Dear HH
Originally Posted by anandb
Sorry, HH, this logic of yours is sounds weird to me. Firstly, god does not "kill", he just has made laws which says all beginning has an end. This is true for all beings including even the demi-gods when everything merges into the Supreme Being when the universe is annihilated. Now, there is a huge difference between god playing god and man playing god. That's why you cannot say whether god kills or man kills. Also your phrasing that god kills goes totally against the Hindu concept of god being loving and kind. Death is brought about by karma and there are lot of stories of beings reaching immortality, examples being Vysya or Hanuman.
Exactly (or somewhere close). What i was conveying was also that killing is what "we see it as". The soul does not perish, only the body and therefore what we see as killing is not 'killing' as such. So god does not really "kill'.
My question still remains. Since the soul is not destroyed, is it ok to kill the physical body. Since we live on a materialistic plane, are we not more concerned right now with the physical body than the soul? When we talk about compassion, are we not talking about the pain to the physical body than the soul?
Lets keep immortality aside in this discussion. Discussing immortality, samadhi and karma is a massive topic. Lets stick to veg, non-veg for us mortal beings.
Exactly my point as well. Since you talked about death, I touched on immortality to show that death could be beaten as well.
Killing has nothing to do with the soul. Just because the soul is not killed do we leave criminals to go free? Which case there need not be any laws. Imagine a situation like this. I feel lazy to go buy vegetables or a chicken, so I kill my neighbor and eat him saying his soul is intact. I think we should stick to the physical realm of things because that is how we operate. Talking about soul is an area for higher beings.
Please see what i posted:
When a man kills an animal for food he does not eliminate its soul. His act is not adharmic (unless he kills without reasoning, and that part is attributed to the man's own karma portion).
I don't understand your point. Are you saying the act is adharmic only if the soul is destroyed irrespective of the fact that pain is caused to the physical body. Since the soul is never destroyed anything which causes pain to the physical body done without a reason can never be adharmic.
Now the question arises what and who determines if the reason is right or wrong. Is it the prevailing circumstances in the society. Let us suppose mankind's foolishness leads to the elimination of the animal kingdom and all the flora gets polluted that everything becomes unfit for consumption. Man has no other option but to kill another man and eat him. So in those circumstances, the reason to become cannibalistic will be right and not considered adharmic. The problem with this logic is the circumstances which lead man to become cannibalistic is easily forgotten and the prevailing circumstances lead one to believe that what we do is right. Same logic as the culling of 300k birds to avoid the bird flu virus and the slaughter of cattle to avoid the bovine virus. As the article points out, what caused these viruses originally is easily forgotten but the slaughter of these beings is justified to ensure the survival of the superior beings which is humans.
Did i say its ok to kill a neighbour? I specifically mentioned abt killing wrt reasoning (which btw is what the gita conveys as well).
Exactly, to me killing for food becomes killing without reasoning when alternative choices are available.
Here, Krishna means the evil Kauravas and not innocent animals.
?? and i thot killing humans is worse than killing animals.
Again a evil human being is worse than a animal. An animal is programmed to kill for food while a human being is not. While we can keep citing instances that meat eating started with the early man and so on there has been progress on so many fronts. The early man answered nature's call in the open which we do not and wore the bark of trees and plants to cover which we don't.
Please show me one pharse from the Gita that says something to the effect of "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalth not kill an animal for food" or "thou shalt not kill an animal that attacks you to kill you".
Dear HH, I think you may not be reading my posts completely. The gist of all my posts is quite simple. Thou shall not kill animals for food when alternative food choices are available. I think this is in line with what our religion says based on the principles of ahimsa and non-violence which is spread throughout our scriptures and the teachings of gurus. At the same time, our religion also eulogizes people to defend their honor and kill the enemy where necessary.
Here you are equating man and the animal. Man has the ability to think while the animal cannot, at least not to the extent of man. So this is where we use our wisdom. If the malaria bearing mosquito kills us we also use chemicals to kill them. tit for tat. Generally, animals don't kill unless their territory is encroached upon and the encroaching is usually done by man. We have read about elephants venturing into villages and attacking man because the forest cover has been depleted by man. If one compares man to animals, we can find the present day man behaving worse than animals. Sorry to digress, but look at the man made problems like poverty, corruption, war, environmental pollution and so on and look at the animal kingdom. All the animals seem to say is allow to function in our habitat without killing us for food and poaching us for our skins. Honestly, I find animals killing man to be minuscule compared to man killing man or man killing animals. Please read the Vijayvani article I sent earlier in full to understand what the thinking man is capable of.
When a man is allowed to kill a man itself in the Gita where goes an animal (the context here is whether or not the act of killing is dharmic). Obviously, the act of killing itself does not accrue a sin if there is a reasoning attached to it, and that reasoning gets termed as dharma.
The Gita asks man to do his duty meaning he has to fight adharma. So you kill a man who is evil or unjust, fine. Where is the question of killing a animal for food? I can understand if you kill the animal coming to kill you.
What you just quoted above is the Viswaroopa Darshan of Krishna as seen by Arjuna with Divine Sight. This is not the normal form of god as felt and seen by anyone. Even Arjuna had to be given divine eyes to see the Viswaroopa because it is a terrible sight which cannot be seen by mere mortals. Even Arjuna at the end begs Krishna to return to the form he always knew as loving and merciful. So Krishna rightly said that this form cannot be seen by studying the Vedas or charity or piety because you cannot bear the intensity of seeing it. It does not mean I can go around killing anyone because anyway I cannot see this form of the lord by being pious.
?? When did i say you can go around killing anyone because you cannot see Krishna's vishwaroopa by being pious?
I read your original post. I understand your position that killing is also pious if done with a reason. Now what I don't understand is why quote that Gita passage?
Thirukkural was called the Fifth Veda especially by Tamils. A lot of it is directly inspired by the Vedas and the Acharya himself extensively quotes from the Kural.
But obviously it contradicts vedic sacrifices.
Isn't that the beauty of our religion? Live and Let live. If Thiruvalluvar did not accept certain things of the Vedas, it is still fine. Even the Acharya did not have any problems with that.
Moderation is a key to lot of things and so also abstinence for a lot of things as well.
includes moderation of veggie food as well. And if someone wants to go the way of sanyasam, wud also probably include gradual abstinence of veggie food as well, depending on the road/ path taken.
Do agree.
