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Lisa Kemmerer Books

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“Cruelly exploiting and slaughtering human beings is widely recognized as spiritually problematic, but the veal industry is not, battery cages are not, foie gras and the use of farrowing crates are not, debeaking and slaughter lines are not. How can this be? Anymal suffering is extreme on factory farms, massive numbers of premature deaths are the expected end, and both are sanctioned not only by the government but also by the masses—including those who affiliate with a particular religious tradition and take their religious commitments seriously. The reason for this cruelty and indifference is obvious: With human beings creating the rules, anymals are the last to be noticed and the most likely to be discarded or exploited. Consequently, wherever humanity suffers, anymals suffer yet more.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“The same patriarchy that oppresses women oppresses nonhuman animals. Farmed animals and “housewives,” “lab” animals and prostitutes, dancing bears and girls in the sex trade—all have too long been exploited by the same patriarchal hierarchy wherein the comparatively weak are exploited for the benefit of the powerful. Those who are aware of history, of patriarchy and of the feminist movement, tend to understand how difficult it is—and how important—for people to rethink basic behaviors in order to bring about deep and lasting change. We must rethink how we speak, how we spend our time, and what we consume. This is as true for fighting sexism as it is for fighting speciesism—or any other form of domination, exploitation, and oppression. We must change our lives first, and most fundamentally. I hope that readers working to improve the lives of girls and women . . . will realize that they can and must choose not to continue to exploit nonhuman animals while working to liberate girls and women.”

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Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“Those working in slaughterhouses, for example, are often underpaid and overworked, lack insurance, and are required to use dangerous equipment without adequate training. Turnover and rates of injury for jobs in anymal industries are among the highest in the United States. Slaughterhouse employees are almost always poor, they are often immigrants, and they are inevitably viewed by their employers as expendable. Moreover, if we would not like to kill pigs, hens, or cattle all day long, then we should not make food choices that require others to do so. Our dietary choices determine where others work. Will our poorest laborers work in fields of green or in buildings of blood? Fieldwork is difficult, but I worked in the fields as a child, and I am very glad that I never worked in a slaughterhouse.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Another critical religious motivation for reconsidering diet is concern for human suffering—out of compassion—in light of poverty, malnutrition, and starvation. . . . Not only do we damage the environment with our choice of cheese and cutlets—burdening future populations with pollutants, dead zones, and global climate change—but we also feed tons of precious grains to hundreds of thousands of cattle, pigs, chickens, and turkeys while fellow human beings go without food. Food energy is wasted when we cycle grains through anymals. Rather than breed hungry cattle and chickens to consume grains, we should stop breeding anymals and feed precious grains to those who are already starving. If we did not breed and consume anymals, billions of tons of grains could be redirected to feed hungry human beings, alleviating and/or preventing starvation worldwide.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Increasingly we come to understand that any difference between human and nonhuman primates does not necessarily show humans in a complimentary light.”

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Book:Primate People: Saving Nonhuman Primates through Education, Advocacy, and Sanctuary
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“Indigenous religious traditions around the world continue to provide an ancient yet living vision of nature as sacred, requiring human respect and entailing human responsibilities. Anymals are understood to be “people” living in community as humans live in community—all of whom are part of a larger community of living beings. Indigenous religious traditions teach people that we owe respect, responsibility, and compassion to our nonhuman kin, and remember a time of great peace, before predation began. Most indigenous peoples believe that all beings are endowed with souls. Anymals are generally thought to hold exceptional abilities and remarkable powers.”

