Carolina QuotesThe only diet for a peacemaker, for an environmentalist, is a vegetarian diet. … I became a vegetarian thirty-five years ago, after reading Frances Moore Lappé's book Diet for a Small Planet, which makes an unassailable case that vegetarianism is the best way to eliminate world hunger as well as to sustain the environment.
John Dear Carolinian
Source
No citation is recorded for this quotation.
- work
- They Will Inherit the Earth (2018)
- year
- 2018
no citation recorded
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“The only diet for a peacemaker, for an environmentalist, is …” John Dear. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-3A730D79A2. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/3a730d79a2
More from John Dear
Our appetite for meat leads to widespread, horrific cruelty to animals—chickens pressed wing-to-wing into filthy sheds and debeaked, for example. And since I've always espoused creative nonviolence as the fundamental gospel value, my vegetarianism helps me not to participate in the vicious torture and destruction of billions of cows, chickens, and so many other creatures. These chickens never raise families, root in the soil, build nests, or do anything natural. … Animals have feelings, they suffer; they have needs and desires. They were created by God to breathe fresh air, raise their families, peck in the grass, or root in the soil. Today's farms don't let them do anything God designed them to do. Animal scientists attest that farm animals have personalities and interests, that chickens and pigs can be smarter than dogs and cats. I like that even Jesus identified himself as “a mother hen who longs to gather us under her wings.”
I am convinced that society will look back on human arrogance and cruelty toward other animals with the same horror and disbelief that we presently reserve for atrocities committed against human beings.
Many Christians who agree that harming a dog or cat is wrong think nothing of harming cows, pigs, chickens, fish and other creatures. We need to understand that if we’re eating meat, we are paying people to be cruel to animals. For the simple reasons that all animals are creatures beloved by God and that God created them with a capacity for pain and suffering, we should adopt a vegetarian diet.