"Humans Aren't The Only Species On Earth,

They Just Act Like It!"

Can you imagine the immense silence if the sky was without birds, the fields without grasshoppers, the flowers without bees?  No great elephant matriarch to trumpet her voice over the great savanna, or the homely sound of a neighbor's dog happily barking at play? 

Can you imagine how colorless the coral reefs would be without the multitude of brilliant fish flashing in the clear ocean, or the rainforest with it's canopy of sound, parrots. monkeys ?

Yet, all this is very possible, what with humankind's seemingly unending need for more and more of this planets resources!  Do we really need all these 'toys'? Increasingly bigger, gas guzzling cars, air conditioning on an 80 degree day, larger houses for today's smaller families, meat on our plates, when plant sources are known to be a more healthy (and far more humane) way to feed?

The list goes on, each one contributing to the pollution and poisonous gases in the air, water, land. How can humankind go on, raping the land, cementing over more and more, fencing off acres and acres of what used to be the  homes and grazing land of other beings . Either cutting off access from or having made water, unpotable?

What is the excuse for continuing "research" with no results, except for the torture and confinement of countless beings, who without voice, cannot resist or defend what is rightfully theirs, a life free to live as they were meant to be. To raise and love their families, roam unfettered where nature placed them.

Ask the experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are like us." Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to experiment on animals, and the answer is: "Because the animals are not like us." Animal experimentation rests on a logical contradiction.
--Professor Charles R.Magel (1920- )

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.
--C. S. Lewis (novelist and essayist)

Clear cutting of our ancient ones, the trees, and done, not due to the fact,  that there aren't trees grown specifically for use as wood products, just to make a fast buck, a tree 500 year old falls at the hands of man-driven machines, because in one fell swoop  more wood  footage is available.  The burning of the rain forests.. History repeats itself..clear cutting did away with the immense forests of the United States, the island of Greece and the Middle East are barren due to this practice in the past. Those trees and plants yield up oxygen to sustain the fragile balance of the organism we call earth. She needs the rains, trees, flowing streams, rivers and oceans to exist. If she becomes a victim of humans blinded to the destruction that is taking place, we all die too. And sadly, we'll take all the other 'peoples' of the earth with us, be they furred, feathered or scaled.

Those who have forsaken the killing of all; those who are helpmates to all; those who are a sanctuary to all; those men are in the way of heaven.
Hitopadesa (Hindu)

Let him not destroy, or cause to be destroyed, any life at all, nor sanction the acts of those who do so. Let him refrain from even hurting any creature, both those that are strong and those that tremble in the world.
Suita-Nipata (Buddhist)

The song from the Disney movie, Pocahontas is touching in it's lyrics and says much about living in harmony with all living things. Thus, I chose it for this page.    

 

You think I'm an ignorant savage
And you've been so many places
I guess it must be so
But still I cannot see
If the savage one is me
Now can there be so much that you don't know?
                                                        You don't know ...                                                            

You think you own whatever land you land on
The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth
Come roll in all the riches all around you
And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow?
If you cut it down, then you'll never know
And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon

For whether we are white or copper skinned
We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains
We need to paint with all the colors of the wind

You can own the Earth and still
All you'll own is Earth until
You can paint with all the colors of the wind

Footnotes:
Documentation of erosion in the Mediterranean Region extends to the ancient Greeks. Plato described the erosional destruction of Attica in
Critias: "...The earthly high mountains that in the past carried tall forests and large pastures have become rocky lands and they look like the
bare bones of a sick body..."(Plato from Yassoglou, 1987,p 89).

We know that the irrigating of Mesopotamia (after clear cutting) resulted in a salting of the land which, over the course of just a few centuries, reduced the Fertile Crescent to a near-desert. There is  much of the transformation of the Sahara from savannah to desert.

The demand for firewood in the foothills of the Himalayas has deforested them so badly that now every rainfall sweeps tons of topsoil into the Ganges River, to be carried into the Bay of Bengal. The overgrazing and overplanting of various parts of Africa are creating new deserts.

Using cattle for food uses up more resources to maintain them (not to mention the hormones they are injected with to encourage growth, thus many human anomalies are being created due to ingesting these hormones, plus heart disease and obesity due to a high fat, meat centered diet) than would plant crops that would  feed far more people per acre. If one could visit or view footage of a slaughter house (now neatly packaged under the title packing houses, I doubt many would dine without considering what is on their plate and what suffering occurred to get it there!