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“Most people are raised with the belief that anymal exploitation is religiously sanctioned, and they will readily defend this point of view. Consequently, arguments in favor of anymal exploitation—including religious arguments—are easy to come by. . . , but such arguments tend to be both shallow and specific, contradicting core and foundational teachings. Those who pose such arguments, when questioned, often agree readily that their religion does not teach or tolerate cruel exploitation, particularly when such cruel exploitation is entirely unnecessary.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Do the religious texts and exemplars support anymal welfare or anymal liberation? What do religions teach us to be with regard to anymals? A concise formal argument, using deductive logic, rooted in three well-established premises, can help us to answer these questions about rightful relations between human beings and anymals: Premise 1 : The world’s dominant religious traditions teach human beings to avoid causing harm to anymals. Premise 2 : Contemporary industries that exploit anymals—including food, clothing, pharmaceutical, and/or entertainment industries—harm anymals. Premise 3 : Supporting industries that exploit anymals (most obviously by purchasing their products) perpetuates these industries and their harm to anymals. Conclusion : The world’s dominant religious traditions indicate that human beings should avoid supporting industries that harm anymals, including food, clothing, pharmaceutical, and/or entertainment industries. It is instructive to consider an additional deductive argument rooted in two well-established premises: Premise 1 : The world’s dominant religious traditions teach people to assist and defend anymals who are suffering. Premise 2 : Anymals suffer when they are exploited in laboratories and the entertainment, food, or clothing industries. Conclusion : The world’s dominant religious traditions teach people to assist and defend anymals when they are exploited in laboratories, entertainment, food, and clothing industries. If these premises are correct—and they are supported by abundant evidence—the world’s dominant religions teach adherents • to avoid purchasing products from industries that exploit anymals, and • to assist and defend anymals who are exploited in laboratories and the entertainment, food, and clothing industries.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Those who stand within one of the world’s largest religious traditions, if they are sincere in their religious commitment, must not buy flesh, nursing milk products, or hen’s reproductive eggs in any form, or support any industry that profits at the expense of anymals, including zoos, circuses, aquariums, horse and dog racing, rodeos, and movies. Furthermore, those who stand within one of the world’s largest religious traditions must assist and defend anymals who are exploited in any of these industries, as well as anymals who are exploited to gather or disseminate information, whether for medicine, biology, pharmaceuticals, veterinary science, pathology, psychology, sociology, anymal behavior, or weaponry, to name just a few. These requirements are not particularly stringent when we realize that these products and activities not only harm anymals, but also have been proven to harm human health and prevent us from gathering more pertinent information.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“It is a dangerous business to compare sufferings, and generally an unproductive enterprise. Yet compare we must, because most people assume that anymal suffering is somehow lesser—or of less importance—than the suffering of human beings. Why would human suffering be of greater moral or spiritual importance than anymal suffering?”

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“Not one of the world’s largest religious traditions teaches that anymals are of lesser importance, or that their suffering might be overlooked while we remedy problems that are more central to human needs and wants. On the contrary—religious traditions hold human beings accountable for their actions with regard to anymals.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“That said, protecting anymals protects human beings: There are four other critical reasons that the world’s largest religions rightly pay particular attention to anymals—and particular attention to what we eat. Aside from respect for life and compassion for anymals, we ought to choose a vegan diet for the sake of the environment, to alleviate world hunger, to protect laborers, and on behalf of our own health. The consequences of our dietary choices are monumental.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Hindu religious traditions hold nature to be sacred and offer a philosophy of ahimsa, karma, reincarnation, and oneness that [points to] a vegan diet. . . . Gods, humans, and anymals are sometimes indistinguishable: A Hindu god might manifest as human, tortoise, man-lion, or elephant-headed human; a small, playful monkey might turn out to be the powerful god Hanuman. As gods, and through their own special powers, anymals are spiritually powerful in the Hindu tradition, and provide innumerable lessons and worthy examples for human beings. Humans are obligated to live a life of ahimsa, which requires Hindus to speak up in defense of those who are exploited.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“The Christian spiritual life is modeled on the life of Jesus, champion of the oppressed, servant to those in need, protector of the abused, and humble defender of the downtrodden—a man who was not afraid to destroy the property of capitalists who willfully defiled that which God had made sacred. Exemplary Christians, especially saints, reveal that those who are close to God are compassionate and merciful servants, living close to nature and tending anymals. Most fundamentally, Christians are called to love.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Exploring sacred teachings from around the world demonstrates that nature, including anymals, is sacred, that anymals are central to our spiritual landscape, and that we owe them respect, justice, and compassion. Religious texts remind us that we share a fundamental kinship with tabby cats, rose-ringed parakeets, and slender pygmy swordtails, and that anymals are understood to be remarkable and marvelous—superior to humans in many ways—in the world’s religious traditions. Sacred literature indicates that nonhumans and humans share the same fate after death; faiths that have a Creator teach human beings that the divine is personally invested in the life of every anymal, from the large flightless common rhea to each critically endangered Jenkin’s shrew, from a factory-farmed chicken to each bovine trucked to slaughter. Religious exemplars remind us that all species have personality and intellect—other creatures, whether insects, fish, reptiles, mammals, or birds, can offer much-needed spiritual wisdom for the betterment of humanity. Religions teach of a deep and fundamental unity on planet Earth. Interestingly, consistent with Darwin, the world’s dominant religions teach people that there is much more continuity than separation across species.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“• religions are, overall, radically friendly toward anymals; • people tend to be ignorant of these prevalent teachings; and • our current economic choices (bolstered by our collective spiritual ignorance) perpetuate anymal industries that profit from untold misery and billions of premature deaths.”

