to find any kind of life not-of-this-earth. If our search for extraterrestrial life has taught us anything, it is that life is rare and precious. We too often take for granted that we share this amazing little blue planet with other living things. And when we take the time to really see them it becomes clear that each of them is a miracle in itself. Each of them has as much ownership of this earth as we. Each of them has the right to be here.
We hold the unspoken belief that the earth, and everything on it, is ours to do with as we please. God gave us dominion over everything else on the earth. We are the pinnacle of life on earth after all. Unfortunately our history is one of misuse and abuse of the world and the living creatures around us. We've failed to realize that with the dominion God gave us comes a great responsibility. We have the responsibility to treat other living things with respect and compassion. Instead, we all too often take all other living things...including each other...for granted. Why would God allow us to find life on another world when we treat the life on the world He gave us with such abuse and neglect?
We have misused animals, and each other, for our own perverted purposes as long as there have been human beings on earth. I believe the way we treat animals tells us something about who we really are...and it's not a good picture.
Some believe animals should entertain us. That's at the heart of things like circus's. I don't care for people teaching animals that they need to perform tricks for their keep. I've never liked the circus or any practice that uses animals for entertainment.They don't need to do anything other than be themselves as far as I'm concerned. So many of them are far more intelligent than we give then credit for. So many of them are capable of love and friendship. We could learn so much from them if we'd just pay attention.
We owe them our love and respect because they are our fellow inhabitants of this planet. They add so much to life. I find practices that use animals for some perverse human purposes to be despicable. The Chinese practice of using rhinoceros horns, tiger bones; elephant tusks and bear gall bladder among other things are plain barbaric as far as I'm concerned. The world would be a far less interesting place without these noble creatures. For people to use them, especially for such ignorant, backwards purposes, speaks to our shame. Unfortunately, as the Chinese and Vietnamese grow richer because of capitalistic reforms, more of them have the money to afford black market rhino horn and other animal parts for their fantasy drugs. The practice is driven purely by superstition combined with greed and the uneducated lunacy that promotes it has endangered some of the most magnificent living things on earth.There is no question that we, human beings, are an arrogant and immature species. We trample on the earth instead of walking softly upon it. We kill what we deem to be different or somehow 'less' than we are. We use living things for decorations and current fads. Even the most 'civilized' peoples among us are no better than jungle tribesmen in some ways. At least jungle tribesmen kill mainly for food and survival.
The creatures that inhabit our planet with us aren't things to be used...they are living, breathing examples of God's glory. There are many species that can feel the same emotions we do. Many animals are capable of love. And we are losing more of them every day by encroaching on their habitats; poisoning the air and water that they need and, too often, killing them just to suit some perverse and base desire.
While I believe in a kind of "food chain ethics" that we have the
right to use animals for food the way any other predator on earth would,
I also believe we owe them a measure of respect. With the right to use
and kill animals for our survival comes the responsibility to treat them
humanely. We use domesticated animals for food and work and that gives
us the responsibility to care for those so used. This has been a
common value among peoples who have used domesticated animals for their
livelihoods for thousands of years. Too many other people kill and maim animals for profit and
sometimes just because they can. Far too many take animals into their
homes as pets or domesticated partners and misuse and abuse them. We humans, the 'highest' form of life on earth, often seem to be the most despicable to me. Animals only kill when they need to for survival...unless they've been perverted by contact with humans. Human beings kill...because we can.Life in the universe is rare...if it exists anywhere else...and we, here on earth, have been richly blessed with an abundance of life forms. If we want to study alien life we, often, have to look no farther than the world around us. Insects and microscopic life forms are as alien as any other planet could produce. If we were to find life on another world...our history of how we've treated them speaks to how we would eventually treat alien life. Why would God allow us to infect the living things on another world with the barbarity that we have treated the living things around us with? This planet is a training ground to prepare us before heading out into the universe. All we have done is prove that we're not ready for such a trek.
The Buddhists and others are right. We are all a part of a greater whole. The way we treat the least among us tells us who we are. We have a long way to go...
