Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Religion And Animals: A Changing Scene, Paul Waldau

State of the Animals 2003

For protections to evolve to include nonhuman species, religions— through their leaders, their institutions, and above all their believers— must take seriously the important role that they have played, and certainly will continue to play, in humans’ engagement with the lives beyond our species line. Religions have such a central role in the transmission of basic images and values regarding living beings that, without their help, the problem of the species line will not be solved in this century. A central question for this century is whether influential religious institutions will continue to convey images that radically and absolutely dismiss …

Humans And Other Animals: A Biological And Ethical Perspective, Ashley Montagu

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

What I have been hoping to do in this talk is to provide the scientific basis for the biological kinship of humans with other animals in particular and the whole of nature in general, and to show that the ethical perspective to which such a demonstration leads is inherent in the very nature of nature, that cooperation, love, not conflict and aggression, as we have long been led to believe, is the dominant principle by which living creatures are designed to live with each other. It was not Darwin, but the muscular Darwinists, like Herbert Spencer, who wasn't a biologist …

Is Man's Infliction Of Suffering On Animals Immoral?, Robert Welborn

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

If it is believed that man is properly in dominion over the earth and that he may do with it and all things on it as he will, then the first definition is sufficient. If generally accepted ideas in man's community are to the effect that man's infliction of suffering on animals is right, then such is not immoral.

If it is believed, however, that life, all life, as it has evolved in its beauty and complexity is the consideration upon which conduct should be judged, then the second definition must apply. Man being the dominant species that consciously and …

The Question Of Atheism And Communism In The Animal Welfare/Rights Movement, Michael W. Fox

Animal Welfare Collection

Just as economics has increasingly been employed as a political weapon, so religion is now being used to further self-serving goals. Agribusiness spokespersons not only use fallacious economic arguments to justify the "factory" farming of animals; they have also stated that any questioning about man's Godgiven right to exploit animals is atheistic, and perhaps an actual affront to God's will. Furthermore, taking an egalitarian attitude toward animals, and proposing that they have rights or should be given equal and fair consideration, is regarded as the inspiration of some covert communist conspiracy that is constantly working to restructure and thereby destroy …