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“Although there are tremendous differences in the particular expressions of any one branch within each religion, core teachings tend to remain central to all branches of a given religion—each branch generally shares the same core texts, teachings, saints, and/or founders. For example, love is a core value among the many Christian traditions, ahimsa is central to each Hindu tradition, zakat is obligatory in all Muslim traditions, and the list goes on.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Most people are raised with the belief that anymal exploitation is religiously sanctioned, and they will readily defend this point of view. Consequently, arguments in favor of anymal exploitation—including religious arguments—are easy to come by. On closer examination, most of these arguments do not defend anymal exploitation in general; they merely defend particular habits and practices, most oft en dietary habits and farming practices. People who identify with a given religious tradition oft en use sacred writings to defend personal habits, but such arguments tend to be both shallow and specific, contradicting core and foundational teachings. Those who pose such arguments, when questioned, often agree readily that their religion does not teach or tolerate cruel exploitation, particularly when such cruel exploitation is entirely unnecessary.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Those who defend animal exploitation from a religious point of view usually lack information in three critical areas: • First, they oft en have no idea what goes on in breeding facilities, on factory farms, in feedlots, on transport trucks, in slaughterhouses, and so on. • Second, they lack an understanding of—have usually not even heard about—speciesism, and therefore have no idea how our treatment of anymals is connected with social justice issues more broadly, such as racism, sexism, poverty, and world hunger. • Third, they have often neglected to study sacred teachings or the lives of spiritual exemplars, and even if they have engaged in this important endeavor, they usually have not recognized the implications of religious ideals with regard to anymals or the effect of these teachings on such simple choices as what we eat.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Anymal exploiters may or may not be religious, and those who are religious are likely to lack information in three critical areas (just mentioned). Perhaps most fundamentally, religious people tend to be unaware that chewing on a chicken’s body purchased at a grocery store contradicts the core religious ideals of every major religious tradition. Still other religious people do not take their religious commitment seriously and therefore do not care one way or the other about anymal suffering and slaughter. This book is about what religions teach, not about what religious people believe or how they live. There is often shamefully little correlation between the two.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Indeed, although the world’s religious traditions differ in many critical ways, there is much of commonality in core moral teachings with regard to nature generally and anymals specifically. Religiously sanctioned morals around the world encourage a gentle, benevolent, service-oriented relationship with anymals.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Religious adepts tend to extend their compassion beyond their species. Perhaps more important, when anymal- and earth-friendly teachings are taken seriously, sacred traditions favor (or overtly require) a plant-based diet. In short, religious traditions understand that compassion, a core religious value, requires religious adherents to modify their behavior accordingly, and at a minimum, this means that human beings must avoid purchasing or consuming anymal products from contemporary anymal industries.”

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“Rightful relations between humans and anymals are spiritually significant in every major religion. Core religious teachings from around the world require humans to protect and respect all that is natural, to show compassion for all who are sentient, and in contemporary times, to rethink our relations with anymals—especially what we eat.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Such fundamental changes in diet may initially seem prohibitive, until we realize that not a single meal need be skipped—there is no weakness or hunger involved. We may eat delicious and nutritious foods—or junk food—to our heart’s content at any time of day or night. Then we come to understand that these changes do not require much of us, and a vegan diet is central to any sincere religious expression because either we make choices that cause tremendous suffering and the endless slaughter of adolescent farmed anymals or we do not.”

