I have had this blog on my mind for quite some time. But I finally decided to write it because I see something that really bothers me just continuing.

I always considered (particularly after reading The World Peace Diet) that Veganism was not just about other animals in the literal sense but also about including everyone from the human community. After all, we are animals too.

But what I tend to see when I browse through Facebook or other social networks is a lot of anti-religious hate from vegans not only towards pre-vegans but also, and particularly, towards other vegans because they follow a particular faith.

I am a former atheist. I understand the point of view of an atheist and for clarification, I haven’t embraced any new faith. However, I do see things from a different, more spiritual, so to speak, perspective. I do not like being ridiculed by religious pre-vegans because I am a vegan and it doesn’t agree with their beliefs anymore than anyone else. I get it!

I also get why vegans reject religion. All religions, even the most peaceful ones, have some really nasty sides to them. But that is dogma. In other words, it is interpretation.

What I regret is that people who attack vegans and pre-vegans because of whatever faith they have miss out on the opportunity of educating and showing a different vision of their faith.

For example, a few years ago, I saw a wonderful documentary called A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values To Help Heal the Planet which, being non-Jewish myself redefined Judaism to me from a different perspective.

Another example is that beautiful documentary shared by Will Tuttle recently (who is featured in it as well as French Vegan Monk Mathieu Ricard) called Animals and The Buddha which also shows a vegan perspective of Buddhism worth sharing with those in their community who think differently. I even shared it on the Dalai Lama’s pages in the hope that this would open his own perspective.

Now I wish I could find a Christian or Muslim movie from a vegan perspective but that may yet happen. After all, there is a Christian Vegetarian Association (which also supports veganism) and a Muslim Vegetarian Association which I found both exist online. I know vegan Muslims as well as vegan Christians as well as atheist or agnostic vegans and so on. We all share one thing in common, regardless of beliefs, we love other animals and we want to spare their suffering. That is ALL that should matter.

I also want to point out that I work with activists here who are Muslims AND Vegans. Do you think we care if we are from different cultural/religious background? We don’t. We work for a common goal.

We are all on the same boat. We try to enlighten our own communities within our cultural/religious frameworks. And let’s face it, if you’re atheist and believe that religion is going to disappear overnight, you’re delusional.

All I am asking is that, instead of criticizing someone’s faith or lack thereof, we give people a vegan alternative within their own conceptual view of life. Who can pretend to know more than anyone else about life and death? To think that we or anyone else have the answers is just ego at work. The only things we know are that we have one planet, we are one species and we have to protect other species from the insane side of humanity. And this is not going to work as long as people see only the outer limits of others instead of encouraging common grounds and offering a different perspective (of faith for example) as the two movies above do.

Veganism is about inclusion and compassion. It is not about division and hate. When vegans despises pre-vegans and vegans alike because they don’t agree on the same things, they just bring even more hate in this world.

Instead of wasting their time doing this, they should realize that we all belong to the same human family and that we are all born with compassion in our hearts. Hate, sexism, religion, racism and speciesism is not something we are born with, it is something that is taught to us… just like eating other animals. Let’s extend this vegan principle of love and compassion to those who need to be enlightened, not cast them out because of our own prejudices against them.

So next time, you hear someone of faith ridiculing you about being vegan, why not ask them to watch a documentary or give them information about people who do vegan education in their own community. Not doing it is missing the point of our message and missing the chance of maybe having another new vegan join our family.