Do plants feel pain?

[Podshell]

Psychoslice

I don't think the point is that nothing dies, killing is a big disruption for the entity, I suppose it is like suddenly being evicted from your comfy home because someone else wants quick pleasure from it.

Knightofalbion

If you permit... it has been scientifically proven a while ago that plants react to the environment, for example to the intentions of someone approaching, etc. I do believe that they are animated, i.e. that they have a soul. So yes, I believe that they feel "pain", although maybe not the way we do.

I don't believe that this question is all black or white, but shades of gray. By killing an animal we do "hurt" this animal, and by killing a plant too. It is just a question of which is the lesser "drastic". And by that I do not mean to say that we should be vegan or not; I just want to share my point of view... all is shades of gray. Who can live without killing? We would have to eat bodies that are already dead, like dried already-dead herbs, etc. Even when breathing, we kill bacteria, like one Swami was saying.

It's not an easy question.

[knightofalbion]

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

On the subject of plants. They don't have souls, whereas animals do. They certainly do possess a degree of consciousness though.

But as they lack a central nervous system it would seem logical that they do not feel pain.

That being said, when we look back, say, 400 hundred years, man had written wonderful works of literature, created astonishingly beautiful works of art, constructed amazing buildings, bridges and monuments - and yet his consciousness did not accept that black people had souls or were really human beings like the Europeans. But we know better now.
Maybe in future times we will have a greater understanding of plants and how they respond to their environment - and us.

Certainly, in the spiritual veganism advocated in the 'First Blessing' the instruction is to eat of the fruits of the earth, which does not involve the destruction of the plant.

TThor: I refer you to what I wrote in an earlier post.

Were it to be established that plants had souls, that would certainly be a game changer, just as establishing that animals have souls. When that point of consciousness is reached it transforms one's view of the world.

Experience and wisdom has taught me to rule nothing out. Plants do not occur in NDEs though - lots of pets and individualsed wild animals have, but no plants. Which would seem to suggest that they aren't on an evolutionary path.

Perhaps they are an expression of consciousness that 'serves' by providing sustenance and expressing the beauty of the Divine on the earth plane?

Silver Birch I believe it was said that flowers in the spirit world are larger and of a much greater colour and vibrancy than here, and can be made to bloom and grow by the power of loving thought.

Originally Posted by TThor

Knightofalbion

If you permit... it has been scientifically proven a while ago that plants react to the environment, for example to the intentions of someone approaching, etc. I do believe that they are animated, i.e. that they have a soul. So yes, I believe that they feel "pain", although maybe not the way we do.

I don't believe that this question is all black or white, but shades of gray. By killing an animal we do "hurt" this animal, and by killing a plant too. It is just a question of which is the lesser "drastic". And by that I do not mean to say that we should be vegan or not; I just want to share my point of view... all is shades of gray. Who can live without killing? We would have to eat bodies that are already dead, like dried already-dead herbs, etc. Even when breathing, we kill bacteria, like one Swami was saying.

It's not an easy question.

Exactly! It is an unfair double standard IMO. Everything on this planet dies, the plants, animals, mountains, whole continental plates, the atmosphere, oceans, and even the planet itself. Things need energy to survive, and life has adapted to aquiring energy though eating other life. When you die your body is broken down and re constituted into the biosphere. No different from every atom in your body was created when a star died and sent its matter across space.

I was told once that the plants of this planet are the earth's nervous system.

the plant may not feel the pain.....but the planet does?

[psychoslice]

Well no pain, no gain lol.

[psychoslice]

Originally Posted by Podshell

Psychoslice

I don't think the point is that nothing dies, killing is a big disruption for the entity, I suppose it is like suddenly being evicted from your comfy home because someone else wants quick pleasure from it.

It not just pleasure, its survival lol.

[psychoslice]

Originally Posted by knightofalbion

'We' were given the fruit, but 'we' took the meat - and turned ourselves into savages. We did a terrible wrong.

That's your story, that's your belief.

Originally Posted by psychoslice

Well no pain, no gain lol.

lol...........well....if the planet actually does "feel"....I would probably use another word other than "Gain"

[psychoslice]

Originally Posted by Mr.Whitmore

lol...........well....if the planet actually does "feel"....I would probably use another word other than "Gain"

No, when you see where it all started from, just a big pool of yucky stuff, and here we are, wow, what a big step that was, just imagine what we would have been feeding on back a million years ago.