Great selection of OS, and a theme which appeals to this non-meat eater. But your job is to make a great singable song, not just proselytize, and your title starts out a bit weakly. Why not "every steer you steak", "every ham you bake", and "Try meatless stew - just leave out the ewe". Sauteed slices, baked sheep and "you belong to meat" are poor choices of words as well as foods. 4+ rutabagas for your efforts.

I respect your vegetarianism. It is a valid topic for satire and propaganda. As far as the God of the Old Testament was concerned, He was always demanding burnt offerings of dead sheep and heifers. Scripture divides animals into "clean" and "unclean" for purposes of human consumption. There is nothing wrong with going beyond the letter of the Law as your conscience leads you. But I see no Biblical prohibition against the use of at least certain specified animals as food.

Written with great feeling and conviction. Count me, too, as an eater of non-meat. The U.S. Vegetarian Party ran presidential candidates from 1948 - 1964. Discussions are being held with the U.S. Green Party to collaborate in promoting candidates for local and state offices. Though it's not clear how we can become a national party again, Dennis Kucinich has been asked to lead such a project as presidential candidate . However, he remains steadfastly with the Democrat(ic) Party. Another obstacle is the mandate that members of the Vegetarian Party, for the sake of solidarity, extract their canine teeth.

If there is a personal God, i suspect any Being that advanced would be more like Krsna than the one calling for animal sacrifices in the Biblical Old Testament that Patrick was referring to. Margaret, did you see the petition asking President Obama to pardon all turkeys rather than a single one?

I not only saw the petition, I signed it. President Obama has already pardoned all jive turkeys.

Regarding God. God killed the first animals in the Garden for skins for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. After the Fall and expulsion from Eden, man and animals lost ability to communicate and commune together. Animals became predators and prey. Abel's sacrifice became standard knowledge and the sacrifices went from burned to also consumed. There were animals on the Ark to protect, but also animals for food for Noah, his wife, three sons, and their three wives. Take 7 pairs of clean animals, but only 2 pairs of unclean animals. Thus, the dietary laws were already established before given to Moses later. In fact, in the desert God provided manna but because the people grumbled for meat gave them occasional quail. The angels that came to Abraham were offered meat to eat and Jesus as a Jew would have eaten lamb growing up for the festivals, both religious and local. Pigs were considered unclean meat but by the NT Paul was shown in a vision that it is not what goes into a person that defiles him/her but what comes from the mouth and by extension, the heart of man. The dietary laws were abolished. I personally believe all things in moderation. I eat some organic and some processed foods. Many have GMOs, others don't. If you CHOOSE to be a Vegetarian or Vegan, that is your business. Just don't force your choice on others. Most people are omnivores anyway!

Three out of five literal interpreters of the Bible eat and recommend Spam. It is relatively guilt-free, pre-cooked, and processed to be 99% removed from its unclean source. Its ingredients are pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, sugar, and sodium nitrite as a preservative. It's almost a vegetable. Delicious and nutritious. Savor every globule. Available at your local bodega.

Damn, Jose, that was pure unadultered lunacy. I laughed so hard at your comment I hurt my sternum. Warn me the next time so I can get my cardiac pillow and hug it

@VM; glad to see you discussing comparative religion, as your song-resume suggests you have gotten into a one-theme rut. That shortcoming might explain your serving as a target for the barbs of "Jose" and "Margaret".Perhaps you could enlighten us in further verse and prose on new viewpoints which counter the staid positions often adopted by the muck-a-mucks on this site.

According to the philosophy prevalant on this site, your only recourse may be to advocate fighting back, as in "Cows with Guns". Watch it on YouTube

As one of the staunch 2nd Amendment supporters at AIR, I believe in the right to keep and arm bears. I like José's interpretation of Spam being almost a vegetable. Add some ketchup and it will be. I personally try to avoid pork and shell fish. I think the Biblical dietary laws were an early form of health recommendation that still holds true today. The passage concerning the offering of unclean animals to Paul is subject to interpretation. I believe that it refers to clean or unclean people (Jews vs Gentiles) and that all believers are equal in the eyes of The Lord. It may also refer to otherwise clean animals which had be offered in sacrifice to pagan gods, then served as food. A believer in Jesus could partake of such meat out of respect for the hospitality of a non-believing host, since the pagan god did not really exist, and an offering to such god would not entail any religious defilement. Next time I write a cloning song, maybe I'll describe a plant instead of a person or animal.

I don't see this as funny if it's meant to be a joke.

