Genesis 1 29:30:
Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and for every beast of the earth and every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so.
I believe that a proper reading of this biblical verse would suggest that at our creation we were all vegans.
Why, then, was veganism trumped for a conception of domination in our relations with non-human animals? How did the exploitation of non-human animals for something as trivial as "taste" become morally justified?
The answer: Original Sin.
Romans 5:12:
"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned."
Genesis 9:3:
"Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the plant."
Abraham Lincoln wrote, "I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not made the better for it."
"Why should man expect his prayer for mercy to be heard by What is above him," Albert Schweitzer asked, "when he shows no mercy to what is under him?"
Finally, C.S. Lewis said: "If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reason."
Perhaps these individuals understood the moral failing of understanding the Bible to be a justification for our species' socially constructed "dominion" over all other animals.
We celebrate the Fall - man's fundamental moral error - when we conceive of non-human animals as ours for the exploiting. And it's the Christians that justify this flawed view of morality, and defend it so passionately. Interesting.
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