CompassionEthicsAnimalsVeganismAnimal LiberationReligionsFactory FarmingAnymalsHuman Animal RelationshipsHuman Anymal Relations
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“It is a dangerous business to compare sufferings, and generally an unproductive enterprise. Yet compare we must, because most people assume that anymal suffering is somehow lesser—or of less importance—than the suffering of human beings . Why would human suffering be of greater moral or spiritual importance than anymal suffering? Not one of the world’s largest religious traditions teaches that anymals are of lesser importance, or that their suffering might be overlooked while we remedy problems that are more central to human needs and wants. On the contrary—religious traditions hold human beings accountable for their actions with regard to anymals. Nonetheless, the assumption that it is right for humanity to focus social justice energy first and foremost on human beings persists in at least some religious communities. As a result, people turn a blind eye to factory farming and other horrendously cruel, life-destroying industries, and even continue to support these industries with their consumer dollars.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“There is no requirement that the cows, pigs, or hens who were exploited to create “natural” products be treated any different from how other factory farmed animals are treated. Farmed animals who are exploited for “natural” products are not allowed to live in natural conditions—they are not even allowed to satisfy their most basic natural behaviors. Despite consumer assumptions about what “natural” means, . . . the USDA’s “natural” food labels only regulate “the presence of artificial additives and the degree of processing.” “Free range,” “cage free,” and “certified humane” labels are just as meaningless for farmed animals as are “all natural” labels. Just like farmed animals enslaved by organic industries, farmed animals exploited by “free range,” “cage free,” and “certified humane” producers are routinely debeaked, disbudded, detoed, castrated, their tails are docked, and/or they are branded (depending on the species). Neither do “free range” and “certified humane” labels protect cows from perpetual impregnation, pregnancy, birth, calfsnatching, transport, or dismemberment (slaughter) at a very young age. Finally, “free range,” “cage free,” and “certified humane” labels fail to help “spent” hens, who are sent to slaughter at the same youthful age.”

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Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“Organic” labels do nothing for a cow who is perpetually impregnated and milked, who loses her calf to the veal industry—or to protect her calf, who is sold at birth to the veal industry to be slaughtered. “Organic” products are designed to optimize human health and reduce environmental degradation. Those who invest in organic products are not making a choice that promotes the well-being of farmed animals.”

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Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“The world’s great religions provide a moral foundation for anymal liberation. Those who stand within one of the world’s largest religious traditions, if they are sincere in their religious commitment, must not buy flesh, nursing milk products, or hen’s reproductive eggs in any form, or support any industry that profits at the expense of anymals, including zoos, circuses, aquariums, horse and dog racing, rodeos, and movies. Furthermore, those who stand within one of the world’s largest religious traditions must assist and defend anymals who are exploited in any of these industries, as well as anymals who are exploited to gather or disseminate information, whether for medicine, biology, pharmaceuticals, veterinary science, pathology, psychology, sociology, anymal behavior, or weaponry, to name just a few. These requirements are not particularly stringent when we realize that these products and activities not only harm anymals, but also have been proven to harm human health and prevent us from gathering more pertinent information from willing and needy human subjects.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Health provides an important final reason to adopt a plant-based diet. Westerners are choking their arteries, fattening themselves up, and fostering cancers by consuming anymal products. How many people who live on bean salad and vegetable soup are obese? How often do those with a steady diet of vegetables and rice suffer from colon cancer? How many people living on broccoli and tofu suffer heart attacks in their middle years? Obesity, heart disease, and cancers are just three common health problems that are linked with the consumption of anymal products. To look after both our spiritual and physical health, we must adopt a vegan diet.”

SpiritualityHealthSocial JusticeVeganismObesityDietHeart DiseaseColon CancerAnimal ProductsAnymal Products
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Given these five compelling reasons to reconsider dietary choice—anymal suffering and premature death, environmental degradation, world hunger, labor injustices, and our own health—it is not surprising that the world’s most commonly celebrated religions require and/or encourage a diet of greens, grains, fruits, and legumes, while simultaneously forbidding and/or discouraging the slaughter of anymals and the consumption of anymal products.”

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“Aside from respect for life and compassion for anymals, we ought to choose a vegan diet for the sake of the environment, to alleviate world hunger, to protect laborers, and on behalf of our own health. The consequences of our dietary choices are monumental.”

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“Both women and nonhuman animals have traditionally been viewed as property—"things” to be owned and controlled by those in power. While the plight of women is linked with that of nonhuman animals through a single system of oppression, through their comparative powerlessness and invisibility, and through sexual exploitation, it is important to elucidate these similarities through concrete examples. Links between women and nonhuman animals are nowhere more apparent than through the vulnerabilities of mothers and their young, and the control of pregnancies and offspring; this particular form of oppression is nowhere more blatant than on factory farms.”

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Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“When pressed, hunters who claim that they just want “to be out in the wilderness,” will admit that the kill is essential—or at least the hope of a kill. As it turns out, there is no correlation between hunting and hiking, climbing, backpacking, kayaking, or any other outdoor activity. Hunters do not purposefully linger in the woods after a kill, but quickly begin the process of preparing to head home with the corpse. For hunters, the kill is the climax—the most important moment. They are not driving into the woods (or sometimes actually walking) for the sake of beauty, but in the hope of a kill. The kill can be likened to male orgasm. Sex is traditionally thought to be over when the man has an orgasm, and the hunt is never so decisively over as it is after a successful kill. As a teacher, I impatiently listened to a young man matter-of-factly defend the importance of hunting because he found the experience “orgasmic.” From his point of view, all that mattered was how exciting and wonderful the experience was for him. The “side affects” of the man’s preferred action—the experience of the deer (and the woman)—are deemed to be so irrelevant that they are not even mentioned.”