What Rob needs to realize when he uses the "it's not what goes into a man but what comes out of him" argument, is that the choice (to eat slaughtered animals when it is not at all necessary to survive) does come from the heart of people. It is willingly participating in unkindness. As for vegans supposedly forcing people, you don't see multimillion dollar ad campaigns by McDonalds as forcing people but are alarmed by internet parodies getting a handful of views? Vegans aren't the bullies in this picture. The animals are being bullied by the meat industry. Wasn't Christ quoted as saying something like "What you did for the least of these, you did for me"? The "least of these" in the eyes of vegans are animals. It is not easy to perceive consuming animals as truly Divine. It's very easy to view the extreme compassion of veganism as Divine.

@VM, eating Vegan is your choice and that's it- bottom line. Before the Fall of Man in Eden, animals ate herbs just like Adam and Eve. But after the Fall, animals hunted animals and humans sacrificed and ate animals as well as fruits, nuts, herbs, etc... What I quoted was from the Word of God, so it's authority supercedes man's. Patrick is correct in the dual meaning because the early church started by Jews was concerned about Gentiles adopting Jewish ways like circumcisions and Jewish dietary law. The vision Paul saw revealed God's spiritual concerns rather than material. The old Law and its rules had been the old covenant. With Christ a new covenant. It is not important what you eat, but what you say that defiles a person. Most humans on this planet are omnivores and for longevity standards look to Japan. What do they eat? Largely raw fish, steamed rice, noodles, odd indigenous fruits. Should everyone adopt their diet to strive to live to the 100 year mark? No. Eat sensibly, exercise, read God's Word. Not eating animals does NOT make any human closer to the Divine. Flesh can never be holy. However, seek out the cult 7th Day Adventist who preach Ellen White's vegetarian nonsense. They will take you.

Btw, VM, animals eat other animals in the food chain. Is a lioness "unkind" hunting prey? Of course not!!! Security Code is amazingly YUM!!!

Granted, inspection of a human's teeth reveals that he is an omnivore. But animals, including ancient people, hunting smaller animals for food is God's plan, which is red in tooth and claw. What is patently "unkind" and what is so morally offensive are modern meat factories. Any God-loving person would, for that reason alone, either hunt for his meat or become a vegetarian or vegan. What you eat IS important to your eternal soul. For example, beef:
Cattle are branded and castrated without painkillers, may have their horns removed without painkillers, and live outdoors amid all weather extremes. Sometime between the ages of six months and one year, beef cows are sent to live their last few months in feedlots with hundreds or even thousands of others. Without pasture and often without shelter, the cows must stand in mud, ice, and their own waste. Cows can live to 25 years, but beef cows are generally killed at just one to three years of age. To increase their weight, beef cows are fed an unnatural grain diet that is very hard on their bodies, causing illness, pain and sometimes death.
Another example, laying hens:
Only 3.7% of the 281 million laying hens in the US are cage free and the vast majority of the birds in cages have only about 67–76 sq. inches each to live in – or about two thirds of the size of a piece of letter sized paper. Scientists examined the average space a hen requires to carry out her basic needs and found that turning requires an average space of 198 sq. inches, stretching wings 138 sq. inches and flapping wings 290 sq. inches. These figures are all far greater than the actual space that each bird is given in a cage.
Because of this high density, and the limited ability to forage, chickens often display aggression and can peck each other to death. In order to prevent this it is common practice in factory farms to sear off as much as half the chickens' beak when they are still chicks. This has been shown to be traumatic to the bird and can cause severe and lasting pain. Like any factory farming system, the closely confined conditions provide a perfect breeding ground for disease and the birds are routinely treated with low dose antibiotics to prevent any outbreaks.

Great sermon HH! I certainly do not condone how livestock is handled, but I also do not take tough political stands on animal welfare or the environment because I am busy elsewhere into more serious issues concerning foreign policy, gun rights, military budgets, Israel, worship on the Mount, and the homeless. That doesn't mean I don't occasionally support programs like Wild Sentry, Sea Shepherd, and others devoted to protection of species. I just favor aid to man over animal or earth. Please don't criticize if you haven't given tens of thousands of dollars spreading the Gospel and feeding humanity. People try to label me a Nazi when I actively support Israel and the IDF, Aliyah, and fellowship between Christians and Jews. I don't knock your cause VM, just your attitude towards omnivores and carnivores. I like a good steak but don't eat a lot of meat anymore. My gf is into organic and I've adapted to some of that menu. But like everyone else I get cravings. Jon has got me on eggnog, I'm waiting for the Hydrox cookies for nostalgic reasons, I still buy exotic sodas from BevMo, and I get cravings for Devil Dog cakes and other odd choices. Back in my youth I loved Coke and meat. I now eat more sport salads and chia drinks, veggie wraps, and couscous. Occasionally, German and Russian Deli food. I like to mix it up. I think you should lighten up. I wonder how many homeless programs you participate in. Humans are more valuable than animals. One word of comfort. Hope. After Christ reigns for 1000 years on earth He will judge the evil dead of all time and consign them to the Lake of Fire. There will be new heavens and a new earth with New Jerusalem as capital. The Lion will lay down with the lamb. No more predators and prey. No more abuse of animals. Man will eat new and exotic foods, drink living water and also wine (Jesus said he would have no new wine until heaven, so alcohol is there)! I'm sure everyone will be satisfied. Read the end of Revelation. There's a happy ending. Your body is important, but you soul more so :))