A veteran USDA meat inspector from Texas describes what he has seen: "Cattle dragged and choked...Knocking ‘em four, five, ten times. Every now and then when they’re stunned they come back to life, and they’re up there agonizing. They’re
supposed to be restunned but sometimes they aren’t and they’ll go through the skinning process alive. I’ve worked in four large [slaughterhouses] and a bunch of small ones. They’re all the same. If people were to see this, they’d probably feel really bad about it. But in a packing house everybody gets so used to it that it doesn’t mean anything."
--"Slaughterhouse", 1997

"Usually, the first thing a country does in the course of economic development is to introduce a lot of livestock. Our data are showing that this is not a very smart move and the Chinese are listening. They are realizing that animal-based agriculture is not
the way to go.... We are basically a vegetarian species and should be eating a wide variety of plant food and minimizing our intake of animal foods.... "Once people start introducing animal products into their diet, that's when the mischief starts."
--T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., of Cornell University, director of a study of 6,500 Chinese that found a close correlation between meat consumption and the incidence of heart disease and cancer.

"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined. If beef is your idea of `real food for real people,' you'd better live real close to a real good
hospital."
--Neal D. Barnard, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, D.C.

We are the living graves of murdered beasts, slaughtered to satisfy our appetites. How can we hope in this world to attain the peace we say we are so anxious for?
--George Bernard Shaw (Living Graves, published 1951)

 

Philosophers have always been the most hated members of society, primarily because they force us to think about issues that we are uncomfortable with, or they challenge the accepted paradigms that society and religion set up as standards for us to follow.

When the last great whale is slaughtered, as it surely will be, the whales' suffering will be over. This is not the whales' loss, but man's. I am not concerned about the wiping out of a species - this is man's folly - I have only one concern, the suffering which we deliberately inflict upon animals whilst they live.
--Clive Hollands (1929- )

An individual animal doesn't care if its species is facing extinction - it cares if it is feeling pain.
--Ronnie Lee (1951- )

Compassion

All beings seek for happiness; so let your compassion extend itself to all.
--Mahavamsa (Buddhist)

When a man has pity on all living creatures then only is he noble.
--Buddha (563? - 483? B.C.)

Respect the old and cherish the young. Even insects, grass and trees you must not hurt.
--Attr. Ko Hung (284-363 AD) (Confucian-Taoist)

The butcher relenteth not at the bleating of the lamb; neither is the heart of the cruel moved with distress. But the tears of the compassionate are sweeter than dew-drops, falling from roses on the bosom of spring.
--Akhenaton? (c.BC 1375)

Not to hurt our humble brethren (the animals) is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission--to be of service to them whenever they require it... If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the
shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
--Saint Francis of Assisi (mystic and preacher)

Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character; and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
--Arthur Schopenhauer (philosopher)

World Peace

"As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people.
Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together."
--Isaac Bashevis Singer

"Until he extends the circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."
--Albert Schweitzer

"Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is--whether its victim is human or animal--we cannot expect things to be much better in this world... We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity."
--Rachel Carson


The human commitment to harmony, justice, peace, and love is ironic as long as we continue to support the suffering and shame of the slaughterhouse and its satellite operations.
--Karen Davis, PhD (Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs; 1996)
The relationship between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans

Out of 135 criminals, including robbers and rapists, 118 admitted that when they were children they burned, hanged and stabbed domestic animals.
--Ogonyok(1979) (Soviet anti-cruelty magazine)

Cruelty has cursed the human family for countless ages. It is almost impossible for one to be cruel to animals and kind to humans. If children are permitted to be cruel to their pets and other animals, they easily learn to get the same pleasure from the
misery of fellow-humans. Such tendencies can easily lead to crime.
--Fred A.McGrand (1895- )

Vivisection (Animal testing)

Vivisection is the blackest of all the black crimes that a man is at present committing against God and his fair creation. It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practise elementary
compassion towards our fellow creatures.
--Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

Results from animal tests are not transferable between species, and therefore cannot guarantee product safety for humans...In reality these tests do not provide protection for consumers from unsafe products, but rather they are used to protect corporations from legal liability.
--Herbert Gundersheimer, M.D., member, PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine), Baltimore, Maryland,
1988

