{"id":484,"date":"2009-04-01T22:21:44","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T22:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/04\/the-moral-superiority-of-veget.html"},"modified":"2009-04-01T22:21:44","modified_gmt":"2009-04-01T22:21:44","slug":"the-moral-superiority-of-veget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/04\/the-moral-superiority-of-veget.html","title":{"rendered":"The Moral Superiority of Vegetarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"

A vegetarian diet\u00a0is morally superior to one that includes industrially produced meat. \u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Now, as someone who really likes meat this is hard to take. \u00a0I am\u00a0vegetarian\u00a0during Lent but not all the time, I want to be, but I admit that sometimes I fail and eat meat. \u00a0While I used to rationalize that as part of my meat and potatoes culture (growing up in Wisconsin and all) I can’t preach peace and justice on Sunday and then eat a pot roast after the service and feel like I am practicing what I am preaching. \u00a0 Eating meat is just plain greedy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
The statistics below, compliments of Kathy Freston on Huffingtonpos<\/a>t, make this abundantly clear. \u00a0Just as it is no longer acceptable to take more than our share of other resources, eating meat is wasteful and indirectly leads to food scarcity elsewhere in the world. \u00a0 Check out these statistics<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would save:<\/span>
? 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;<\/span>
? 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;<\/span>
? 70 million gallons of gas–enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;<\/span>
? 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;<\/span>
? 33 tons of antibiotics.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span>If everyone went vegetarian just for one day, the U.S. would prevent:<\/span>
? Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;<\/span>
? 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;<\/span>
? 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;<\/span>
? Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span>My favorite statistic is this:<\/strong>\u00a0According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads. See how easy it is to make an impact?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Each Lent I try to be better Christian in the hope that my seasonal piety will carry on after Easter. \u00a0This year it is my intention to hold \u00a0a permanent fast on meat. \u00a0It is simply the morally right thing to do in our world that can no longer support meat consumption.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A vegetarian diet\u00a0is morally superior to one that includes industrially produced meat. \u00a0 Now, as someone who really likes meat this is hard to take. \u00a0I am\u00a0vegetarian\u00a0during Lent but not all the time, I want to be, but I admit that sometimes I fail and eat meat. \u00a0While I used to rationalize that as part…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-poverty"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Moral Superiority of Vegetarianism - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/04\/the-moral-superiority-of-veget.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Moral Superiority of Vegetarianism - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A vegetarian diet\u00a0is morally superior to one that includes industrially produced meat. \u00a0 Now, as someone who really likes meat this is hard to take. \u00a0I am\u00a0vegetarian\u00a0during Lent but not all the time, I want to be, but I admit that sometimes I fail and eat meat. \u00a0While I used to rationalize that as part…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/04\/the-moral-superiority-of-veget.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-01T22:21:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Raushenbush\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Moral Superiority of Vegetarianism - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/04\/the-moral-superiority-of-veget.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Moral Superiority of Vegetarianism - 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}