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.
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.