When we cause harm to any living being, or take the life of any being, we erode our personal and collective morality. Sports that inflict or routinely result in injury and harm are costly endeavors.  Engaging in these pursuits, we trivialize the worth and spirit of others, diminish ourselves, our characters, values, ethics and ultimately our society.

Every major spiritual teaching promotes non violence and vegetarianism.  Western cultures, although rooted in Biblical teachings, somehow exempt themselves from the obvious admonistion against killing;  reinterpretation of the original scriptural law:

"Thou Shalt Not Kill!  Only God Giveth and Taketh Away Life! . . .  The Wages of Sin Is Death"

We have re-interpreted to our convenience as "Thou shalt not kill" to mean "Thou shalt not kill another human." However scriptures tell us that our food is to be the fruit of seed bearing plants. It is our new interpretation of the admonition against killing that allows us to justify wars, killings, murders.  These are commonplace. We have numbed ourselves to cruelty and become obsessed by it in our entertainment, activities and personal practices and thus we exempt ourselves from what is right, honorable and kind. 

Callousness develops when we walk past the meat counter in a grocery store and are able to look at bloody flesh of animals without connecting that bloody flesh with the sacred beings who we torture in slaughterhouses.  And so, we torture prisoners of war.

Are combat sports entertainment or a vestige of our delight in overpowering another?   This is damaging to us -- to our consciousness, emotions as well as to our bodies. Is hunting an extension of our sense of superiority and entitlement over other  life forms? Flesh is cut off fish while they are still alive!  Can you imagine someone slicing the flesh off of your thighs while you are fully conscious! That is  how fish, poultry, and farmed animals are tortured for our dinners!  Is it kind?  Is it true/right?  Is it necessary?

Spending years, as I have, caring for retired race and sport horses, helped me recognize the shame, abuse, injury, demands and expectations that are heaped on them.  My professed "love of horses" was all about what thrilled me, what excited me, not about what was good for the horses themselves. I had to change -- to compassionate stewardship and that has been infinitely more rewarding.  

Commit to supporting environmental recovery.

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Evidence of society's disconnect, the lack of compassion for others, bursts out in shooting carnages at our campuses, movie theatres, restaurants.  Are we nurturing violence in our homes and families?   Are we planting gardens to grow our own foods and sustain ourselves naturally and harmoniously without harming other species?  Are we modeling loving kindness toward those which are different from ourselves?

Meat eating was an emergency choice made under dire circumstances when famine threatened, so that humanity could survive. There was no Karma incurred because there was no wrongdoing. It was an agreement;  a gift an interim measure. However, routine killing of animals, either for sport or industrial agriculture and slaughter evidences our inability to recognize the inter-connectedness of all life.  Should we be surprised that the escalation of violence in our communities and the world,  has reached the deepest core of our society to erode our experience of "safety and normalcy" in schools, restaurants, streets, movie theatres, churches, colleges??

MEAT EATING (INCLUDING FISH AND FOWL) IS HUMANITY'S

GREATEST SIN AGAINST COMPASSION, PROMOTING INSENSITIVITY TO THE NEEDS OF OTHER LIVING BEINGS AND THE EARTH HERSELF.