Diet in the Bible and the Vegetarian Journey of Sunforged

I am writing this as a reaction to a hub by the eminent sunforged in which he discusses several reasons he embarked on the vegetarian journey.

He mentions the fact that he worked at McDonalds and more or less leaves his personal horror story to the readers’ imagination but shares:

Interestingly, the same year my path crossed the McDonalds conglomerate, Rolling Stone published a two part article expose into McDonalds, fast food and the meatpacking industry. The writer of this article went on to write the muckraking novel "Fast Food Nation" many years later.

I remember being absolutely horrified at the photos that showed the treatment of animals in slaughterhouses. But, I was even more horrified by some random blurb that was highlighted. Apparently, McDonalds gets some really high quality meat! As one of the largest purchasers of beef in the entire world they get great prices on high grade meat.

In examples after examples sunforged confesses that he still did not stop eating meat. The article describes the various other influences such as being exposed to Buddhist thinking.

As a freshman pre-law major with a years credits completed via high school Ap tests, I was free to select from a lot of Minors and extra credits. I ended up taking Minors in both Religious Thought and Philosophy. I was most drawn to Buddhism and eastern thought, not just in regard to religious texts but as a result of the American art and literature movements that were significantly impacted by other searchers of Buddhist thought. For example, the Beat poets and Abstract expressionist movements were highly influenced by a selection of American individuals who were exposed to the writings and lectures of Suzuki. To this day, I still greatly enjoy works that show how modern physics parallels ancient Buddhist theories.

A lot of these individuals had made a transition to a vegetarian lifestyle. These were highly influential, very masculine, very creative western men who also were drawn to cutting their support of cruelty and death from their lives. The idea rang very true.

He went to substantiate his argument with quotations from great authorities such as Thoreau, Leonardo da Vinci, and this gem from Einstein:

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. ~Albert Einstein

When I was finished with the hub I was left thinking that sunforged has not stated in this article that he is a vegetarian, only the title suggests that he is one. The journey makes for interesting reading and will inspire others to check his sources and ideas.

My second and perhaps most fundamental reaction, however, is that sunforged is from the culture which has the Bible, and the Christian Bible is an authoritative source for the original diet given to man. It could very well be that the beastly high consumption culture of the Christian west has strayed far from the dietary and ethical ideals of the ancient texts.

God’s concern with what we eat begins in the first chapter of Genesis where the diet was specifically vegetarian.

And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food (Genesis 1:29).

Following the entrance of sin the Genesis diet expanded to include herbs but the diet remained vegetarian. Only after the flood was man given permission to eat animal meats. With restriction against blood and fat. Of course God already had a distinction from as early as Genesis 7:2 between clean and unclean which the Levitical code explored in details.

Although God did not insist that man should eat vegetarian diet in subsequent narratives we find that in Daniel the test of health showed victory for vegetarian young men.

Based on the biblical and other evidence which I am prepared to adduce in future articles the modern ideal then is a vegetarian diet as given in the Eden. With respect to other religious traditions I invite persons living in countries where the Christian bible is available, to study the diet of the Bible. You may discover ancient yet powerful arguments for the journey to vegetarianism.

Yet I too, like sunforged must make my confession. Even with the knowledge that I have, I am not yet a vegetarian. I eat mostly vegetarian! But I’m getting there, at the time of writing this article I have been on a special health project of abstaining form meant for three months.