The Biblical Excuse for Speciesism

    Years ago, my religious cousin said, “‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’ See? God hates vegetarians.” He was young at the time, so I have no idea if he was joking or if he actually interpreted the verse that way. Either way, it is a perfect example of how people often abuse the bible and find a meaning in it that might not be true. That entire verse is, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” The bible is often used as an excuse for misguided speciesism.
    Some bible verses seem to convey a message of speciesism very clearly:

     “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” - Matthew 6:26

     “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” - Genesis 9:3

    “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” - Genesis 1:26

    These verses, along with several others, give people an excuse to say that God meant for humans to be in charge of animals. According to the bible, we have been given “dominion” over all the other animals. We are “better” than them. Countless times, I have heard people use this as their reason to not feel guilty about animal abuse. They say that there’s no reason to consider vegetarianism and that factory farming is perfectly acceptable because God gave us the animals to do whatever we want with them.
    And yet, they fail to acknowledge many other verses which demand respect for animals:

    “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?” - Luke 12:6

    “Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven?” - Job 35:11

    “For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?” - 1 Corinthians 9:9

    According to the bible, God created all the animals and the entire earth before he made humans. It seems as though, even if he did give us dominion over the animals, we were meant to take care of them and respect them. We were given stewardship of the land, which doesn’t mean just owning it. It means caring for it and guarding it. We weren’t given just a privilege; we were given a responsibility. I imagine that God would be furious that we allow the cruelties of factory farming to exist. His intricate creation, the earth, is being degraded and dirtied more and more every day. We pollute it and pretend that the only consequence is that someday it will be uninhabitable for humans. But the earth itself has worth. There is so much of it that we do not yet understand, and, if we keep abusing it, never will. God took much more time creating the rest of the earth than he did creating humans. Even if humans are special, that doesn’t give us the right to torture animals in factory farms or use them for petty research experiments. We are all God’s creations and therefore we all have the right to be respected and live natural lives.