Meatism is Animal Sacrifice Detested by God (Revised). By Dr Chapman Chen

Summary: In the OT, there are graphic descriptions of animal sacrificial rituals that make them sound like an evil cult dedicated to Satan. E.g., in Exodus (29:15-17) and Leviticus (7:1-6), there are phrases like "hands on its head", “slaughter”, "Cut... into pieces", "blood... to be splashed against the sides of the altar", "internal organs", "the head and the other pieces", "both kidneys with the fat", "liver", etc. In these two books, as well as Numbers and Ezekiel, it’s even claimed that God covets the aroma of burnt flesh and subsists on the fat and blood thereof. God, however, via the mouths of the five great prophets (Isaiah 1:11; Jeremiah 7:22–23; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21–22; Micah 6:6–8) and the Psalmist (Ps. 50:7-14, 23), makes it clear that He had never commanded those hideous animal sacrificial rituals, and that He profoundly loathes and despises them.

The five prophets’ vegan legacy is inherited by Jesus, who famously declares, "I desire COMPASSION, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13; 12:7; cf. Hosea 6:6). Ultimately, animal sacrifice cannot atone for human sins (Rillera 2024). Everyone has free will as gifted by God and is supposed to be responsible for their own deeds (Deut. 30:19; Joshua 24:15; Proverbs 16:9). No one can die in lieu of anybody else (Ezekiel 18:20). God and Christ forgive without requiring bloodshed. The sins of King David (2 Samuel 12), the adulterous woman (John 8), and the prodigal son (Luke 15), which are all forgiven without bloodshed, are cases in point.

Now God has two opposing voices in the Bible: one is pro-animal sacrifice, expressed through the priestly writers of Lev. 3:12–16, Num. 28:2–6, and Exod. 29, and the Pauline camp in the NT; and the other is anti-animal sacrifice, expressed through the five great OT prophets and Jesus in the NT (cf. Rillera 2024:27). One of them must be fake; there's no way both are real. The sacrificial-cult passages are probably interpolations added by "the lying pen of the scribes" (Jer. 8:8).

Animal-flesh-eating, in reality, is a sacrifice to the idol god of the belly, or a sacrifice to gluttony (Proverbs 23; Philippians 3). That’s why Clement of Alexandria points out that “sacrifices were invented by men to be a pretext for eating flesh” (The Stromata, Book VII, Ch. 6). #VeganChrist #VeganGod #VeganChurch #VeganTheology

Full Text: https://www.vegantheology.net/post/meatism-is-animal-sacrifice-detested-by-god-revised-by-dr-chapman-chen

1. A Taste of the Sacrificial Literature

 “Take one of the rams, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. Slaughter it and take the blood and splash it against the sides of the altar.  Cut the ram into pieces and wash the internal organs and the legs, putting them with the head and the other pieces. Then burn the entire ram on the altar." (Exodus 29:15-17 NIV)

"These are the regulations for the guilt offering... The guilt offering is to be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, and its blood is to be splashed against the sides of the altar.  All its fat shall be offered: the fat tail and the fat that covers the internal organs, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which is to be removed with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering presented to the Lord. It is a guilt offering. Any male in a priest’s family may eat it... (Leviticus 7:1-6 NIV)

What do u feel after reading these passages?

2. Animal Sacrifice as an Evil Cult Look at the two previous passages. Note words like "hands on its head", “slaughter”, "Cut... into pieces", "blood... to be splashed against the sides of the altar", "internal organs", "the head and the other pieces", ""both kidneys with the fat", "liver", etc. Doesn't the whole sound like an evil cult dedicated to Satan?

3. Do u Think God Covets the aroma of burnt Corpses of Animals?

"It is a burnt offering to the LORD, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the LORD." (Exodus 29:18 NIV)

"You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord." (Leviticus 1:9, 13 NIV)

4. Do u Think that God Subsists on Animal Fat and Blood?

 “In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer MY BREAD, the FAT AND THE BLOOD.” (Ezekiel 44:7 KJV)

 “you are to present this food offering to the Lord: the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them... burn them on the altar as a food offering...All the fat is the Lord’s."  (Leviticus 3:12-16 NIV)

In Numbers 28, God actually commands the Israelites through Moses to feed HIM with burnt animal flesh on a daily basis!    

