Is God on The Animals’ Side? Take Our Quiz!

Animal rights supporters subscribe to all different religions and philosophies. Whatever your beliefs, you can test your knowledge of what various religions have to say about the issues. We guarantee some surprises!

“Any religion or philosophy which is not based on a respect for life is not a true religion or philosophy.”

— Albert Schweitzer

How’d You Score?

1. b. Rabbi Hayyim David Halevi issued a ruling prohibiting the production and wearing of fur, practices he found unethical.

2. All of the above. Muhammad (PBUH) called imprisoning animals “a great sin” and banned his followers from participating in animal fights and trading in animal skins. And former imam Al-Hafiz Basheer Ahmad Masri said that causing animals “pain or disfigurement is contrary to the Islamic principles.”

3. a. Outraged over animal suffering, the pope forbade bullfights and other festivities in which animals were tortured.

4. d. Evidence indicates that this event (“the miracle of the loaves and the fishes”) didn’t actually include fish. Some biblical scholars contend that the Greek word for “fishweed” (a dried seaweed that was a popular food among Palestinian peasants) was later mistranslated as “fish.”

5. b. Nobel Peace Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer told one interviewer, “My vegetarianism is my religion, and it’s part of my protest against the conduct of the world.” Schweitzer, da Vinci, and Einstein were vegetarians, too. Great minds think alike!

6. b. India, home of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, has the most faith-based vegetarians. The Buddhist Surangama Sutra says that “if we eat the flesh of living creatures, we are destroying the seeds of compassion.” The Tirukkural, a 2,000-year-old Hindu text, states, “When a man realizes that meat is the butchered flesh of another creature, he must abstain from eating it.” And the Jain Yoga Shashtra declares, “Non-injury to all living beings is the only religion.”

7. b. and c. In addition to requiring fasting, Jewish law directs that no leather be worn on Yom Kippur because one can’t ask for compassion while dressed in products of suffering.

8. a, b, and c. Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were vegan in the Garden of Eden, and, according to Clement of Alexandria (himself a vegetarian), Matthew, too, was an ethical vegetarian. Many biblical scholars believe Jesus was an Essene, a member of a vegetarian sect of Judaism. Find out more at PETA LAMBS.

9. b. Anglican priest Arthur Broome founded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in England in 1824.

10. b. To say God gave humans dominion is a mistranslation of Genesis 1:28. On the sixth day, God created humans and other animals and called for humane stewardship of sentient beings.