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Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“The kill can be likened to male orgasm. Sex is traditionally thought to be over when the man has an orgasm, and the hunt is never so decisively over as it is after a successful kill. As a teacher, I impatiently listened to a young man matter-of-factly defend the importance of hunting because he found the experience “orgasmic.” From his point of view, all that mattered was how exciting and wonderful the experience was for him.”

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Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“The number of individuals enslaved and slaughtered on factory farms every year exponentially surpasses—by trillions—any form of exploitation of human beings anywhere, at any time. . . . American meat eaters were responsible for about 198 deaths per person in 2009, which accumulates to about 15,000 animals in the course of one individual’s lifetime.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Anymals do not exist to satisfy our desires and pleasures. Liberationists do not accept larger gestation crates because crates of any kind are oppressive and exploitative, and are therefore inconsistent with compassionate action. They do not accept slaughter, even with improved stunning methods, because there is no need for slaughterhouses or factory farms—we can easily feed ourselves without slaughtering anymals—and because slaughtering without necessity lacks compassion and reverence for life. Even if we raise and slaughter anymals with a minimum of pain and misery, farmed anymals are killed when they are mere adolescents—lives nipped in the bud to satisfy habitual tastes and preferences. Such practices also demonstrate a lack of reverence for human life and are contrary to social justice: We can feed more of the world’s many hungry people if we stop producing anymal products. Similarly, vivisection is a selfish exploitation of other creatures—and nonhumans are not here to live and die on behalf of our hopes. Anymal liberationists avoid consuming anymal products, and oft en actively lobby to close down exploitative anymal industries and to bring an end to human-anymal relationships that fail to honor each anymal’s physical and emotional health and well-being.”

AnimalsVeganismComparative ReligionAnimal LiberationFactory FarmingAnymalsHuman Animal RelationshipsAnymal LiberationEthics And ReligionHuman Anymal Relations
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Do the religious texts and exemplars support anymal welfare or anymal liberation? What do religions teach us to be with regard to anymals? A concise formal argument, using deductive logic, rooted in three well-established premises, can help us to answer these questions about rightful relations between human beings and anymals: Premise 1 : The world’s dominant religious traditions teach human beings to avoid causing harm to anymals. Premise 2 : Contemporary industries that exploit anymals—including food, clothing, pharmaceutical, and/or entertainment industries—harm anymals. Premise 3 : Supporting industries that exploit anymals (most obviously by purchasing their products) perpetuates these industries and their harm to anymals. Conclusion : Th e world’s dominant religious traditions indicate that human beings should avoid supporting industries that harm anymals, including food, clothing, pharmaceutical, and/or entertainment industries. It is instructive to consider an additional deductive argument rooted in two well-established premises: Premise 1 : The world’s dominant religious traditions teach people to assist and defend anymals who are suffering. Premise 2 : Anymals suffer when they are exploited in laboratories and the entertainment, food, or clothing industries. Conclusion : The world’s dominant religious traditions teach people to assist and defend anymals when they are exploited in laboratories, entertainment, food, and clothing industries. If these premises are correct—and they are supported by abundant evidence—the world’s dominant religions teach adherents • to avoid purchasing products fr om industries that exploit anymals, and • to assist and defend anymals who are exploited in laboratories and the entertainment, food, and clothing industries. Such industries include, but are not limited to, those that overtly sell or use products that include chicken’s reproductive eggs, cow’s nursing milk, or anymal flesh or hides (fur and leather), as well as industries that engage in or are linked with anymal experimentation of any kind, and entertainment industries such as zoos, circuses, and aquariums.”

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“If one focuses on foundational religious texts and core teachings from any of the world’s major religions, it is much easier to defend anymal liberation than it is to defend anymal exploitation. Moreover, it is easier to champion anymal liberation than to defend other oft-claimed religious ideals, such as human rights or equality between the sexes. This is understandable when we realize that anymals tend to be extremely vulnerable when compared with human beings. Children, women, and minorities are vulnerable, but even children can (and might) destroy a healthy chicken, while it is rather preposterous to imagine a chicken destroying a healthy child.”

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Book:Animals and World Religions
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