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Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel
i also believe that non-human doesn't mean sub-human, and i am really dismayed by the arrogant disregard that many humans have for other species and their welfare. it makes me really happy to see people like sparrow expressing their respect and compassion ; if everyone began to think this way i think we'd see a lot less atrocities committed against everyone, animals *and* humans (humans are animals too, anyway).
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Well, it all comes around to the Judeo-Christian idea of "dominion" over the animals (including blood sacrifice to their God, as first expressed in the Cain/Abel myth), versus the idea of compassion (which really means no more than the ability to feel what another is feeling) for all living things which was the cornerstone of the Buddhist philosophy.
They are two very different ways of looking at the animal kingdom. In one view we are "us" and they are "them." We supposedly have souls and they supposedly do not. Under the other view, to the extent that any living thing has a soul, then all living things have souls. We are all one, and those things we call souls slip in and out of all forms depending on the lessons we must learn in any life. In one view the soul has one life on earth and then returns to the god. In the other the soul returns again and again until it passes to Nirvana ... which is nothingness ... a merging with the whole.
Of course, since no one knows with any real certainty which is the "right" view ... all we can do is go with what makes us feel comfortable. That is the right view for each person.
I think the people who make me a little crazy are the ones who try to force another person to conform to a view that makes them uncomfortable (mentally, physically ... you name it). And, I feel horribly sorry for people who are trapped in a particular world view that brings pain and harm to themselves and others ... and who don't realize that there is a way out.