Cain, Abel, and Vegans

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Able, bible, Cain, cognitive dissonance, humor, vegan, veganism

I post this entry with trepidation. Too often I see the Bible referred to as prescriptive — live like that and go to hell forever; live like this and live forever. For the literary soul in me, this is mythology at its finest. Samples of this extreme faith have abounded throughout history and continue today. I do not want to delve into that mess. I do not want to write about silly creationism, the biblical basis of America’s Manifest Destiny, modern Christian privilege, biblical arguments on homophobia, or anything else biblical, not seriously, not with the intent of stirring up hatred; for that’s all it will do. In my opinion most of these arguments and practices are simple defense mechanisms against cognitive dissonance — self justification because you have no rational means of figuring out how to resolve issues. This is a light hearted post. I believe it as much as I believe in Tarot cards or rabbits feet. Because this is a cognitive dissonance related topic, I expect many people will take this post in a way I won’t appreciate. Do not preach religion to me. If you have no problem preaching, I have no problem deleting.

I’ve seen many websites extoll the virtues of vegetarianism or veganism and try to use biblical passages to support their stance. I accuse this because I feel it is true. I do not think people wonder how to eat, decide to research the bible for guidance, and then choose. I believe people choose how they eat then use the bible to back up their claims. The easy defenses are to claim the bible is an irrelevant, outdated storybook and that the wheat today is not the wheat Jesus ate. Either way it then becomes a faith battle and neither side will win the other.

I won’t refer all of the hackneyed sites out there quoting passage after passage supporting vegetarian lifestyles — they are all hackneyed in my view — but I will link to Wikipedia. Most sites I’ve seen probably use this page as a reference. It contains a remarkable collection of biblical passages supporting vegetarianism. I argue the list is not complete. It omits the first and possibly most important biblical food story of all — Cain and Abel.

So let’s get to the beginning of it all — GENESIS. The Cain and Abel story. Most of us don’t remember its details. We know they were Adam’s sons and they fought. Why and who won, probably most Christians have to look up. The story runs like this,

Cain was a vegan and Abel an animal eater. God told Cain he was an idiot, so Cain got upset. He posted a website calling Abel an evil bastard, then he killed him. He and his kin have been pumping their misguided hatred ever since.

It’s the simplest and earliest explanation for today’s online vegan who regurgitates baseless fact, pseudo-science, and vitriolic accusations of animal murder at those not of their ilk. It completely explains their modern, misguided behavior. Vegans must have genetic, direct lineage to the dark Cain himself.

Later, as God was checking Facebook, he discovered Abel’s account was hacked.

Cain, you’re a little turd. I banish you to outback of Australia where you shall live with half naked beautiful women who never get fully naked, ever, where you will eat nothing but bananas and durian fruit, where you will be plagued for eternity by large, constant, fluffy, and stinky poop, and your accounts will be constantly hacked and bombarded by intellectual superiors. Good God, what was I thinking when I created you?

And there you have it, the modern descendant of God’s black sheep Cain, the modern vegan. It’s the only explanation that makes sense to me; therefore it must be true.

From Wikipedia, mostly:

Genesis narrative

Cain leadeth Abel to death, by James Tissot paired with an image depicting modern Vegan misinterpretation.

Hebrew Bible version:

¹Adam knew his wife Eve intimately, and she conceived and bore Cain. She said, “I have had a male child with the LORD‘s help.”^a[›]2Then she also gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel became a shepherd of a flock, but Cain cultivated the land. ³In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the LORD. ⁴And Abel also presented [an offering]^b[›] — some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.^c[›] The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, ⁵but He did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he was downcast.^[6]6Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why are you downcast?^{[7] 7}If you do right, won’t you be accepted? But if thou do not do right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it.”⁸Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.”^[8]And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

—Genesis 4:1-8 (HCSB)

After this, God said to Cain, “What hast you done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth out to Me from the ground! So now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand. When thou farm the ground, it shall not yield good crops to you! Thou shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth! (Genesis 4:10-4:12)

Swirling Around the Bottomless Whirlpool

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bottomless, editing, murky, whirlpool

We have a beautiful whirlpool in our river, the Reversing Falls whirlpool. It’s only visible at low tide, and when the fog isn’t too thick. Google these phrases for more images if you must. Local folklore says that people jump off the bridge at low tide in hopes their body gets sucked down and is never found. They always bob back up. There have been two failed attempts to die this summer. The successful attempts don’t get reported. If I had a nickel for every jumper, I wouldn’t have to write novels in hopes I might retire some day.

