Fact check: PETA asks AI to write a Vegan Bible
The Book: PETA's version of the creation story
Well, the world just got even crazier.
PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is an organisation that lobbies and works towards some good goals and some questionable ones in relation to the treatment of animals. Their website says, “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”
Well, they just got ChatGPT to rewrite Genesis, the first book of the Bible, in a vegan interpretation. It’s a kind of lazy way to commit heresy, but there you go, I guess they think they have plausible deniability: they can say to God, “It wasn’t me, it was ChatGPT that did it…”
One of the more comical additions is Abraham and Sarah’s dog called Herbie:
As they walked with Herbie, Sarah and Abraham thought of the importance of adopting dogs from shelters and rescue organizations rather than purchasing them from breeders.
They spoke of how buying a dog or cat from a breeder or a pet shop contributes to the companion animal overpopulation crisis, as countless dogs and cats in shelters await loving homes while breeders continue to produce more puppies and kittens for profit.
In their media statement, they describe how ChatGPT rewrote the sacrifice of the ram, which prefigures the death of Christ on the cross.
Among other new interpretations, in Genesis Chapter 22, Abraham travels to the land of Moriah and befriends a gentle lamb to show his reverence and respect for God’s creation, rather than slaughtering a ram to demonstrate his faith, much as human sacrifice, once a reality, is now outlawed all over the world.
The crazy thing about this, of course, is that humans, until Noah’s ark set down on Mount Moriah as the flood ended, were actually vegetarians in the Bible. But the real Bible says that God gave animals to human beings to eat, when Noah came out of the ark.
This is the real Bible, not the PETA bible:
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
“But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
“Whoever sheds human blood,
by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made mankind.As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”
Genesis 9:1-7
Biblical stories are just like any other stories: fictionist stories. They suit some but don't suit others. They are neither right nor wrong. The only truth that matters is deep within us and not in any stories.
There is no universal truth. Truth is very personal and very individual. This doesn't mean a group can agree and share a similar truth or a story that describes that truth. But the fact that truth is shared doesn't make it more truthful or absolute. It is still a relative truth shared between several people.
It has the same significance and value as "I feel that red is the best colour for a car." We will find millions of people that will share and sign up for that opinion. But there is zero truth in it. The same is true for any religious, spiritual or philosophical writing. People who sign up for some relative truths of many people are too lazy to find their own truth within.