question about religion and veg*n

Why have you chosen stylistically loaded word like "godless" (~impious? ~wicked?) and with "G" - ?!

with My experience with athiests and agnostics, besides the usual reasons people are skeptical or reject religion
I've found that veg's choose those 2 ways more often because as a group they tend to question things more.scrutinize. Too many lies . And alot of xtianity based religions (or all in some cases) are part of that lie. Its distgusting how people use thier religion to look the other way or as an excuse to be apethetic. And thats a big turn off. Religious right threatens to be religious rule and they dont actually look out for the same concerns "we" have.
I, myself am A pagan.
I honour and respect all life,mine included and that of the earth to destroy it with such an ecologically unsound diet.
Every breath you take, every word you speak , every action is a tribute to your beliefs. if you consume something you take part of that in yourself. I do not wish to take in pain, misery,torture,filth , fear and unnatural death to rot within my temple.

i am agnostic for the simple fact that i am confident enough to say "i don't have all the answers"....i believe there is a universal energy out there that is about getting back what you put out there. that is how i live my life and it has been paid back to me ten-fold. i became vege long before i became agnostic. i was terrified to admit i didn't believe what my family believed, it was easier to go with the flow.

however being ok with who i am today is wonderful. and it allows me to say, i don't know what happens when we die. i happen to believe right now it's nothing. we are done. but why not live with people and animals the best and most compassionate way we can while alive?

a lot of religious people i know are the biggest carnivores, coincidence, i don't know. it's just how it is in my life.

thanks for making me think here and for all courageous answers. this stuff is not for the weak of heart or spirit!
xoxoxox,
katy

I became agnostic years before I became a vegetarian. Religion just left too much unanswered and incomprehensible. The idea of an all-knowing, all-powerful god just didn't sit right with me considering all of the injustices and tragedies in the world. Also, too many believers/followers seemed to twist the scriptures to their liking in order to rationalize their own actions or to defend someone in their family for going against them. (well, people/govts./corps. do this with man-made law, too, but that's another story.)

I border on atheism, but I decided that there's just no way to refute the existance of a god with 100% certainty. 99% maybe. ;P

Hey, Molly...

Agnosticism is the belief that there's no definitive way to determine the existance of a God. Some agnostics may still be part of a God-based religion, though.

Atheism is the abscence of a belief in deities. An atheist can be a moral universalist or humanist, who would hold morals and apply them consistently to all humans (and creatures!). Alernately, an atheist could be a moral nihilist, who would put no value in morality.

Just as with many God-based religions, there are varying beliefs with both positions. Many agnositics and atheists find fault with the idea of morality being dependent upon a basically law-making god. Do you, or other believers in "god", only follow certain moral standards because God said to? Or do you act the way you do because you feel/know it's the right thing to do in your heart?

Someone please clarify for me. I thought that being agnostic was thinking that there is something out there with a higher power, being, reincarnation, something but we don't know what. And atheism is believing that this is it.When you die you die nothing matters because once your gone your gone. If thats is the case I can't understand why an atheist would bother being veg, or following laws or doing anything that does not give them immediate pleasure because in the end everyone and everything is dust. Or on the other side if there is nothing out there then every ounce of life is precious because that is all you get and you need to hold on to it because when it's gone it's gone.

God... are you talking about Thor the god of war.... or what god.... lets go ahead and start using names...

Regrading Adam_antichrist´s answer, I wonder if you have checked out the articles I posted on my blog ... If not, I invite you to do so. It might open your mond ;)

I was in the care of a religious organisation when I went vego. They tried their best to help me see the error of my ways. I have seen passages in the bible which ridicule ethical eating (Romans 12) attributing it to a lack of faith. There are probably more texts from other doctrines which state the same thing.

Not trying to be offensive, but my experience with religion was very much one of "if you are not like us you will go to hell". I think this prevents independent thought, generating an atmosphere of acceptance of the norms of the specific church group. So unless your religious circle has a strong link to veg*nism then it it will never occur to many in the group that it is even an option.