“Give this command to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Make sure that you present to me at the appointed time my food offerings, as an aroma pleasing to me.’ Say to them: ‘This is the food offering you are to present to the Lord: two lambs a year old without defect, as a regular burnt offering each day" (Numbers 28: 2-6 NIV)

5. God Loathes Animal Sacrifices!

Through the five great OT prophets, the Psalmist, King Solomon, and Saint Peter, God explicitly tells us that He despises animal sacrifices.

Via Amos, God bluntly reveals that He detests the cult of animal sacrifice:-

“I HATE, I DESPISE your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. (Amos 5:21-4 NIV)

Via Isaiah, God rhetorically asks who has required people to offer fat and blood to Him:-

 “Of what value to me is the abundance of your sacrifices? saith the Lord: I am FULL of [fed up with] whole-burnt-offerings of rams; and I DELIGHT NOT in the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and goats: neither shall ye come with these to appear before me; for WHO HAS REQUIRED these things at your hands?” (Isaiah 1:11-12, Greek Septuagint Bible).

Via Jeremiah, God makes it clear that he never ordered the ancestors of the Israelis to carry out those animal sacrificial rituals:- “For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.” (Jeremiah 7:22–23 ESV)

This is corroborated by Isaiah 43:23 (Brenton Septuagint Translation), wherein God says, "I have not caused thee to serve with sacrifices".

Via Micah, God tells us what pleases Him is doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God rather than animal sacrifices:-“Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams…? He has told you, O man, what is good… to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:6–8 ESV) 

Likewise, Hosea 6:6 (ESV) reads,“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Ecclesiastes 5:1, too, urges, "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God; to draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools" (ESV)

Similarly, Psalm 50:7-14, 23 (NKJV) reads,   Will I (God) eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High…Whoever offers praise glorifies me”.

According to St Peter, God “hates sacrifices, bloodshed, and libations; He quenches the fire of altars; He represses wars; He shows the remission of sins by works.” (Clementine Homilies, Hom. III.26).

Thus, blood sacrifices are unacceptable to God and true atonement is repentance and righteous living, not slaughter.

Moreover, through the Psalmist, God explains that He does not need any animals from humans because He already has everything!  

“Hear, O my people... I will testify against you; I am...your God! I will not reprove you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are continually before me. I will not take a bull from your house, no goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine..” (Psalm 50:7-10 KJV). [Understanding the statement to be in the negative, most translators render it as: “I will not reprove you.” The Hebrew text, nonetheless, could also be translated as “Will I not reprove you?” תָמִֽיד׃ לְנֶגְדִּ֣י וְעוֹלֹתֶ֖יךָ אוֹכִיחֶ֑ךָ עַל־זְ֭בָחֶיךָ לֹ֣א (JPS, 1985; cf. Vujicic 2009).]

6. The 5 Prophets’ Vegan Legacy is Inherited by Jesus

Echoing Hosea 6:6, Jesus famously declares, "I desire COMPASSION, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). In expelling from the Holy Temple vendors who sold innocent animals to be slaughtered and sacrificed there, Jesus gravely offended the big bosses behind the lucrative business – the chief priests and scribes – who immediately plotted to have him killed (Mark 11:18; cf. Akers 2000).

7. Animal Sacrifice Cannot Atone for Human Sins

Even if we assume for a second that the animal sacrificial rituals in the OT are legitimate, they do not atone for human sins per se. Per Andrew Remington Rillera’s 2024 book, Lamb of the Free, neither animal sacrifices in the OT nor Jesus’ death in the NT constitutes substitutionary atonement.

In the OT, most animal sacrifices are non-atoning, e.g., the regular burnt offerings (to attract God), the well-being sacrifices (shared meals with God), and the Passover (to commemorate Exodus) (cf. Rillera 2024:27). Kipper is atoning but only in the sense of cleansing the sanctuary of ritual impurities.

Even Leviticus 16 does not claim that animal sacrifice removes human sins. It just claims that animal blood ritually purifies God’s dwelling place from impurities caused by human sins. Thus, even though Leviticus 16 uses language like “for the sins of Israel,” it is not substitutionary atonement but sanctuary cleansing.

6. Each Person Carries their own Cross 

The blood-atone theology also fails to align with the fact that everyone has free will as gifted by God and is thus supposed to be responsible for their own deeds (Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:15; Proverbs 16:9). No one can die in lieu of anybody else (Ezekiel 18:20).

“Fathers shall not be put to death for their sons, nor shall sons be put to death for their fathers; everyone shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16; II Kings 14:6).

