Faith & Science
Why Man Can Eat Meat and Have No Fear
A look at the biology, the hierarchy of life, and why eating meat is consistent with both science and faith
From the Author
Let's Just Say It
I eat meat. I enjoy it. And I've thought about it a lot — not just as a personal choice, but as someone who has spent considerable time researching how life on Earth is actually organized. What I've found is that the modern debate around eating meat has been almost entirely politicized, stripped of its biological context, and in many cases deliberately disconnected from both science and common sense.
So let me lay out what I actually think, and why — drawing on my own research into consciousness complexity, the natural hierarchy of life on Earth, and yes, my Christian faith. You don't have to share my faith to follow the argument. The science stands on its own.
The Research
Consciousness Is Not Equally Distributed
In my research into biological complexity and consciousness, I developed a scoring system that attempts to quantify awareness across life forms based on measurable biological factors — cell count, neural density, synapse count, brain size, metabolic rate, problem-solving ability, social complexity, and more. The results are striking.
A human scores 56.45 on the adjusted complexity scale. A dolphin scores 53.10. A dog scores 21.57. An ant scores 1.84. A plant scores around 0.60. A rock scores 0.00.
These aren't arbitrary numbers — they reflect the actual biological infrastructure of awareness. Consciousness, as best we can measure it, emerges from complexity. And complexity is not evenly distributed across life forms.
Adjusted Complexity Score — selected organisms on the consciousness spectrum. Full rankings available at the Consciousness Calculator.
The Hierarchy
Lower Life Forms Exist to Support Higher Ones
This isn't a controversial idea in biology — it's the basic structure of ecosystems. Plants convert sunlight into energy. Insects pollinate plants and break down organic matter. Fish maintain aquatic ecosystems. Cattle graze and fertilize land. Each tier of life performs a function that enables the tiers above it to exist.
What my research adds to this picture is a consciousness dimension. The organisms at the lower end of the complexity scale — plants, insects, fish, most animals we raise for food — have measurably limited awareness. A cow has a consciousness score roughly comparable to a crow. A fish scores lower than a lizard. These are not creatures with rich inner lives comparable to a human, a dolphin, or even a dog.
This matters morally. The ethical weight of killing something is proportional to its capacity for conscious experience. Pulling a carrot out of the ground and slaughtering a chimpanzee are not morally equivalent acts — and the science of consciousness complexity explains why.
The hierarchy of life on Earth — each tier supports and enables the tier above it. Stewardship flows upward; responsibility follows.
The Politicization Problem
This Got Hijacked
Somewhere along the way, eating meat became a political and cultural identity marker rather than a biological and ethical question. On one side, you have people who treat any meat consumption as morally equivalent to murder. On the other, you have people who refuse to think about it at all.
Neither position is intellectually honest. The biology is clear: not all life forms have equal conscious experience. The hierarchy is real, measurable, and has been recognized — implicitly or explicitly — by every human civilization that has ever existed. We have always eaten meat from lower complexity life forms. We have always protected dogs, dolphins, and great apes differently than we protect chickens and fish. That intuition is correct, and the science of consciousness complexity explains why.
You don't need a religious view to get here. Evolution itself produces this hierarchy — complexity emerges through natural selection over billions of years, and the most complex organisms are the ones capable of the most sophisticated experience of reality. Whether you believe that complexity was designed or emerged randomly, the hierarchy is the same.
Every civilization that has ever existed has eaten meat from lower life forms. That intuition is not barbarism — it is biology.
Faith & Science
What I Believe, and Why It Fits
I'm a Christian, and I'll be straightforward about it. The Bible is not ambiguous on this point. After the flood, God tells Noah directly:
"Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything."
Genesis 9:3
That's not an endorsement of cruelty — it's an acknowledgment of how the created order works. The same Bible that permits eating meat also commands stewardship of creation. We are not given license to abuse or destroy — we are given responsibility to manage wisely.
What strikes me about my own research is how well it aligns with this framework. The physical hierarchy I can measure — cell counts, neurons, synapses, consciousness scores — maps almost perfectly onto the intuitive moral hierarchy that billions of humans across history have held. Lower complexity life forms support higher ones. Higher complexity life forms bear greater responsibility. At the apex sits the one creature capable of understanding the whole system.
That's not a coincidence. That's design.
The Bottom Line
Eat the Steak. Be a Good Steward.
I'm not here to tell anyone what to eat. That's between you and your own conscience. But I am pushing back on the idea that eating meat is inherently immoral — because the biology, the history, and in my view the faith all point in the same direction.
The hierarchy of life on Earth is real. Consciousness complexity is real and measurable. Lower life forms have always supported higher ones — that is the design of this physical world. And the creature at the top of that hierarchy has always had both the freedom and the responsibility to use it wisely.
Eat thoughtfully. Waste nothing. Respect the system. But don't let anyone tell you that a steak is morally equivalent to a murder. The science doesn't support it, history doesn't support it, and in my view, neither does God.