Arguing it's wrong to eat meat because it's unhealthy is like saying rape is wrong because you might catch venereal disease."

The moral reasons are the real reason to abstain. Because we live in a narcissistic society, Americans are won over by the health arguments first.
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A quote from Albert Einstein about Buddhism:
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"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism. "