Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: Is farming and eating animals right?

A: The Urantia Book makes no pronouncements regarding the morality of eating meat, or the farming and raising of animals for food.

We do learn though, that Adam and Eve were vegetarians, as in this quote:

(76:3.7) Up to the time of leaving the first garden, Adam and his family had always subsisted on fruits, cereals, and nuts. On the way to Mesopotamia they had, for the first time, partaken of herbs and vegetables. The eating of meat was early introduced into the second garden, but Adam and Eve never partook of flesh as a part of their regular diet. Neither did Adamson nor Eveson nor the other children of the first generation of the first garden become flesh eaters.

(66:4.7) The practice of subsisting on a nonflesh diet dates from the times of the Caligastia one hundred, for this custom spread near and far to affect the eating habits of many surrounding tribes, groups of origin in the once exclusively meat-eating evolutionary races.

However, just because these beings chose a non-flesh diet, it does not mean that meat-eating is somehow a moral issue.

Consider this passage from a section called "The Cradle of Civilization:"

The evolutionary peoples (notably the Chinese) early learned to plant seeds and to cultivate crops through observation of the sprouting of seeds accidentally moistened or which had been put in graves as food for the departed. But throughout southwest Asia, along the fertile river bottoms and adjacent plains, the Andites were carrying out the improved agricultural techniques inherited from their ancestors, who had made farming and gardening the chief pursuits within the boundaries of the second garden.

For thousands of years the descendants of Adam had grown wheat and barley, as improved in the Garden, throughout the highlands of the upper border of Mesopotamia. The descendants of Adam and Adamson here met, traded, and socially mingled.

It was these enforced changes in living conditions which caused such a large proportion of the human race to become omnivorous in dietetic practice. And the combination of the wheat, rice, and vegetable diet with the flesh of the herds marked a great forward step in the health and vigor of these ancient peoples. (81:1.6)

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Labels: Adam and Eve, animals, diet, health, meat-eating, The Urantia Book, vegetarianism