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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.”

CompassionPovertyEthicsSocial JusticeImmigrantsVeganismFieldworkSlaughterhouse
Book:Animals and World Religions
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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.”

CompassionMythologyVeganismIndigenous PeoplesAnymalsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsRespect For NatureRespect For Animals
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. . . , 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.”

CompassionVeganismScripturesComparative ReligionAnimal LiberationAnymalsHuman Animal RelationshipsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsEthics And Religion
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.”

CompassionVeganismAnimal LiberationAnymalsHuman Animal RelationshipsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsComparative ReligionsDeductive Reasoning
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.”

CompassionVeganismAnimal LiberationVivisectionAnymalsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsAnimal ExperimentationComparative Religions
Book:Animals and World Religions
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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.”

CompassionAccountabilityVeganismAnimal LiberationFactory FarmingAnymalsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsFood Industries
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.”

CompassionHealthVeganismAnimal LiberationWorld HungerAnymalsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsComparative Religions
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.”

CompassionHinduismVeganismHinduAnymalsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsRespect For NatureRespect For Animals
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.”

ReligionCompassionAnimalsVeganismScripturesComparative ReligionAnimal LiberationFactory FarmingAnymalEthics And Religion
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.”

ReligionCompassionAnimalsVeganismScripturesComparative ReligionAnimal LiberationAnymalEthics And ReligionReligious Committment
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.”

ReligionCompassionServiceAnimalsVeganismBenevolenceComparative ReligionAnimal LiberationAnymalsEthics And Religion
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.”

ReligionCompassionAnimalsVeganismScripturesComparative ReligionAnimal LiberationAnymalsEthics And Religion
Book:Animals and World Religions
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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.”

ReligionCompassionAnimalsVeganismScripturesComparative ReligionAnimal LiberationAnymalsHuman Animal RelationshipsEthics And Religion
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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“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.”

FoodLabelsVeganismFactory FarmingNatural HealthOrganic FoodFree RangeCage FreeHumane Labels
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.”

HealthVeganCowsVeganismDietOrganicCowVealDairy Industry
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.”

HealthVeganismZoosAnimal LiberationFactory FarmingComparative ReligionsAnymal LiberationAnimal ExploitationCircusesRodeos
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.”

EnvironmentHealthEthicsLaborSocial JusticeVeganismSlaughterDietWorld HungerComparative Religions
Book:Animals and World Religions
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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.”

EnvironmentHealthVeganismLaborersAnimal LiberationWorld HungerAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsRespect For Life
Book:Animals and World Religions
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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.”

SexHuntingHuntersVeganismDeerAnimal LiberationOrgasmHuntSpeciesismOrgasmic
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.”

EthicsCrueltyVeganExploitationVeganismSlaughterFactory FarmingDeathsAnymalsMeat Eaters
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.”

EthicsAnimalsVeganismAnimal LiberationReligionsFactory FarmingAnymalsHuman Animal RelationshipsAnymal LiberationHuman Anymal Relations
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Laws in industrialized nations tend to protect profits over life. Just a glimpse of anymals in our food industries (please see the appendix) can help readers to understand why religious teachings focus on respect for and protection of anymals. A hen is fated, from the day she hatches, to a pubescent death on a dismemberment belt. Calves are purposefully kept anemic and perpetually restrained to create veal. Turkeys are genetically manipulated to be too large to walk or breed naturally. Female anymals are perpetually impregnated, and their young taken from them, until they are “spent” and trucked to slaughter. Routine treatment of anymals through industrialized agriculture is, quite frankly, a moral and religious outrage.”

EthicsVeganismSlaughterLawsReligionsFactory FarmingFood IndustryAnymalsAnymal LiberationReligious Ethics
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“The world’s most celebrated religions teach people that the world around us, our environment, is sacred. A diet rooted in anymal products is exponentially more harmful to the earth than is a plant-based diet. Seventy percent more land must be cultivated in order to raise anymals for food than would be necessary for a vegan diet. This means that 70 percent more land is taken away from natural ecosystems to produce flesh, nursing milk, and bird’s reproductive eggs for consumption, and this land that is necessary for a diet rich in anymal products will be sprayed with pesticides and earth-damaging fertilizers. These additional crops—70 percent more—also need to be irrigated, using exponentially more water. Anymals exploited by food industries also drink millions of gallons of water and drop millions of tons of manure. Finally, raising animals for flesh contributes significantly to carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, chlorofluorocarbons, and methane—global climate change.”

