Funnily enough there’s actually wording in Genesis that could be taken imply humans are just supposed to eat plants, with humans just ruling the animal kingdom and not devouring it.
Feel free to look up Genesis 1:25-31 to see what I mean, though of course translations are…
Very variable.
Regardless, most interpretations agree that what humans absolutely shouldn’t be doing is causing a mass extinction that is set to kill just about every complex life form on Earth.
That’s really interesting! I’d be curious to see what other translations read as (especially ancient languages, if I were smart enough to read them), but in the NIV translation, you could absolutely read that as a call to eat only plants, and to care for the animals.
It could also be taken another, slightly more terrifying way, too.
If we assume what we’re doing is right, farming and killing animals for food, and work backwards from there, the verses say that God made the animals, and gave us dominion over them. If we assume the way we currently treat animals and view them is how that dominion works, then when it goes on to say that God made man in God’s image, it could be implied to say that man is to animal as God is to man.
Which could mean God is farming and killing us for God’s sustenance. We’re nothing but chickens in cages.
25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
26 God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 God said, “Behold,[a] I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.
31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
Footnotes
1:29 “Behold”, from “הִנֵּה”, means look at, take notice, observe, see, or gaze at. It is often used as an interjection.
I kinda think if god made all the creatures and plants, saw them to be good and left us to tend to them, He probably wouldn’t be too pleased about the factory farming.
Like, we’re made in his image and given dominion over his creation, a microcosom of his dominion over everything. If he wanted pigs to live a life without turning around, he could have just… made them that way. Do we really interpret “dominion” as a way to OK total subjugation of the life below us? 'Cus I always thought of that more as… like, a groundskeeper/caretaker’s dominion.
I’m not a Christian, but while I was that is how I interpreted it. I was taught we were supposed to be good stewards of creation. I personally never saw a problem with things like slaughtering animals, but thought the conditions of most farms weren’t acceptable. I never had to think about it enough to really draw a line about what ways to treat animals was okay and what wasn’t, but things like stuffing as many animals as possible I to as little space as possible getting them as far as possible as quick as possible just felt like too much. I also believed things like rampant deforestation were wrong for the same reason. God didn’t give us a free pass to treat the environment how we see fit.
In evolutionary terms, domestication was reciprocal. We see them safely into the world, protect them through life, and see them out. Both species benefit. Factory farming is a short-sighted violation of that; the animals lead miserable lives, the surrounding ecosystem (as well as any human habitation) suffers, and you couldn’t design a better laboratory for new zoonotic plague if you tried.
Problem is we are not herbivores. And especially back then when we didn’t have global access to food when ever we wanted being a vegan would be almost impossible in certain locations.
There is basically no pre-modern society or culture that could pull off being vegan.
But there are plenty of vegetarian cultures that have lasted a while on eggs and dairy. Buddhism and Jainism have a history of vegetarianism tracing back literally millennia. Some European religions and groups refrained from eating meat from terrestrial animals, but many of these groups still ate fish.
Veganism in the pre-modern world wasn’t feasible. It’s feasible today mainly through our modern agricultural supply chains and modern understanding of nutrition: flaxseeds and chia seeds (or processed algae oil) for omega-3, cultivation of certain yeasts for B12, etc.
New world agricultural societies were pretty vegan. Mesoamerican societies only really had turkeys, and the peasants wouldn’t have access to turkey meat regularly. You can survive off Tres hermanas (beans corn and squash) pretty well. Andean cultures were similar, they had llamas and guinea pigs but they were a very small part of a diet of mostly potatoes, quinoa, beans and tomato.
That’s fair. I’ll admit my knowledge of ancient civilizations and agriculture are very much old-world focused, and even in the new world I’m more familiar with the cultures in the modern day geographical bounds of the United States, with perhaps more hunting, trapping, and fishing than the large Mesoamerican civilizations and their highly populated cities.
we didn’t have global access to food when ever we want
This cuts more towards herbivory then carnivory, especially in agricultural societies plant based foods were more available then animal based foods. If you were a pre-modern peasant you were eating meat very rarely, the poorer you were the more rare it was.
It’s only with modern agriculture that meat is a core part of the average person’s diet.
Funnily enough there’s actually wording in Genesis that could be taken imply humans are just supposed to eat plants, with humans just ruling the animal kingdom and not devouring it.
