On Self-Serving Hypocrisy

At lunchtime today I was sitting in a new cafe which has recently opened in Northampton, The Green Bean. It's a cute little place and extremely vegetarian and vegan friendly - their VBLAT is my current absolute favourite.....But that aside, what got my attention and made me fume was an incident which occured at the table next to me. As My Beloved and I were waiting for our lunch to come out, we noticed the folks at the neighbouring table receive their food. The older man had ordered tofu with steamed greens and brown rice (it looked awesome, I have to admit) but his younger companion had plumped for a cheeseburger. OK, this is an omni place, so this choice is not surprising in itself.

What blew my socks off was the way they linked hands across the table and bent their heads to say grace. I was really struck by the question - as I watched them thanking their god for the meal - of whether the cow appealed to his god as he faced slaughter. It seems to me, admittedly as a person of no specific religious doctrine, that the act of praising your god for receiving the bloody result of abject misery, suffering and horror (aka 'meat') is perhaps the worst kind of abomination.

I haven't necessarily thought through my feelings on religious people who preach compassion and mercy and then happily consume the flesh of a fellow creature who ultimately knew neither. But I suspect that I have little patience for such blinkered, self-serving hypocrisy.

Stay Vegan, Friends.