I have been reading throughout the internet about individuals that feel as though Christians should not follow veganism because it goes directly against God's commands (In Christianity, at least). For example, there was this blogger on the this website that claims several negative things about being vegan that contribute to their position that Christians should not follow this philosphy or cult.

They state that:
1. A vegan lifestyle is an idol : "All that’s necessary to be a religious cult is for people to make an idol of something and to demonize those who don’t worship at their altar."
2. They respond to the critique that "animals deserve a chance at life" with "You consume sentient beings when you eat plants; you just aren’t aware of it" and they prove it by saying that "in the book, The Secret Life of Plants, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, it was proven that plants have sentience... The plants responded with an entirely different reaction when given loving attention and care. The plants were even able to reliably determine whether a person was telling the truth or a lie, with a much higher rate of accuracy than a standard polygraph test!"

3. "Few people are able to remain healthy as vegans, while many profit greatly by the nutrition available through clean animal protein. While I would expect you to contest this idea, I have witnessed this many times and experienced it myself."

4. Lastly, they point out that even Jesus ate meat, as did His disciples. He directed His fisherman disciples to cast a net to catch bountiful quantities of fish (sentient beings)"

Although I see some areas where veganism can go to an extreme, it is my goal in this discussion to first rebut some of their arguments and provide better nuanced arguments as to why Christians can be vegans.

As first point, I want to clarify that as a vegan, there are may ways people define veganism. For example, I define vegan as living on a plant-based diet, in order to better sustain my body nutritionally. However, as you can tell, others define vegan as a diet and a lifestyle in which on eats plant-based foods because it helps the body and the environment. I agree with both definitions. I think that if the foundation of veganism is a plant-based diet, there's nothing wrong with consuming it, either if it is used to further environmental and animal rights or not. It's like Christianity, there are fundamental Christians and non-fundamentalist Christians, but I still believe both are right and fair choices to follow.

As first point, I disagree with the first argument on the bases that being vegan is not a religious cult. Just because people are passionate about a topic does not equate their emotions as idolatry. Moreover, being vegan is oftentimes something personal, whereas a cult mandates one do a certain thing in order to adhere to the creeds. So, bad analogy.

2. I agree with their second argument because I do believe that a human is above an animal's life. I personally do not equate humans with animals. I believe humans can reason and thus claim their superiority to animals (but that does not mean humans abuse or torture animals; because they have a superiority to animals, humans must not abuse them). Animals can't do that.

3. This individual does not understand how vegans are more health conscious than most, in view of their dietary restrictions. Thus I believe vegans are the most aware about their bodies since they have to get those nutrients easily absorbed by an omnivore. As a side note, please tell me in the description, without googling it or looking it up on the web, how many grams of protein you should be eating? The fact that vegans know of not only how much protein, B12, Iron, Vitamin A, C, and calcium they should be getting and most omnivores don't, shows that vegans are more health conscious than even omnivores are. So bad health argument.

4. I believe that this person is also picking and choosing what to take from the Bible and what to leave. The Bible also says that one shouldn't eat certain meats because it was unclean. Moreover, most Jews, which included Jesus, were not meat-eaters because (and please correct me if I'm wrong ), most of that meat was offered to Roman gods. Again, bad Bible argument.

In conclusion, this individual exerts a limited knowledge on not only veganism but also the Bible, leaving the reader to the conclusion that one can still be Christian and also be vegan.