Animal Ethics: Consumption Of Animals In Christianity And Islam

Animal Ethics The question if humans should eat meat from animals has been argued over many years. Many people believe that it is wrong and many people believe that it is right. Vegetarians focus on the immorality of today’s meat-production business, which involves too much animal suffering without good enough reason to outweigh it ( we can get along without eating factory farm products). I shall focus on the examination of the religion approaches with respect to how we should treat nonhuman animals in Christianity and Islam. For example, the consumption of certain animals is forbidden in Islam, in contrast to Christianity.

This is the interpretation of Christianity that Andrew Linzey offers in “ The Bible and Killing for Food,” an essay

The Holy Qur’an lays down the condition that human beings, like all other creatures, shall have to work for their food and that their share would be proportionate to their labor (Qur’an 53:38-39). The Holy Qur’an repeatedly emphasizes that food and other resources of nature are there to be shared equitably with other creatures. Mankind should remember that the earth belongs to all living creatures: He laid out the earth for His creatures (Qur’an; 55:10) and men are sent to earth to serve as representatives. The wrongful dominion of, and exploitation of animals by man creates a stain to our morality. Human responsibility toward animal includes treating them with kindness, feeding or allowing them to get food and water in ways suitable to them. Regarding treating animals kindly, “A prostitute was forgiven by Allah (SWT), because, passing by a painting dog near a well, and seeing that the dog was about to die of thirst, she took off her shoe, and tying it with her head-cover she drew out some water for it. So, Allah (SWT) forgave her because of

He argues that the Bible does not minimize the gravity of killing animals any more than it condones killing as God’s will. Moreover, in his view, those who wish to adopt a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle “have solid biblical support” (289). The question is not, he writes, whether killing animals has never been justifiable, but rather whether it is necessary now, when it is not essential to kill in order to live, and when it is “ perfectly possible to sustain a healthy diet without any recourse to flesh products” (289). In short, Linzey regards the vegetarian lifestyle closer than the carnivorous one to the biblical ideal of peacefulness (289). In additional support for this view, he concludes that while Jesus ate fish — in the context of first-century Palestine, where geographical factors alone suggest a scarcity of protein, there may have been a real need so to do — his overall message is one of peace, a message informed by the messianic ideal of reconciliation and harmony