ADAM'S ANIMAL STORIES
Friends' Animal Stories & News
I went out to feed the cats at daybreak a couple of months ago, and when I called them, three came running under the gate. Since I only had Bucky and Billy then, it was a surprise. An even bigger one was that number three was a rabbit! He charged up to Bucky's food dish at my feet, wrinkled his nose, and hopped behind Billy to eat grass instead. I didn't move a muscle! He/she was beautiful, white with brown spots, and slightly bigger than the cats.
Then one of those lovely moments happened, that we are privy to rarely, I think. To digress, have you ever noticed that when cats talk to each other, it is in a much more quiet voice when they are face to face? I have thought maybe they speak more loudly to us because we speak loudly to them. Anyway, cats who think they are unobserved seem to mew in a very soft voice when face to face. I thought this was a cat thing, but I guess not. When Billy was through, he turned around, and nose to nose with the bunny, said, "Mir." Then they hopped and walked away over the grass together. It seemed obvious they knew each other. It turned out the rabbit belongs to a family down the block, and lopes around at night sometimes, when he breaks out of his/her cage.
As my next-door neighbor said, it is sort of like a bit of "The Peaceable Kingdom," and makes one glad. Indeed it does. Another time, I observed the three of them, the rabbit with a black cat on either side, hiding under my car, watching dogs and their humans out for their morning walks.
At present we seem surrounded by "wild" animals here in the heart of Phoenix, with two Mallard families raising babies in the canal behind us, and a redtail hawk who feeds daily on the pigeons, I think, by the way hundreds swirl around him when he flies. Recently my son went out at near dark to empty the garbage and saw what he thought was one of the cats sitting on an electric line in the alley. He was afraid to make a noise for fear the cat would lose its balance and fall. Then it turned its head. It was a very
large barn owl!
A couple of months ago on a beautiful warm Fall evening, as I sat reading with my patio door cast wide open, something resembling and sounding like a 747 flew into my living room. At first, I thought it might be a bat and I got a little woozy wondering how I would handle the creature, having the same prejudices about bats as many people do. Frankly, I was creeped out.
After the UFO banged on the blinds, curtains, lamps and furniture for a few minutes while I opened all the doors and windows and frantically chased it around with a broom attempting to coax whatever it was out the nearest portal, nearly killing myself in the mix, I realized it was a giant Gypsy Moth. It finally sat still for long enough to wonder at its size and beauty and how rare an event this was in Phoenix. All of my attempts at freeing the thing back into the Mother's realm failed, I gave up that evening. It seemed to like a certain spot behind a chest. I went to bed and hoped that the cats would not find it during the night.
The next evening, it came out from its cave and sent me into a spin again. This time, I tripped over a large basket and bruised my chin quite badly. Again it went to it's preferred spot. The next day, my husband told me that he got it out of the house. I didn't ask for the details, just hoped silently that it was handled in a humane manner.
One week later, with my door wide open once again, she visited me in the same manner. But this time, I sat still on the sofa and waited to see what she would do. At that moment, the Gypsy landed softly on my forearm and stayed there for some time brushing my arm gently with her furriness. Then, she got up and flew straight out the door without my assistance. I didn't see her again. She required me to think outside the box and pay attention to her beauty and uniqueness. She meant me no harm. She knew well how to handle an encounter with one of the other animal members of our family, should the occasion occur.
I do try very much not to exert harm on any living being. While growing our organic garden, we had many ladybugs wander into the house. We considered it an honor. We also had tiny ants with an intricate freeway running through the garden, along the patio, and into our house. I found that if I mixed spring water with a little oil of peppermint in an atomizer and lightly sprayed spots along the trail, it repelled them in a gentle way without killing them, and as a side benefit, made the house smell fresh and pleasant. Try it.
Some of My Ideas
I have a spiritual perspective about the nature of human/animal relationships to the extent that I believe all creatures, maybe especially humans, are alive in order to experience and learn.
