I would also recommend the brochure to any Christian meat-eater.

http://www.all-creatures.org/cva/honoring.htm

The unselfish view of Jesus’s crucifixion is that he dramatically displayed how the powerful should exercise self-sacrifice on behalf of the less powerful.

In fact the main event that led to Jesus being killed by the state was an act of mass-animal liberation he performed at the Temple.

The latter prophets plainly state that God abhors and does not want animal sacrifice. It is rebuked many other places.

The bible begins and ends with an ultra-vegan world in which there is no killing or exploitation. Mercy, humility, “the meek shall inherit the earth,” “thou shalt neither hurt nor destroy,” “thou shalt not kill,” the Golden Rule, and so forth – these are repeated themes throughout the bible. Departures from that are the “noise,” as Norm Phelps puts it, that should be discounted.

I find that most Christians “get” that being merciful and killing for pleasure are incompatible, and that a loving God will not mind if we treat his creatures with as much respect and kindness as possible. Sure, they’ll defend their meat-eating with a few passages from the bible (which are easy to refute), as well as “but humans are designed to eat meat” and “what will happen to the cows if we suddenly stop eating them” and “what if you were on a desert island,” and so forth, but nearly all carnivores get defensive and resort to desperate and implausible rationalizations at first. That’s just part of the process.

When a carnivore declares that animals are worthy of compassion – which they are – I find that either:

a) the carnivore has a constrained and conditional compassion, and/or
b) the carniviore’s heart may be in the right place, but s/he is addicted to meat and/or is afraid s/he’ll wither away without meat and/or is weak-willed and/or is morally lazy, and/or
c) the carnivore is saying what they know is right, but without conviction.

There are different degrees of compassion, but strong and deep compassion goes far beyond non-exploitation. Refraining from exploitation is merely one manifestation of compassion. By all means we should advocate veganism, but we should also cultivate and encourage compassion; without it I can’t see how we’ll achieve a truly peaceful and harmonious world.

Jovanka, I recall an online forum debate where someone wrote this extensive secular philosophical argument while the entire position rested on the indisputable established assumption, “We know that humans are the dominant species.” You can find this circular reasoning on anti-animal rights websites that offer Western 17th and 18th century rights theory as the final word without any examination of inherent biases.

Kris, you are welcome to counter religiosity with religiosity, certainly this approach works some people but I find it to be a near futile endeavor, as there seems to be no end to the interpretations of religious texts and doctrines. With the amount of animal sacrifice and ritual inherent in Abrahamic religions, it’s surprising that there are any religious vegetarians from the big three.

It is interesting that the more devout followers (monks and so on) of most every major religion at one time or another tend to exclude animal flesh. However, so long as prominent religious leaders like Pope Benedict and the Dali Lama eat animals, it doesn’t establish any precedence for religious followers and greatly diminishes the persuasiveness of vegetarianism through religious authority.

In Christianity, since God made Jesus to be an “ultimate sacrifice,” that condones the practice of sacrifice – the innocence must suffer, be slaughtered and offered to God so that others may live and benefit. This is accepted to the extent of ritualizing the drinking of blood and consumption of body and certainly reaffirms the amount of animal sacrifice and burnt offerings in the Old Testament. I’m not highlighting a sentence or two in scripture from what many regard as the more allegorical sections of the Bible, this is the large brush stroke concept of Christian theology, the raison d’etre. The symbol of the Christianity is a torture device, and it is holy.

I’m not saying vegetarian Christian’s are wrong, but to be baffled by other Christian’s insistence that animal sacrifice is not only acceptable but in accordance with God’s will and that their interpretation are somehow skewed or without religiously attained merit, is a bit myopic. There’s no stretch of imagination here, just like animals, God put Jesus on Earth for Christians to eat. The way to experience God’s love and acceptance is to kill him and eat him. To reject God’s sacrifice and communion of blood and flesh is to reject God.

“Animals are worthy of kindness and compassion” Is a justification I hear from everyone, vegan or otherwise, but from the compassionate carnivore in particular. Degrees of kindness, compassion and suffering entail near endless degrees of varying attitudes and practices on how that exactly plays out concerning animal treatment. However, the intention and repercussions to exploit others is more like an on-off switch, a far better baseline to inform veganism. Excluding exploitation brings into question the privileged assumption of use and derives the best outcomes of kindness, compassion, reduced suffering, reverence, respect, and humane treatment — terms that have been so co-opted by every well-intentioned animal exploiter to render them meaningless.

From the source of the modern vegan movement, the Vegan Society defines veganism as:
“Ways of living that seek to exclude, as far as possible and practical, all forms of exploitation of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.”

