5 replies to this topic

[joeldgreat]

I think we are all equal (plants, animals and humans). As we are all important part of the eco-system and have each role in the balance of nature. Humans couldn’t live without animals and plants. Many of us perceive such superiority simply because we have the capacity to communicate effectively with each other. We taught we had greater intelligence and are capable of inflicting harms to all other living things.

Do you share my ideas? Let me have your taught.

[Green Thumb]

I guess that’s what makes human life more important than all other living things. Humans make things work; they put all the other species in use, they cultivate all of God’s works. The thing is they also bring harm to those that are entrusted to them thus somehow putting their importance to waste. And yes, humans had greater intelligence to be able to know what the rests are for and most are wise enough to put the other living things use to where it should be because I believe everything is designed for a purpose and not following these design will complicate things or much worst put it into waste or be exploited to cause or add up to destruction.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

We are at the top of the food chain only because of evolution, but we are hardly superior to other creatures.
We have the brain capacity and the use of opposable thumbs, but that doesn't make us superior.
We're dominant over all living things on this planet, but that doesn't make us superior either.

Imo, we are not part of the web of life. Plants, animals, insects don't need us to survive.
But we sure know how to break the strands that make up the web of life.

[zararina]

It was right that all other living things are important and each have roles to fulfill in this world. And we need to take care of the blessings that had been given to us such as the environment. We only have one world to live in and we should take care of it the best way we could.

[joeldgreat]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 13 January 2012 - 04:43 AM, said:

We are at the top of the food chain only because of evolution, but we are hardly superior to other creatures.
We have the brain capacity and the use of opposable thumbs, but that doesn't make us superior.
We're dominant over all living things on this planet, but that doesn't make us superior either.

Imo, we are not part of the web of life. Plants, animals, insects don't need us to survive.
But we sure know how to break the strands that make up the web of life.

God made us superior to all other living things and gave us control over them and do whatever we wanted to do. But with this great power, comes great responsibility (thanks spidy). We should be responsible enough to keep the balance of nature and do not let other animals die of extinction. We are the keepers and if we do not perform this task, we will ended up just like the other animals who are now gone. The bad thing is that, many of us had forgotten this and are now facing the consequences of our actions. I just hope that its not too late before all of us realized what we had done.

[tigerlily78]

Personally (and as I have said before elsewhere) I do not believe human life is more important or precious than any other living thing. I base this almost completely on my realization that the vast cosmos contains billions of stars, and in turn billions or planets, and already it does not seem so rare that planets exist which might foster other communities of life.

Are their beings out there with our level of intelligence? Perhaps not. But I am skeptical that A Creator (or THE Creator if you prefer) created all this vast and complex cosmos outside of human reach and intervention to help establish that we are the most important beings in all of existence. Afterall, there is a "good" reason it was blasphemous for Gallileo to claim we were not at the center of the universe.  

To what purpose in serving the needs of humanity did God create cicadas that only hatch out of their eggs every 13 or 17 years to live for a mere handful of days? What fullfillment do we derrive from a fungus that attacks the nervous system of ants and causes them to behave as zombies to cater to the fungus' desire to have it's spores released at a certain height above the forest floor? How about the eyeless creatures living in the darkest depths of the ocean and the most isolated cave systems? Why do whales have finger bones? Why have we found the fossils of dozens of proto-humans that are not of the same genetic lineage as modern humans?  

To me the world is still a wonderous place, but "intelligent design" has no place in it. If anything I believe there is a Creator more akin to a Scientist than a Doting Father who would excuse all manner of wrong doing for a mere pledge of "faith". I have trouble believing that a being with the power to spark the Big Bang that created our universe and everything within it would be so vain as to care about your "believing" in him/her or not. Rather, I think if anything the Great Scientist said, "let's see what wonders I can create".... and in our small corner of the cosmos, the Earth was made and it was wonderful. But I do not think that precludes that somewhere else far away across the galaxies that there are not other wonders just a precious to behold.

In the vastness of space a single human life is brief, fragile, and inconsequential. Perhaps if we saw ourselves for the tiny collection of matter we are within the sphere of all things, we would be a little more humble and a little more thankful for what we have been given to enjoy in our brief time here, and hopefully feel compelled to protect this precious little marble and it's resources for other future humans to enjoy as we have.

If humans cannot see the error of their ways and render this planet unfit for future generations of ourselves and other species.... do you think the extinction of humans will suddenly prompt the end of the universe? For some reason the universe persisted for billions of years before we came on the scene, I can't imagine it was all just an elaborate set up for the creation of humanity.