In any truly symbiotic relationship, there is an exchange, a mutual benefit. A bird may feed on tiny pests on the skin of a rhinoceros's back, thereby checking the risk of disease for the rhino. Many types of fish have such relationships. But, I think there is much more to this story, as I will try to explain. Relationships among animals, and those between animals and people, have a much greater significance in my view.
I think that beings in whatever kind of body, human or animal, learn the lessons that type of life has to offer. For example, take dogs and people. Most people I know try very hard to learn important things like how to love unconditionally, or how to be faithful, loyal, dutiful and trustworthy. Our great spiritual traditions around the world have always taught these values. Now, think of the dog. All of those virtuous qualities that humans desperately try to achieve come very naturally to a dog, do they not? Dogs generally exhibit these traits without prompting by anyone! On the other hand, dogs often behave like children with emotions out of control. When startled, they bark right away. When a puppy is happy, it pees! When a dog is lonely or bored, it may chew things up.
When dogs live with a human, as they have for millennia, they may allow the human to train them for particular jobs, or to have particular attitudes or dispositions. What's more, like children, dogs seem to crave this kind of discipline, as they want only to make humans happy with them. Maybe dogs that need to learn discipline incarnate as dogs in human homes. Even wild dogs submit to hierarchies and strict rules in their clans, as readily observed with wolf packs.
Clearly, the human/dog relationship is a genuine symbiosis. People are protected and comforted by their dogs, and in turn, the humans feed and shelter them. But, the symbiosis goes far deeper, all the way to the soul of each, I believe. While people teach dogs discipline and respect for humans, and even serviceful vocations such as herding or assisting the disabled, dogs, by their example, teach people about unconditional love, forgiveness, and loyalty. All of these are spiritual lessons.
We can think carefully about any relationships between animals and humans and decipher some of the spiritual symbiosis there. Perhaps the lesson is a hard one, such as when we kill elephants, then they turn around and trample villages and people in direct retribution, as sometimes occurs in troubled areas of the world. The lessons there might involve learning great respect for one another. Young primates are regularly observed playing with youngsters of other primate species in the wild! This is highly unusual behavior for animals, and seems to suggest a broad range of willingness to learn and experience, much like our own.
Some seem to think themselves "more evolved" physically or they are spiritually more "advanced" than animals. While, in some sense there may be truth in such a view, I regard all creatures as holding their own perfect place within Creation, each an equal citizen of a vast Universe of beings, each with a role to play that potentially benefits all others. Humans readily try to teach animals, but how many sincerely try to learn from them? One quality of spiritual "attainment" is the genuine humility required to listen to and learn from others, in whatever form they may be.
In any case, we are all learning. I believe that each and every creature, maybe every blade of grass, has lessons to learn and lessons to teach others. In this way, all creatures evolve toward greater wisdom and effectiveness in their lives. Greater effectiveness is what the whole process of evolution, both physical and spiritual, is all about.
On Anthropomorphizing
Some who have had little intimate experience with animals are ready to allege that claims of animal intelligence, humor, love, etc, may be dismissed as simple cases of "anthropomorphizing." Yet, if we look more closely, we will see that the very tendency to apply this label is, itself, anthro-centric and, therefore, flawed or less than complete.
For example, we assume that, when our dog licks our mouths, it only seems to be kissing us, because we associate that behaviour with our own human counterpart. Perhaps there is a deeper truth underlying both behaviours that we have failed to identify. In other words, maybe the reasons dogs lick each other's mouths are the same reasons we humans "kiss" each other on the mouth; these actions may stem from our shared animal natures, rather than merely appear to be similar from a supposedly biased human point of view.
As I see it, the failure to notice our own "animal" behaviour is to contribute to the mistake of anthro-centrism, the set of false presumptions resulting in the judgement that all other beings either act or don't act according to a standard of which we have arbitrarily and artificially made ourselves bearer. We have evolved within the same Kingdom as have all of the other animals. So, as with fear, sleep, sex, and innumerable other tendencies, we share these behaviours with all creatures as integral to the activities of life on this planet. To recognise that my dog has a playful "sense of humor" is to recognise something deeply embedded in Animal Nature. It may not be accurate to assume that we are the sole inheritors of such qualities over our millions of years of shared evolution.
