Hail Seitan!
There Are Seven Fundamental Tenets:
I - One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
II - The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
III - One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
IV - The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
V - Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
VI - People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any
harm that might have been caused.
VII - Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
Since in the modern age we can obtain all of the nutrition we need from a well-planned plant-based diet, by buying & consuming animal products, we participate in unnecessary cruelty to sentient beings
I can make an argument that being non-vegan in the modern age is violating all seven of these tenets
Tenet I : It’s neither reasonable, nor compassionate or empathetic, to needlessly exploit & take the life of a creature when we have moral agency & alternatives, unlike other animals.
Tenet II : It’s true that it’s legal to exploit & unalive animals today, but it was also legal to own slaves in the past. Just because we’re legally allowed to do something doesn’t mean we should.
Tenet III : One’s body being inviolable and subject to their own will alone should extend to all sentient beings. If it doesn’t, Name The Trait in a way that doesn’t lead to contradiction or absurdity
That is - Name The Trait different between humans and other animals that makes it okay to do things to other animals that we wouldn’t be okay with being done to humans.
I.e. justify the speciesist discrimination and double standard and differential treatment.
Tenet IV : We should be free to tell people they’re hypocrites for loving dogs & eating cows, or even for participating in the exploitative pet industry instead of adopting/rescuing companion animals.
Even if this is offensive to people. It’s freedom of speech and necessary for the activism and the struggle for justice that should prevail above laws and institutions (Tenet II).
To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of other sentient beings, is to forgo your own right to be respected like you would be if you first gave respect to other individuals (animals).
Tenet V : Insisting we need to eat meat or animal products to be healthy despite that disagreeing with scientific consensus, is distorting scientific facts to fit your beliefs,
& not conforming beliefs to your best scientific understanding of the world.
It’s denying reality,
burying your head in the sand to avoid confronting the truth,
& living in ignorance & delusion & the willfull, unnecessary destruction & oppression of others, self, & planet.
Tenet VI : Assuming that we are already perfect & couldn’t possibly be doing anything wrong or unjust, despite every historical society participating in normalized injustice, is not recognizing humans
are fallible.
And, when confronted with your mistake, in the form of what your kind have raised you to traditionally participate in regarding unnecessary systemic exploitation & violence to sentient beings,
if your response is to deflect, close your ears, & refuse to take personal responsibility or change any behavior, is to not do one’s best to rectify it & resolve any harm that might have been caused.
then that is to not right the wrong and fundamentally unjust relationship between humans and other animals and resolve it into one of harmonious and respectful coexistence.
Rather than one of needless exploitation, domination, violence, cruelty, and oppression.
Finally, Tenet VII : To claim that because these tenets do not specifically mention an obligation to not exploit & harm non-human animals unnecessarily & to be vegan, that means it isn’t entailed by
the values underlying them, is to not let every tenet serve as guiding principles designed to inspire nobility in action & thought & not allow the spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice to prevail
over the written or spoken word.
I like the Satanic Temple. They seem pretty cool. So let’s not associate them with this annoying cult.
Also just saying, if you think TST are cool based on these tenets (which I do too, I just wish they were more consistent in following them), then it makes little sense to not think veganism/animal rights/sentientism is cool too, since we literally share all the same values - hell, “Evidence, reason and compassion for sentient beings” is a definition of sentientism (which is basically the same or an extension of the philosophy of veganism/animal rights) that almost sounds like the first tenet of TST verbatim (“One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason”), which I find very interesting (regardless of differing interpretations of the word “creatures”). Reading the TST tenets as a vegan is a perfect fit. It almost sounds like it’s describing our entire worldview (though you can be a vegan who is also spiritual/religious, so not necessarily every vegan’s worldview [regarding the focus on science of Tenet V], but most vegans are secular/atheist and very pro-science, evidence, critical thinking, logic & reason etc - and compassion/empathy/respect/moral duty to treat others well (including non-human animals/sentient beings) - and all the other tenets I would say match every ethical vegan).
I take it you’re not from TST. Try to keep an open mind about what veganism is because many people don’t understand the importance of it as a social justice movement. I think partly it’s because the name doesn’t reveal what it’s about immediately. It’s about animal rights - although humans moving towards plant-based living as a species is also extremely critical for the environment/climate/planet, human society and social justice in many forms, as well as enormously beneficial for our health when implemented effectively.
It’s a common response to veganism/animal rights to say it’s a cult, which is not very nice to us or to the non-human animals. Imagine if you and your kind were being victimized and oppressed unnecessarily and wantonly, and someone arbitrarily told you that they were labeling the movement that sought to represent your interests and advocate for your rights/protection/respect/ethical treatment/liberation/freedom, as a “cult”, and dismissed it on that basis. But this fails to consider that it’s simply a movement advocating for the rights of non-human sentient beings, in very similar ways to movements advocating for the rights of LGBT people or women, or the historical movement to boycott and abolish human slavery. We want people to boycott, not contribute to, and eventually help to end/abolish animal exploitation by humans and move toward more ethical, sustainable (and healthier) ways of living for all sentient beings and the environment. It’s trying to make the world a better place and reduce harm and suffering and injustice in critical ways. And it’s not about woo-woo claims. It’s a secular movement based on hard evidence about the sentience of animals and the impact of animal agriculture on their lives and experiences, on the planet/environment/climate/food security/zoonotic diseases/potential pandemics/antibiotic resistance/etc, and human society (including not exploiting humans for dangerous & traumatic slaughterhouse work leading to high rates of domestic violence, drug abuse, PTSD, suicide, etc) and human health. It affects a lot of very important functions in the world and impacts all of us.
So if you think animal rights is a cult (despite having no leader, us all often disagreeing with each other about various things related to animal rights philosophy, and comprising a grassroots movement around the world to try to liberate animals from human oppression, much like other social justice movements), but presumably you don’t think human rights movements are cults (or do you? and remember, humans are animals), then what exactly is the difference that makes veganism/animal rights a cult but not human rights movements (such as feminism/women’s rights)?
they advocated for equality and freedom not on the basis of being sentient, but on the basis they are fully human, too. this simply isn’t the case for non-humans.