Rob, in recognition of your outstanding humanitarianism, I am sending you what may or may not be a can of meat. Whatever. You'll love it.

TY, are we talking SPAM or Chicken Spread? Please, no chipped beef- that stuff doesn't count! There's more beef in a Slim Jim ;-)

Rob's "humans are more valuable than animals" standpoint brings up the thought that if love for ALL mankind is genuine, one should be all the more receptive to veganism in the sense that cycling grain through cattle so that affluent people can eat meat deprives starving humans of that grain so that cows can be fed. And if you believe lions peacefully lying down with lambs is the inevitable end, why wait for a Divine decree? Why wait for God to say "OK, this is the way it's going to be now."? Does it come down to a lack of discipline to live the way one knows one should be living? Cravings for real meats and dairy desserts? There are very tasty mock-meats and non-dairy dessert alternatives these days.

VM, what you are doing is wrong. You're taking your dietary CHOICE and linking it to religion as if you and all Vegans are spiritually elevated. False. Just because Adam & Eve and all animals pre-Fall ate herbs, fruits, etc... does not mean that in heaven or the New Earth that meat and fish, pastas, desserts, etc... will be absent. Since God is capable of anything and since Jesus ate lamb for the feasts as part human, there is nothing impossible about having meat, etc without butchering animals. The new bodies will be able to process all foods (even new ones we have never eaten) without any bad effects. For those who argue about spirit bodies that don't eat or drink I refer you to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and Jesus talking about drinking new wine in heaven. Angels that visited earth in the OT often came in appearance of men and ate meat offered to them. If Christ and angels can eat, so will we. The Word of God does not preach Veganism in the NT. In Paul's vision the dietary laws of the Jews was abolished (the clean and unclean). Even back then Jews ate lamb, quail, finned fish, etc... So stop twisting my words and the Word. Your misinterpretation of " the least of these " refers to humans only, not animals. I actively help feed the homeless and meat is included at nearly all Christian food closets as well as secular. Even 7th Day Adventist cult churches DO give meat and fish away along with vegetables and fruits. Mankind is largely omnivores and as HH said about human teeth were MEANT to eat all kinds of food including meat. You cannot deny that fact. Vegans are a very small minority in the world. And to call anyone else undisciplined for choosing to remain omnivore or canivore is an insult. I am not committing any sin having a steak, hamburger, pork chops,chicken, turkey, etc... Btw, you can eat Vegan all you want and it doesn't protect you from disease or death by any means. And if unsaved, it was all in vain anyway. By rejecting salvation, you send yourself to hell. You have no clue about what Divine is and man only gets by on God's grace. Adam & Eve weren't created holy like the angels, just innocent. All Believers righteousness is imputed by Christ. He lived the sinless life we couldn't and he became the sacrificial Lamb of God, spilling His blood on the Cross for you and all the other Vegans who largely seek to worship animals and the earth. Your choice is your choice.

Rob, it is you, not VM who introduced religion into the moral and health-related argument for veganism. You cited the Bible as justification and precedence for meat-eating, sacrifice, etc. Holy Harry framed it correctly: it is natural for there to be predator and prey, but does God look approvingly on meat factories? HH gave two horrific examples of wholesale torture of sentient animals. We will give you one more:
Pigs may be the most intelligent and sensitive of the animals that you commonly eat. When foraging in a rural village, they can exercise that intelligence and explore their varied environment. Before they give birth, sows use straw or leaves and twigs to build a comfortable and safe nest in which to nurse their litter. But in today's factory farms, pregnant sows are kept in crates so narrow that they cannot turn around, or even walk more than a step forward or backward. They lie on bare concrete without straw or any other form of bedding. The piglets are taken from the sow as soon as possible, so that she can be made pregnant again, but they never leave the shed until they are taken to slaughter.
Enjoy your ham sandwich and say your prayers. By the way, you might try reading on the equality of animals by the philosopher Peter Singer. See if the subject will become high priority for you, too.