I think the 7th day Adventists are a clear exemption, as they were founded by a fruitarian and maintain a strong connection to vegetarianism. However the only members of that church that I know are unable even to admit that humans might not have been created directly by god, and could have evolved from apes. So there is a clear line down the middle where their "free thinking" is limited to the doctrines of their organisation.

I can't answer for the others, but im who i am because i feel like no one really knows what's ''right''. Not the religious people, and neither the Atheists. Everyone can believe, but no one really knows;]

So none God, or one God, i guess we'll never really know.. We're all right and we're all wrong, until its proven.It's all about beliefs.

I had the same thought. I have been seeing a lot of seemingly the same correlation too. I think it's silly to say that people who believe in God are blindly following something. God is all about love and compassion. I'm ok with saying that God is up there pretty high on my cool list.

God, what is god, is there a god or is god everything.
I think atheism and thinking for yourself go hand in hand. Thus they see outside the meat square as well.
God believing is for people who don't think but follow blindly. They follow the meat trend blindly as well. Who was the first person to come up with the idea of god. Really think about that.

Perhaps because many people are told not to be veg*n by those around them because "God told us to have dominion over animals and we need to eat them". At least I head that a lot in the community I grew up in.

I'm a spiritual Jew and started a Jewish Veg*n social group and we have over 200 members in NYC.

There's also the Christian Vegetarian Association
http://www.all-creatures.org/cva/

Muslim organization-Islamic Concerns hands out veg*n starter kits
http://www.islamicconcerns.com/

The Jewish Vegetarian Society of North America (check out the great movie they made called A Sacred Duty to try to reach out to Jews and educated them that they should be veg*n) http://www.jewishveg.com/asacredduty/
and more than 700 Jewish congregations have gotten together to create a Tzedek Hekhsher, or justice certification, after finding substandard working conditions at the U.S's largest kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. The hechsher will certify a product manufacturer offers its workers a fair wage and benefits package; provides safe working conditions; doesn’t pollute the environment; engages in honest business practices; and, in the case of meat, treats the animals humanely before and during the slaughtering process.

Then there's Buddhists, Jains and Hindus who have veg*nism intrinsic to their beliefs.

I think it depends on where you are and what you're exposed to. When you're surrounded by meat eating hypocrites or haters who espouse a certain faith it doesn't surprise me that veg*ns turn away....

I don't know that it is a common connection.

I am not sure why most vegans are atheist or agnostic. Of course belief in God is not a prerequisite for compassion. lauren ikon said that being vegan lead to her to being atheist, but for me it was the opposite. Being Buddhist lead me to a vegan diet.

A short while after I went vegan, I decided to question every part of my life--religion, philosophy, politics, etc. I thought, "If this common part of my life--diet--was so wrong, what's up with everything else I was taught?" So, I did some thinking on my own which eventually led me to be an atheist/agnostic (it generally depends on the day, and how absurdist I'm feeling).

I grew up Jewish, and the stuff about slaughtering animals and sacrificing them turned me off when I started becoming more sympathetic to animal suffering. Why would god want people to do this? If he wanted animals to suffer, then I wanted nothing to do with that religion. The first chief rabbi of Israel (Rav Kook) was a strong proponent of vegetarianism. There are actually a lot of Jewish vegetarians who choose to focus on the parts of the Torah that emphasize treating animals well. There is a book on Judaism and Vegetarianism and lots of websites about religion and vegetarianism (http://www.ivu.org/religion/).

I feel like all religions say similar things in terms of how we should treat one another; I am not an atheist but I don't believe in the Judeo-Christian idea of one god looking over every thing and deciding what happens to us. I think WE are responsible for our futures. I think whatever we do is connected to others and I have more of a pantheistic outlook (http://www.pantheism.net/).