Sep
01
Recently I came to know of a book that was highly recommended for people who wanted to help make the world a better place. Some people will be skeptical enough to say,"This world no hope liao lah". I was such a person before. But now, I believe in doing my own tiny part for the world would be enough to help a bit, even if it was solving a piece of a trillion pieces jigsaw puzzle.And I finally found the book at Kinokuniya Book Store. Hmm.. still in the midst of enjoying the book, but maybe I will share some foreword found in the book...
The social, ecological and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable. We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale.
The great forests of the world, that we have been decimating for grazing purposes(that was, we discover, the major cause of deforestation), begin to grow again. Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks.
The water crisis eases. As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories has been the major drain on our water resources. The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles. Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food.
A less obvious effect of our meat-free diet, but perhaps more telling on the deep psychological level, is the release it brings from the guilt and burden of cruelty inflected on other species. Only a few of us had been able to face directly the obscene conditions we inflicted on animals in our fam factories and modern slaughter houses; but most of us knew on some level that they entailed a sufffering that was too much to "stomach".
John Robbins
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In the book, it spoke of one religious leader who deemed animals as creatures who don't deserve any sort of empathy.
"Their cries should not arouse unreasonable compassion any more than to red-hot metals undergoing the blows of a hammer, seeds spoiling underground, branches crackling when they are pruned, grain thats is surrendered to the harvester, wheat being ground by the milling machine."
Compare this to the attitude of Albert Schweitzer, who believed that....
"Any religion which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion.. Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."
GREAT BOOK~
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