The Biblical story of Eden expresses in mythological form important anthropological facts, most importantly humanity’s emergence from the state of nature into a state of awareness of good and evil, that is, the emergence of humans as ethical beings, the ethical animal. Among all the other animals, humans alone, apparently, have the power to choose between good and evil, between better and worse. Humans can eat both flesh and vegetables. Since humans can thrive on a flesh-free, vegetarian diet, their capacity to eat flesh presents them with a moral quandary. The Eden story expresses the awareness that a vegetarian diet is ethically preferable to one that includes flesh. Adam and Eve were frugivores or fruitarians before the fall, living directly off the fruits of nature. They did not eat animals. Thus vegetarianism is associated with a natural state of pre-lapsarian purity and innocence. Indeed, the Eden myth expresses an awareness of the goodness of the vegetarian way of life and the sinfulness of eating animals, since meat-eating accompanied the Fall. The Eden myth shows how flesh-eating is part of our sinful, fallen nature. However, there is no need - in fact it is a matter of choice - to give into the darker side of our nature. In order to recover our primal goodness, we should therefore return to a vegetarian diet.
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November 2017
AuthorI'm Alan (an anagram for "animal"), an ethical vegetarian. Our colour vision can be traced back to our distant relatives, the fruit-eating, tree-dwelling monkeys, who benefited from colour vision when looking for (ripe) fruit.
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