"I'm gonna join Doug on this too. I would add that I would be even more disgusted if it was MY dogs. The homeless man means nothing to me in a world already busting at the seams with humans, my dogs are my best and most loyal companions."

I love that we live in a world that places an animals life above a human, but wait not any animals, only cute ones that we have been taught not to eat by watching TV. Especially an animal that routinely attacks and kills harmless and innocent people and runs wild in the streets and has been bred to the point of being guaranteed to have a health malady.

I am convinced most pet owners would not love their dogs so much if their dogs could actually talk.

I love that we live in a world so black and white that the lives of all humans should be placed above the lives of all animals, but wait not any humans, only white ones and rich ones that we have been taught to respect by corporations and churches. Especially those humans who routinely attack and kill and cheat and steal from harmless and innocent people and run wild in the marketplace and have been bred to the point of obesity and being guaranteed to have many, many health maladies.

I am convinced that most people would not love other people so much if they could actually think.....

"I love that we live in a world that places an animals life above a human,"

I would put a close companion (furry or otherwise) above someone who is not related to me and who I don't know anything about. However, I am working really hard at being a good Buddhist which means I should try harder to treat all sentient beings the same. I can't bring myself to the monotheist ideologies that believe humans are innately more important or valuable than any other animals. Such is the nature of chaff.

We are all animals. Dog, bunny, homeless person, person with home and job, zebra. All mammals! (unless you are an echidna, duckbill platypus, or one of various marsupials.)

Chaff. You never disappoint.

(These kinds of threads make me long for religion and abortion arguments.)

p.s. Mr. Ide, keep up the good work. You never disappoint.

Edited by DaveT on 06/23/2010 18:13:01 MDT.

"However, I am working really hard at being a good Buddhist which means I should try harder to treat all sentient beings the same", which poses a dietary dilemma: Will you be a vegetarian or a cannibal?

"Will you be a vegetarian or a cannibal?"

Vegetarian. It would be impossible for me to eat all the sentient beings on the planet. I had a discussion once with a Buddhist RE: are fungi and bacteria sentient? I kinda like mushrooms...

"The homeless man means nothing to me in a world already busting at the seams with humans"

---

Hebrews 13:2

"Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

""Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.""

I am not Hebrew and I don't believe in angels. It was the bible, after all, that made people believe that GOD created all the other animals for man's exploitation. True man exploits any animals he can, but to suggest there is a deity that condones such behavior is not my belief system. However, as said before, I don't believe in cruelty to any sentient being, homeless folks included. I just don't value them above my best friends. I would (and have) put my life at risk to save my dog's life. I would not do so for a homeless man being attacked, or someone else's dog, but I would contact police ASAP.

"But wouldn't you agree that in a certain perspective, homeless men are good for the environment in that they pick up bottles and cans for recycling? That in turn has somewhat of a correlation to global warming :D"

Depends on where you live. Most cans and bottles around here are picked up at curbside for municipal recycling. There's no money in it for scavengers. But yeah, if you live somewhere where people just throw their garbage on the ground and create a market for scavengers, then I can see the use of homeless people. But don't they burn a lot of rubbish to keep warm, creating lots of smog and green house gases??

"It was the bible, after all, that made people believe that GOD created all the other animals for man's exploitation. True man exploits any animals he can, but to suggest there is a deity that condones such behavior is not my belief system."


You've been listening to some folks justification for selfishness
based on the Bible, not reading it yourself.

Ummm, I've read it several times cover to cover. But only the King James version. I think it's clear in all versions of the old testaments that animals were killed for food, and sacrificed for religious purposes. God required the sacrifices. Sounds to me like a mandate to put animals on a much lower plane than humans. However, I don't think that torture (except by God inflicted upon humans) was really condoned.

Are you seriously advocating putting animals on the same plane as humans? Or just a slightly lower one? How slight? Or is it a sliding scale, depending upon animal and the human, to be determined by its convenience to your needs?

Hold on! Wasn't that what King James' GOD was advocating? Dominion over animals?

So will you accept medical treatment that was developed through the intentional death and suffering of said sentient animals against their will? If so, that sounds a little like exercising dominion to me.

And there's that sliding scale again.

In my estimation the admission that your pets are worth more than the homeless puts you in quite the fundamentalist camp, far more so than any of the religion David Olsen is bringing to the table.




The discussion of how many animals equal a human and vice versa is not one that can ever be had rationally or without extreme contradiction on all sides.


..edit grammar

Edited by xnomanx on 06/23/2010 21:54:30 MDT.

"In my estimation the admission that your pets are worth more than the homeless puts you in quite the fundamentalist camp, far more so than any of the religion David Olsen is bringing to the table."

I would respectfully disagree. It simply puts one in the human camp. Some of us form strong emotional bonds with our pets. I certainly don't think it outlandish to value those with whom we have strong emotional bonds over those we have no bonds with whatsoever. It's why you would save your family before saving a homeless person if you had to choose (great assumption on my part, yes).

