{"id":9146,"date":"2018-05-13T03:00:25","date_gmt":"2018-05-13T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=9146"},"modified":"2018-05-11T18:20:21","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T00:20:21","slug":"animism-personhood-and-killing-to-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2018\/05\/animism-personhood-and-killing-to-eat.html","title":{"rendered":"Animism, Personhood, and Killing to Eat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A couple weeks ago the topic of animal sacrifice came up again on the Pagan internet. I reposted Sacrifice and the Fear of Real Gods<\/a> from 2014. It says all I have to say on the matter. Mainly, it points out that the vast majority of opposition to animal sacrifice doesn\u2019t come from vegetarians and vegans. It comes from omnivores expressing an unreflective gut-level \u201cdisgust and revulsion and superiority\u201d over a practice that comes from cultures other than their own.<\/p>\n

A few days later, I posted \u201cThey\u2019re Confused\u201d \u2013 Why Common Sense Is Often Wrong<\/a> where I argued for personhood for chimpanzees. Someone on Facebook said (in so many words) \u201cyou said it was OK to kill animals and now you\u2019re saying they\u2019re persons \u2013 which is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

That comment and the thinking \u2013 or the lack thereof \u2013 behind it demonstrates just how thoroughly the philosophy of materialism and the doctrines of Christianity are imbedded in our culture. It sees personhood as \u201chuman,\u201d sometimes accepting it for species we like but denying for the ones we don\u2019t. It ignores the animistic principle that all living things (or at least, most living things) are not things but persons, with their own sovereignty and agency and with an inherent value that does not depend on their usefulness to humans.<\/p>\n

