If all living beings are God’s children, then isn’t killing plants but not animals like killing the handicapped child of a parent while sparing the healthy child?

Transcript

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Question. In what way is vegetarianism better than eating meat? If we say that all living beings are the children of God, then the plants are like physically handicapped children of God, because they can’t move about. So if a parent has two sons, and if we say that just because this child is physically handicapped, I can kill and eat it, and the other child I will love, what kind of love is that? So how do we justify, if we consider all living beings are children of God, then how can we justify eating of some children and condemn the eating of other children? That is, we justify the eating of plants and not the eating of animals.
Answer. The important point to recognize is that there is a fundamental difference between plants and animals, unlike the difference between a physically handicapped child and a healthy child. Both the physically handicapped and the healthy child have the same level of consciousness, and both will feel the same level of pain.
Whereas in the case of plants and animals, both are not having the same level of consciousness. Even from the scientific point of view, the plant’s nervous system is far less developed than that of the animals. And the pain that we feel is dependent largely on the sensitivity of the nervous system.
So therefore, the plants feel far lesser pain. So the example of physically handicapped child is a false analogy, because the emphasis is not when we differentiate between plants and animals, it’s not that the plants can’t move and animals can move, as is the difference between the physically handicapped child and the normal child. But it is on what is the best way for us to live.
So if it were ideally possible, we would want to cause no pain at all, but we have to eat something and we cannot live without eating. So then we should, a sensitive human being will want to cause as less pain as possible. So actually speaking, scientifically, the pain that the plants experience is far lesser.
And then logically also if we see in many cases, for example, fruits naturally fall from the tree. Fruits are not killed in that sense. They would fall and when they fall, if they are not eaten, they will anyway rot and die.
So in plucking of fruits, actually there is no killing at all. And similarly the crops also, when they are at the time of harvesting, then if they are not cut at that time, they will simply dry and die. And in contrast with that, actually animals are not slaughtered.
Generally, all animals, when they have to be eaten, they have to be slaughtered. And when they are slaughtered, often it is not that they are about to, they have got old and about to die. That may often happen.
Occasionally, when the animals are, drought animals, they do physical work. But generally in the slaughterhouses, the animals are specifically grown to be killed and they would have a long, long life, much longer life for many years if they were not slaughtered. That is not the case with crops at all.
So the slaughter of animals is in that sense unnatural because it is a death that is often quite premature. Whereas with respect to fruits, it is a natural fall. And with respect to crops also, their time has come and they will themselves dry and die if they are not harvested at that time.
And beyond this logical point, there is also the intuitive reasoning. The intuitive reasoning is that if we go to a place where crops are being harvested, there is a jubilant atmosphere because nature has given us a bounty and we are happy to receive the bounty of nature. So nature is in a festive mood and we are in a festive mood at that time.
But if you go to a slaughterhouse, there is no festive mood. There is a mood of horror over there. And those who do the slaughtering, they actually stay on there just by deadening the nervous system to the screaming and the pain and the blood all around.
It is a gory scene. And to confirm this intuitive feeling, we can just ask any set of parents. If tomorrow they come to know that the school has arranged a picnic for their children and in the picnic they are going to take the children for harvesting, so how many parents will have the objection? No, you can see.
You can see how nature works, how farms are made, from where our food comes, how the crops are harvested. But if the school announces that tomorrow we will take your children to a slaughterhouse, how many parents will allow that? They will rebel against the school administration. Why? Because the two are categorically different.
It is not the same. So therefore, now the important point is we are the children of God and we consider all living beings as children of God. So now, where do we cause the minimum pain? It is not that the plants are moving or not moving.
That is not the important point. Where do we cause the minimum pain? And if we can avoid all pain as it happens with respect to fruits, then that is perfect. But most people cannot live on a diet of fruits.
Then it is natural that we cause minimum pain. This is like asking if a surgeon can do with cutting one tip of a finger and the same surgeon says, OK, I have to cut anyway. Whether I cut the tip of a finger or I cut off your whole arm, what is the difference? It is a huge difference.
So, disanalogies are false comparisons made to justify wrong conclusions. And this is a total disanalogy. And most importantly, from the scriptural point of view, plants are the recommended diet for us, for us human beings.
And even from the anatomical, physiological point of view, the human body is far more suited for a vegetarian diet than for a non-vegetarian diet. So, by disanalogy, we can come to false conclusions. But if we let the facts speak from the point of the nervous system, from the logical analysis of longevity of the living beings, and from the point of view of our intuitive feeling about the atmosphere in a field where harvesting is happening, in a slaughterhouse where animals are keen, we will come to the same conclusion that plant, that actually vegetarian food is far more natural for human beings than is animal food.