Feel free to look up Genesis 1:25-31 to see what I mean, though of course translations are…
Very variable.
Regardless, most interpretations agree that what humans absolutely shouldn’t be doing is causing a mass extinction that is set to kill just about every complex life form on Earth.
That’s really interesting! I’d be curious to see what other translations read as (especially ancient languages, if I were smart enough to read them), but in the NIV translation, you could absolutely read that as a call to eat only plants, and to care for the animals.
It could also be taken another, slightly more terrifying way, too.
If we assume what we’re doing is right, farming and killing animals for food, and work backwards from there, the verses say that God made the animals, and gave us dominion over them. If we assume the way we currently treat animals and view them is how that dominion works, then when it goes on to say that God made man in God’s image, it could be implied to say that man is to animal as God is to man.
Which could mean God is farming and killing us for God’s sustenance. We’re nothing but chickens in cages.
This makes more sense to me than the explanations western religion normally gives
25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
26 God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 God said, “Behold,[a] I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.
31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
Footnotes
1:29 “Behold”, from “הִנֵּה”, means look at, take notice, observe, see, or gaze at. It is often used as an interjection.
Public domain, WEB translation.
I kinda think if god made all the creatures and plants, saw them to be good and left us to tend to them, He probably wouldn’t be too pleased about the factory farming.
Like, we’re made in his image and given dominion over his creation, a microcosom of his dominion over everything. If he wanted pigs to live a life without turning around, he could have just… made them that way. Do we really interpret “dominion” as a way to OK total subjugation of the life below us? 'Cus I always thought of that more as… like, a groundskeeper/caretaker’s dominion.
I’m not a Christian, but while I was that is how I interpreted it. I was taught we were supposed to be good stewards of creation. I personally never saw a problem with things like slaughtering animals, but thought the conditions of most farms weren’t acceptable. I never had to think about it enough to really draw a line about what ways to treat animals was okay and what wasn’t, but things like stuffing as many animals as possible I to as little space as possible getting them as far as possible as quick as possible just felt like too much. I also believed things like rampant deforestation were wrong for the same reason. God didn’t give us a free pass to treat the environment how we see fit.
I mean, neither am I anymore, but yeah.
In evolutionary terms, domestication was reciprocal. We see them safely into the world, protect them through life, and see them out. Both species benefit. Factory farming is a short-sighted violation of that; the animals lead miserable lives, the surrounding ecosystem (as well as any human habitation) suffers, and you couldn’t design a better laboratory for new zoonotic plague if you tried.
“Dominion” is already an interpretation. The word didn’t exist back in the day and the translator had to choose it to interpret the original text.
Problem is we are not herbivores. And especially back then when we didn’t have global access to food when ever we wanted being a vegan would be almost impossible in certain locations.
There is basically no pre-modern society or culture that could pull off being vegan.
But there are plenty of vegetarian cultures that have lasted a while on eggs and dairy. Buddhism and Jainism have a history of vegetarianism tracing back literally millennia. Some European religions and groups refrained from eating meat from terrestrial animals, but many of these groups still ate fish.
Veganism in the pre-modern world wasn’t feasible. It’s feasible today mainly through our modern agricultural supply chains and modern understanding of nutrition: flaxseeds and chia seeds (or processed algae oil) for omega-3, cultivation of certain yeasts for B12, etc.
New world agricultural societies were pretty vegan. Mesoamerican societies only really had turkeys, and the peasants wouldn’t have access to turkey meat regularly. You can survive off Tres hermanas (beans corn and squash) pretty well. Andean cultures were similar, they had llamas and guinea pigs but they were a very small part of a diet of mostly potatoes, quinoa, beans and tomato.
That’s fair. I’ll admit my knowledge of ancient civilizations and agriculture are very much old-world focused, and even in the new world I’m more familiar with the cultures in the modern day geographical bounds of the United States, with perhaps more hunting, trapping, and fishing than the large Mesoamerican civilizations and their highly populated cities.
So you are saying these ancient cultures didn’t use animal products? Yeah, I’m gonna call BS.
This cuts more towards herbivory then carnivory, especially in agricultural societies plant based foods were more available then animal based foods. If you were a pre-modern peasant you were eating meat very rarely, the poorer you were the more rare it was.
It’s only with modern agriculture that meat is a core part of the average person’s diet.
Then, (within this framework) it is god’s way of saying humans shouldn’t live in the place you are referencing?