Of all the objections to veganism, I think that one of the most confused ones of all is the claim that vegans “anthropomorphize” animals. Interestingly, this point is misunderstood not only by non-vegans, but by secular vegans as well, and I’ll explain why. But first, let’s define anthropomorphize.

According to the dictionary:

Basically, anthropomorphize is just a fancy word for humanize.

So what exactly do the naysayers mean by humanize or “anthropomorphize”? I’m assuming that what they’re saying is that vegans ascribe qualities like intelligence, emotions and personalities to animals, in order to justify our position that people shouldn’t eat or exploit animals.

There are two points I want to make about this claim.

The first point is that we don’t have to falsely ascribe emotions or intelligence to animals, because it is an observable fact that many animals indeed do have emotions, intelligence, and sentience. Anyone who has owned a dog or cat knows this. Perhaps average people aren’t aware that farm animals are also sentient, intelligent and have their own individual personalities, like our cats and dogs. In fact, pigs are ranked as even smarter than dogs, and tests have shown that they outsmart even human toddlers.

Here are some examples that farm animals are more intelligent than most people realize:

The second point gets back to my original comment that this claim shows a big misunderstanding. Here’s why.

By assuming that attributes like intelligence, emotions and personalities are inherently human, the non-vegan who is making this claim is showing an anthropocentric worldview. In other words, he is making human beings central in this universe. Human beings are not central.

Here’s the reality. Qualities like intelligence, emotions and personalities are not “human” qualities, they are qualities that humans possess, but not only humans.

These qualities come from God. GOD is the one who gave us intelligence, emotions and personalities, but God also gave those qualities to many animals as well. So they are not human qualities, they are qualities that are rooted in God’s nature, and He chose to give not only humans but also animals a certain amount of intelligence, personalities and emotions.

The reason why this claim shows a misunderstanding – even among secular vegans – is that people who don’t believe in God are obviously not going to believe that those qualities come from God. As a Christian vegan, this is what I believe, and since I haven’t yet addressed this claim on my blog, I wanted to finally set this straight.

So if you’re a vegan and you happen to hear this objection, be sure to tell them that we are not “humanizing” animals, because those qualities are not strictly or inherently human. They come from God. GOD lovingly made the animals and chose to give them those qualities as well.

Christian vegans believe that we should honor God’s original intent which means to live in peace and harmony with animals, and choose to eat a healthy, non-violent plant based diet instead!