Phyrie wrote:
"Jasi" wrote in message
...

Thanks for the input. I accept and respect your lack of religious
conviction. However, my faith has some "rules" and one of them is not to
keep dead animals in the house. Yes, I'm sure that seem stupid and
strange to you. That's ok with me. I'm not asking you to understand or
believe it, but if you don't mind it would be nice if you could answer
without insulting my faith or my family.

I tried not to insult, but I can see that I did. I do have a hard time with
religions that don't allow their faithful any freedom of mind. I have
difficulty understanding why these "rules" are interpreted the way they are,
and think they leave lots of room open for different interpretations,
depending on who's preaching it, or even simply reading it out of a book on
their own. Literal interpretations of parables and fables written thousands
of years ago, in a totally different world, seem to me, yes, stupid and
ignorant. I also recognize that, as a totally unreligious person, I have a
hard time understanding, and tolerating, blind faith. It's a fault, I
suppose, but blind faith to me seems the worse fault.

My husband works with a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses. They have a rule about
blood transfusions. They say that their god said, "Thou shall not take of
another man's blood" so they have outlawed any surgical procedures that
might need blood products. My husband asked one of them one day, "Don't you
think maybe the god meant don't SPILL another man's blood, as in, don't harm
or kill anyone? How could a book who-knows-how-old even comprehend blood
transfusions, let alone forbid them!?" The man looked confused, and said he
would have to ask his elder about it. He asked, and the elder said, "We
don't ask questions. We do what we're told." And that was the end of it.
Sheer idiocy, to me.

Funny, I have always assumed that meant not
to steal. As in the blood of their labors. or
their lives. Just a general "Hands off, if
its the result of someone else's lifeblood"


My sister-in-law, a born-again Mormon explained the existence of dinosaurs
once to my daughter: "God made the earth, whole and complete, like forming
a dough ball between his hands from the fabric of the universe, and he put
all the dinosaur bones under the earth for us to dig up." She couldn't
explain why her god would want to do that, and she just blew off carbon
dating as wrong. She also couldn't explain where the universe came from in
the first place, as it's not in her book. If it's not written in the
"book", it didn't happen. And if it's IN the "book" it did happen. Period.

OMG, I just had an image of God as Matt
(wasn't it Matt that described this?) burying
bones in a "designated digging area" to
entice his dogs to not dig in the yard.

You think that was it? If so, I think we
totally missed the point what with all the
highways and mines and such ;-)

But that wasn't my point. My point was, your dog is not religious. He
shouldn't be held to your religion's standards. If you don't want to eat
the flesh of animals, that's fine. But to have dead animals in the house?
You do know that you probably, right now, have hundreds, if not thousands,
of dead things in the house right now. Mice, bugs, birds... They all get
in and live, and die, in homes. I am NOT trying to upset you, but to make
you see that perhaps there is some wiggle room in the interpretation of
"dead animals".

I see her point though. There's a difference
between nature creating life and death by the
millions in any given place, and me *keeping*
dead things in the house.

Of course, I just bought a chest freezer to
store my animals raw ground animals so that I
would be able to buy it in bulk from a farm a
few states away....so, apparenlty I keep a
LOT of dead things in this teeeeeny little
apartment.

And I don;t even get to USE it. I'm a
vegetarian, and I don;t even want to THINK of
putting my food in there with that stuff. Yuck.

Maybe if you could explain your religion's aversion to "dead animals", there
might a compromise that can achieved that won't gross out you or your mother
in law. BTW, you brought her up, not me.

Or, if she's leaving soon, perhaps a short
term solution can be worked out, like the
idea of storing the food out of the house. If
that notion extends to *anyone* in the house
eating meat, and the stay is short enough, I
would consider a veggie diet for a few weeks,
but after that, I'd owe them like 10 steak
dinners in a row!

"sighthounds & siberians" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:41:44 -0700, "Phyrie"
wrote:


"Jasi" wrote in message
...

Thanks for the input. I accept and respect your lack of religious
conviction. However, my faith has some "rules" and one of them is not
to
keep dead animals in the house. Yes, I'm sure that seem stupid and
strange to you. That's ok with me. I'm not asking you to understand
or
believe it, but if you don't mind it would be nice if you could answer
without insulting my faith or my family.

I tried not to insult,

Not very hard, you didn't. If you have a hard time with religious
beliefs that don't make sense to you, you might try just keeping
silent about them.

And accomplish what? Silence only keeps me ignorant, or more ignorant, if
you like. I may not be the most tactful or even tolerant, but I'm willing
to listen. It's up to me to decide if the information I'm provided is
valuable or not, but without it I can't even begin to understand it.

Anything, or -one that tells me to believe them just because they said so
will always be questioned by me. I guess you come from the "shut up and
believe what you're told" school of religion.

--
Phyrie
Kiba the Cav's Pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phyrie/...758930/detail/

In article ,
Phyrie wrote:
I tried not to insult, but I can see that I did.

Okay.

