Considering returning to the Church

[i.p.i.]

So we can eat the body and drink the blood of Jesus.  In fact we must do that in order to gain eternal life.  But we can also hold that it is "wrong" for us to eat the flesh of a lower species of creation, which God specifically told us we could eat, provided we don't tell other Catholics it is "wrong" and upset them?

Seems like relativism to me.  If it is wrong to eat meat it is wrong for everyone and vice-versa.  If you don't like the taste of meat, or it upsets your stomach, don't eat it.  I don't like liver or kidneys or oysters.  But you cannot believe there is any moral dimension to your decision to abstain from those foods because killing the animal is somehow wrong.  Because it isn't wrong.

That is what VEGETARIANISM as commonly practiced is about.  I've never met a vegetarian yet who did not try to explain their choice with some sort of morality.  Its either the environment, or suffering animals or how much more food could be grown on the same patch of land a cow grazes on.

Perhaps the Original poster would do us the service of explaining why he thinks it is wrong to eat meat.

here's another vegetarian whose choice not to eat meat has nothing to do with morality.

i don't think there's anything wrong with wearing leather or fur or eating meat, i've never tried to convince anyone else to be a vegetarian, and i abhor PETA, would probably have become a vegetarian earlier if not for those idiots.

i choose not to eat meat for health reasons, not just because of the fat and cholesterol meat contains but because of the antibiotics and hormones routinely given to animals raised for slaughter, and also to dairy animals, and the rather frequent outbreaks of Salmonella and E. coli due to consumption of contaminated meat, due in turn to poor sanitary practices in the meat industry.  have you ever seen the huge feedlots we have in the US?  enough to gag a maggot.

of course E.coli has cropped up, so to speak, in spinach and strawberries in the US in recent years.  food quality is a problem here, maybe not in the UK.  factory farming is just not a good thing.

i actually love meat, including liver and onions, and fried oysters, gregg; also rabbit, lamb, duck, veal, which are not so popular in the US as across the pond.  i love a good bloody steak, too.  if we had a good source for meat raised without antibiotics and hormones and under healthy conditions we might eat meat again.  sometimes we miss eating meat but our cholesterol went down a lot and we both lost a lot of weight when we gave up meat.

[Herr_Mannelig]

i don't think there's anything wrong with wearing leather or fur or eating meat, i've never tried to convince anyone else to be a vegetarian, and i abhor PETA, would probably have become a vegetarian earlier if not for those idiots.

PETA is evil. Anyone who cares about animals should avoid them, and anyone who cares about ethics should avoid them.

of course E.coli has cropped up, so to speak, in spinach and strawberries in the US in recent years.  food quality is a problem here, maybe not in the UK.  factory farming is just not a good thing.

That is caused by animal fecal matter contaminating the crop. In the spinach outbreak, it was likely a single wild pig.

i actually love meat, including liver and onions, and fried oysters, gregg; also rabbit, lamb, duck, veal, which are not so popular in the US as across the pond.  i love a good bloody steak, too.  if we had a good source for meat raised without antibiotics and hormones and under healthy conditions we might eat meat again.  sometimes we miss eating meat but our cholesterol went down a lot and we both lost a lot of weight when we gave up meat.

Actually, I've not eaten it for so long, it doesn't seem like food at all to me. It is actually disgusting for me to smell. It would take an emergency for me to eat it.

[Petertherock]

The human body is designed to eat meat. That is why we have the teeth we do.

Our teeth designs are found in entirely vegetarian animals in the wild. Our teeth are good at eating certain types of animals, such as certain animals which live near the shore and most arthropods, but these are rarely eaten in my part of the world. The meats typically eaten are NOT what we are designed to eat.

Meat is the only natural way to get the protein we need to live on.

That is wrong. We do not need protein, we need amino acids to make the protein. All protein is specific to the species, so it all has to be broken down into its component amino acids. Humans need around 8 different amino acids (I think our proteins use 22 and many others are used for other things), and all 8 are found in abundance in plants. All the rest are synthesised in the body naturally; eating them is not necessary.

Yes you can take supplements but it's not as good as the real thing. 

