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Porphyry
Newbie
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2018 12:06 pm
Diet: Vegan

Greetings

Post by Porphyry »

Greetings: I learned about this forum from some youtube uploads. I thought I would give it a try.

I'm a little hesitant because the forum seems to be aligned with atheism in its 'new atheism' form. I don't mind people being atheist, it's just that I don't hold to that view myself. I don't see a strong connection between atheism and veganism, but the forum seems to lean towards making that case. I tend to see veganism more from a religious / spiritual perspective (Buddhism, Jainism, Platonism, etc.). I look forward to reading what the forum has to offer to contemporary vegan thought.
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NonZeroSum
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Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:30 am
Diet: Vegan
Location: North Wales, UK

Re: Greetings

Post by NonZeroSum »

Porphyry wrote: Fri Mar 02, 2018 1:00 pm Greetings: I learned about this forum from some youtube uploads. I thought I would give it a try.

I'm a little hesitant because the forum seems to be aligned with atheism in its 'new atheism' form. I don't mind people being atheist, it's just that I don't hold to that view myself. I don't see a strong connection between atheism and veganism, but the forum seems to lean towards making that case. I tend to see veganism more from a religious / spiritual perspective (Buddhism, Jainism, Platonism, etc.). I look forward to reading what the forum has to offer to contemporary vegan thought.
Heya Porphyry, great intro. What gave you the impetus to go vegan? Do you follow many religious vegans on YouTube? I only know of "Koi Fresco" and maybe "the existential vegan", but it would be cool to know more.

This used to be TheVeganAtheist forum created by a YouTuber with the same name. So, many of the discussions in the back logs and around, and people of course. Some Sam Harris eficianodos.

I'm critical of foreign policies justified with spreading secularism, like Hitchens did with beating the drums of war for Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela even.

And I'm an optimistic nihilist myself, "no gods, no masters", but sympathetic to "many gods, no masters", or "our local cultural gods, no imperialist masters" aha.

Here's a good essay I really like:

Beyond Free and Equal: Subalternity and the Limits of Liberal-Democracy

http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3221
Finally, I conclude the dissertation by utilizing the framework developed in the preceding chapters to reflect on two distinctive forms of politics rooted in my own Sikh community and tradition. The first is a modern, subintern politics that largely abstracts away from the content of Sikhi in the course of struggling for inclusion or accommodation into liberal-democratic norms and institutions. The second is a subaltern ethico-politics that struggles to live a Sikh way of life in the face of the broad array of assimilative forces of modernity. I argue that the latter is emerging in the cracks and interstices of the modern project, indeed transgressing the boundaries which that project seeks to impose. In doing so, it points beyond itself, toward the possibility and actuality of diverse modes of praxis, grounded in subaltern traditions, that only taken together in their irreducible diversity can begin to constitute a post-imperial pluriverse.
Unofficial librarian of vegan and socialist movement media.
PhiloVegan Wiki: https://tinyurl.com/y7jc6kh6
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brimstoneSalad
neither stone nor salad
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Joined: Wed May 28, 2014 9:20 am
Diet: Vegan

Re: Greetings

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Welcome Porphyry,

We changed the forum name from "vegan atheist" to "philosophical vegan" to move away from potentially alienating religious people.

Our goal is promoting veganism, not atheism. The only cases where we'd promote atheism is when somebody appeals to religion as an excuse or justification for eating meat, in which case stripping away the religious excuses permits a secular moral argument to be applied (an argument that should apply regardless of faith).
If you have a religious argument to make against religious justifications for meat eating, and that's the path of least resistance, that's great!
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PsYcHo
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Re: Greetings

Post by PsYcHo »

Hello!

There are several religious persons on here, and I'm agnostic myself. Unless a discussion is about religion, it usually doesn't come up. I was raised in a very Christian family, so although I no longer hold any particular faith myself, I respect those who do.

If you don't mind my asking, do you have a particular faith, or do you hold more of a general spiritual type belief? ( And please, feel free to not answer this question, I'm just curious.)

Welcome to the forum!
Alcohol may have been a factor.

Taxation is theft.
Porphyry
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Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2018 12:06 pm
Diet: Vegan

Re: Greetings

Post by Porphyry »

Thanks, everyone, for your kind welcome.

NonZeroSum: My impetus to go vegan was health. Interestingly, I noticed an improvement after just 48 hours. And it was not a small improvement. I studied Buddhism in Korea many years ago. The monastery was vegan, so I had experience with a vegan diet in my past. This meant that the transition was not that difficult. East Asian Buddhism (but not Theravada or Tibetan) is vegetarian, based on the Lankavatara Sutra. But because East Asian cuisine almost never uses dairy, the diet ends up being vegan. I think that is true for some schools of Taoism as well, but I forget the specific traditions involved (perhaps the Celestial Masters?).

brimstoneSalad: As I'm sure you know there are religious groups that are vegetarian and vegan. From my understanding one of the primary reasons in a religious context for this, when it appears, is a program of purification and/or asceticism.

PsYcHo: I was not raised in a religious family and do not really have a religious background until I became an adult and was attracted to Buddhism. These days I tend to think of myself as, sort of, a traditional Platonist, hence the moniker 'Porphyry'. Classical Platonism was vegetarian. I believe that in at least some instances they were vegan. The word did not exist at that time so it is difficult to discern, but there are hints. For example, Plotinus refused to take any medication if it was derived from animal products, even when he was ill.

Thanks again.
Cirion Spellbinder
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Re: Greetings

Post by Cirion Spellbinder »

@Porphyry
Could I ask you some questions about Buddhism?
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