And it ignores the fact that in order to live, we must consume the bodies of persons who were very recently alive.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Our needs as animals<\/h1>\n
For the record, animal sacrifice is not part of my religious practice. I\u2019ve never been asked to do it. Given the deities I follow, I think it\u2019s unlikely I will. If I ever am I\u2019ll need a lot of training. It\u2019s been many years since I was butchering animals and cleaning game on my father\u2019s small farm. I don\u2019t think I could do it right, and if you can\u2019t do it right you shouldn\u2019t even consider doing it.<\/p>\n
My purpose here is not to promote or even to defend animal sacrifice. My purpose is to encourage people to think about our needs as animals. Think about how we\u2019re related to every living thing on Earth and consider what that means in light of the fact that we must eat other living things, or die.<\/p>\n
Animism: persons include more than animals<\/h1>\n
I consider chimps to be persons not because they\u2019re our closest relatives but because they\u2019re living beings that exercise agency. Dogs and cats are more distant from us biologically, but we treat our dogs and cats like persons. More importantly, we can see the personhood in the way they do what they want to do, even when we wish they\u2019d do something else.<\/p>\n
There is also personhood in natural phenomena. We give human names to storms, and although weather services do a much better job of predicting storms than they used to, ultimately they don\u2019t know where the storms are going. Storms are as unpredictable as humans. Mountains don\u2019t move, but anyone who has ever hiked or climbed in the mountains can attest that they do their own things for their own reasons \u2013 reasons that often put humans in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
Plants are persons too. They\u2019re alive. They grow where they want to grow. They spread their seeds around and reproduce. They do plant things for plant reasons. And they\u2019re our relatives \u2013 we share about half our DNA with plants. Some people like to say \u201cthat\u2019s just because that\u2019s how DNA works.\u201d But that only emphasizes the point that plants and animals share a common ancestor deep in our evolutionary past.<\/p>\n
Which means that whether we are eating plants or animals or both, we are eating other persons.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Life feeds on life<\/h1>\n
This is a hard truth of Nature: we must kill to eat. And so does every other animal on the planet. Whether we eat animal persons or plant persons, either we eat something that was very recently alive, or we die. I suppose you could subsist on nothing but fruit and milk (though vegans claim dairy product are immoral \u2013 they\u2019re not wrong, though that has more to do with methods than source), but I know of no one who actually does that. Plants feed on sunlight, but they require nutrients in the soil that come from the decaying bodies of other recently-living plants and animals.<\/p>\n
Life feeds on life. Modern fiction about guilt-ridden vampires has a certain truth to it.<\/p>\n
Anthropologist Walter Burkert called our species homo necans<\/em> \u2013 man the killer. His theory was that our guilt was easy enough to deny when we were mostly gatherers and scavengers, like our primate cousins. But when we became hunters \u2013 much less when we began animal husbandry \u2013 the guilt over killing to eat became too strong to ignore. He proposed that early religious rituals were designed to purify ourselves from this guilt.<\/p>\n
Christianity has another idea: Imago Dei<\/em>, the idea that humans alone are \u201cmade in the image of God.\u201d So we can do whatever we want to other creatures and it\u2019s OK, because we\u2019re special. How convenient. Except following that same logic, their God can do whatever he wants with lesser creatures like us. That line of thinking is one of the reasons I\u2019m no longer a Christian and never was a Calvinist.<\/p>\n
Where do we draw the line? How do we draw the line?<\/h1>\n
Pagan or Christian, animist or materialist, we still have to figure out where to draw the line. Which species will we eat and which ones do we decide are \u201ctoo close\u201d?<\/p>\n
Different people and different cultures draw the line in different places. I\u2019m not going to eat cats or dogs or monkeys \u2013 it wouldn\u2019t feel right. But cows and chickens and pigs? Definitely. Some people won\u2019t eat mammals but will eat fish and birds. Others won\u2019t eat any animals. Jains have perhaps the strictest requirements<\/a> of all.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m less concerned with where<\/em> you draw the line than how<\/em> you draw the line, particularly in a culture where the vast majority of us have no connection to where our food comes from. Do you mindlessly eat what you\u2019ve always been told to eat and mindlessly ridicule those who do otherwise? Or do you consider your place in Nature and make a conscious decision based on your needs and desires?<\/p>\n
Most importantly, do you acknowledge the sacrifices required to keep you alive? Do you honor those sacrifices, in both ritual and through sustainable practices? Is your eating sacramental eating<\/a>?<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
But whuddabout cannibalism?<\/h1>\n
I hate to dignify this with a response, but if I don\u2019t, someone will bring it up. Someone whose goal is either derailing the conversation or simply reinforcing Imago Dei<\/em> is going to ask \u201cif I can draw the line where ever I want, what\u2019s to stop me from drawing it only around me and eating other people?\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you really need a reason to abstain from cannibalism? Is there just nothing else that will pair well with fava beans and a nice chianti?<\/p>\n
Understand that this question is rooted in racist, colonialist propaganda intended to portray indigenous people as \u201csavages\u201d to justify enslaving them and stealing their land.<\/p>\n
Humans have never used other humans as a regular food source. The documented instances of cannibalism are from rituals, where people would eat small portions of a dead relative to do insure that they lived on not just in their memories, but also in their bodies. Other instances were eating conquered enemies, either to consume their strength, or to demonstrate \u2013 especially to would-be attackers \u2013 that they were utterly defeated.<\/p>\n
And of course, desperate people do desperate things<\/a>.<\/p>\n
If you must have a reason to abstain from cannibalism, start with avoiding brain diseases. Continue with the usual reasons for avoiding murder \u2013 namely, that someone (either the law or an angry relative) will come after you if you do. Most importantly, unless you\u2019re a psychopath of Hollywood proportions, the guilt will be tremendous.<\/p>\n
Cannibalism is an irrelevant distraction in discussions of the necessity of killing to eat.<\/p>\n
Food is complicated<\/h1>\n
Animism (\u201ceverything has is spirit, or is a spirit\u201d) is a more accurate and more beneficial way of viewing the world than materialism (\u201cthe universe is mostly composed of dead matter\u201d). But the complicated nature of food is a hindrance to changing people\u2019s foundational assumptions. If we accept that all living things are persons, we have no \u201cothers\u201d that can be eaten guilt-free.<\/p>\n
And sooner or later, we\u2019re going to get hungry.<\/p>\n
I cannot tell you what you should or should not eat. I cannot absolve you of your guilt for eating other persons, and I will not rationalize away the personhood of non-human species (be they animals or plants) to enable mindless eating. As with so many things in life, our desire for easy answers leads us to jump to untrue and unhelpful conclusions.<\/p>\n
Instead, I encourage you to learn where your food comes from. I encourage you to honor it as a sacrifice, and to support the sustainability of all the species and ecosystems involved. Guilt is best assuaged by accepting reality and dealing with it head-on.<\/p>\n
And then enjoy your dinner.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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