Reading the bible as a literal instruction manual for your day-to-day life is really stupid. If you pick and choose the parts of the bible you yourself follow, and then scorn others for not following your favorite parts, you are a hypocrite.

You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. – Matthew 7:5

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. – Matthew 23:13

Believing that the bible is the word of God does not entitle you to declare your own interpretation of the bible as infallible: people are fallible, and many people have made mistakes in the interpretation of the bible.

Animals and Souls

Many people believe that the bible is clear in saying that animals do not have souls. This is complete bullshit:

For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? – Ecclesiastes 3:19

And God said: ‘Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed–to you it shall be for food; and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, I have given every green herb for food.’ And it was so. – Genesis 1:29

Reasons not to take the bible as an instruction manual for day-to-day life

Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel. – 1 Peter 2:18

You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited – Deuteronomy 22:9

You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of the garment with which you cover yourself. – Deuteronomy 22:12

If you are going to pick out lines from the bible to justify doing something that is hurting others, show me your four tassels.

People disobeying the bible in the name of Christianity

The history of Christianity is filled with people doing very non Christlike things. But a great example is the Ku Klux Klan, who would lynch black people with the goal of upholding white Christendom, leaving their bodies hanging on trees for all to see in order to intimidate others. What does the bible have to say about this?

And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day – Deuteronomy 22:22

“God gave Noah permission to eat meat”

Great! This is not inconsistent with the vegan philosophy that killing animals unnecessarily (when there is other food available) is wrong. Noah didn’t eat meat before the flood. After the flood, when he was at risk of starving to death otherwise, God gave him permission to eat meat. That’s totally fine. Vegans are OK with eating flesh when it is necessary for your own survival, just as they are OK with killing other humans in self-defense, or even eating human flesh in exceptional circumstances (like being stuck in the Alps after a plane crash with nothing to eat but the bodies of your deceased passengers).

If there is every some great catastrophe that gives you no other option but to eat meat to survive, go ahead and do it. But don’t use this as an excuse to eat meat when you are not in such situations. Did God command some people in the bible to kill women and children? Yes. Does that mean you should be killing women and children in normal circumstances? No.

“God gave humans dominion over the animals in Genesis”

Absolutely! But “dominion” doesn’t mean what you think it does. It doesn’t mean wanton destruction, free abuse, or anything of that sort: it means responsibility. Having dominion over the animals means we should be their stewards, not their exploiters. What exactly that means is of course up for debate, but let’s give a list of things it almost certainly does not mean: