Animal Person
On the Eating of Meat with Love and Spirituality

Almost two weeks ago, I posted Is "Compassionate Carnivore" and Oxymoron? on Rethos, and encountered an idea I haven't seen for a while: that you can eat meat with "love" and "deference," and if you do so your behavior is "morally sound."

'I truly believe it is morally sound. With deference, love, and an understanding of the proportions of nutrients the body needs, eating meat can be ethical.'

I tried my best to respectfully disagree with the gentleman who wrote that, but it wasn't easy for me. I have many people in my life who are spiritual, though very few who would call themselves religious. Some believe in a god, others don't. All were raised within the Judeo-Christian model, yet as adults they're now more in a Hindu-Buddhist model. And here's what I get from the ones who used to be vegetarians or vegans (some of whom lived in ashrams, which are usually vegetarian as they use ghee):

'Spiritually, I believe that if you express your gratitude and bless your food and the animals it came from, eating some meat is okay. After all, it is all karma and (similar to what the gentleman who wrote the above comment concluded) "the living must eat the dead, for the dead to live again."'

It takes every ounce of self-restraint for me not to say, "Dogs are scavengers and eat the dead. You wanna do that? Go for it. But what you are doing is paying someone to breed, dominate, exploit, mutilate and slaughter someone. Is that part of your whole poetic circle-of-life scenario? Does that sound karmically correct?"

I am aware of how rude I sound, but I do happen to be surrounded by spiritual-types, and I find them more adept at rationalization than the average person. And the crux of it all is that spirituality trumps everything and in fact INFORMS morality. So if you can justify something with spirituality, morality is PRESUMED.

Do you see my problem?

Any advice for dealing with these loving, compassionate, meditating, chanting, well-meaning yoga-doers?