Not correct. Read Patrick's comment that introduced OT practices. I merely connected the Jewish dietary laws and Paul's vision of clean and unclean. VM makes the assertion that not eating animals is somehow Divine, which is absurd at face value. As for treatment of animals, all I said is that I don't condone it but don't support PETA either with a political agenda. My own GF eats organic and believes in an Eden Diet. That's her right to choose (key word in all of this topic). I eat whatever I want and am not convicted of any wrongdoing. I don't link my daily diet to religion nor politics or trendy fads. Not even medical and FDA advice. Eating habits are choices just like exercise preferences and religious beliefs.

Rob, by eating products of meat factories, you are complicit in unethical and immoral behavior. That is the informed opinion of millions of thoughtful people. Period. Nothing political or religious or illegal about that. Please do not complicate a simple concept. Your only possible burden is to live with your conscience. If it is unaffected by the suffering of factory animals, sleep well.

By that insane standard, then every product we buy that uses animal testing torture would be a crime. And unless you recycle 100% of all metal, paper, glass, and plastic you buy, you would be contributing to the destruction of this planet. I won't even get into driving vehicles with internal combustion engines or use of aerosol products!!! Get a grip fanatics!!!

Refraining from eating factory-produced animals is not a standard and is not to be stretched absurdly to include recycling or air pollution for the purpose of self-justification. It is a single moral and ethical act. So, too, is Petunia's refusal to use cosmetics which have been tested on lab animals. An example of a fanatic is someone who would throw paint at a woman wearing a mink coat. The urge to do so, however, is one we understand.

http://biblehub.com/isaiah/25-6.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-e2NDSTuE

Thanks to HH and P&P for sharing some of the barbarity rampant in the factory farm industry. Can't agree that human teeth reveal humans to be natural omnivores. Human teeth look quite herbivorous. You can't base much on the tiny so-called fangs humans have when animals like hippos have very large true fangs yet are categorized as herbivores. Humans are omnivores only in the sense that they are choosing to eat in conflict with their anatomy. Yes humans have adapted to some extent to being able to eat animal products, but the adaptation is far from complete, leading to lots of disease due to animal product consumption. It's interesting how Rob visualizes meat being eaten in the future "New Earth" without the butchering of animals. No supernatural power is necessary for that, as science has already come up with stem cell techniques to produce cruelty-free real meat. It's super expensive at present but might not be before too long. Don't agree with Rob that eating meat as it is presently produced is not sinful. Rob believes it isn't sinful in the view of the God he worships (which itself might not even be true upon the deepest analysis), but it is certainly sinful in the view of the God of other religions. Regardless of what he says, it is difficult not to view veganism as the more elevated, more civilized, more advanced way to live. Contrary to what he said, veganism CAN keep disease away, when it is in the form of a whole food plant-based diet. There is even a diet called "The Daniel Diet" which is a plant-based diet inspired by the Biblical prophet Daniel.

VM, you are entitled to your opinions, but please don't lecture anyone as the majority of the world disagrees with you concerning consumption of animals as part of a balanced diet. Furthermore, Nazi Germany made synthetic meat in 1945. It was explored by the US and they declined to develop it further postwar. It was an organic woven strand loaded with vitamins and amphetamines and artificial beet red coloring. I wrote an info-parody about it. As for P&P, George Carlin is dead. 7 years is not anything compared to an eternity in hell.

Mr. Arndt, George Carlin is indeed dead. Except for his ashes, which are scattered to the wind, he no longer exists. You will not find him in that ludicrous fiction you call Hell. In a real sense, he is more alive on YouTube than you are in life. For all your preposterous pedantry, you don't possess a scrap of his wisdom, wit, logic and irony as displayed in his lecture "Religion Is Bulls**t."

@VM; Glad to see you quietly making your voice heard on other important issues. @PandP. Hope you are not indirectly disparaging the Inferno-cycle parodies of my grandson. The Hell of fire and brimstone remains real in the minds of many, although Dante described its climate as being more akin to Toronto in March. Dante, and even Michelangelo (lower right corner of "The Last Judgment") also used the stereotype of Hell as a backdrop for satire. The video of Carlin is extraordinary.

GC, we knew you would be taken aback by our verdict on Hell. We can only say, with apologies, "Oink!"