Before we feel confident about such judgments, we ought first to be confident that we have thoroughly explored what it means to be human in an animal-evolved body. Then, maybe we will conclude that humans kiss each other in like manner as the dogs have since long before we had any lips to pucker!
On the other hand, maybe as the "animal" I am, I am simply "zoomorphizing" human behaviour!
On Animal Aesthetics
I can't even think about mice and rats, snakes and lizards, or bats or wolves, as "dangerous" or repulsive. I kept numerous rodents when I was a kid, and I loved every one of them like a brother or sister, as with all my pets.
I remember the day I tried, around age thirteen, to try to see my dog, "Shadow," as an actual dog, rather than as a member of my family, which of course, he was. I'd sit in front of Shadow and close my eyes and imagine some sort of objective way of looking at him. But, when I'd look again, invariably, every attempt failed. No matter how I rubbed my eyes, Shadow was a loved one, not simply some dog I happened to live with. I know other people that have tried this same thing and failed, as I did. Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic book, The Little Prince, describes wonderfully this sort of familiar intimacy between a boy and a fox.
Each pet has its own unique quirks, just as varied perhaps, as ours. Shadow's thing was craving the attention we gave him nearly all the time in the moments when we didn't. He'd sneak about the room, as we read or watched TV, and he'd check out various objects, coming near them, smelling them, maybe a lick, all the while leading up to the selection of one he thought would raise the most attention. He'd quickly grab a book or a pair of glasses, then flee into the next room, where he'd growl and teethe the thing mercilessly. We'd have to sternly implore him to give it back, because if we did not endeavor to, he would not stop short of tearing it to pieces. We did reinforce this behaviour, unwittingly, as we could simply not resist his charm. His nightly attention-getting crime spree was very amusing, as he would often take a full five minutes exploring and even reconsidering objects before settling on one to steal and destroy.
We "animal people" all have such stories about our pets, and I think most wouldn't even question that pets, especially our favorite dogs and cats, have widely varied individual personalities. Would this then not be true for wild animals? We know that wolves, chimps, dolphins and elephants are just a few of the animals in which we can observe these traits. Furthermore, we know that no longer are humans the only tool makers. In addition to chimpanzees, increasing numbers of animals are observed using fabricated tools for specific applications in their worlds. Elephants and primates regularly paint paintings with their own selection of brushes, colors and "canvasses." We've known about "whale music," and there is now a CD on the market featuring instrumental music played entirely by elephants. My dog, Diggity, played piano, guitar and drums, albeit wholly without rhythm or melody, like some John Cage pieces.
So, how can we assume that these capabilities are not widespread throughout the Animal Kingdom? It is arrogant on our part to think animals have no sense of aesthetics, especially in the face of numerous and clear examples to the contrary. Perhaps you know about the bower bird, which makes a dazzling and entirely unique structural "hallway" of standing grass with colorful found objects set harmoniously at one end, all to create the effect this artist desires. Its purpose in this case, as with many human artists, is to lure...well, we won't go there.
Clearly, there are some common tendencies between such birds and humans. Perhaps even "art" is not exclusively a human endeavor.
On Breeding Dogs and Cats
Many pet caregivers, or more commonly, "owners," choose a pet based on the way its characteristics, size, temperament, etc., match up with their own. A person may prefer a dog to a cat, and a smaller, rather than larger dog. Many rescue orphans from the pound, or take in a stray, two of the better choices for finding such a mate, in my view. Other pet preference decisions may be darker, as when the pet owner seeks to gratify his or her needs to the exclusion or detriment of the pet. Of course, any ideal relationship exists between equals, at least at some level, yet balance is difficult to achieve in a dynamic world.
For some time, I have given consideration to the breeding of dogs and cats, a most common practice. Dog and cat lovers the world over, and for many centuries, have selectively mated their animals in order to produce or enhance features they find desirable. From Chihuahuas to Rottweilers, humans have shaped the very faces and bodies of our dogs. Rare in my culture today is the common street version of a dog that has defaulted to the "natural," wild form that is Nature's original dog design.
