|
I have a conflict. I have the
appetite of a carnivore and the conscience of a vegetarian. I
remember slopping the hogs as a child in West Virginia. I watched
those cute little piglets eating from the trough, grunting happily
and looking up at me with thanks in their eyes .I felt guilty. I was
fattening them up for the kill. Could I later eat them as pork chops
without my conscience choking me? If I didn't the rest of my family
would. They weren't cursed with the kind of dichotomy I was.
Later in life I found it
continuing. I went through a period when I became religious and read
the bible daily. The Christian religion says "thou shall not kill.
"Jainism advocates reverence for all life. I found support for my
cravings. in Genesis. God is a carnivore! Throughout my biblical
reading it had escaped my attention. If God is a carnivore why
wouldn't I be? After all, I was created in His image, It's right
there in the story of Cain and Abel. Why did Cain slay his brother
Abel? He was jealous because God preferred Abel's offering of meat
to his offering of vegetables. Abel was a herder, Cain was a
farmer. I guess God didn't like broccoli or any of Cain's veggies.
And the choice that God made has followed us down through the
millennia.
During the settling of the
American West, cattlemen were the bad guys and farmers the good
guys. That was a switch! Did God suddenly developed a taste for
broccoli? Or did He have compassion for all those poor steers driven
a thousand miles over hot, dry dusty plains only to end up in the
stomachs of effete easterners?
As for me, I decided to become
an omnivore. I EAT EVERYTHING!
|
