Vegetarians

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an awareness of the environmental damage caused by livestock production. But whatever their motives,one thing is clear: Vegetarianism can no longer be viewed as a fringe phenomenon. The Gallup poll also revealed that nearly three fourths of Americans reject the notion that vegetarianism is merely a passing fad.
A look at the historical record reveals that these people are correct. In fact, vegetarianism has a long, although not always illustrious, history in the West. A quick review of this history helps put present-day vegetarianism in perspective.
The history of Vegetarianism may surprise some people. It may surprise many people to hear that our early ancestors lived on a semi-vegetarian diet for several million years. Some anthropologists have fostered the stereotype of "man the hunter," but studies of contemporary "hunter-gatherers" suggest that early humans lived primarily on a diet of plant foods, with supplementation from animal flesh. Studies of tribal Australian aborigines ...

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many ideas from the Greeks, including vegetarianism, and in spite of their p ffb enchant for feeding undesirables to the lions, vegetarian ideas survived throughout Roman times The poet Ovid and the philosopher Seneca are examples of Romans who expounded the cause of vegetarianism. The fall of Rome and the spread of Christianity across Europe led to a "dark ages" in vegetarian thought. During this time, Christian thinkers such as Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas provided intellectual rationalizations for the killing, eating, and general exploitation of animals by humans. They argued that only people have free will, rationality, and souls, and that animals were placed on earth for ...

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