See above. Humans are designed to eat plants first. Take a naked healthy human, put him in an environment where he can survive (it will be around tropical) and see what he eats. It is clear in the Bible that humans were designed by God, and were not dependent on eating animals, and eating animals was only allowed after it was necessary because of the change of the earth.

You eat your rabbit food I will eat my meat. If meat is good enough for Our Lord, it's good enough for me.

[Herr_Mannelig]

You eat your rabbit food I will eat my meat.

Elephant food too.

If meat is good enough for Our Lord, it's good enough for me.

In private revelation, He and Mary seemed to have eaten meat rarely.

In addition to superior health and lower costs, perhaps God will appreciate I didn't needlessly kill His animals for the sake of machismo or gluttony.

[Petertherock]

The apostles ate meat also. If humans were meant to eat only rabbit food our teeth would be shaped like rabbits teeth.

[Herr_Mannelig]

The apostles ate meat also. If humans were meant to eat only rabbit food our teeth would be shaped like rabbits teeth.

You do not understand teeth then... our teeth are absolutely useless for a primarily meet eater. We cannot kill an animal with our teeth. So, do you eat the animals we are designed to eat? (rodents, fish, molluscs and insects) or do you eat large mammals pre-slaughtered?

Rabbits have different types of teeth (they always grow, for example).

Look at this: http://courses.washington.edu/chordate/453photos/teeth_photos/specialized_teeth.htm

Rabbit teeth (vegetarian) :

Cat teeth (carnivore):

Chimpanzee teeth (omnivore, males hunt):

Bonobo (mostly fruit eaters, vegetarian primarily):

Human teeth:

Human teeth are designed for eating vegetables and fruit primarily.

Eat what you will, but realise that vegetarians are living in a way that is consistent with God's design. Also, stop insulting us and drop your insecure machismo. Eating meat does not make you more manly. It makes you a person who chooses to eat the flesh of dead animals.

[SmellsAndBells]

Is there any realistic reason to believe Jesus didn't eat meat?  Jews of His time ate meat, right?  Certainly, if God didn't want the Jews to eat meat, He would have said so.  He made other food-related laws, so it stands to reason if meat was truly off limits, this would have been known.  Given the implicit "OK" to eating meat, I suppose the bottom line is if you don't like eating meat, don't eat any.

[Herr_Mannelig]

Is there any realistic reason to believe Jesus didn't eat meat? 

Who believes that? No, there is no reason to believe that.

Jews of His time ate meat, right?

Most people who live in such areas do.

  Certainly, if God didn't want the Jews to eat meat, He would have said so. 

God only gave permission to eat meat when it became necessary for survival. Maybe we should take that as meaning that eating meat is good only when it is needed?

He made other food-related laws, so it stands to reason if meat was truly off limits, this would have been known.  Given the implicit "OK" to eating meat, I suppose the bottom line is if you don't like eating meat, don't eat any.

There is an explicit "ok" based on necessity.

The problem is with the people who constantly make insults and accusations based on their ignorance or insecurity.

It is clear that humans were not originally intended to eat the flesh of animals, although we are capable. It is clearly an allowance for a specific reason of need.

And every thing that moveth and liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herbs have I delivered them all to you:  Saving that flesh with blood you shall not eat.

It was a great gift, this permission to eat animals. It is not something to be squandered with pride and arrogance.

[JamieF]

A Catholic cannot be validly married in a non-Catholic ceremony as far as I understand things.  It used to be the case that you could not marry an unbaptised person but for all I know they might have changed that rule since Vatican 2.

The current Code of Canon Law contains the following:

Can.  1086 §1. A marriage between two persons, one of whom has been baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it and has not defected from it by a formal act and the other of whom is not baptized, is invalid.

Scott says he was an apostate at the time of his marriage, so it depends if he committed a formal act of defection or not.  In other words, this is complicated and not something that is appropriate to work out in a discussion forum.  So Scott, listen to the people who are saying to ask a priest. I shouldn't have attempted to answer this earlier.

Returning to ggreg's point, it is possible for a Catholic to marry an unbaptized person.  They need permission from the local bishop, which he can only grant if certain conditions are met.

Your first post was very well put - I agree wholeheartedly.

However, your comment above is actually incorrect.  In Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio (Omnium In Mentem) of 26 October 2009, published on 15 December of the same year changes canon 1086.  It now reads:

1086 §1 "A marriage is invalid when one of the two persons was baptised in the catholic Church or received into it, and the other was not baptised."

