[Buddha-l] Re: "Nature" and eating meat

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sun, 2005-10-23 at 17:56 -0600, Jim Peavler wrote:

> I'm likely to get in trouble for this, but people often excuse things 
> because they are "natural". Why is it more natural for a mountain lion 
> or a coyote to kill for food than it is for a human.

Emerson makes the point that nature has come to mean the world as it
would be without human beings in it. So it would seem that, if nature is
viewed in that way, it is impossible for a human being to be natural.
Needless to say, Emerson was smart enough to see that the view of nature
as the world without human beings is a defective view, but it is
nevertheless a common one. Even now. 

> Humans spent a few million years evolving as hunters, as the long history of artifacts of 
> weapons, scrapers, etc. attest.

Good God, Brother James! As I live and breath, I didn't realize you were
one of those Evolutionists. To be frank, I lean in that direction
myself, but I am learning to keep my thoughts to myself on this matter,
at least in this country. It seems the only sort of Darwinianism that
most folks in this country subscribe to is the economic version, which
gave us the slogan "Survival of the fittest," which was not Darwin's
phrase at all, as I recall, but Herbert Spencer's. It is mildly amusing
to me that the very people who are fighting to get Intelligent Design
taught alongside Darwin's theory of "descent with modification" (as he
called it, rather than evolution) in biology 101 so that the next
generation will be exposed to decent Christian values seem to be
completely opposed to any programs, laws or regulations that would
impede the greed of those who are evolving into the obscenely rich while
the middle class shrinks and the poor are left to fend for themselves in
the wake of hurricanes, floods, epidemics and earthquakes. In these
United States it seems to be the plutocrats are chanting "Spencer, si!
Darwin, no!"

> (This here is a whole new subject line of which I tremble to imagine 
> the repercussions.

You should have realized I would seize upon the opportunity to say
something negative about Republicans again. So really it's your fault
that I committed criticism. I don't know if you read on the front page
of the NY Times this morning that the Bush administration is requiring
all universities to upgrade their Internet systems so that Homeland
Security can read the e-mail of professors and students more easily to
catch any terrorists that may be roaming the halls of ivy. I mention
this, because when they come to round me up in the middle of some dark
night to pay off my karmic debt for telling the truth about Republicans,
I'm going to have to tell them I was only saying what I was pretty sure
you wanted me to say. As my favorite philosopher, Red Green, says:
"We're all in this together."

Now I'm going to go eat a plate of beans.

-- 
Richard