Carnivore vs. Christian

Speaking as one who accepts evolution, I didn’t claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables.

;^D

~David D.G.

I didn’t know you were vegetarian, Hemant. Perhaps you could do a blog post about it, explaining how you came to be so.

Or have you already done that?

Hmmm…

On the religious front, it simply depends on what kind of “religious” we’re talking about. Simplistic beliefs are likely to turn me off; more nuanced, searching ideas of spirituality are less likely to do so.

On the meat-eating front, the only folks that bug me are the ones folks who get angry and defensive at the mere idea of the existence of vegetarians, or that proudly proclaim their complete inability to eat a meal without meat. Complete ignorance about vegetarianism is also a turn-off.

I didn’t know you were a vegetarian either. There go my chances… <3 delicious, delicious meat

Well put, Gregory.

As a vegan married to a non-vegetarian, religion is my deal breaker. However, since I do most of the cooking, I only have to see meat on his plate when we dine out.

Carnists and zealots are both out for me.

My first requirement for any woman I date is that she can keep a secret from my wife. Haven’t found one yet.

I’ve been vegetarian for a little over 10 years and I would much, much rather be with a meat-eater than a Christian. Veg is sort of a lifestyle choice (you know, one of those actual lifestyle choices) and it doesn’t reveal that much about a person. If the girl were a thinking, rational, intelligent, sceptical person then what trauma did she suffer to be a Christian, and if she’s not thinking, rational, intelligent and sceptical we probably won’t get along too well 🙂

I’m not a vegetarian and I have no problem with vegetarians or vegans, but is veganism really based on complete rationality (“Generally when one thinks about it long enough and has enough valid information, one will find themselves more likely to be godless and vegetarian/vegan.”)? After all, pure veganism eventually will lead to a vitamin B12 deficiency without supliments. And, I could see how killing a cow would reasonably be considered harm, but it is not overly difficult to milk a cow (goat, sheep, whatever you like) and not cause it pain or deprive the offspring of milk (most animals will make surplus milk if milked regularly). So, would the issue be with the commercial “factory farm” style practices? But if that were the case, wouldn’t buying humanely produced milk be morally okay?

When my wife and I first met, I was vegetarian and she was not. I did most of the cooking and she added whatever meat she wanted. I’m back to eating meat since early in my first pregnancy and have not gone back to vegetarianism due to a variety of reasons, health and otherwise. It’s still something I will hopefully get back to once I’m done having kids. It gives my mother-in-law conniptions in trying to figure out what to feed me, but it’s a relatively minor issue.

Religion would have been a deal-breaker. Especially once kids entered the picture. I know there are people who say they do this, but I don’t think I would ever be comfortable with a situation where my kid received even a partial upbringing in a strongly religious setting. (Our son is getting a Dale-McGowan-style grounding in religious literacy, so that he’ll have understanding without indoctrination.)

Religion would have been a deal-breaker. Especially once kids entered the picture.

I hear what you’re saying there. We have two kids and it can be a challenge. And with our oldest turning 4 I’ve really only reached the tip of that iceberg. Living in the deep south doesn’t help on that front either – ugh. I am really glad that my in-laws are far away, that helps. I would say that a hard-core, wants to convert everyone type religous belief would be a deal breaker for me to. We are able to manage our different beliefs while raising children though. If my oldest asks a question about death, for example, I can give my answer, but then also suggest that she ask her dad and get his opinion too. I am bale to respect his religious views because I don’t find any to be too crazy.

“I also would not have married a hunter.”

Hunting is an important ecological activity that controls populations of many different animals. I live in the Canadian prairies and it is common and necessary here to control the population of animals that have been displaced by farmer growing massive quantities of food for urban vegetarians.

To invert your original question and answer it (I am not a vegetarian) the answer would really be to quantize the crazy of the other person (since I am not a vegetarian, I obviously regard vegetarianism as irrational but this is not the time or place for THAT discussion). And you go get vegetarian/vegan crazies all the way up to the terrorist bomber stage. All in all though I think vegetarianism is probably strongly skewed to the harmless side of that scale–much more so than religion. But I can see the very real possibility of preferring a nominally or apathetically religious person to a zealous vegan.

But I did grow up on a small mixed farm and would like to own one myself eventually and raise a small amount of livestock. Ideally I would like to marry someone with a similar background who is going to be helpful when it comes time to butcher the chickens ;-)…

There are also environmental and health reasons which yes, do lead one to vegetarianism after an impartial evaluation of evidence.

I highly doubt that. The environmental part to an extent but even more so the health aspects. But I am not about to get into a flamewar about vegetarianism here. For one thing I am probably grievously outnumbered…

Amanda,

I also would not have married a hunter. His views on that topic are the same as mine – i.e. “What the hell is wrong with those people?!”

Answer: Hundreds of thousands of years of adaptation, and thousands of years of culture.

Simon,

If we couldn’t share food, that would defeat a large part of the purpose of the relationship for me.

Consolidation of food resource for economy and convenience? And they say romance is dead…

Cathy,

I would agree that if one got milk from a legitimately non-cruel source, there would be nothing morally wrong with it, though some vegans will disagree and claim that any sort of animal captivity for human purposes is cruel.

