E
eumeme
Guest
I said:Certainly I quite agree - in my most spiritual phases, conflict is regarded as ultimately unnecessary and without purpose.
(......)
Although there are different ways of expressing such views, ultimately a point remains - a spiritual truth, if you will - that we are all equal. If people claim to be spiritual, but advocate against spiritual equality, IMO it is like self-claimed peace activists taking to throwing petrol bombs.
(......)
i believe that the concept of superiority in itself it's doomed and possibly the cause of great suffering for Life.
the myth that this planet is own by the human race stem from the same superiority concept.
the idea that in few million years other animal species like dolphins or gorillas could develop other conscious intelligences is not even contemplated.
it's our planet and we do what we want with it. we are humans: we know it all!
if a lifeform is not human then it hasn't got many rights - unless it is food or food for our food or a pet.
i believe that san francesco d'assisi (st. francis) love for all creatures would be a proper humble and modern way of expressing spirituality that considers all Life (and non-Life) at the same level.
...
Laudato si', mi Signore, per sora nostra matre Terra,
la quale ne sustenta et governa,
et produce diversi fructi con coloriti fior et herba.
...
(Cantico delle Creature - St. Francis - written in the year 1262)
when he speaks about earth he says "our mother earth" and not "our earth".
if earth is our mother then all lifeforms born from earth are our brothers and sisters and we should be careful in not taking away their natural rights to exist as a lifeform.
I believe that our real uniqueness is to be the first self-aware being on earth - this should give us not less but more responsibility toward other lifeforms: we have to make decision for all Life on earth, not just for human greedy interests. it should be like being the elder, mature brother caring for his younger siblings.
unfortunately the trend I've seen in recent years is quite the opposite: we aren't making any progress on the kyoto agreement: the current mythology followed by politicians is that mankind owns the planet and come first along with its food and pets.
and so we keep taking more space for our food to grow (more animals, more farming) and we destroy the ecosystem for other animal and plants that -unfortunately (!) for them - haven't got the luck to be on our food list.
and we keep growing in number: the 2050 population will be between 7.7 and 11.2 billion individuals (median estimate 9.4 billion!).
a good father and a good mother would know that they wouldn't be able to raise a family with 100 kids with the limited resources they can bring home - but here we are - such an intelligent race but so full of ourself to fill the entire planet with our dirt (thanx to our modern life we produce much more dirt than other lifeforms) and forget that our resources are limited too.
as a consequence we can easily anticipate wars and famine among humans and and Life Death (i mean extinction of millions of species)...
...and the trouble is that we'll keep growing even after 2050.
if we don't do something to preserve Life Diversity we'll probably undermine even the mankind life - we are all connected through the food chain - we shouldn't forget that.
in my opinion this is the century central problem/project - from what I'm aware very few people are doing something about it - and many religions try to keep the mankind growing indefinitely. (probably the religion inconscious/storical reason is to enlarge the number of their followers...)
when do we stop growing then?
what religions can do to stop the human invasion and allow us to respect our siblings lifeform life - i.e. leaving some resources to them?
what does your religion say to let us avoid the human exploitation of the planet and let the other lifeforms exist?
are all religions utterly antropocentric?
thank you for your time!