Eating fish and flesh
By Prof. M. Sivasuriya
Colombo 8
I respond to A.D. Gunasekera’s letter titled "Eating fish and flesh" published recently in one of our daily English newspapers.
Let me discuss the points on which I agree and those with which I disagree with him in regard to what he has conveyed in his letter. I agree with him in that:
(1) All organisms have to eat to live.
(2) Only plants can manufacture their own food.
(3) Carnivores cannot live without eating other animals, and
(4) One should not desist from eating fish or flesh because in religions it is taught as a sin.
However I disagree with his statement that ‘if eating an animal is a sin eating a plant also should be a sin.
Let me elaborate on my views. In my view ‘sin’ is only a religious belief because no human being certified dead by a qualified medical practitioner has ever come back to life to tell what he/she experienced after death — whether he/she went to heaven or hell. Sin is said to be associated with ‘going to hell’ while virtue with ‘going to heaven.’
But where is the proof for all this? We human beings belong to different religions which are man made, and each religion has its own basic tenets which persons belonging to that particular religion are expected to adopt and follow. But what about the rest of the animal kingdom which have the same basic anatomy and physiological functions as the homo-sapiens (human beings) except for the faculty of speech or expression as we human beings understand it?
It is again my personal view that none of us have seen God and therefore it is axiomatic that something ‘supernatural,’ call it God/nature/cosmic energy/creator or whatever has created life on earth, the oceans, the mountains, the water falls etc.
The concept of ‘life’ should in my view be looked at from this angle — the more highly evolved animals of which the ‘most highly’ evolved being the human species followed by those of the ‘lower’ evolved category such as animals, birds, fish, insects, plants and finally those in the ‘lowest’ evolved category, namely microbes like the bacteria viruses and unicellular organisms, both of animal and plant origin.
The significant difference between these two groups viz. plants and animals is that most plants can ‘regenerate’ when some segment such as a branch or part of the stem is injured or severed by injury/trauma and also, when subjected to the trauma there is no visible suffering or ‘agony’ experienced by the plant whereas in the more highly evolved forms of life which includes man and animals what is witnessed is just the opposite — that is an amputated or severed limb cannot be ‘replaced’ by nature and therefore the loss is permanent, and there is also immense ‘visible’ suffering when animals are killed at game or when slaughtered for the consumption of their flesh as meat.
The uprooting of the plant for carrot/beetroot or for its leaves as in the case of spinach, gotukola, or kang kung can in no way be equated, in my opinion, to the slashing of the neck of an innocent chicken, goat, pig or cow.
A popular misconception amongst some Buddhists and Hindus is that ‘fish’ is not equivalent to ‘meat,’ but this view is not correct. Fish is also an animal and its biological name is deadus fishus which means it is a cold blooded animal living wholly in water and recent scientific research has reported that when taken out of its environment — water — the fish undergoes untold suffering prior to its death. Pathetic indeed!
Let me conclude by agreeing with Gunasekera that "one should not desist from eating fish or flesh because in religions it is taught as ‘sin’ but because of compassion for a more developed form of life.’
This is what the noble Buddha taught and stressed.
‘Live and let live — May all beings be well and happy.
By Prof. M. Sivasuriya
Colombo 8
I respond to A.D. Gunasekera’s letter titled "Eating fish and flesh" published recently in one of our daily English newspapers.
Let me discuss the points on which I agree and those with which I disagree with him in regard to what he has conveyed in his letter. I agree with him in that:
(1) All organisms have to eat to live.
(2) Only plants can manufacture their own food.
(3) Carnivores cannot live without eating other animals, and
(4) One should not desist from eating fish or flesh because in religions it is taught as a sin.
However I disagree with his statement that ‘if eating an animal is a sin eating a plant also should be a sin.
Let me elaborate on my views. In my view ‘sin’ is only a religious belief because no human being certified dead by a qualified medical practitioner has ever come back to life to tell what he/she experienced after death — whether he/she went to heaven or hell. Sin is said to be associated with ‘going to hell’ while virtue with ‘going to heaven.’
But where is the proof for all this? We human beings belong to different religions which are man made, and each religion has its own basic tenets which persons belonging to that particular religion are expected to adopt and follow. But what about the rest of the animal kingdom which have the same basic anatomy and physiological functions as the homo-sapiens (human beings) except for the faculty of speech or expression as we human beings understand it?
It is again my personal view that none of us have seen God and therefore it is axiomatic that something ‘supernatural,’ call it God/nature/cosmic energy/creator or whatever has created life on earth, the oceans, the mountains, the water falls etc.
The concept of ‘life’ should in my view be looked at from this angle — the more highly evolved animals of which the ‘most highly’ evolved being the human species followed by those of the ‘lower’ evolved category such as animals, birds, fish, insects, plants and finally those in the ‘lowest’ evolved category, namely microbes like the bacteria viruses and unicellular organisms, both of animal and plant origin.
The significant difference between these two groups viz. plants and animals is that most plants can ‘regenerate’ when some segment such as a branch or part of the stem is injured or severed by injury/trauma and also, when subjected to the trauma there is no visible suffering or ‘agony’ experienced by the plant whereas in the more highly evolved forms of life which includes man and animals what is witnessed is just the opposite — that is an amputated or severed limb cannot be ‘replaced’ by nature and therefore the loss is permanent, and there is also immense ‘visible’ suffering when animals are killed at game or when slaughtered for the consumption of their flesh as meat.
The uprooting of the plant for carrot/beetroot or for its leaves as in the case of spinach, gotukola, or kang kung can in no way be equated, in my opinion, to the slashing of the neck of an innocent chicken, goat, pig or cow.
A popular misconception amongst some Buddhists and Hindus is that ‘fish’ is not equivalent to ‘meat,’ but this view is not correct. Fish is also an animal and its biological name is deadus fishus which means it is a cold blooded animal living wholly in water and recent scientific research has reported that when taken out of its environment — water — the fish undergoes untold suffering prior to its death. Pathetic indeed!
Let me conclude by agreeing with Gunasekera that "one should not desist from eating fish or flesh because in religions it is taught as ‘sin’ but because of compassion for a more developed form of life.’
This is what the noble Buddha taught and stressed.
‘Live and let live — May all beings be well and happy.