 Reversing Falls Whirlpool

 Reversing Falls Bridge Whirlpool at low tide

My current novel feels like I’m stuck in the bottom of this thing. I know I posted I was doing well, staying afloat, even maybe about to drive the cool jet-boat that zips through this thing. I can see the water swirling. I can touch it and smell it. I have been on the real one, on the jet boat. I have touched the whirlpool. It’s cold and murky, the color of rotted tree bark. It smells like Winston Rothschild’s weekend camper. My story won’t clear, won’t stop swirling in my head. I need a high tide to flush it all out.

So at this very moment I’m printing the first 100 pages. I have a Sheaffer pen loaded with red ink and another with green. I plan on splitting the printout into two piles and attacking each separately. My stapler handles 28 pages and I printed double-sided. Read, mark up, then update. I am first going to try and assess each scene’s appropriateness for it’s mega-structural-container, its phase in the Hero’s Journey. I will also assess the scene structure. Is the beginning interesting? Can it be better? Is the conflict pulling me along, or am I flicking my lips with my thumb? Is the ending appropriate? Should it be stronger, more subtle, better worded, all that stuff. Finally I will keep a half an eye on the grammar and wording. Just half an eye. I’d like to pass over copyediting, but it’s unavoidable. My internal editor is awake, and he won’t go to sleep unless he’s fed. And I do have lots to feed him.

More Scene Rearranging

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hero's journey, Resurrection, Return Wtih Elixir, scenes

This will be quick. My mind is nearly completely caught up in my story. It seems I can’t do anything without me slipping into it.

A mystery number of days ago — it might be one or it might be five — I wrote the “Resurrection” scenes. Wait, it’s coming back to me now. I began writing it Friday night July 26th and finished it Sunday night. I wrote two scenes, a scene and a short sequel, spanning 4300 words. I said wow, and I mean it. I think I pulled it off. More or less.

Sunday morning I joined two ladies at a coffee shop to write. I wrote some there, but I also experienced a couple of images. That night I wrote an 850 word short story based on them. After two and a half days of editing, I submitted it to the Poetry Institute of Canada’s short story contest. It’s free. I encourage everybody to submit next year. The deadline was Wednesday. I also outlined which was marginally successful.

Yesterday afternoon I sat at Magnolia’s and tried to step through, on paper, the “Return With Elixir” phase. I have a number of challenges. First, I employ a lot of sub-plotting. Much of it is character building stuff, and yes, I know, much of it might have to go. But for now, I want to end everything I started. Such an approach calls for several scenes, almost one per sub-character. Second, I don’t know how this returning business is supposed to play out. How long should it be? I’m threatening to make it too long, or so it feels. I’ve decided to let my instincts take charge. Use all those books I’ve read where the endings seem forever to get to, and tell myself it’s alright to do the same; because, well, you know this stuff is fulfilling to read even if you want it to hurry up. I can’t just cut it all off and let the reader hang or make big jumps in logic. Besides, trimming will come later. It most certainly will.

So I sat there with my tasty glass of red, my sugarcane notebook, and my Parker fountain pen with Sheaffer Scripps [old] blue ink, and I penned a quick scene map starting with the Resurrections Scenes. I read it, ran through it, sipped some wine, and smiled. Yes, I felt happy.

The interesting part for me was taking two scenes from earlier sections and turning them into Elixir or resolution scenes. It means some extra editing, but generally they transferred wholesale. I wrote the one new scene today. This scene needed to tie just about the whole book together, the plot lines, the themes, the character transformations. It’s an important scene. And the good part of this story, the reason I’m posting this blog, is I think I pulled it off. I became my character, walked into the location, and created a tense conversation that felt completely logical. Yes, hopefully, maybe, the scene shuffling is finished. I may have one or two to insert, but overall, it’s ready to be copyedited. Just about. I can’t wait. It fucking needs it.