proven to be a false assumption. With the addition of B12 supplements humans have no need for animal flesh or secretions.

So, if it comes down to the satisfaction of the tongue alone then what is the use of our superior brains if we are acting as if we are nothing but animals?

Mercy and compassion are supposed to be the higher sentiments of human beings.

i agree with Homer, and i have a special cup with a cover for capturing indoor spiders and putting them outside carefully. which was invented in our house by Violeta

According to whom, Schuman the human?

Well, who says the animals have these qualities?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion

Compassion is a profound human emotion prompted by the pain of others. More vigorous than empathy, the feeling commonly gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another's suffering. It is often, though not inevitably, the key component in what manifests in the social context as altruism. In ethical terms, the various expressions down the ages of the so-called Golden Rule embody by implication the principle of compassion: Do to others as you would have done to you. Ranked a great virtue in numerous philosophies, compassion is considered in all the major religious traditions as among the greatest of virtues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy

Mercy (Middle English, from Anglo-French merci, from Medieval Latin merced-, merces, from Latin, "price paid, wages", from merc-, merx "merchandise") can refer both to compassionate behaviour on the part of those in power (e.g. mercy shown by a judge toward a convict) or on the part of a humanitarian third party (e.g. a mission of mercy aiming to treat war victims). Mercy is a term used to describe the leniency compassion shown by one person to another, or a request from one person to another to be shown such leniency or unwarranted compassion for a crime or wrongdoing. One of the basic virtues of chivalry, Christian ethics, Judaism, and Islam, it is also related to concepts of justice and morality in behaviour between people. In India, compassion is known as karuna.

spider love secures heaven



Arachne, in Greek mythology a woman of Colophon in Lydia, a skillful weaver who challenged Athena to a contest. Athena destroyed Arachne's work and Arachne tried to hang herself, but Athena changed her into a spider.

Arakhne is the Greek word for 'spider.'

Heaven!

Arachane reminds me of this:

There have been a spate of suicides lately among the environment saving green types here. One friend of mine, a pivotal and powerful person among the greens, personally knows eight environmentalists who have killed themselves over the last few years. He tells me that sensitive people, talented people, are more prone to pop themselves off.

My friend also will not have children because he believes there are too many people already, much to the distress of his partner.

Do we attain heaven if we do the wrong thing (assuming suicide is wrong) for the right reasons?

Can compassion involve killing?

I guess im a bit more advanced then cause I leave them inside and let them eat bugs in my house

Not so fast!

I would leave them inside too if Violeta could tolerate, but she can't so i serve her desire, over those of spiders.

But Ladybugs are allowed and they are loved.

ladybugs eat aphids which is also good. I retract -you are possibly as or more advanced than me

I used to employ spiders, ladybugs as well as frogs and snakes and toads and dragonflys, turtles and many other helpful dudes, to help me grow females in the woods.
Just doing my part to be kind to the world.
But i don't do that anymore.

Can you grow females in woods???

No, I don't say this. Of course not. Ability to feel pain and suffering is related to how well the nervous system is developed, not to whether the animal is wild or bred by humans.

The point in my text above was that the emotional contrast the video evokes -- between 1) the suffering of the cows in industrial farming, and 2) the happy natural state of cows not subjected to such treatment -- is a fallacy. It is a fallacy because the alternative 2) is imaginary, not real. The intent behind the video is to make people feel, "Cows suffer when we treat them like we do, and they would be so happy if we stopped!"

I say not necessarily.

Stopping cow exploitation and slaughter is one thing, but what will you do instead? What would you do with an animal that has been bred to be dependent on humans? You can't just let it roam free in the woods. It would die a terrible death there, just like minks animal rights' activists occasionally "liberate" from their cages, after breaking into a mink farm at night.

There are of course alternatives to industrial farming. (I agree such treatment is terrible and does not deserve to be called humane.) Old style, small scale farming is one. Keeping cows as pets, ISKCON-style, is another. They are better, but not idyllic. They carry their own kind of suffering for the animals too. The video stops short of addressing it.

Here is a wonderful resource for anyone wishing to inform themselves concerning how we may eat and live in a compassionate and healthy fashion, very friendly:



http://veganforum.com/forums/index.php

The Vegan Forum

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Are these guys devotees? I noticed the neckbeads.


http://www.vegan.org/campaigns/mcvegan/index.html


VEGAN ACTION is a 501©3 nonprofit organization (FIN# 94-3224024) dedicated to helping animals, the environment, and human health by educating the public about the benefits of a vegan lifestyle and encouraging the spread of vegan food options through our public outreach campaigns.

Our efforts over the past 10 years have allowed us to introduce a vegan logo to certify vegan products with our Vegan Certification Campaign, begin a campaign to introduce humane organizations to veganism with our Humane Outreach Campaign, bring vegan food into schools nationwide with our Dormfood Campaign, and share the compelling ideas behind veganism with thousands of people with our McVegan Campaign and other tabling events.

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