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Letters to the Editor ... Letters to the Editor Myths of Vegetarianism diet of meat, wild fruits and vegeta- | regress to boot. Pye unfortunately Extending that analogy, that is, Dear Editor: Thank you for the | bles. As Dr Byrnes points out in | buys into the Darwinian hypothesis | our position vis a vis Intelligent wonderful and enlightening article | his article, different peoples | of "primitive" Neolithic societies | Design, we see and can study only by Dr Byrnes [NEXUS 9/03-04]. | evolved in different ways. | and presumably still more primitive | the results. Can the living, sensitive As an American Indian (I have | Everyone wasn't meant to be a veg- | hunter-gatherers before that. cells in my body fathom the (I like never liked the term "Native | etarian—including many who now I like to think that our work on | to think!) Intelligent Design respon- American"; it smacks of jargon, not | are vegetarians. the Sphinx, and a considerable body | sible for this letter? Can the mole- identity), Ihave long been suspi- | The vegetarian way of life is not | of work by like-minded co-workers | cules comprising the individual cious of the claims made by vege- | ipso facto superior or healthier, | (to say nothing of the legends and | cells fathom whatever the cellular tarians concerning health and spiri- | despite their shrill claims. And | mythologies around the world), | reaction to this act may be? I sus- tuality, especially when many of the | though I often hear vegetarians rant | solidly establishes a non-linear sce- | pect they cannot, and, by the same vegetarians making these claims | about how "spiritual" they are, they | nario for human civilisation. token, we cannot fathom with any have looked like they've just got out | Seem to forget that vegetables are | _ Without reiterating the consider- | precision the "intent" of the of Dachau. living beings, too, with every right | able body of evidence, there was a | Intelligent Designer (or Designers) As for spirituality, I doubt there | to life that every other creature has. | highly advanced human civilisation | responsible for the vast and com- are many vegetarians anywhere Just because plants don't have big | in place before the last Ice Age | plex "Unity" that is organic life on who could match the deep spiritual- | brown eyes to gaze into doesn't | (and, quite possibly, even long | Earth. We see and can study only ity of my ancestors—a people who | make them less alive. Just because | before that), capable of feats of | the results, one of which is us... lived almost exclusively on meat. | you can't hear them scream when | pure physical engineering that we | _ This still does not provide a nuts- As for vegetarianism being a | you kill them doesn't mean that | still cannot reproduce with our | and-bolts solution to the mystery of cure for world violence, let me | they don't. It is a simple fact of | clever machines (e.g., the Sphinx | the domestication of animals or the remind you of Adolf Hitler. | nature: we all kill to live, or have | and Valley temples, etc.) much greater mystery of organic Indeed, many of the Nazi higher- | Some part in the killing. To my Like Pye, I long ago realised that | life on Earth, with us in the middle ups as well as much of the Japanese | people, plants are no less alive than | the domestication of plants and ani-| of it. Perhaps this mystery cannot High Command during WWII were | 2nimals or humans, and there are | mals represented a gigantic step | be solved? (Actually, I like to think vegetarians. I am not saying that | rituals of placation that must be | forward in civilisation, and have | it can be; it just hasn't happened vegetarianism causes fascism— observed when killing anything. __ | (since the spectre of genetic engi- yet.) But calling in alien interven- though, using vegetarian logic, I The key, here, is not to avoid | neering loomed on the horizon back | tion most assuredly does not solve probably could—but that dietary | killing. We can't. Our survival is | in the early '70s) considered that | it either. habits do not necessarily make the | footed in killing other beings and | this, and only this, could account John Anthony West, man. A jerk is a jerk, no matter | taking their lives to feed our own. | for this amazing phenomenon. | JAWSPHINX@aol.com, website what he or she eats. Eating all the | The key is to take only what you | Except that it may not have utilised | http://www. jawest.com vegetables and grain in the world | need and leave the rest alone— | the kind of purely mechanical tech- won't change him or her into a_| Whether it is plant or animal. nology we employ today; it may | HIV Does Not Cause AIDS nicer, better person. You want spirituality? Try | have been accomplished by "men- Dear Duncan: I am writing to let Though vegetarians have | Tespecting and living in harmony | tal" means. In other words, if we you know about my research find- wrapped themselves in the blanket | With all life, plants as well as | knew how they did it, it would look ings on AIDS. claim of superior health, I have animals. Our lives depend on them. like magic to us, but would have My extensive research on AIDS never noticed this to be the case. | Perhaps, then, we can stop making | been technology to them... worldwide has not led me to a sin- Many of the ones I know seem to | @ moral/political debate out of the | Pye dismisses rather summarily | gle individual with AIDS that was have significantly weaker immune | Simple question: "What's for | the Intelligent Design argument, but | caused by HIV, nor a single person systems; they catch every "bug" | dinner?" . that seems to me to be far the better | with AIDS who was cured by treat- going around and, when sick, they | _ James LaMotte, Michigan, USA, | solution. To appreciate its power, | ment with antiviral agents (AZT tend to stay sick longer. They often | Powaksin@aol.com however, calls for an analogical | and protease inhibitors). feel cold, even in the summer heat. understanding of the nature of hier- On the contrary, the epidemiolo- Many are anaemic or borderline | ET Intervention is No Solution archical organisation. gy and pathology of AIDS showed anaemic most of the time. And Hello, Duncan: Lloyd Pye does Even right here on Earth, in pure- | that agents and factors other than lately, several of my vegetarian | a splendid, indeed, magisterial job | ly terrestrial organisations, the | HIV are responsible for causing the friends have been dropping dead in | dismembering the Darwinian | "lower" does not understand the | worldwide AIDS epidemic. their mid-forties from cancer and | Delusion [NEXUS 9/04], but his | "higher". The lavatory attendants at| My findings have been reviewed heart attacks—and these among | proposed solution to the mystery of | a nuclear facility do not understand | and supported by scientists and non-smoking vegetarians. Yet the | the domestication of animals and | what the boffins are doing with | physicians. I have had five articles survivors continue preaching their | plants (aliens dunnit) is no real | their particle accelerator; the dish- | on AIDS published this year as let- dietary creed at me like a batch of | solution but merely launches the | washers at a five-star restaurant do | ters to the editor of the British Baptist missionaries, urging me to | same problem out into space. not understand either the actions or | Medical Journal (nos. 1-5). In repent my evil, meat-eating ways If aliens dunnit, how did they get | the decisions of the chef; and the | these articles, I described the main and embrace their brand of "truth". | so smart? Either via the Darwinian | hot dog vendors at Yankee Stadium | causes of AIDS worldwide and pro- And since we've been living on | Delusion, which is of course no | have little inkling of what is going | vided recommendations to end this the starches, grains and sugars that | solution at all, or still smarter aliens | through the minds of the players on | horrible epidemic. Also, my web- white America likes so much, we've | genetically engineered them, and | the field. Lavatory attendants, dish- | site (http://www.toxi-health.com) suffered an epidemic of diabetes, | still, still smarter aliens engineered | washers and hot dog vendors per- | contains more articles describing heart disease and cancer that we | them in turn...ad infinitum, which | ceive only the results of those | my findings on AIDS. never knew when eating our natural | is also no solution and an infinite | actions. It appears that the United States 4 = NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2002