I have no problem with folks that are vegetarian or vegan. I have lot of friends that are.
OTH? buttercup wants to find scriptural versus in her belief system that mandate it on all of humanity. . . it just isn't there.
In fact, just the reverse is true. IN both Jewish and Islamic traditions, they follow kosher and halal proscriptions from the Old Testament. In the New Testament, there are specific versus, that tell us, FAITH, is more important than diet, and people are to eat any plant, and any animal. Now, some vegans and vegetarians misinterpret ROMANS 14:21
"It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble." To mean, you should no longer eat meat. BUT THAT IS NOT what this verse is about. When you read it in the context of the entire chapter, it mean, your faith is more important than what you eat, and if eating something that is neither kosher or halal would cause your brother in the creator to lose faith while you are in his house? Then you are to refrain. If you, as a friend of buttercup, were over at her house, and you are both Christians, you should not eat meat in her house, if it should cause her to lose faith. That is all this verse is about. It is simply a proscription of when to still stay kosher, and later, after the creator gave the Arabs Islam, halal. But for Christians, this chapter does away with all dietary proscriptions.
There are CLEARLY, other places in the NT where Jesus is pro-meat eating. You would have to have cognitive dissonance and denial to be vegan and find veganism in the NT to justify your lifestyle.
Mark 6:38-44
"38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”
When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”
39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand."
And when I proved, scientifically, that the creator MADE us omnivores? It triggered her world view, she will accept no other points of view on this. Most of my friends that are vegan and omnivore, accept that humans were created or evolved as omnivores, this is self evident.
I have no problem with folks that choose that life style, I encourage it. I have actually lived it myself. For health reasons, it did not work out for me. Even with supplementation, I lacked proper amino acid and B complex and protein absorption. It is absolutely useless to discuss with followers of this type of lifestyle that plant protein and animal proteins are inherently different, and that for some, their neurological functioning, eventually, with time, depend upon proper nutrition, because, it has, become an article of faith, not science.
This was a good interview.