"The discussion of how many animals equal a human and vice versa is not one that can ever be had rationally or without extreme contradiction on all sides."

I'm not sure anyone has been having that discussion. We have been discussing our differing value systems, and as long as we can allow others to have value systems different from our own then we can discuss such things quite rationally. Well, maybe not me, but certainly others can.... They do it on intelligence squared debates all the time. One of my favorite radio programs.

I consider a homeless person no less than any other person. I've been known to let them shower and shave at our house, take them to dinner, buy them food or beers in the past.

Whether I help someone or feel kind depends a lot on circumstance: their attitude, my mood, my circumstances. I make no apologies when I say "no" to people for their time, whether they are offering or asking. I live my life as it suits me to live it. It's my time, my money, my consciousness that I choose to open or close to others. I assume that I am "wrong" some of the time for sharing or not sharing of my life, but I also know that it's my choice to make each time.

As for animals or pets, I generally consider them the same as people. Which means that those I know are closer and dearer to me than those I don't. Would I risk my life for an unknown human or other animal? Maybe. For a human or other animal known to me? Certainly and before an unknown, whether human or other type.

I lost the dearest being to me in my life, likely the closest to me any animal, human or otherwise, will ever be, last February. I still grieve for her every day. I'd consider destroying the remaining life on earth to bring her back. She was a cat, and I've never felt this way about any other being, and I've lost friends, family and other cats in my life before.

Life is life. We choose to or circumstance causes us to notice some lives more than others, but it is all life. I know Kiki was not "greater" or "more important" than any other life in the grand scheme of things, but neither am I or you. I also know that she was both greater and more important to me than any other life I've ever encountered, including my own. I'd gladly have traded my death for her life and still would if some fiendish metaphysical being should make that offer to me. I'd also be very tempted to trade other lives, which I'm pretty sure is at least somewhat evil, but until we face true temptation, which that would be, I don't think we have any notion of what evil is or what we are capable of, or just how culpable we are in the larger world we live within, sanctioning but not physically commiting evil on a daily basis.

Just got back from playing with my friends new golden lab puppy and i feel much better.

Thank you chaff!

Call me crazy, but the thought that there are people in this world that would save a pet before saving another human is absolutely dreary and without hope, given that the human in question could be you or I.

Talk about an utterly profound alienation from one another.

Well Craig, you could instead be amazed that there are people willing to risk life for anyone else, human or otherwise. It's certainly not required. I would never expect others to risk their lives for mine--I'd only be amazed and thankful if they did.

Kiki wasn't a "pet" to me. I consider the term perjorative. We were spiritual equals, if I may be so bold as to consider myself her equal. We were two beings who understood each other and loved each other. We all die; we are equally fragile. Why is my life or your life more special than any other? Answer: it's not. It's only more special to you or me or those who know us.

Humans aren't special. Life is life. One I love or you love is one I love or you love: special to me or to you only. All others are necessarily lesser to us.

All life exists by consuming, destroying other life. There is an old vedic statement embracing this truth: "I am food." You and I and the greatest or most vile human or dog or cow or fish of any epoch are all ultimately just food for some other life form.

We can pretend we are special, but life and death proves otherwise. We are part of the whole no more or less than a mosquito a lotus leaf a cat or a rat.

What is special for each of us is in a relationship or a moment, a shared recognition of consciousness. If that shared recognition is between you and me, then we become incredibly valuable to each other, and I would save you before any other. If that shared recognition is between me and a cat, then I'd let you die to save her. And I'd expect you or anyone else to do the same. If you wouldn't, it's only because you don't have that relationship.

...And then we have the never ending cycle of nobody taking responsibility for anyone or anything that they do not have an emotional bond with while simultaneously espousing that we are all equal, nothing and nobody is special, all is one, and I am no different than the lotus leaf or the lowly mosquito....

Oh boy.

Goodnight :)

Edited by xnomanx on 06/23/2010 23:34:37 MDT.

but we have people making their own choices, by their own hearts.

responsibility is a choice, not an obligation, and people often choose it. i've chosen it at times. nothing i said negates or refutes this in any way. you seem to differ in your opinion of what constitutes a reasonable choice. i think we choose love first and foremost and then it's a sliding scale afterward based on personal choice, which includes belief system, capability, chance, mood, personality and probably a plethora of other variables.

do you really think someone should value the love of their life beneath any other being? i suppose i can remember a time when my view might have been more like yours, but having had a soul-mate relationship with a non-human, my view has been changed. love is what it is though, and love that strong changes everything.

"...And then we have the never ending cycle of nobody taking responsibility for anyone or anything that they do not have an emotional bond with"

Life ain't black and white. Absolutes are rarely correct, though they may make good fodder for chaff arguments. Embrace the grey!