As with all choices, both good and bad results may follow. We know, for example, about hip dysplasia in German Shepherds, and of respiratory problems for Pugs, or brain damage to Doberman Pinschers. Far worse still for the sheer scope of damage done is the case of "pit bull" Terriers that mutilate and kill children, merely acting out the tendencies we have so deliberately bred into them, as our nickname for them clearly indicates. We make tiny dogs, strong dogs, smart dogs, work dogs, and in the best cases, helper dogs to assist the needy or find the injured.
Whether to have a larger dog or a smaller dog can be an important concern for the best relationship between the person and the animal. But it's difficult to see why a dog with extra-long hair or a hot dog-shaped torso and dwarfed legs should be particularly helpful to such a relationship, especially one that does not directly involve some kind of work like gopher hunting or drug-sniffing. Perhaps we must project the image of ourselves onto our pets. We observe that many dogs resemble their "owners," and this is partly why. We long for identification in intimacy. But to breed a dog type that develops chronic back problems, caused primarily by the selective breeding process and for exclusively aesthetic interests, sadly perpetuates our tired habit of trying to subdue Nature to satisfy individual desires.
Now, the widening array of bioengineering techniques makes possible disquieting consequences stemming from our unceasing desire to mold other beings to suit our needs. No examples are necessary, as the reader may surely conjure up any such horror with ease. Besides, writing these things would disturb me. Experiments with heredity may appear less violent and may transpire gradually, but this means only that our laboratory is larger than we had imagined; the reality of it is no less stark.
If we are to become more loving beings, we must include all creatures in our hearts' view. This means, of course, doing all we can to ensure the happiness and health of those beings. What pet owner does not suffer with the pet when it is injured, sick or in pain? Who does not hope for the long and healthy life of a pet? Why then, do we continue to shape torturous mutations in another species in the name of our "love" of the animals; animals that would never hope to mold us for their needs?
Ambiguity remains with questions regarding the limits of what constitutes art. Humans, the world over, mutilate their own bodies in the name of it. For me, the place where we cause harm to others in the name of our aesthetic interests is the boundary at the farthest edge of what we can call art. The nether-regions beyond we call "pornography," and it includes violences of all sorts. Dyeing your poodle pink and painting its toenails, so long as it's fully non-toxic, remains just inside that boundary, and may be fun and mostly harmless, but to cross beyond that line is to do something else, altogether. I've never cared for the cropping of ears or removing of tails. This reminds me too much of the Chinese practice of binding the feet, another example outside of the field of true art.
If a modification of a feature, whether inbred or imposed after the fact, unambiguously serves the well being and health of that animal, then perhaps we ought go ahead and manipulate. But we must exercise great caution and err on the side of non-intervention, lest we teeter on the line between the humane and the barbaric. And, for some healthy perspective, let us not forget that Nature Herself has been successfully designing dogs and cats for longer than She has humans.
Consideration on Bugs
As a child, I was almost missionary about eradicating "pests" like the venomous black widow, or all roaches, flies and mosquitoes. The household plastic "fly swatter," bespattered with fly parts, I took for granted along with the vacuum cleaner. Flies and roaches were filthy, and widows, deadly.
Now, of course, I feel some remorse about that crusade. Lots of bloody battles, all of which I "won," sometimes leave me wondering if I won't come back as a fly in my next life. I'd probably deserve it on sheer volume of kills and zealous intent. All other animals I treated very gently, but insects were different. Most people, I suspect, operate this way. My culture is one of the few in the world that does not eat any insects. Most cultures eat any thing from grub worms to earthworms. Of course, lobsters are essentially aquatic scorpions, sans sting, and snails are close to worms, but otherwise, we're insect-free. Maybe we dislike insects so vehemently because we have no use for them.
I no longer kill insects intentionally. Sure, there's the occasional mosquito that gets caught under my hand as I slap it down to scratch the sting I've just received, but I have let many a mosquito drink its fill. If I can donate pints to a blood bank, I can spare a few blood cells for a mosquito. The quirky singer, Jonathan Richman, declares from the point of view of the mosquito that "God loved me when He made me, just the same as He loved you..." Obvious enough, but generally ignored.
