Our Place Among Other Living Things: A Theological Perspective

Commentary by walford

There is a significant cadre who hold that all other living things have been expressly put here to be exploited by homo sapiens.

This is justified by saying that it has been so decreed by the Almighty, citing scrawlings on paper written by men and subsequently edited by others as Divine evidence. It is further justified with the notion that animals are ‘lesser’ while we are Chosen.

Similar rationale is used to justify practioners of one man-made religion raping, pillaging and murdering members of other human tribes wholesale. All because they, as finite beings, do not share our views of the Infinite

This certainly confers a significant political advantage and permits a great deal of atrocity at others’ expense.

Remember this as some of you look down your noses at others you characterize as religious extremists. If you hold religious views similar to those cited above, what distinguishes you from them?

Time, space — and most importantly the Almighty’s Divine Will — are too vast for us to presume that we’re Chosen to be anything but a tenuous experiment in its early stages on a small planet in a non-descript sector of a galaxy like so many others.

If we fail, life will go on as it did many millenia before we arrived — quite nicely, thank you very much.

Those of us who lack the humility to remember that will contribute to our demise if it comes to that.