This is not an appeal to philosophical dogma, but a reminder that the overwhelming focus on suffering and compassion (or everlasting health and environmental salvation) and the definitions from many other derivative vegan advocacy groups are incomplete and incomprehensive without mention of non-exploitation. I’ll go so far as to say that omitting non-exploitation misses the whole point.

There is an experience of otherness to address in gazing into the eyes of different species so that this is not the most informative approach to unprejudiced understanding. Even gazing into the eyes of other humans whose genetic heredity seemingly contrasts one’s own, can conjure this perception of separation. Fortunately, the same way we know that the earth is round and revolves around the sun despite our initial terrestrial intuition, formal observation and rational understanding of human and animal anatomy and psychology informs against our pernicious instincts — we (vertebrates in particular) are all so much more alike than different. But before we emulate animal behavior and morality based on our similarities, we need to establish what attributes truly define our humanity.

I disagree that “religion has been at the forefront of social change for centuries.” Social change has progressed despite religion. The final holdouts of enlightenments, scientific revolutions and beneficial social movements are the religious.

I don’t wish to dismiss or offend those with religious beliefs especially when they somehow inform a lifestyle of non-exploitation, but I question the value in debating the subjective and undebatable qualities entrenched in patriarchal, authoritarian, sacrificial, religious practice.

Vegetarianism has projected mysticism and religiously influenced and specious beliefs long enough, perhaps to attract the majority who hold a supernatural worldview. It suffers now as many people categorize it as some sort of religion or cultish following. This overshadows the rational evidence and science-based conclusions that are logical and defensible and the small, yet notable, history of secular-minded philosophers and scientists who affirm these concrete ideas.

The religious, on a whole, are not going to further social change, since change is almost an anathema of how established religion works. By perpetuating uncanny rationales, faith-based claims and irrational actions of some activist groups it becomes an obstacle for conveying vegansim to freethinkers and the critically minded — the ones more inclined to embrace and advance positive social change.

If someone thinks that God – the source of boundless love and goodness – wants them to kill and harm animals for pleasure, they really need to question their interpretation, and be unafraid to ask themselves whether they are misusing God perversely as an presumed “permission giver” for their cruelty, exploitation, and greed.

Killing innocent lives just because you can is a profound violation of the Golden Rule and being merciful. Not to mention “Thou shalt not kill” and God’s ideal vision of a super-vegan world in which no creatures are killed.

In the Bible, the animals are created before any mention of humans and are declared very good in their own right, independent of any utility purpose for humans. They are, in effect, their own reasons for being. Or, to take a religious view, they are of God and loved by God; they have intrinsic value.

I agree with Hamlet: Any concept that can (and should) be used for good and for peace is often twisted by those with power to justify domination and brutality.

Re: Jovanka’s piercingly spot-on comment, perhaps the more probing question is: What are we here for?

For me…the bottom line is compassion. And the golden rule. Animals are a part of all creation. Is it an act of compassion to treat animals the way our society does? No. It is ‘ok’ to continue to do that because this is how we ‘interpret’ our sacred texts? No. Animals are worthy of kindness and compassion. Life…and horrific death…in a factory farm environment is hardly compassionate and certainly not kind. In fact, it is concealed violence about which we have been so desensitized that if you ask a child where a hamburger comes from, he or she will likely say, “MacDonalds.”

It is important to note that religion has been at the forefront of social change for centuries. Some people of faith actually ‘get’ that… as it pertains to animals…and some faith leaders recently exhibited the courage of those convictions. Visit bestfriends.org/signproc to read A Religious Proclamation for Animal Compassion. More and more people and leaders of faith are willing to view kindness and compassion toward animals as a core spiritual value.

In the meantime…take a look at your dog or cat….look deeply. You can see the spark of life and sentiency…and spirituality in his or her eyes. Then ask yourself…what makes the eyes of a cow or a pig or a chicken any different. If your answer is that they’re not the same…and that domestic farm animals were ‘raised’ for food….that’s not my question. My question is within those eyes…is there truly any difference?

There is not. However, until thinking shifts…one is your pet and the other is your dinner. And until you begin to ask why, it will continue. Read The World Peace Diet by Dr. Will Tuttle to learn more about how World Peace begins on your plate. The concept contained this book will change your life…and the lives the 10 billion farm animals slaughtered each year for a meat-based diet.

Willing to look deep within? ( :

For????

As if everything not strapped down on this planet is a potential snack. How can anyone think that violence can ever be “Godly”??

Philosophic priors offered as undisputed truths and the twisting of evolution theory personified into a sort of authoritarian deity or a manifest of unquestioned genetic morality is more repugnant than a religious person with a hard held belief.

Perhaps he was a mad man. *smile*