I leave widows where I find them, and I warn kids and keep pets away, as they can be truly hazardous if provoked, though they are invariably quite uninterested when left alone. I have even let widows live indoors, treating them with careful deference. They, in turn, kept other "pests" in check. I don't mind them killing bugs in my house: that's widow karma, and not so much my own! As for other bugs, I invariably try to catch roaches under a cup without injuring their antennae and eject them immediately, far out the door. Flies I handle in a similar manner, as with moths and any others I can catch. Gecko lizards live on the walls outside my door, generations after generations of them living and nesting at my house. They assume much of the "pest duty" around the lights over the entrances, and I am grateful to them for it. Sometimes, I will find a young one that has strayed indoors, and I consider it great fortune. Of course, I try to make available the option for it to return to the "wild."
One night, I "told" a moth in my room that I was going to catch it and take it outside so it could follow the real moon, rather than my lamp. I reached my hand up and it flew directly into my palm. A very similar thing happened a few nights later with my partner, who also caught a moth in this manner.
It is important to me that all animals, including insects, be treated with respect. If they directly interfere with my life, I transport them to somewhere they might enjoy better and leave them there. Insects, like all animals and humans for that matter, have lives to live. I am not in any position to either eradicate them or interfere with their lives. If I don't want them to interfere in my life, how can I interfere with theirs? "Do Unto Others..." applies broadly, in my view. The Jains of East Indian origin try, to the maximum extent humanly possible, to avoid injuring even the tiniest gnat. In order to abide by the Hindu ideal of ahimsa, literally, "non-injury," they wear cloth masks to prevent breathing one in by accident. They avoid walking, so as to avoid injury to worms and ants. I can't say I go that far on a daily basis, but I feel humbly appreciative of those who try.
I'd like to say that roaches are beautiful creatures, but I haven't attained that degree of open heartedness. I find them disturbing. But that is entirely a product of my upbringing, I'm certain. I have come to find some insects quite beautiful, the butterfly, for one universal example. Many moths are just as lovely, as are dragonflies and fireflies. Ladybugs and mantises are widely appreciated, as well as crickets in some quarters. But roaches? Not yet. I do care about them, though, enough to be careful in catching them. Their beauty in my beholding eye should not be the basis of my concern for them.
A Portrait of Home
Imagine a small house in a typical neighborhood somewhere in this world, and imagine that, in this home, four friends abide together. Three mostly ornamental goldfish live here, too, but they are not important to this story. Neither is the tortoise in the yard.
Lila, Kama, Raja and Priya are the names of the household members. Fortunately for all, their personalities and lifestyles fit nicely together, so they live harmoniously and happily, if not perfectly. Lila is a bit jealous and sometimes frightened by Kama, who is harmless, but wildly curious about everything, including Lila. While Kama shies from affection, preferring to teasingly come near, then hurry away, Lila is her opposite. Lila loves the attention and affections of Raja and Priya, and she enjoys lavish hugs and kisses and staring adoringly into their eyes. Raja and Priya love both Kama and Lila dearly, though because of the natures of those two personalities, Lila enjoys most of the affection and attention in the house. Raja and Priya are readily affectionate with each other, as well, so the three of them can typically be found cuddling together over quiet conversation or a bit of television, while Kama busies herself about the house, self-content.
This cozy abode hosts few conflicts, as all its members do respect and treat each other gently. Well, except when Raja and Priya fuss a bit too much, or for too long when they do. And, it's true that Lila sometimes retreats to the back room, where she sulks in her chair just for knowing that Kama is running around through the main rooms of the house, getting attention. Kama can get into too many things while she's playing about. And she does occasionally swipe bits of Lila's meals. But, she usually obeys, and always goes to her bed when she's tired without being asked or made to. For the most part, Lila tolerates Kama and even finds her amusing, and Kama seems to like Lila just fine.
