Philosophical Vegan Forum

How can you argue it's immoral to enslave and exploit animals to a speciesist. And I'm talking about the hardcore speciesists that are indoctrinated in the Christian world view; and thus think men are made in the image of God and are superior to animals. Animals are here to be exploited, why else would they and their products exist and taste so good?

It feels to me that I'm talking to a wall. There is absolutely nothing you can say until you break the spell by letting them see they're unfairly distinguishing species. But they of course just don't buy into that.

What do you do at a situation like this? Explaining evolution is probably not going to help.

When a religious belief is supporting immoral views and behaviors, usually the only recourse is to dismantle the religious belief.

You can try to argue it within the context of the religious belief, but they usually will not listen to your arguments if they know you are not a believer.

One might assume that the most effective means would be to attack the religious belief for the immoral behavior, but in order to establish that as a valid attack you have to dismantle some of the foundational premises of the religious belief- those that validate belief without evidence and in spite of reason. At that point, it's very hard to do that while leaving enough of the belief in tact for them to change positions internally. It's like an inoperable tumor.

When dealing specifically with Christians, I've gotten some mileage out of linking the concept of stewardship to the teachings of Christ. Christ is reported to have taught, "whoever would be greatest among should be a servant to all," or words to that effect. I just challenge them to connect the dots between that teaching and stewardship, and ask them if they really think Jesus would support factory farming.