These have been my experiences, will you please share yours? I might sound rude, like I am judging groups of people, but please keep in mind that I am sharing MY EXPERIENCES, not saying that ALL people under each religious category are the same!!!:

Pagans-
Common Excuses for eating meat: "My ancestors ate meat" and "I'm connecting with the (factory-farmed, tortured) animal", "I'm ____, we have eaten meat since the beginning of time" (Fill in the blank with a (sometimes LIE such as "Native American", "Polish", or any other ethnicity. People use every ethnicity under the sun as an excuse for their meat-eating).

A lot of pagans are vegan or vegetarian, but a lot are not. The ones who are not veg. are usually atleast considerate of the rest of us, although sometimes not. Sometimes ArrowMoonHorn can't have his ritual without his dead animal parts to eat, wear, play with, and sing to...but most pagans are atleast somewhat considerate of veg(etari)ans among them.

Catholics-
Common Excuses: "Jesus ate fish", "Fish don't feel pain", "God created Fish for us to eat on Fridays"

My own personal experience with Catholics and veg(etari)anism has been mostly negative. Nuns at my school would threaten me with the idea of going to hell if I kept "being ungreatful" and not eating the meat on my lunch tray when I was a child. They literally told me that ungreatful children who don't eat their meat go to hell and burn in the eternal fire.

They told me children in other countries are starving and it's a sin not to eat my meat since those children need it. I told them, in a very Honest way, that I wanted them to send my food to those kids everyday since I don't want or need it. I was being sincere, but they thought I was being sarcastic and I got into a lot of trouble for what I said. All adults around me constantly told me that the bible says animals are here for us to eat, and that is their only purpose.

I had ONE teacher who wasn't a nun, and she called herself vegetarian, and she took me under her wing and told me that different people read the bible differently, and to her it says that we are supposed to take care of the animals, not eat them. BUT, she ate fish. That's the typical catholic thing to do, from what my experience has shown me...Call yourself vegetarian, but eat fish because "Jesus ate fish". I am surprised, in an institution where the English language must be spoken properly, even by 5 year olds, or punishments will be given, that the adults would mis-use words and make up their own meaning of words. I'd have to write 100 times on the board if I mis-used a word. She should have had to write "Fish are not vegetables" 100 times.

I've met many many catholic people, and so many of them call themselves "vegetarian" but they eat fish, and often EVERY and ANY sea animal, either using Jesus as an excuse, or by saying "Fish don't feel pain", or "My doctor told me I'll die if I don't eat fish" or one of the other stupid excuses on the list.

NOTE: If sin exists, it was a BIG SIN for the nuns to make me eat meat. After all, MEAT is the reason I got e-coli as a 5 year old child, fell deathly ill for 3 months, and had no use of my kidneys, liver and spleen. Good thing I lived. I wonder how those nuns are doing today, and if they believe in karma yet.

Jewish people-
Common Excuses: (Don't be offended, I'm NOT making this quote up, a friend ACTUALLY said this to me!!!!),
"We Jewish people make up our own definitions for words such as vegetarian, and it can personally mean whatever it means to each person",
"Us Jewish women are princesses, and can call ourselves whatever we want to!"

Some of my Jewish "Vegetarian" friends eat FISH, and that is where the above statements came from...

Jehova's Witnesses:
Common Excuse:
J.W.: "In the new world, everyone will be vegetarian, because the sin of killing will be no more"
Me: "Well, if you know that it is a sin to eat meat, why do you do it now, and wait until the new world comes to stop sinning?"
J.W.: "Preaching vegetarianism is not going to save people and let them into the new world, and introduce them to "The Truth". We can't waste our time on that, when we should be spending it preaching The Truth and giving more people the opportunity to live forever in the new world.
Me: "I thought you are supposed to try and "be good" and not sin now, while you are alive in this world, and that will increase your chances to be chosen to live in the new world, so why not stop eating meat if it's a sin?"
J.W.: "It's a waste of time, we'll all be vegetarian in the new world".

Atheists:
Common Excuse:
Nothing matters anyway. We're all going to die.

General Christians:
Someone actually said THIS to me once:
"I'm vegetarian all year, except on Easter, when I eat LAMB with my church, to symbolize the "LAMB OF GOD". Easter is big in my church, and I am in charge of serving lamb to everyone each year, so I have to eat it, too."
COMMON Answers when I question their meat-eating:
"God put the animals here for us to eat"
"God loves you"
"Jesus loves you"
"God and Jesus love you"

Yes, that's right. The question was "Why do you eat God's creatures, and pay for them to suffer so that you can eat them?"
The answers I got to THAT question were the answers listed above, such as "Jesus loves you"...that doesn't answer my question at all.

POSITIVE things:
*A Christian Vegetarian Group exists, and they spread the word to live a good life and not eat animals.
*African Hebrew Israelites are VEGAN, some of them own the Soul Vegetarian (Vegan) restaurants! :)
*A lot of pagans are vegetarian or vegan
*Aren't Hare Krishna's vegetarian, too?
*Meat and cheese analogs are improving over time, introducing more people to a positive experience with alternatives.