Hello!

[inator]

Hello everyone,

I'm Ina, I've been a vegan for about two years now and I went from being a meat eater to vegan almost over night. It's harder to pinpoint exactly when I became an atheist, since it's been quite a journey for me. I'd say I was somewhat of a strong believer when I was a kid and teenager. Not in a ritualistic sense - my family and environment have never been overly religious-, but I suppose I identified with what I believed to be the main moral principles of the Christian faith, as in non-violence, tolerance etc. I guess I just liked the philosophical side of it.
It took me a while to realize that morality and ethics are things that don't depend on religion and to actually read the Bible (as well as books on other religions) and find out what it was really about.
I remember that the main difficuly that I had to overcome was fear - fear to question my beliefs, fear to think freely, fear that maybe my conclusions were wrong. Finally I just made a decision to live as authentically as possible.
Religions are still quite interesting to me and I find value in their reflection of the cultures that they have grown out of, as well as in some of their more philosophical aspects.

As for my turning vegan, I made the decision two years ago. The government in my home country had just decided to euthanize all of the stray dogs, although many animal shelters were still half empty. So people were scandalized and organized some protests against that.
I remember I joined them in the streets one day, then got home and started preparing my dinner consisting of a steak. After taking a few bites and still thinking about the poor dogs and the injustice of it all, something just clicked in my head, I realized how hypocritical I was being and couldn't finish my dinner. I never ate meat again. Then I immediately started educating myself on the subject and I also found out about the horrors of the dairy and egg industries, so a few days later I decided to become a vegan.

Many of the vegan people I've met personally and the few vegan friends that I do have tend to either be into New Age spirituality, Yoga and this sort of stuff, or do it for somewhat "hipstery" reasons. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with all of that, but I could never identify with any of them. So I'm really happy I came across the VA's videos and this community of rational people.

[TheVeganAtheist]

Welcome to the forum inator, very nice to have you here. Thanks for sharing your story. How is it to be a vegan in Berlin? Do you find people are accepting? Do you have lots of options to eat out, or purchase groceries?

[Lightningman_42]

Welcome to the forum inator. Glad to hear that you have chosen to live a rational and compassionate lifestyle, respecting all animals. I'm impressed to hear that you made the transition to being vegan so fast. Do you have any social struggles as a result of being vegan?

[brimstoneSalad]

Hi Ina, welcome! I'm glad you posted an intro. Great story too.
I hope you like it here.

[Jebus]

Welcome. That was an excellent introduction. Are you originally from Romania? I remember hearing them killing off all their stray dogs a few years ago. A similar thing happened recently in my home country of Mauritius.

[inator]

Thanks for the warm welcome, it's nice to be here.

How is it to be a vegan in Berlin? Do you find people are accepting? Do you have lots of options to eat out, or purchase groceries?

Berlin is a great place to be in, especially for vegans. It had the first vegan supermarket in Europe and now there are already many places to eat out, as well as vegan events, fairs and lectures (I just saw Melanie Joy a few weeks ago). Even average supermarkets are starting to introduce exclusively vegan sections. I can't complain. There are also squats where they serve vegan food to poor and homeless people (because it's more economical), so being broke isn't really an excuse to not be vegan over here.
I get the impression that young people are just generally more aware of various social justice issues and are more willing to take action, organize demonstrations etc.
On the other hand there are also many hipsters who adopt a vegan diet (key word: diet) because it seems like a cool and alternative thing to do, without really caring that much about the idea behind it. So of course they don't keep that up for too long before going back to eating animal products. That can really mess with the reputation of vegans, who are often seen as superficial and elitist and aren't really taken seriously by the average person.

Do you have any social struggles as a result of being vegan?

I think my struggles haven't been very different from what everyone else experiences after turning vegan. Sure, it's been hard for my family to get used to it, it's also difficult for me to have family dinners with them and be surrounded by dead carcasses. Sometimes they challenge my views, sometimes they ridicule me, sometimes the actually listen.
My friends are generally interested in why I'm doing what I'm doing and ask questions about it. Three of them became vegetarian after I explained it to them and linked them to some youtoube videos.

Are you originally from Romania? I remember hearing them killing off all their stray dogs a few years ago. A similar thing happened recently in my home country of Mauritius.

Yes, it happened in Bucharest, Romania, my hometown. I hadn't heard about the same thing happening in Mauritius, that's terrible.
Romania is more conservative and people there are generally unaware and passive regarding many issues. Few people know what veganism means back there and when someone hears I'm not eating any animal products, they usually assume it's some sort of fast for religious reasons. That's a more acceptable idea to them than having compassion for animals.

[EquALLity]

Hi, and welcome to the forums! Cool story!

It had the first vegan supermarket in Europe and now there are already many places to eat out, as well as vegan events, fairs and lectures (I just saw Melanie Joy a few weeks ago).

There are vegan supermarkets in various places in Europe? Europe is looking pretty great right now!

But then there are the blasphemy laws etc.

[inator]

Well Europe is not really as homogenous a place as some might think... But Berlin is pretty great for vegans.
I also saw some vegan activists in Vienna a few weeks ago, they got permission to show scenes from slaughter houses (might have been Earthlings, I'm not sure) on a large screen in a central square, on Saturady evening. Pretty impressive.

Yes, there are blasphemy laws in some states, including in Germany. Not sure what it's like in other countries, but here I get the impression that its main purpose is to protect minorities. Not that this makes it right, but this law also doesn't really seem to be enforced much lately (the last case I heard of was in 2006) and we can only hope that it's on its way out. There have been debates about that, especially after Charlie Hebdo.
All in all, I think this is a secondary issue compared to other problems that Europe is facing right now.