Religious? Go Vegan
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PETA reports:
“An article on www.israelnationalnews.com reports that, as a result [of Agriprocessors' violation of religious and human law as well as their bankruptcy and thus kosher meat shortage], many Jewish Americans are eating more vegetarian meals.[...]“There’s a solid case for Jewish vegetarianism in the first place, and the lawbreaking practices of Agriprocessors and its subsequent shutdown are even more reasons to have a vegetarian Shabbat.”
A great deal of the vegans and vegetarians I’ve met in my life have been Jewish. I’ve often noticed a connection. While I’ve also noticed that a good deal of atheists are vegetarian and a significant number of Christians are vegetarian, in my own personal experience I’ve seen more overlap between Jewish people and vegetarian or vegan people. But maybe that’s just me?
There are good arguments for vegetarianism and veganism in all religions, explained here: http://www.ivu.org/religion/. For example, the Christian Vegetarian Association says:
“We believe that the Holy Spirit inspires us to live according to our deepest, faith-based values—our ‘calling.’ We find that Christians care, often deeply, about world hunger, human well-being, the environment, and animals. Since a plant-based diet helps address these concerns, we see it as an opportunity to honor God.”
And for any religion that includes the Bible/ Old Testament/ Tanakh the vegetarian/vegan claim can be made that in the Garden of Eden all beings were vegan, even lions. And since we humans have the opportunity today to choose veganism, we ought to make that choice now.
Wikipedia says:
“Some Christian groups, such as Seventh-day Adventists and Christian anarchists, take a literal interpretation of the Biblical prophecies of universal vegetarianism and encourage vegetarianism as a preferred, though not required, lifestyle.”
For more information on religion and veganism, take a look at these websites:
The Seventh-Day Adventists are perhaps best known as supporting a vegetarian lifestyle. I attend secular vegetarian society meetings at a Seventh-Day Adventist Church that not only provides the room (plus lovely kitchen) for our meetings for free, but also pays a small stipend to help keep the group alive. And nothing is required in return, except that the group focus on vegetarianism. Kinda makes you look at that religion a bit more, feel a bit kindly towards it.