Everyone here is a free moral agent, so believe what you want. Even YHWH says choose life or death. In the end you condemn yourself to the Lake of Fire through rejection of salvation of Jesus Christ. And if there are no consequences to our actions in this life, then Adolf Hitler had every right to kill all enemies of the Reich. Same for Stalin, Mao, Al Qaida, ISIS and every terror organization. All efforts at saving the planet were in vain and all good deeds worth nothing. Btw, it takes more faith to believe in evolution Theory than creation and atheism is also an organized, funded, agenda-driven belief system AGAINST God! It is it's own self-religion of secular humanist self-indulgent will. VM, I ate a nice, bloody steak today in your honor. I feel great. The greatest respect shown for guests in biblical times was fine wine and the butchering of the fatted cow. I will eat meat in heaven and on the New Earth. The evil dead eat nothing for eternity, so stuff your face with herbs and veggies, fruits and grain while you can... NFR

Dear Rob:

NUTS!

Giorgio, I have seen the Last Judgment many times on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. Even more so than the ceiling, the illustrations of the damned and the saved are distorted, with enormously muscular bodies and small heads, as if they spent too much time at Jack LaLanne's. Michelangelo's face appears on St. Bartholomew's flayed skin, which he is holding. In my opinion, Michelangelo is the transcendent genius of all time. My son, who has an Oxford doctorate in archaeology, explained a lot about what underlies Rome to me. Although he makes a living as a journalist, he still lectures visiting students on Etruscan kraters. His specialty, about which he wrote a book, is the illicit trade in antiquities, mostly those dug up in Tuscany. Let's hope they're repatriated to Italy and saved from the barbarians. I saw the great krater by Euphonius at The Metropolitan Museum of Art one day before it was sent back to Italy. My son's children, born in Rome, will easily become Italian citizens at age 18. Dual citizenship should serve them well. My son and daughter-in-law, however, take great care and expense to keep them Americanized.

Colonel Gaston Bell: General McAuliffe refused a German surrender demand. You know what he said? General George S. Patton: What? Colonel Gaston Bell: "Nuts!" Patton: [laughing] Keep them moving, colonel. A man that eloquent has to be saved.

Did you benefit from some speech therapy, Porky? What happened to your stutter?

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/ways-benefit-eating-meat-4357.html

okay, I'd love to stick around but I cant think stright

How long shall we keep this thread alive? Til Kingdom Come? Rob has a need to believe in consequences for actions in this life but believing in negative consequences due to meat consumption isn't convenient for him due to his love for (more accurately, addiction to) meat eating. That bloody steak you consumed surely wasn't in any vegan's honor. That behavior only honors barbarity. If there does exist grace from a Deity for sinners, that grace is not a license to sin, which is backed up in New Testament scripture as well. The writer of much of the New Testament, Paul ended up a vegetarian. For those who believe it's alright to eat meat due to Bible verses, but aren't sure about it, consider the net article "The Biblical Basis For Veganism". The author argues that God allowed man to eat meat from the time of the great flood up until 700 BC. If he's right, humans eating meat in 2015 are surely sinning. Rob thinks Christ ate lamb, but if he was an Essene, he wouldn't have. Christ rebuked the Pharisees and Sadducees but never the Essenes because they were the purest sect, so it's likely he was an Essene himself. Like many of the revolutionary prophets of the Bible, Christ no doubt loathed animal sacrifice. Christ called for mercy, so it's quite easy to visualize him showing total mercy for all creatures. Amen?

And to think, it was the Nazis that introduced the first animal protection laws! Secondly, they brought back from extinction a likeness of the Tarpan Horse and Auroch Cattle (the Hecks)! Add synthetic food, synthetic blood and plasma, even the first link between cigarettes and lung disease! Hitler, contrary to myth, was NOT a Vegetarian. He ate meat as well... but due to GI health problems and opioid addiction, ate very little. Health experts agree that meat consumption is part of a healthy, balanced diet. VM is unbalanced with a Vegan agenda. As for "my addiction", not so. I eat meat a few times a month, not everyday nor even week. My heart is fine. I also drink alcohol socially once on a while- vodka, unflavored straight up. Alcohol is also good for you in moderation. And lastly VM, don't quote me anything from God's Word. There are many instances of God (Jesus, the Word made flesh, Lamb of God), angels, and Jews eating meat that your Vegan nonsense is fully refuted. You worship animals and apply scripture to them which is inaccurate. Man was given dominion over them. They are never equal to humans. Again, I ask- do you feed the homeless or support homeless charities? Do you support food banks? I do.

Vegan Diet dangers: http://butternutrition.com/10-vegan-diet-dangers/

Watch for my new, cold and refreshing Meatsicle©, frozen meat on a stick. So ingenious that it stumped the Nazis. Contains frozen water, natural meat flavoring, coloring, chewy bits of mystery fat, salt, modified xanthum gum, sodium nitrite as a preservative, and less than the allowable amount of insect parts and vermin hairs. At a halal cart near you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y_OzuBeuIs