It turns out raising animals for meat is generally fine either way.
If existence is worthwhile, then raising cattle means more cattle get to exist. Sure, it's not for as long as if you were raising them out of pure selflessness, but the other real option is not to raise them at all. Perfect, enemy, good, etc.
If existence is not worthwhile, then being slaughtered is a mercy. When you raise cattle that shouldn't have been raised, you're also scheduled to fix it.
P.S. I need a word for the logical fork strategy. Can'tfuckupism.
If a Buddhist or Hindu says that killing the cow is wrong because the soul in that cow could be the soul that was in your human mother in a life 100 years ago, it still holds that killing the animal for food is fine.
ReplyDeleteFirst, if the soul in the animal is really an ex-human soul, killing the animal doesn't kill the soul, it just releases that soul from the animal to perhaps get reborn as human again.
Second, even if that soul was in your mother in a previous life, that doesn't actually make that soul your mother. Neither of you are in the same life anymore. Your relationship is different now. Now you're a human and the cow is food.