What I intend to address here are related more to culture and tradition than the essence of religions, which I maintain are good, and not to be looked down on in any way. What many people consider to be religion is actually suplurfuous to the real religion and is instead culture. Of course the act of separating religion from culture is difficult to instigate and challenging to undergo, and it’s for this reason I’ve written this article.

That said, the world needs to move beyond animal diets quickly. When many people identify with a mix of religion, faith and cultural tradition, how can the need be communicated without offending them? We humans don’t think of our cultural traditions and ideologies as variables up for discussion. We think of them as being the right and only way to live and rarely to stop to question them ourselves.

Although the animals we are farming to kill and eat all feel pain and emotion similarly to us, the world’s faithful are often given by their culture a green light to ignore such suffering. Religious texts unanimously support kindness to animals, but in other parts of the same texts may also condone eating them.

These contraditions are found in most of the worlds most major religions including Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Religion, being deeply ingrained socially and emotionally, is a difficult thing to challenge.

Faith as a barrier to sustainability.

From the outset it feels impossible to communicate the topic of cultural change to religious people. The more religions, the more impossible it feels. The danger of offending people deeply is suddenly very high. How can we expect people to overcome belief, habit and social expectations? A challenge to one’s religious belief becomes a challenge to that person by extension. That, and no one wants to be frowned upon.

Yet it is critical that people of faith adopt sustainable lifestyles along with everyone else, for the simple fact that unsustainable lifestyle lead to the end of living.

Religions are valuable and noble in all cases, despite the drastic deeds some try to pin on them. They should all be viewed with a great degree of respect.

Separating the ideology of veganism from the actual diet

To many Veganism is not just a way of eating but a way of life. This is great, but it’s also a barrier, because as an ideology, or something that will be seen as such, it conflicts with faith, which is another kind of ideology. This is not to pass judgement on any ideology at all, it’s just to acknowledge that ideologies require faith of their own, and adherence. As mentioned, most people unconsciously inorporate ideologies into their identity, meaning a challenge it is a personal challenge – a threat that sometimes even elicits the same flight and fight responses as a more physical confrontation might.

But the ideological barrier is not impervious, because no religions prohibit a plant-based diet. Thus veganims, packaged in a non-ideological concept, should not be a threat to anyone’s religious ideology.

This is not to say that the core tenets of the vegan ideology will not sprout naturally within people in time. As time passes without animal products, many people report a natural and spontaneous change growth of compassion for animals. Thus, the faithful will adjust their own ideologies, retain their essential religious practices, and change the culture that surrounds them.

How can the plant-based diet be preseted to people of faith?

Education is needed, with the information presented completely outside of any ideology, in a non-judgmental and non-patronising way.

Instead of starting with the most personally challenging begin informing with the most external reasons for change and lead inwards with the receivers permission. For example starting with environmental and health issues, statistics on the problems, what people can do to help, and moving into more cultural, personal and spiritual issues as required.

1. The environmental imperative

Environmental urgency exists not only on a global scale but also on the local scale of most places. Livestock production never helps the situation as in all cases it wastes energy, land and water resources.

The environmental issue is the least intrusive to ideology as it is the most external. We may not agree on many things but we do all live on the same big rock.

When most of the worlds religious texts were written or compiled, there were mere millions of people on the face of the earth. Today there are seven billion. It is thus conceivable that practices suggested thousands of years ago should be understood in the context of their time, and the core tenets of faith, compassion and virtue, be applied to the challenges of today.

2. The health imperative

The issue of personal and public health is slightly intrusive because if you suggest change is needed there is an implication that there is something wrong with the current way of life (ideology/culture). But once you get past cultural misnomers and industry misinformation, the facts are that it is quite easy to live without animal products and that many personal and public health crisis can be solved. This information can be presented creatively but culturally neutrally, or riding on existing cultural traditions where they support.

One example of cultural support of the change follows. In many cultures most traditional meals were prepared without animal products in the first place, the animal elements having been added in more modern times. Restoring these recipes to their original grandeur will also appeal to the natural urge to belong in a culture.

3. The Moral imperative.

Approached in the wrong way, This is the most ideologically intrusive reason for the plant-based diet. However at the right time, it’s not necessarily so.

As most religions, including the ones mentioned, teach that like people, other animals are spiritual entities, it brings the question of harming animals into the chaotic world of faith.

Because no religions actively prohibit the plant-based diet, it becomes a possibility – desirable under the concept of ‘least harm.’

The sensible argument goes something like this. “What would Christ, the Prophet Buddha or other saintly people do? Surely they would not freely choose to inflict harm on fellow beings for the sake of their own enjoyment or cultural belonging.”

4. The religious imperative

This pretty much a useless strategy unless imparted from one member of a faith to another, whereas the topic is less likely to appear insulting or confrontational.

It would be hard for a person inside a religious culture to believe that someone from the outside has any right or means to talk with them on how to practice that religion properly.

Most of the time deep religiosity accompanies a deep aspiration to life rightly and a genuine respect for the ideals of the spiritual personage the religions revere. It is this that can be appealed to and can respond.

Lecturing a person on the real meaning of a their religion can only have one result – extreme agitation for both parties. We need to understand each other as emotional and social beings, and expect reactions when we challenge each other’s identities.

This type of activism is rarely outright cultural imperialism as there are passionate activists in every corner of the world. But in multicultural societies, where minority cultures struggle to maintain their own identity, it becomes more important to respect people’s sensitivities.

But such respect should not become a fear that outweighs a more important respect, which is for people who have a right to life, health and a world of peace and plenty – which due to the pressures of the day, is a world only possible with mass adoption of the plant based diet.

Please continue the conversation on Google+.

Supreme Master Television it was called, and for five years it went out to the entire world on 16 satellite TV platforms and online streaming. If you’re interested in the name, it’s because the station was inspired and financed by the modren spiritual teacher Supreme Master Ching Hai.

The most remarkable thing about this station, besides being completely charitable and run by the volunteer efforts of ardent meditators of the ‘Quan Yin Method’ (aka Light and Sound Meditation or Shabd Yoga), was it’s total acceptance and respect for the world’s faiths.

Many spiritual or religious people tend to feel threatened by different practices or faiths. Supreme Master Television was differentialed from other free-to-air programming by it’s inclusiveness and success in reaching a diverse audience in both faith and nationality (I think the global broadcast was accompanied with up to 60 language subtitles, the most common in the main broadcast and others available separately online).

Listening you would regularly hear and see ‘Be Veg and Go Green 2 Save the Planet,’ a message that seemed to be the focus of much of the programming. Scientific, humane and more spiritual arguments were put forward as reasons to go animal free. It was from this station that I got the information I needed to move beyond dairy.

As well this pressing message, there were often scrolling excerpts of religious texts that impressed me with a powerful feeling of religious unity.

Here I’ve collected my favourite of such scrolls. The videos linked to below are direct download, WMV format, which will play automatically using Windows and with MPlayerX on the Mac. They’re 50-100mb each.

You can see the complete list at the Supreme Master Television website, which has now become a treasure trove of history. I’ll certainly be posting more videos from there in the future, as I browse the archives and select my favourites.

• Respect Others
• Faith
• Humility
• Environment and Religion
• Forgiveness
• Honesty
• Peace
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