In the Bible we are given a vision of a vegan world: 'God said: 'See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food’ [Genesis 1:29]. And elsewhere in the Bible there are positive statements about, and positive images of, our relationship with animals that encourage compassion towards them. Jesus is, after all, born in a cowshed surrounded by animals.

So why are the Jewish and Christian traditions regarded by many - including Anglican bishops - as justifying the exploitation and killing of animals for food? We discuss these and other issues with Joyce D'Silva, a scholar, and author of Animal Welfare in World Religion: Teaching and Practice.

Donate here: https://ko-fi.com/animalrightsdebate

Join the WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LTGteTLZkwI9XUtB1Xxfen

Find out more: https://linktr.ee/animalrightsdebate

Our treatment of animals raises profound - and controversial - issues. How can we resolve the moral questions? In an age where we seem to have lost the capacity to engage in constructive discussion, perhaps a Greek philosopher who lived two and half thousand years ago can show us the way forward. Socrates provides us with a form of dialogue that can reveal inconsistencies and errors, and lead us to a reasoned and valid conclusion. David and Martyn apply his method to animal experimentation.

Donate here: https://ko-fi.com/animalrightsdebate Join the WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LTGteTLZkwI9XUtB1Xxfen Find out more: https://linktr.ee/animalrightsdebate

In this episode, Emma Slawinski, newly appointed CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports in the UK, discusses the ways in which the landmark ban on the hunting of wild mammals with dogs needs to be tightened, in particular to outlaw so-called trail hunting (which is foxhunting by any other name). She explains how her upbringing led her to value animals as individuals and why the organised shooting of animals causes so much harm, not just to the shot animals. An optimist by nature, she believes in the essential goodness of human beings and why it is therefore important to engage with opponents. Donate here: https://ko-fi.com/animalrightsdebate Join the WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/LTGteTLZkwI9XUtB1Xxfen Find out more: https://linktr.ee/animalrightsdebate