I do have a hard time with
religions that don't allow their faithful any freedom of mind.

And then you did it again.

In the interest of the greater good I'd take this one
offline, okay? She's got a practical problem and needs a
practical solution.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 21:12:02 -0700, "Phyrie"
wrote:


I tried not to insult,

Not very hard, you didn't. If you have a hard time with religious
beliefs that don't make sense to you, you might try just keeping
silent about them.

And accomplish what? Silence only keeps me ignorant, or more ignorant, if
you like.

Well, you certainly accomplished a great deal by what you said. One
reason to just shut up about other people's religious beliefs, whether
or not you understand or agree with them, is that it's insulting to
trash them. After saying you are a completely unreligious person -
which is absolutely fine, I'm sure, with everyone here - you continued
to blather about how "stupid", "ignorant" and idiotic particular
beliefs are. That, to me, is not seeking to understand them, and if
you're coming from a position of unbelief, it's not likely that you
are truly seeking to understand them anyway.

Anything, or -one that tells me to believe them just because they said so
will always be questioned by me. I guess you come from the "shut up and
believe what you're told" school of religion.

I did, and I left it for another, thanks for asking. If you want to
question religious beliefs, there are forums for that. When someone
asks how to work with a dietary restriction that comes from a
religious conviction, your questioning the validity or rationale of
that religious conviction in a less than tactful manner is unlikely to
result in useful information for the person asking the question.

"Jasi" wrote in message:

In countries like India, most of what they find is vegetarian. There's
certainly no shortage of street dogs in India, so I would guess they're
doing ok without all the meat.

I am in a position to comment on this. The dogs do eat whatever is
available, which includes leftover meat and bone (cooked). Although the
country is predominantly vegetarian, it is not vegan, and
meats/yogurt/milk/eggs are available. Stray dogs live very short lives
there; between other dogs, humans, vehicles, dog catcher, I'd be very
surprised if very many make it more than four or five years.

My parents have been feeding their local strays since they moved back to
India in 2003, and they're on their third set of strays now. The longest
lived group they fed made it about 3 years.

Suja

"Jasi" wrote in message:

Thanks Melinda. I am currently keeping the kibble in a sealed
container... that's been fine for years, but my husband's family (coming
from India to stay with us) is very strict and old-school in their
thinking, so I'm looking at alternatives.

Have you spoken with a vet or better still, a veterinary nutritionist? They
might be able to give you pointers on what to look for in a vegetarian dog
food, or maybe help you prepare one at home that is nutritionally complete.
I know that we had at least one person here that was feeding his dog a
vegetarian diet for health reasons, with the help of a nutritionist (yes,
anecdote, not data).

How long are the in-laws staying?

Suja

On Apr 20, 11:36*am, "Suja" wrote:
"Jasi" wrote in message:
In countries like India, most of what they find is vegetarian. There's
certainly no shortage of street dogs in India, so I would guess they're
doing ok without all the meat.

I am in a position to comment on this. *The dogs do eat whatever is
available, which includes leftover meat and bone (cooked). *Although the
country is predominantly vegetarian, it is not vegan, and
meats/yogurt/milk/eggs are available. *Stray dogs live very short lives
there; between other dogs, humans, vehicles, dog catcher, I'd be very
surprised if very many make it more than four or five years.

My parents have been feeding their local strays since they moved back to
India in 2003, and they're on their third set of strays now. *The longest
lived group they fed made it about 3 years.

Suja

I did not read the entire thread. There is a standard poodle owner on
one of my lists that has one spoo that has to be in on vegetarian. She
is allergic to all animal protein. As long as she stays on that, she
is fine. Her other dogs are fed mostly raw if i remember correctly.
It took a few years before this was figured out.. testing, elimination
process etc

"Melinda Shore" wrote in message
...

In the interest of the greater good I'd take this one
offline, okay?

Agreed.

Melinda Shore wrote:

Okay, yes - I'm *very* familiar with that situation. What
about keeping the kibble in a sealed container outside the
house and feeding either outside or in a room other than the
kitchen? Just because the dog lives inside doesn't mean
that it has to do everything inside, as we know (hah!). The
problem with feeding outside is that it tends to attract
unwanted animals, so I'd tend to prefer to feed in another
room, like the basement or a garage, and then bring the dog
back into the main part of the house after eating.

Great idea, and I have no idea how I managed to miss it before. I think
we'll try feeding in the garage and see how it goes. Thanks!

-Jasi

Suja wrote:

Have you spoken with a vet or better still, a veterinary nutritionist? They
might be able to give you pointers on what to look for in a vegetarian dog
food, or maybe help you prepare one at home that is nutritionally complete.
I know that we had at least one person here that was feeding his dog a
vegetarian diet for health reasons, with the help of a nutritionist (yes,
anecdote, not data).

How long are the in-laws staying?

Suja



I'm not sure if there is a veterinary nutritionist in my area. I've
honestly never heard of it. It's something I'll have to look into.

Thanks,
-Jasi