I wouldn’t honestly even know where to find milk that was produced locally (I try to be environmentally friendly) and humanely, however. Even if the dairy cows are treated well, for example, their offspring are often sold for veal or raised for the slaughter.

(Also, I’m still in transition to veganism. There are quite a few economic barriers in my way, so I am far from innocent as far as this sort of thing goes.)

I married a Christian girl but I wouldn’t even consider dating a vegatarian. My wife loves meat even more than I do.

MMmmmmmmm, meat. [drool]

It’s really a matter of degree, isn’t it? If you can’t sit at a table with me while I eat my steak without making a comment, we’re gonna have a problem. If you’re happy to eat and let eat, we’re gonna be OK.

Likewise, if a religious person can spend a couple of hours with me without trying to save my soul, things are going to be just fine. Cause, really, I don’t feel any need to convince her that her soul doesn’t exist. It’s irrelevent to our daily lives.

I am both atheist and vegetarian.

I was not raised as a vegetarian (though I guess you would have been, since you were raised in Jainism), becoming vegetarian as an adult (though I knew as a teenager that I would eventually do so). I look on becoming vegetarian as something that people come to, a journey they must make. If people ask about my vegetarianism I try to explain why I think it’s important, but on the other hand I try not to judge them harshly.

My atheist partner is non-vegetarian (my kids are also not vegetarians – I want them to be old enough to work it out for themselves before I would seriously encourage them).

If I was dating, I would be able to tolerate both meat eating and religiousness – but I’d expect a certain amount of respect, tolerance and understanding in return. If that was absent, the date would probably be very short.

I’ve usually found tolerance much easier to get for my vegetarianism (but then again, it’s almost impossible to disguise being a vegetarian when you eat with people, so you’re forced to be out of the closet with it).

Most meat eaters can at least comprehend vegetarianism and don’t demonize it as a matter of course, even if they don’t agree with it – not so with many fundies however, who generally seem utterly incapable of comprehending difference from themselves, and simply demonize any difference reflexively.

While most religious people aren’t that fundamentalist, the knee-jerk anti-atheist sentiment can come even from people who aren’t particularly religious, while kneee-jerk anti-vegetarian sentiment is much less common.

My atheism is a very basic, fundamental part of who I am and how I look at the world. While it’s not ALL of who I am, it is the starting point from which I approach life. I could never be in a fulfilling relationship with someone who does not share that worldview. Vegetarianism, while very important to me, is not a dealbreaker. There are many reasons I came to be vegetarian and I would never expect someone else to come to the same decision lightly or quickly. Not eating meat does not make you an ‘ethical’ person and there are many other ways to live an ‘ethical’ life. Open-mindedness, mutual understanding and good communication are much more important to me than diet.

Simon,

Oh come on.

You thought I was being serious? Oh, come on. Nice of you to give an explanation though, makes sense. It’s strange, I was thinking perhaps something sexual.

Jen,

I would love it, because I loathe to cook, and therefore I need someone who can cook vegetarian food for me (I will do the laundry and also be pretty).

I’m not a vegetarian but only cook vegetarian meals for myself. I can’t cook, cooking vegetarian food is really easy. I really like stir-fry vegetables with couscous, vegetable omelettes, and vegetable lasagne. They don’t take any skill, you can use the vegetables you like, and they don’t take hardly any time at all.

I’m a vegetarian atheist and I would much rather date a meat eater than a religious person… most meat eaters that I know just eat meat because it’s something they’re used to eating, and they don’t think about it much (so it’s not like they’ve dedicated their life to something that I dislike, and maybe there’s potential for them to eat less or no meat in the future). Religious people, on the other hand, have a tendency to dedicate their life or large portions of it to their religion, and that’s just too much for me to deal with in a relationship.

As a vegan and an atheist, I think I could tolerate a reasonable theist over a non-vegan. Although I can’t see myself in either situation…

I briefly read through some of the answers and saw someone ask if veganism is based on ‘complete rationality.’ I don’t know exactly what you mean by this, but it is definitely an ethically consistent decision. If one accepts that non-human sentient beings are not ours to exploit for our own trivial wants, then it is necessary to adopt a vegan lifestyle. There are plenty of good books giving a philosophical defense/explanation of veganism. The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan is a good place to start, or Rain Without Thunder by Gary Francione… and lots more.

Vegan and vegetarian diets are also perfectly capable of providing one with all essential elements of a healthy diet. There is no real controversy of this. B12 does exist in non-meat places, and there are plenty of supplements available.

Anyways… I’d say that my belief in inherent rights of animals to not be subjected to unnecessary suffering supercedes my non-belief in a higher power…

Flipping this around, as a carnivore who loves to cook, I’d find it harder to date a vegetarian than a christian – the former is *bound* to have an impact on my life; the latter may not.

That said, I’d probably be unlikely to get into a situation where I’d be dating Christians – especially the sort I’d find it hard to spend time with, as it’s generally pretty obvious on first meeting that someone’s a relgious nut; vegetarianism isn’t so obvious unless you happen to use the bathroom immediately after them!