“But everyone will die for his own sin; each man who eats sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge” (Jeremiah 31:30).

“No man can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him” (Psalms 49:7).

“The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself” (Ezekiel 18:20).

“So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who has shed it!” (Numbers 35:33).

7. God and Christ Forgive Without Requiring Bloodshed

As aforesaid, “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams…? He has told you, O man, what is good… to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:6–8). Again, “Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High…Whoever offers praise glorifies me” [Psalm 50:7-14, 23 NKJV].

The idea of Jesus believing that God demands His blood to pardon humanity is incompatible with Jesus’ teachings about God as a merciful being (Luke 15:11-32). As asserted by Jesus Himself in Matthew 19:16-29 and John 8:11, the key for sinners to receive forgiveness and attain eternal life is to keep the Commandments, to help the poor, to confess, to repent, and to stop sinning.

No blood of someone else is required. The sins of King David (2 Samuel 12), the adulterous woman (John 8), and the prodigal son (Luke 15), which are all forgiven without bloodshed, are cases in point.

8. The Lying Pen of the Scribes

Now God has two opposing voices in the Bible:- one is pro-animal sacrifice, like through the priestly writers of Leviticus 3:12-16, Numbers 28: 2-6, and Exodus 29, and the Pauline camp in the NT; and the other anti-animal sacrifice, like through the five great OT prophets and Jesus in the NT. One of them must be fake; there's no way both are real. The sacrificial-cult passages are probably interpolations added by "the lying pen of the scribes" –

"How can you say, 'We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,' when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?" (Jeremiah 8:8 NIV).

9. The Prime Directive

The ultimate litmus test For the validity of any bible verse is: "God is LOVE" (1 John 4:7-21 ESV).  When God is love, how could He "possibly delight and take pleasure in burnt offerings or other kinds of sacrifice", and in seeing "an innocent creature slaughtered and bled to death?" as questioned by Vujicic (2009).

10. An example of Interpolation in the Bible 

As pointed out by Prof. James Tabor (2024), in Deuteronomy 11:26, God announces a blessing and a curse. The 15 chapters that ensue are dedicated to a set of complex codes on animal sacrifice and flesh consumption. Then, out of nowhere, Chapt. 27 resumes the blessing and curse narrative in Chapt. 11. There’s good reason to believe that the middle part is an interpolation inserted by “the lying pen of the scribes” (Jeremiah 8:8 NIV), especially when we consider the fact the Shapira Manuscript, the original copy of Deuteronomy dismissed by pseudoscience in the 1880s but recently rehabilitated by Dershowitz and Tabor (2021), does not contain any animal sacrifice rituals.

Indeed, Prof. James Tabor (2024) argues that all animal sacrificial rituals are interpolations added by priests and scribes for their personal gains.   

In addition, Kameron Waters (The Ellen Fisher Podcast 2024), the co-director of Christspiracy, also notes that there are two sets of the Mosaic Law, one anti-vegan (fake) and one vegan (genuine):-

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.” He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. 9 Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him:..“Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. He gave these orders…“Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.” (2 Kings 22 NIV)

11. Eating Animals is Blasphemous Animal Sacrifice! Linguistically speaking, Zebach זֶבַח, the Hebrew word for “sacrifice”, implies the killing of an animal for food. "Zebach" (H2077) is derived from the Hebrew root "zabach" (H2076), which, per Strong’s Concordance, means “properly, a slaughter, i.e. the flesh of an animal; by implication, a sacrifice (the victim or the act)”. Per Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words, Zâbach is also used as a term for “slaughter for eating.” This usage is closely linked with “slaughter for sacrifice” since all eating of flesh was sacrificial among ancient Hebrews. No wonder, Clement of Alexandria points out that “sacrifices were invented by men to be a pretext for eating flesh.” (The Stromata Book VII, Ch. 6).

Logically, Vujicic (2009) questions, "What else could the killing of an animal for the taste of its flesh be besides a sacrifice of the animal?"

That meat-eating is a sacrifice to the idol god of the belly, or a sacrifice to gluttony is confirmed by Proverbs 23 and Philippians 3:-

"Do not mix with winebibbers, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat; For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags". (Proverbs 23:20-21 NKJV)

"Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on earthly things." (Philippians 3:19 Berean Study Bible)

In conclusion, Christians are supposed to repudiate not only animal sacrifice but also animal-flesh-eating. Go vegan if you are a real Christian or a loving person for God is LOVE. Amen.