What If: Major Religions Meat Prohibition

MrP

Banned
Are there any major religions that prohibit meat eating OTL? The only one I can think of is Jainism, AFAIK, although some forms of Buddhism discourage it.

Having ALL major religions prohibit it (which seems to be what you want) would be rather ASB, I'd think.

The only comparable group that leaps to mind is followers of Pythagoras, what with his whole "human souls are reincarnated into animals and beans" thing.
 
Not just that, cattle do a helluva lot more damage than nondomesticated animals. Buffalo and deer browse. They eat a bit of gras here and there.

the flip side of that is, hoofed animals can make use of marginal areas and produce human food... where you can't plow and plant, dry grasslands, etc. This restriction would have been a hardship as Christianity and Islam moved down into Africa and other harsh climates of the world. If forbidden to eat meat, then you'd see attempts to plow and plant these marginal areas, water them... and get even worse desertification and salinization of these areas. If 'no meat' meant 'no hunting', then Africa would be even worse off... frankly, if faced with such a choice, they'd either ignore the 'no meat' part completely or reject the new religion completely. 'No meat' in a jungle region means more slash and burn agriculture, leading to earlier loss of tropical forests, leading to who-knows-what kind of ecological changes...
 
the flip side of that is, hoofed animals can make use of marginal areas and produce human food... where you can't plow and plant, dry grasslands, etc. This restriction would have been a hardship as Christianity and Islam moved down into Africa and other harsh climates of the world. If forbidden to eat meat, then you'd see attempts to plow and plant these marginal areas, water them... and get even worse desertification and salinization of these areas. If 'no meat' meant 'no hunting', then Africa would be even worse off... frankly, if faced with such a choice, they'd either ignore the 'no meat' part completely or reject the new religion completely. 'No meat' in a jungle region means more slash and burn agriculture, leading to earlier loss of tropical forests, leading to who-knows-what kind of ecological changes...

Lots of cultures get by on mostly vegetables, some kind starch for bulk, and just a little fish or meat from hunting. How common that is for African cultures, pre Christianity, I don't know.

But oi the ban on meat eating leads to a rejection of Xianity or Islam, you'd have seen many regions stay tribal or animist. Certainly far better for the environment. Excepting the Mayans (perhaps) and Easter Island, I can't think of any instances where tribal cultures weren't much better than Christian or Islamic ones on not ravaging the land.
 
What about eggs and dairy products? It wouldn't be as efficient to raise such animals if people didn't intend to eat them, but dairy and eggs could still be an important source of protein.

Also, let's not forget that not eating meat doesn't mean that people won't be needing furs to keep warm in northern climates, or leather for a wide variety of reasons. I suppose they'd toss the taboo meat to the dogs.
 

glowjack

Banned
All this talk of anti-meat

  1. Some places are too dry for crops, but cattle can still graze there.
  2. Meat is higher than plants in mineral and energy concentration.
  3. Its true it takes 1.5lb of grain to produce 1lb of chicken, 2lb to pork, 3lbs to beef but they often graze on grass , not human-feeding grain.
  4. There is no other way to convert cellulose into protein for humans, we can't digest grass.
  5. While we can produce more food if we convered grazing fields to crop lands there is the side effect that we are using farming methods from the green revolution : the most energy, pesticide, and fertilizer intensive method of farming to date.
  6. We are onmivores, the people who can eat will have an advantage in a more mobile food source and an easy way to carry food such as salted meat.
  7. Besides then the religions would never spread to rural areas that depend on animals for food, material, and income.
  8. Crops can't survive in snow, animals can.
 
but they would also have far fewer nutrients and proteins in their diets, so their health would collectively plummett.

I'm not saying the world's Vegan or the majority are Vegitarian, they'd still be eating Fowl, Seafood and protein rich products that can be obtained form animals without killing them, like Eggs and Milk and the various things you can make from it.


What about eggs and dairy products? It wouldn't be as efficient to raise such animals if people didn't intend to eat them, but dairy and eggs could still be an important source of protein.
Also, let's not forget that not eating meat doesn't mean that people won't be needing furs to keep warm in northern climates, or leather for a wide variety of reasons. I suppose they'd toss the taboo meat to the dogs.

Yep, products that come form animals are ok, just not eating them unless they're from the Fowl or seafood category.

I purposefully did'nt say they did'nt kill things early on for that reason, however in the modern setting it would most likely become greatly looked down upon, hunting that is.


All this talk of anti-meat
Some places are too dry for crops, but cattle can still graze there.
Meat is higher than plants in mineral and energy concentration.
Its true it takes 1.5lb of grain to produce 1lb of chicken, 2lb to pork, 3lbs to beef but they often graze on grass , not human-feeding grain.
There is no other way to convert cellulose into protein for humans, we can't digest grass.
While we can produce more food if we convered grazing fields to crop lands there is the side effect that we are using farming methods from the green revolution : the most energy, pesticide, and fertilizer intensive method of farming to date.
We are onmivores, the people who can eat will have an advantage in a more mobile food source and an easy way to carry food such as salted meat.
Besides then the religions would never spread to rural areas that depend on animals for food, material, and income.
Crops can't survive in snow, animals can.

1. If Cattle can survive then Fowl most likely can to.
2. Like I said, they are'nt totally vegetarian, they just only eat Fowl and Fish/seafood in terms of meat.
 
I think I'll open this up some more to incorporate more.

Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism are in the ATL major religions, however they are'nt all necessarily the same, for instance Islam may not be split primarily between Sunni and Shi'a and Christianity may not have Catholicism, they simply have to have the basic beliefs, also another thing I've though about, they may not geographically be in the same places, for instance while Christianity is going to go into Europe, since it's a very good area for an agricultural society, Islam may not spread primarily into the Arabian peninsula and North Africa, in fact I can see it spreading into parts of the Arabian peninsula, primarily coastal areas, but primarily spreading North, into Central Eurasia and perhaps spreading East in the lower part of what is now Asian Russia.

North America being Christian is a given, since most of the Native American and thusly their religions were eliminated by the Europeans, either through the spread of disease or genocide.

South America is less so, I can see their being a more local variant of Christianity that while keeping the core beliefs may develop and adopt more local customs and beliefs.

One other thing, so long as it's against eating most or all animals you could come up with an idea for a additional major religion, perhaps that encompasses parts of Africa.
 
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