this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2026

111 points (89.4% liked)

Ask Lemmy

asklemmy@lemmy.world

42,320 readers

8,146 active

1,216 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world

7) No Hit-and-Run questions.

Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.

8) No Bots.

Posts or comments from bots, LLM's, AIs, Neural Networks, Transformers, or Marvin the Paranoid Android are not welcome in AskLemmy. Real humans only please.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 3 years ago

moderators

Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world

Asudox@lemmy.world

lemmy_bot@lemmy.world

beefbaby182@lemmy.world

ModeratorCan@lemmy.world

neidu3@sh.itjust.works

asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev

candyman337@lemmy.world

candyman337@sh.itjust.works

Does it seem like religious people are less animal friendly? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 month ago by bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have been noting this more recently and it seems to be a trend, at least with people I converse with on the regular. The really religious types aren't animal people or downright dont like them. The more chill or agnostic types seem to be more apt to love animals.

I could go on my theory of this but I'm interested to see if anyone thinks this is a trend.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (24 children)

Oh I'd say this is definitely just anecdotal to you personally. Lots of animal shelters are owned, operated and funded by religious organizations.

hideshow 24 child comments

[–] PiraHxCx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (10 children)

that also seems anecdotal... I personally never heard of a single one (oh, anecdotal too) and in all cities I've lived I knew of shelters and rescuers because I'm one (and I currently take care of 34 cats and 4 dogs), and I must agree with OP, I know a lot of rescuers that have a religion (like, that vague belief in the god their parents talked about) but none that are overtly religious (wear symbols, attend temples, etc)

edit: Homeless shelters and nursing homes though, plenty of religious institutions behind them.

parent

hideshow 10 child comments

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 1 point 1 month ago (9 children)

Ton are a google search away. Dalo Acres Animal Sanctuary UT, St. Francis Animal Sanctuary MI, Keeping the Faith Animal Shelter PA. There's a ton of em.

parent

hideshow 9 child comments

[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 1 point 1 month ago (8 children)

The question isn't whether they are not animal friendly, but whether they are less animal friendly. There may be a ton of them but if there are six tons of non-religious shelters, there's a difference.

parent

hideshow 8 child comments

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago (7 children)

What metric would you want to see?

parent

hideshow 7 child comments

[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 1 point 1 month ago (6 children)

Self-reported religiosity and affection for animals would be a start.

parent

hideshow 6 child comments

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 1 point 1 month ago* (5 children)

So the shelters and sanctuaries I listed as brief examples?

parent

hideshow 5 child comments

[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 1 point 1 month ago (4 children)

No, the logic doesn't hold. There being shelters run by religious people does not say anything about whether they are more or less caring for animals than normal.

parent

hideshow 4 child comments

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

So you would need X amount of religious people to make a post like "hey I'm x religion and I love animals" what's the number you'd need? Would it need to correlate proportionally to secular animal lovers?

parent

hideshow 3 child comments

[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

You'd want to show a significant negative correlation between religiosity and friendliness toward animals. 'Secular' would just be one end of the religiosity dimension.

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

Secular just means not religious, we are comparing the religious with the not religious. How religious an individual is, is way way too subjective to hold any weight at all. Comparing different religions/sects could bring interesting results.

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 1 point 1 month ago

Yes, the religiosity dimension has secular at one end and religious at the other. You want to establish whether that dimension is aligned with friendliness to animals. How religious people are is measured all the time, but of course methods can be questioned. I agree that would be interesting; surely a religion's views on animals would have some affect on its adherents.

parent

[–] femtek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 month ago (9 children)

Yeah, but how do they treat them? Is it just a new way for them to make money?

parent

hideshow 9 child comments

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (8 children)

Are you under the impression animal shelters are churning out big bucks?

parent

hideshow 8 child comments

[–] femtek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Anything connected with churches can make good money from donations and shady financials.

parent

hideshow 7 child comments

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works [S] 9 points 1 month ago* (3 children)

While true, lets not be those jerks who associate literally every bad thing to ever happen with churches. Believe it or not there are churches with good people feeding the homeless etc. It's probably .000000001%, but they're out there (and it sure as hell ain't megachurches or any church that preaches maga)

parent

hideshow 3 child comments

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I had food and home heating oil for 3 winters when I was a kid. From a church we didn't even go to. Parents were social workers, a unbelievably poorly compensated profession. Its why I became an engineer instead of following their path. Its much bigger than that percentage but I agree its never the mega churches. They are organizations run by people. Some good, some bad.

parent

[–] femtek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

I agree, I have even helped my friends church with IT stuff and when I moved to a new town as a kid a church gave us food as we were the poorest family according to my school. That same church said I was going to hell a couple years later when everyone thought I was gay when a gay kid said I was cute and I thanked him.

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works [S] 1 point 1 month ago

Had me in the first half....

Damn. Thats shitty. Sorry they were assholes to you.

parent

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

That is true of any charity organization, regardless of affiliation.

parent

hideshow 2 child comments

[–] femtek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

Yeah but it's easier to do when you think you are righteous and have the will of your God behind you.

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago*

If you're actively scamming the system intentionally, you don't think that. You know you're being shitty and you've consciencely chosen that over being a righteous godly person.

parent

[–] ThunderclapSasquatch@startrek.website 3 points 1 month ago

This thread is basically about Dominionism vs Stewardship. A debate as old as many religions especially in the Abrahamic family

parent

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works [S] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

I didn't take organizations into account,

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

They are run by people. I think if you have a generally negative perception of a certain type of person, you'll start attributing negative behaviors to all of them, even if its only been your limited experience.

parent