I know that by writing this post about this forbidden topic
and I am opening a can of … peas. But I think it’s important to discuss it.
Before I state my opinion on this subject, I have to say that I respect
religious people and I don’t consider them stupid, bad people or anything else
degrading, I just don’t respect religion. Now I would be impressed if you take
my opposition of one of most successful tool of controlling people to claim
that I hate or don’t respect religious people. It happens all time when you
voice your opposition to religion.
I have seen an effort to suppress discussion of
religion in animal rights movement. Some even say we shouldn’t discuss it. Why
should we leave out that? Religion plays an integral part in the lives of many
people, majority of them not vegans and they frequently use their religion to
defend use of the other animals. Leaving out discussion of religion would
cripple our advocacy.
Maybe some people won’t discuss people because of fear of driving religious people away. I am not suggesting when talking to religious people you automatically criticize his religion. When talking to people about veganism, I never did that. You know why? Because they didn’t use religious arguments. Often people ask me what I eat or is it hard not to eat animal products. We haven’t come to the discussion of the philosophy of veganism. But when we do, if they use religious arguments, I will not hesitate to refute those arguments.
I was thinking is the possibility of driving people away a
sufficient reason to declare religion immune from criticism. But there is no
reason to declare any idea immune to criticism. Salman Rushdie said it better
“The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire,
derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.” Anything can
drive non-vegans away. The mere fact that you are a vegan can spoke them or the
claim that there is no moral difference between killing a human animal or non-human
animal. What’s going to be? Are we going to select some ideas open to criticism
and other not in other words to declare that critical thinking is not welcomed
in animal rights movement or we will discuss all ideas. It’s not like we need
people to critically think about their action towards other animals.
You may argue that religious vegans are more progressive
that religious non-vegans. They support women’s, LGBTIQ rights etc. But that
doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t criticize religion. Vegans who are religious
cherry-pick their religious books as religious non-vegans. Both ignore parts of
their books which doesn’t support their word views.
I avoid talking about people, I rather talk about ideas, but
now I have to do it. In discussions I have seen that religious people don’t like
any criticism of religion even a joke about religion is off limit. Any
criticism of their religion isn’t welcomed. Religious people tend to be insecure
spoiled individuals with whom you must be careful and not say anything that may
offend them like expressing your opinion about religion because they love to
stay in their bubble that logic and reason cannot usually penetrate. They are
personification of ignorance and proud of it.
I must say it again I didn’t wrote this post to declare open
season on religious people, or to claim that we need to go after religious
people every time when talking to religious non-vegan. My point is that
discussion of religion and it′s critiques are sometimes required, because of its
importance. And I see nothing positive in surrendering critical thinking, it
impedes progress of society.
