YJA Convention 2012 07 Tampa FL Tenth 027618

Author(s): Young Jains of America (YJA)
Publisher: Young Jains of America YJA USA

Page 74

JAINISM FAQS
By: Vandami Namamswami Sramninji Edited by Arpit Mehta, YJA Director of Education
1. WHY CAN'T JAINS EAT EGGS?
Eggs are the end product of a start-to-finish process which violates the fundamental principle of ahimsa at every step of the way. First, male chicks are killed because they cannot lay eggs and are not useful to the meat industry. Second, females are debeaked through painful methods and then placed in such inhumane conditions that many female chickens will die during transport. Though eggs themselves do not contain a live animal, their production involves the senseless violence of many innocent animals around us.
2. WHY CAN'T JAINS HAVE PETS?
Pets are bound with your time schedule. They lose the freedom of movement and desire. You take them for a walk, they can go for a walk. You serve food, they eat. They experience helplessness and we pity them. Bondage is violence. Further when they are sick, people go for putting them to sleep and euthanize them. Is it worth taking the responsibility of a life and making these decisions for them? Especially the tough ones and if you keep them you choose to go through that.
3. WHAT IS THE JAIN VIEW ON ALCOHOL? WHY DO JAINS DRINK OCCASIONALLY?
Why they drink is because they lack self-control, or lack the conviction that drinking is bad. They do not think it to be wrong or if other cultures say it is ok, then they think it should be ok.
Alcohol is bad for a simple reason, it has addictive properties. Even coffee can be addictive but alcohol addiction can lead you to lose your sense of control. People speak of all stories inside their mind when they are drunk, because they have no sense of right and wrong. It is such a weird situation. Some doctors say it is good for your health, but medicine is to heal and medicines have alcohol in them. Medicine is ok, because it is taken in a medicinal dose, again with a composition which has different components to balance its impact.
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YJA CONVENTION 2012 | Tampa, FL