The ways of gerbils are not so similar as those of dogs and people. Dogs and people love to curl up and nap together, but gerbils mostly prefer other gerbils. Kama never sits still long enough to be hugged in any sense. But she will come and sit on a hand or a foot for a moment or two, much to the delight of Raja and to the consternation and distress of Lila, who -- though a very brave dog with regard to the Post delivery -- crumbles in apprehension about her rodent roommate.
Through the bars of the open section of her enclosure, Kama stretches toward Lila in the light of a fine afternoon, and these two admiringly sniff each other's noses. Raja jokes with his wife, Priya, by observing that Lila is plenty interested in Kama, so long as Kama is securely confined to her premises within the larger house! They laugh together, sweetly. Truly more than friends; these four are a family, though of mixed species. Such a harmonious home might exist no where else.
A Pigeon Messenger?
One day, during my high school years, I drove my old '56 Buick to my girlfriend's house in a nearby neighborhood, quite in the usual way. As I turned from my street, heading east toward hers, a pigeon of the standard variety flanked me like an F-15 just outside my passenger window, matching my speed exactly and flying alongside, such that it maintained a steady position relative to my car. Staring at me all the while, I should add. I had never, before or since, seen any bird do this. Naturally, I was a bit freaked out and very curious.
I had spent plenty of time with neighborhood pigeons before this. In fact, I grew up with an orphan bird my mother named, "Walter," who visited us daily for the remaining years of his life. He had even brought his wild mate and offspring into the yard, apparently trying to tell them that it was safe to feed there even while the people were out. But, Walter had long since passed on, and we had no contemporary pigeon acquaintances. So, this bird tracking me in my car was no bird I could recognize.
Nonetheless, it flew in this position for a good block or two. All the while, I kept an eye on this strange, hovering thing, as I slowed, wondering... And what it did at this point was even more remarkable! It slowed with me, maintaining that same orientation out my window, then abruptly lighted on the top of my car as I came to a stop! I heard its pigeon toenails on the metal over my head.
Now, with my interest completely piqued, I put the car in park and got out. Surely this crazy bird would fly away if I opened the door and stood face to face with it. But, it did not flinch. There, standing atop my car, it just stared at me, calmly. How far could this game go, I wondered, amazed? I reached out to take the bird into my hands, and it did not resist. I gently held the pigeon, as I had so many before, and lowered it into the cabin of my car, where it directly hopped onto the back of the seat beside me. With my window down, I drove the remaining four or five blocks to my sweetheart's house, rather awestruck at this bird waddling around on the seat back, unperturbed, as I made my way through traffic lights and side streets.
As soon as I parked, I hurried in to tell my girlfriend to come behold the strange pigeon that had followed me and allowed me to give it a ride. As we looked out from her room, we watched this bird walk along the seat back toward the open window and fly out of my car before disappearing into the neighborhood.
Was this pigeon some kind of messenger with something to tell me? Had I not stopped and collected the bird, might I have been killed in an accident at the next intersection? I will, of course, never understand this story, though I can assure the gentle reader of its accuracy.
MORE THOUGHT FOR FOOD
Diet and our "isms"; beliefs and what we eat
We seldom use the terms, "omnivorism," or "carnivorism," yet we freely use "vegetarianism," as though it were a mere subset of some universally established human diet. The implied presumption here seems to suggest that not eating animals is in some way the product of an ideology, or set of values or beliefs, while the other diets are simply the normal human fare.
As most people prefer not to think much about the animals they eat, I would suggest that the abstraction of the hamburger from the cow is more based on ideas than is my non-meat diet. In this way, "carnivorism" may be the more ideological of the diets. When pressed, many meat-eaters will freely, if uncomfortably, admit they'd "rather not think about it." This means some set of ideas, which they'd rather not think about, informs their decision to eat meat.
Our "isms" are tied up with our dietary choices, no doubt. Of course, one can assert that all dietary inclinations are enculturated, such that all are the result of beliefs. Maybe. But, my point is to address the unfortunate and unfounded bias toward assigning "ism" to one diet, while not to another. This bias does considerable and unnecessary damage, so we need to look at it.