Additionally, I have no issues with vegetarianism at all – I’m sorta jealous, cos it’s not something I could do, despite being mostly unable to justify my carnivorism – any meat I buy in an unprocessed form is ethical from a welfare perspective (£13/$23 for a chicken, anyone?), but if *everyone* ate free range meat, there’d be no room left in the world, so from an environmental perspective, the pork chop that’s come from a pig living in an acre of land isn’t particularly ethical…

I had a vegetarian friend over last weekend, and cooked a vegetarian paella, and a meat one. Tasting both only reinforced my carnivorism – although if someone invents a vegetarian chorizo, and I may reconsider.

I’m a vegetarian atheist who is going to marry a meat-eating atheist next year, religion would be more of a deal breaker for me. My fiance doesn’t eat much meat and always goes for the ethically sourced stuff but I’ve happily dated meat eaters before (just didn’t end happily!).

My wife and I had this conversation just the other day. Our general conclusion was that vegetarianism necessarily affects one’s lifestyle, while religious belief does not.

I know plenty of religious people whose day-to-day actions are not conspicuously different from mine. I don’t know any non-vegetarians whose day-to-day actions are not conspicuously different from mine.

So I think mixed diets would be a more divisive issue than mixed beliefs in a relationship. But, as has been mentioned, that depends on how judgmentally those beliefs are held/communicated.

And how they’re perceived. Despite our efforts to persuade them otherwise, my parents have problems with our vegetarianism – they feel that it means we think less of them. Besides being non-vegetarian, my dad raises beef cattle in western Canada.

I could not have become a vegetarian if my wife had not done so at the same time.

As a vegetarian atheist, religion would be more of a dealbreaker, though it would depend on the degree, of course. I could live with “i like the idea of an afterlife” but probably not “jesus want us to bomb iraq.”

Oh, yeah, politics is an issue too. 🙂

I’m not a vegetarian, but I am an atheist. My fiance is also an atheist, and I have to admit I was disappointed when he said that he might not have wanted to date me if I were religious.

I don’t believe that love know bounds created by stupid labels. While I think religion can sometimes be corrupt and a driving force of discrimination and hate in the world that doesn’t mean I think all religious people are bad people.

Just as I wouldn’t want a religious person to write me off as being immoral without getting to know me first, I refuse to make assumptions about religious people that would keep me from dating one (if I were still single, that is).

Mark N said:

although if someone invents a vegetarian chorizo, and I may reconsider.

Start reconsidering because there are now several vegan chorizos and they taste great! 🙂

i think vegan is to diet as atheism is to reason. Once i realized what we’re doing to non-human animals is being done just because we can made it impossible to stay complicit. I see veganism as part and parcel to my new found skepticality. 🙂

Anybody who held on so dearly to eating animals when there is no good reason would make me seriously question them. I do understand it cuz though because i was the biggest meat eater of all. To be fair i know several vegans who date omnivores and usually the omni will eat alongside the vegan except for outings without them etc. This could be a compromise.

Whereas for somebody who was religious i would be hard-pressed to ask them to be atheist “at home”. Still, i realized even as teenager that god was some f-ed up bullshit. Believing in that crap as an adult would make me question them even more.

I am a vegetarian and anti-theist. I care more about vegetarianism than atheism.

Peace.

XVX for life, R.A.S.H. ’til death.

Interesting how this question was posed to vegetarian atheists, yet carnies responded- perhaps suggesting some ethical anxiety on their part, or merely suggesting that their diets have caused them to have microstrokes, thereby limiting their ability to read with any understanding. 😉

Belief in the supernatural of any kind (karma, Jesus, The Secret) is pretty much a dealbreaker, but so is eating animals.

In my experience, a good heart and ethical consistency makes for better relationships – even if they believe in some annoyingly stupid things.

So i’d have to begrudgingly prefer the veg*n christian. There’s no way i’d get seriously involved with someone who eats animals when we simply don’t have to. In fact all the data says it’s a bad idea to eat animals. the ecological and health evidence mounts every day.

That said, i’d have to admit that if i was really desperately horny, i’d even fork Sarah Palin – but only in the ass, so that it would really hurt.

And a vegan who sleeps with a meat-eater is what we call a carniwhore. Yes, i know, i’m a slut. A full prostate gland is a terrible thing.

Please, won’t you give to the the Prevent Prostate-Brain Logic Override Disease Foundation? We don’t test on animals… only really hawt women. 😉

PS Cathy’s assertions are not only ridiculous, but the Colombia U. research found that meat eaters were far, far more prone to B-12 deficiency that pure vegetarians. Busted!

Geeze… after reading some of these posts, I have to say that I am rather offended by some of the elitism posted by some of these vegetarians out there. Some of their comments seem to boil down to “How DARE meat-eaters voice their opinions? It’s not like they’re RIGHT!”

They do have a point, though – I haven’t seen any posts posing any of these questions to meat-eaters. It’s almost as though being in the majority – or being “wrong”? – means that we don’t need to express our opinions.

I would be happy to explain why meat-eating is not inherently unethical (modern meat farming being another story altogether), but it’s clear that my opinion is not wanted here, so I’ll refrain.