WaterEnvironmentEthicsClimate ChangeVeganismFactory FarmingPesticidesAnymalsAnimal AgricultureComparative Religions
Author:Lisa Kemmerer
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“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.”

VeganismScripturesComparative ReligionAnimal LiberationFactory FarmingAnymalsHuman Animal RelationshipsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And Ethics
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Anymal liberationists who release fox or chinchillas from fur farms, free veal calves from chains in abysmal crates, destroy transport trucks that haul terrified turkeys and sheep to their premature deaths, burn slaughterhouses that dismember pigs and chickens, or destroy computers in research facilities are not dangerous terrorists. Anymal liberationists simply believe that life is precious, and that an industry designed to manipulate and destroy life for the sake of profits is ethically and spiritually unacceptable.”

VeganismAnimal LiberationDirect ActionAnymalsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsComparative Religions
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Anymal liberationists do not target life—they target industries (and profits) that flourish at the expense of life—and they attempt to rescue the exploited. Terrorists kill randomly; anymal liberationists have never killed anyone. Anymal liberationists exemplify what it is to live into the core teachings of every major religion concerning rightful relations between human beings and anymals.”

VeganismAnimal LiberationTerroristsDirect ActionAnymalsHuman Animal RelationshipsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsComparative Religions
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“The Buddha lived close to nature and anymals, and exemplified compassion. Buddhist practice is rooted in ahimsa, metta, and karuna, and the first Buddhist precept prohibits killing. Buddhist philosophy teaches that harming other living beings is inimical to the spiritual life because we cannot avoid harming our own future through acts of cruelty due to reincarnation and karma. Buddhist philosophy also teaches that there is no independent self; we are part of an interconnected and interdependent universe. Anymals are inherently worthy of our respect and care; in light of years of reincarnation, they are our loved ones. Buddhist morality and practice requires human beings to actively strive to help anymals, and to fearlessly protect every sentient and suffering being.”

BuddhismVeganismBuddhaAnymalsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsRespect For NatureRespect For AnimalsAhmisa
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Animals who are exploited for “organic” foods are raised, maintained, transported, and slaughtered just like their nonorganic” counterparts: They are debeaked, dehorned, detoed, castrated, and/or branded, and they are kept, transported, and slaughtered in the same deplorable conditions.”

AnimalsExploitationVeganismAnimal EthicsOrganic FoodOrganic FarmingFarm AnimalsOrganic Food Benefits
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“For the sake of farmed animals, who suffer terribly in their artificially short lives, please do not reject red flesh in preference for poultry flesh. Please do not replace flesh with eggs or dairy products. Please do not buy animal products that try to disguise cruel exploitation behind meaningless feel-good labels such as “free range,” “cruelty free,” “organic,” and “natural.” For the sake of your own health, and for the sake of farmed animals, please eliminate (or at least reduce) your consumption of all animal products.”

NaturalEggsExploitationVeganismDairyFactory FarmingOrganic FoodOrganicFree RangeCruelty Free
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“There is no other industry as cruel and oppressive as factory farming. With regard to numbers affected, extent and length of suffering, and numbers of premature deaths, no other industry can even approach factory farming. Billions of individuals are exploited from genetically engineered birth, through excruciating confinement, to conveyor belt dismemberment. Consequently, there is no industry more appropriate for social justice activists to boycott.”

Social JusticeOppressionVeganismAnimal CrueltyAnimal LiberationBoycottFactory FarmingAnimal StudiesFarm AnimalsEthics And Diet
Book:Speaking Up for Animals: An Anthology of Women's Voices
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“People also tend to refer to nonhuman animals as “it” or sometimes “he,” regardless of the individual’s sex. This one-sex-fits-all approach objectifies and denies individuality. In fact, nonhuman animals who are exploited for food industries are usually females. Such unfortunate nonhumans are not only exploited for their flesh, but also for their nursing milk, reproductive eggs, and ability to produce young. When guessing the gender of a nonhuman animal forced through slaughterhouse gates, we would greatly increase odds of being correct if we referred to such unfortunate individuals as 'she'.”

LanguageGenderAnimalsVeganismDairyFactory FarmingPronounsHuman Animal RelationshipsWord ChoiceHuman Animal Studies
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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