After having spent the last year and a half toying with the notion of a godless world and finally loosing myself from the bondages of my Christian days, I have found myself often questioning the persistence of animal "husbandry" and of human dominance over animals for selfish gains. In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to make clear the link that I see between religion and the inhumanity toward animals that we so eagerly tolerate. It is not my intention to suggest that animal abuses are solely the responsibility of religions, nor do I wish to suggest that humans who consume animal products cannot otherwise follow the profitable tenants of their religions for which religions enjoy marginal favor even among the irreligious. I simply wish to clarify my opinion that a major contributing factor of animal abuses in religious countries is the religion they practice, while maintaining that neither religion nor irreligion leads directly to a life dedicated to the respect of animals.

Animal consumption predates religions by at least a billion years. Little thought is needed to conclude that humans, with their ability to manipulate situations for their maximal gain, would resort to animal slaughter and the consumption of animal by-products in times of need. Early humans were of necessity omnivorous creatures. What was done out of the instinct for survival by these primitive peoples cannot be condemned as wrong; a viable alternative did not exist. It was not until two to three hundred years ago that humans have drastically improved our chances of survival through medicinal and farming advances. During this period, various writers have expressed concerns regarding our continued reliance upon animals for our nutrition. Vegetarianism began to spread in very small groups of the economically advantaged. Many of the followers were not vegans, though it can be argued that many of them may, if alive today, quickly change their dietary habits for ethical reasons.

An analysis of reasons offered for animal consumption reveals little change from what would have been suggested during the times of these early vegetarians. Humans see themselves as superior and animals as less sensitive to pain, less subject to fear, incapable of pondering their deaths, delicious, and nutritious. Scientific advances have shown that animals are very capable of feeling pain (indeed in certain instances more so than us) and with certainty feel fear. No amount of reasoning can negate such obvious anguish an animal will endure during the hours leading up to and including its death in factories. Some animal rights groups, seemingly in contradiction to their very goal, have argued for less horrific slaughter procedures and have worked to ensure that the meat industry employs techniques to reduce the pain and fear an animal will feel, praising those who do so. Ethical treatment of people with severe mentally disabilities has improved through the past century to a point that we ensure that such individuals are provided with rights regardless of their ability to communicate or think. It should be clear that, at least in some cases, the animals we slaughter because they are unable to ponder their deaths are more capable of rational thought than some of the very creatures that we protect because they are "human". It is needless to discuss the delicious and nutritious arguments if one would first address the former arguments.

Perhaps the most interesting argument for subjugating and consuming animals is the idea that god(s) have given them to us for such purposes. Arguments from the paragraph above can be truly tested and found to be either true or false through scientific methods. This position, however, cannot nor will not be validated as either true or false. Anyone with a pen and a reputation for spouting claims from "on high" could write histories of the earth and suggestions for making peace with the angry god(s). So many believe the inspiration of scripture that it is difficult except in moderate to liberal religious groups to propose the idea that humans don't have such rights. Due to my limited personal experience with the broad range of religions, I will focus my argument on those religions inspired by the Hebrews. This is not to say that other religions do not have their part in perpetuating animal abuses. Some forms of Hinduism, for example, posit the sacredness of bovine animals while caring little for killing or enslaving all others. To be fair, there are religions which strive to live their lives free from harming another, regardless of how insignificant it may seem.

It was in the beginning, some say, that a god created the world and all that is therein for his purposes. Humans, owing to their obvious superior mental abilities, were charged with the task of subduing the earth. Shortly after this charge, a serpent cunningly tricks the woman and the god is very displeased with how things were handled. The god kicks out the man and woman from their little paradise and, as a supposed act of compassion or provision, kills an animal to clothe the newly exiled couple. Beyond the gates of Eden, this couple conceive at least a few sons and begin their task of tilling a soil that has been cursed by the very one who created them. This god, never quite content with the idea of peace and mercy without sacrifice, has put it in the hearts of the two oldest sons the need to give offerings. Without so much as a word uttered to them, the god lets them make their offering and decides to reject the produce that the eldest son yields, preferring the murdered lamb given by the younger.

In not so much as three pages, we encounter a god bent on slaughter and the human subjugation of animals without the provision of real, well-contrived alternatives. I reject such a god as wise and merciful as the enamored maintain it is. Neglecting the obvious errors contained within the pages pertaining to the garden encounter with evil and the god's subsequent foolish judgments, could we assume that a god who slaughters and endorses the slaughter of animals is, as we are told by Jesus, the only good? Having briefly discussed that animals feel pain and experience fear, I wonder how it is that anything short of sparing the lives of animals and allowing them to live freely could be found in a book of wisdom from the god(s). Science has revealed many alternatives to animal products and our technological advances have made animal-driven carriages and plows useless. Why, then, do the religious maintain that animals are for us to enjoy? Why don't they question the idea of mistreating animals? Simply put, the answer is that their god says that it is good, and they believe it to be true.

