Vegetarianism

3 Pages 788 Words

As we must go back to our origins, our beginnings, the “Garden of Eden” of our own individual lives in order to grasp truth and thus gain entry into the Kingdom, so must we adopt the childlike awe, wonder and respect for our non-human brethren which can be seen in the attitude of a child toward an animal before he or she has been spoiled by the inculturated norms of fear and dominance. Just as we may observe the child’s natural affinity toward animals and his or her early, innate sense of being in relation with them, we may also observe the child’s earliest reaction to the eating of meat. On first being introduced to the eating of meat in infancy, the natural response of a baby is to dislike its taste. Most children instinctively turn their heads away from this new, foul-smelling offer on the spoon. The baby must be taught to eat meat through daily conditioning. A similar response is repeated later when an older child learns that the main course on his or her plate was once a cow or a pig or a chicken. The quick and strong reaction is one of revulsion—acceptance coming only through repeated assurances of the normalcy of this practice in the adult world. In the context of ‘becoming as children’ it is noteworthy that Isaiah uses images of children in relation with animals in his famous vision of the peaceable kingdom.

As Via notes in his study of the pericope in Mark, (Mark 10: 13-16) the return to this childlike stance involves a certain amount of risk-taking in the abandonment of attitudes that the adult has come to accept. As the child must abandon security in order to become an adult and take risks, so the adult must retrace those early steps in the abandonment of the learned security of adulthood and the rejection of certain cultural norms. The erroneous but culturally ingrained belief that meat protein is necessary to sustain life must be abandoned, and with it the general attitude of the normalcy ...