The term "vegetarianism" is a misnomer, at least in my case. It is not at all because of any "beliefs" that I don't eat animals. It is solely because no part of my being registers any part of an animal as food. It has been well over a decade since I have either eaten meat, or had any desire to do so. To be devoid of desire and therefore, to not indulge in something, is no matter of belief.
If there is any "belief" at play for me, it may be tied up with the following: I have long noticed that I have a much greater opportunity to learn from, serve, and enjoy a living animal than I possibly could by killing and eating it. I would much rather befriend a cow or a pig than find it on my plate. Over a lifetime friendship with an animal, surely there would manifest much more growth and value than whatever I might derive from one or two meals from that animal's dead body. I suspect the animal would feel that way, too, given the chance. I think my dog sees it this way, for example.
Actually, I have so lost touch with why anyone would eat meat -- given that it is evidently unnecessary (millions live in prime health without it) -- that I can no longer even imagine why people continue to do it. I know that blind habit is a lot of it. Sure, it might be necessary if I were starving in the wilderness, or if that was all I had available to eat. The same is true in surviving a stranded airplane wreck: I might eat my wife or kid if I had to. But that is clearly not why most folks go out for a rib dinner.
Hindus hold cows to be sacred. The idea of eating one is completely appalling, much like the idea of eating our own dog or cat is to us. One man's steak is another's mother, one could say.
We're in the domain of beliefs, I suppose, at this point. Or are we? Do you refrain from eating your cat because of some "belief?" Ask yourself that. More likely, your cat simply isn't a food item. Then, why is your neighbor's cow? What if they wanted to eat your dog? Eating a cow is much like eating your pet, depending on your perspective.
Generally, when we consider any "ism," we are referring to actions deriving from or supporting some set of ideas, principles or practices, rather than to any sort of incontrovertible understanding. If I say I "believe" in God, yet have had no experience of God, I am saying something different than one whose affirmation of God is based on some kind of direct experience; such experience is incontrovertible and enduring, while beliefs may change from day to day. The enlightened Buddhist rejects "buddhism," because the understanding is not based on any ideology, even if some principles or values had led to such enlightenment. The "ideological vegetarian" may return to eating meat upon receipt of some new advice, while my motivation is not subject to such influences. Originally, I stopped eating meat both because I "believed" it was morally wrong, and because I increasingly could not avoid feelings of disgust when I did. Now, no "ism" applies any longer: for me, animals are simply not food.
"Cannibalism," for me, has come to exclude any creatures with vertebrae and eyes. All are my relatives, in a direct kind of way. My aversion to cannibalism is more based on direct identification than on any ideology or belief. I tend not to eat what I most identify with. I don't refrain from eating my neighbor because I "believe" it is wrong so much as because my neighbor resembles me more than she does food. The revulsion I feel about eating another human is nearly identical to what I feel about eating a hamburger. Animals simply don't look like food to me any more than do other people.
God help me I never have to eat my friends.
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As a footnote to this topic, if we think of diet as belief-based, then what is perhaps most puzzling to me is why many Christians -- especially those that tend toward a literal interpretation of the Bible -- would ever even think of eating meat. Let's look closer at the Bible for a moment, and try to understand the following section literally:
From King James:
Genesis 1:29: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."
Genesis 1:30: "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so."
If you want to take that literally, I'd have to conclude that eating animals for meat is not at all what God had in mind here. He said nothing about eating the animals. In fact, it sounds pretty clear that He doesn't care for them eating each other, either.
Personally, I don't look at a pig and think, "Yummm." I know there are those who do. So long as this is their genuine, visceral response, more power to 'em. In that case too, it is sheer animal instinct, not at all about any belief. But wait, aren't we not supposed to be animals ourselves? If we have "dominion over" them, we are not them, are we? I don't know. After all, God did say this, before He got around to creating man:
Genesis 1:25: "And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good."
Then, He seems to say to those very creatures in this next verse (1:26) "...Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." [italics mine] Hmmm...
This was the sixth day, whereupon He gave man "dominion over the fish...the fowl...the cattle...and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing..." Dominion means authority, ownership, responsibility for...but not consumption of. Like when you "own" your dog, you have dominion maybe, but you don't serve it up for Thanksgiving dinner.