Pope Benedict did this to close a "loophole" introduced by Pope John Paul II.

So, at present, the law of the Church says all Catholics marrying non-Catholics are not validly married.  This is as it always was until the change of JPII.

Having said that, all marriages contracted between the promulgation of the JPII code and the change made by this Motu Proprio are considered valid.  So the validity of the original posters marriage will depend entirely on whether he contracted the marriage before 1983 or after december 15, 2009.

[Petertherock]

If you don't want to eat meat that's great. No one is forcing you to eat it. But there is nothing in Church teaching saying it's wrong to eat meat. Unless it's on one of the days of abstinence.

[ggreg]

@Herr_Mannelig  So who are we supposed to listen to in order to decide the most appropriate diet?  God or Darwin?

You seem to be implying by showing human teeth that there is some natural bias towards vegetarianism, if only we were wise enough to see it.  A sort of vegetarian's private revelation, for the scientifically wise and intellectual elite.

My teeth cut through steak, bacon, legs of lamb and rumps of beef just fine.

Tip:  Try cooking it before you eat it.

[SmellsAndBells]

Whether or not our origins gave us the best possible anatomy to consume meat or not is irrelevant to me.  If Jesus ate meat, I don't think there's a moral problem with it.  And spending this much time debating it must seem ridiculous to our Lord.

[Herr_Mannelig]

If you don't want to eat meat that's great. No one is forcing you to eat it. But there is nothing in Church teaching saying it's wrong to eat meat. Unless it's on one of the days of abstinence.

I guess you don't see it...

No one said there was something in the Church saying it is wrong.

@Herr_Mannelig  So who are we supposed to listen to in order to decide the most appropriate diet?  God or Darwin?

God, but I do not understand why this question was asked.

You seem to be implying by showing human teeth that there is some natural bias towards vegetarianism, if only we were wise enough to see it.  A sort of vegetarian's private revelation, for the scientifically wise and intellectual elite.

I "seem to be implying"? No, I was just showing that God's creation is rational.

And yes, there is a natural bias towards vegetarianism. Would a human in a natural environment start to munch on a cow or fruit? What would it take for a human to naturally want to eat a cow? Most diets are culturally defined, with no real reasoning or thought behind them. It is natural for humans to eat insects and quite unnatural for humans to eat cows, but yet, our societies are reversed.

My teeth cut through steak, bacon, legs of lamb and rumps of beef just fine.

Cooked? Pre-slaughtered and cut?

Now, go kill a pig, sheep and cow with your teeth (note: I am not responsible for your dental problems afterwards. For those curious, humans typically only get one set of adult teeth and damage to them is more or less permanent).

Tip:  Try cooking it before you eat it.

Cut it up, covering it in sauce, etc. Make it as least like what it is before eating it.

[Herr_Mannelig]

Whether or not our origins gave us the best possible anatomy to consume meat or not is irrelevant to me.  If Jesus ate meat, I don't think there's a moral problem with it.  And spending this much time debating it must seem ridiculous to our Lord.

Eating meat is a not usually an issue of morality.

However, if one read this thread again, yoiu'd see that some people immediately go on the attack and start making rather pointless statements, which are usually intended to be "funny" or prove how macho the writer is (but they fail in both areas).

There are two types of diets: mindless and mindful. Most are mindless. People typically eat the foods that are in front of them, or with which they were raised. Anything else is "unnatural". The mindful eaters choose what they eat based on some principles. These principles can be arbitrary, based on personal choices or based on an ideal. A vegetarian, in this society, usually specifically chose that diet. It can be for a variety of reasons, that is not the point, but there is no reason to be offensive to vegetarians. If people who posted on this thread acted this way in person, I'd just leave them and shake my head in disgust and wonder what that type of person was doing in the church basement (naturally, we'd be meeting after church).

It is stupid, silly and needlessly offensive. These "rabbit food", "eating vegetarians" and other non scientific and non nonsensical  remarks are utterly pointless.

As for my choices, my reasoning was posted (and reposted). No one has addressed its logic yet without understanding it.

[Petertherock]

As Mike Tyson would say "Vegetarian is for wimps!"