Anymals Quotes

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer

“Anymals do not exist to satisfy our desires and pleasures.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“On reflection, it is clear why the world’s great religions specifically and clearly protect anymals from cruelty at the hands of humanity—we are more powerful, and human beings have demonstrated across time that we are likely to exploit and abuse anymals for our purposes. Anymals depend on special religious protections to protect them against an often self-absorbed humanity. Indeed, even in light of this
strong collection of core religious teachings on behalf of anymals, they remain the most cruelly abused and widely exploited individuals throughout the industrialized world, and beyond.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“Religions are, overall, radically friendly toward anymals.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“We can feed more of the world’s many hungry people if we stop producing anymal products.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“Similarly, vivisection is a selfish exploitation of other creatures—nonhumans are not here to live and die on behalf of our hopes.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“The world’s great religions provide a moral foundation for anymal liberation.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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?”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“Confucian traditions teach that all beings stem from one source, the Great Ultimate, and participate in the Great Unity. Ren (love or benevolence) is the essence of all that is good in humanity, and extends across species, as exemplified in the noble person (junzi).”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“Daoism also encourages people to love deeply and live compassionately (ci), to exercise restraint and frugality (jian), to seek harmony, and to practice wuwei (action as nonaction). Daoist precepts speak often and strongly against harming any creature, whether by disturbing their homes or eating their bodies. Guanyin, the most popular Chinese deity, exemplifies deep compassion for all beings. The Zhuangzi highlights basic similarities between humans and anymals, and encourages people to treat all beings with care and respect.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“The Torah teaches that God created all beings, all creatures are good in and of themselves, and that the Creator remains personally invested in creation. Scriptures also indicate that human beings were created “in the image of God” by a deity who is munificent and compassionate toward all creatures. The Creator assigned human beings the task of protecting and serving creation . . . . Jews are to be compassionate, to avoid harming anymals, and Jewish law specifically protects anymals as ends in themselves. Jewish religious traditions honor anymals as individuals, and as our kin. God created a vegan world, peaceful and without bloodshed, and the Tanakh encourages people to work to create a path back to this original Peaceable Kingdom.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“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.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions

“Islamic sacred writings reveal all of nature—all anymals—as created and tended by Allah, and destined to be drawn back to the divine. Sacred writings reveal a compassionate Creator; Muhammad models kindness; as viceregents, Muslims are expected to be merciful and compassionate. In Islamic religious traditions, the role of Muslims is one of submission and service to Allah—of tending creation on behalf of the Creator. Each living being is an individual in the Islamic worldview, a devoted servant of Allah, living in her or his separate yet similar community. While we have no rights over other creatures, anymals are granted rights under Islamic law, such as freedom from cruelty and protection during times of war.”
― Lisa Kemmerer, Animals and World Religions