When the religious are told continuously that "God's ways are higher than our ways" and that "there is none righteous, no, not one", many feel that they must accept what is written in holy books regardless of how they make no sense. We are blinded by our own sinfulness and are at the mercy of an all-knowing god for guidance, they maintain. I do not believe that religious people are unable to see the sense in free thinking. In fact, many great ideas have come from religious people in contradiction to the scriptural dictates of their religion. Tampons and other female hygiene products, for example, have enabled women to mingle with the crowds, sit in public chairs, and enjoy more than half of the month in their own beds beside their husbands. This is directly against the cleanliness LAWS of the Torah. Praise science that we have neglected the dictates of a book and embraced reason.

Some religious people have turned away from animal cruelty in spite of what their holy texts sanction. For them, they see that their god is compassionate and winked at the necessary era of animal domination. Others maintain that animal cruelty is not only allowed but also good and necessary. Society may play a role in making it easy for otherwise compassionate religious people to give no thought for the suffering of animals. Many, though, use specific scriptural references to support the abuse of animals and find any animal suffering as a necessary component of "God's plan". No amount of scientific discovery will draw away the fundamentalist from the belief that holy scriptures contain infallible wisdom. These raise their children without ever encouraging them to think about the validity of their beliefs in things such as demons, heaven, male headship, or animal abuse, to name a few. Unlike the secular equivalent, children who question any such ideas are branded as irreligious and in need of divine rescue. Children who are raised to think that thought crimes exist often develop justifications for their beliefs early in life and rarely think about the topics as they age. Catalysts for change are often viewed as threats not only to specific positions but also as attacks on the very religion that they have been raised to believe.

It is no wonder that, at least among the fundamentalists, animal rights can be seen as hostile to their way of life. In fundamentalist-dominated areas, animal abuses are less often questioned and rarely extend beyond "humanely" caging, enslaving, poking, prodding, branding, cutting, killing, skinning, boiling, and eating them. True change, it seems, comes at least from those who neglect the allowances of their scriptures and look at the truth of such practices through the eyes of the animal. The god(s) of the texts encourage such obvious abuses and, at least for me, prove their own origin to be nothing short of man-made. Secular humans, often lacking the same care for animals, have societal tradition that mirror exactly what is scripturally "true".

Science has made it more difficult for the secular among us to remain carefree about how we treat animals; this is not to say that science compels humans any more than the genuine compassion of the religious to actually fulfill the dictates of reason. Tradition binds us all irrespective of creed or religion. Until we actually question ourselves about why we believe what we believe, we shall continue to blindly follow what has gone before. The rationally-motivated among us are free from the bondage of the infallibility of doctrines; those with scripture to confuse the issue have a more difficult task. While the former is free to question, the latter does so often at the risk of losing religion and will often defer judgment on such issues.

It is sad to think that many religious would more likely embrace true compassion toward animals were it not sanctioned in their texts and yet many freethinkers have not asked themselves why they so willfully abuse other sentient beings. They have abortion debates and find the unborn child to be "not human", a myth* not based upon truth but on simplistic conclusions crafted for what seems to be an attempt to make the reality of abortion more tolerable to the masses. They see that religions perpetuate cruelty and neglect to see their own hand in both animal and human suffering. They take care to highlight the blindness of religious zealots while covering their own foolish notions. They more freely fight against the churches than against gross injustices in the world. None can claim superiority; we are all blind. There is none righteous, no, not one...not even the gods.

How shall we proceed? Perhaps the most appropriate method would be to truly know the plight of the animals which are enslaved. A rational mind, regardless of religious beliefs, cannot truly know the suffering of animals and use the "delicious" argument. Science proves that there are no specific nutrients in animal products which cannot be obtained from other foods, leaving it simply to a matter of will. Left to no other reasons for animal consumption, many of us simply do not want to think about it any further. We do not want to believe that animals deserve anything better than what they receive on factory farms. Those few who do believe it are occasionally pacified by the "animal rights activists" who argue for free range and organic products. One must understand, however, that happy meat does not exist and eggs and dairy products rarely (less than 5% of the time) come from happy animals. No animal deserves to die earlier than 1/2 of its natural life. No human would happily submit to a life of labor to only be killed after productivity declines and be fed to others, have our skin made into lamp shades and shoes, and have our fats used to make soaps.

Ultimately, we must question our motives seriously and neglect any answer that appeals to personal pleasure or comfort. We must never allow ourselves to place our petty interests above the interests of others, regardless of species. We are not the dominating species on this earth; we are a cohabitor with animals who deserve our careful thought before we ever subject them to abuses. It is my belief that a truly compassionate, introspective individual will likewise reject tradition and awaken, if only slightly, to the cruelty of animal subjugation, one of but a myriad of injustices on this earth.

*I am not claiming that abortion is the wickedness that fundamental Christians preach; my position is simply that calling a human embryo or fetus "not human" is foolish given that the scientific community knows better than to call a complete union of human gametes something other than a very young human.