Doctors who speak out in favour of vivisection do not deserve any recognition in society, all the more so since their brutality is apparent not only during such experiments, but also in their practical medical lives. They are mostly men who stop at nothing in order to satisfy their ruthless and unfeeling lust for honours and gain.
--Dr. med. Hugo Knecht, Ear, Nose, Throat and Chest Specialist, Linz, October 5, 1909

Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research.
--George Bernard Shaw (playwright, Nobel 1925)

I abhor vivisection with my whole soul. All the scientific discoveries stained with innocent blood I count as of no consequence.
--Mahatma Gandhi (statesman and philosopher)

During my medical education at the University of Basel I found vivisection horrible, barbarous, and above all unnecessary.
--Carl G. Jung (psychologist)


Eating animals' flesh / meat-eating

The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion.
--Mahaparinirvana (Buddhist)

It is strange to hear people talk of Humanitarianism, who are members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals, and who claim to be God-loving men and women, but who, nevertheless, encourage by their patronage the killing of animals merely to gratify the cravings of appetite.
--Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish (1844-1936)

Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.
--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Animals are my friends...and I don't eat my friends.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

--Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times.

--Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904- )

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian. We feel better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to their pain.
--Paul (1942- ) and Linda McCartney

Suppose that tomorrow a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth, beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals. Would they have the right to treat you as you treat the animals you
breed, keep and kill for food?
--John Harris (1946- )

"A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral."
--Leo Tolstoy

For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.
--Pythagoras (6th century BC)

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.
--Plutarch (c.AD 46-c.120)

I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.
--Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body.
--Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

We stopped eating meat many years ago. During the course of a Sunday lunch we happened to look out of the kitchen window at our young lambs playing happily in the fields. Glancing down at our plates, we suddenly realized that we were eating the leg of an animal who had until recently been playing in a field herself. We looked at each other and said, "Wait a minute, we love these sheep--they're such gentle creatures. So why are we eating them?" It was the last time we ever did.
--Linda and Paul McCartney (musicians)

My own interjection here. I remember years ago a friend's little girl in the supermarket asking her mom what was in the packages in the meat department, and instead of saying bacon, or veal, or chops, the mom told her it was cows, pigs, fish etc...which upon the little girl threw herself to the floor and screamed in horror and cried unceasingly. (out of the mouth and actions of babes!)

I do not like eating meat because I have seen lambs and pigs killed. I saw and felt their pain. They felt the approaching death. I could not bear it. I cried like a child. I ran up a hill and could not breathe. I felt that I was choking. I felt the death of the lamb.
--Vaslav Nijinsky (dancer and choreographer)

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.
--Franz Kafka (novelist)

Vegetarianism/Veganism and health


When we kill the animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings."
--William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of The American Journal of Cardiology

"All red meat contains saturated fat. There is no such thing as truly lean meat. Trimming away the edge ring of fat around a steak really does not lower the fat content significantly. People who have red meat (trimmed or untrimmed) as a regular feature of their diets suffer in far greater numbers from heart attacks and strokes."
--Michael Klaper, M.D., Medical Director, EarthSave Foundation, Santa Cruz, California

"If you step back and look at the data, the optimum amount of red meat you eat should be zero."
--Walter Willett, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, director of a study that found a close correlation between red meat consumption and colon cancer.


"The thousands of people who have suffered food poisoning after eating beef will, no doubt, appreciate that their beef was aesthetically acceptable, even though it made them ill. `Lovely to look at, dangerous to eat' is not a standard that is likely to help
beef sales."
--Carol Tucker Foreman, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture during the Carter administration, commenting on the inadequacy of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Streamlined (Meat) Inspection System (SIS).

In every respect, vegans appear to enjoy equal or better health in comparison to both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.
--T. Colin Campbell, PhD Professor of Nutrition, Cornell University (letter dated 3/29/98)

The human body has no more need for cows’ milk than it does for dogs’ milk, horses’ milk, or giraffes’ milk.
--Michael Klaper, MD, author of Vegan Nutrition: Pure & Simple

Meat-eating and Cruelty to Animals


This [video footage from the movie Babe] is the way Americans want to think of pigs. Real-life "Babes" see no sun in their limited lives, with no hay to lie on, no mud to roll in. The sows live in tiny cages, so narrow they can’t even turn around. They
live over metal grates, and their waste is pushed through slats beneath them and flushed into huge pits.
--Morley Safer, Pork Power, 60 Minutes, 9/19/97

Again my interjection: I and friends saw Babe as an animal rights movie underlying the light-hearted childrens movie it was presented as.

Can one regard a fellow creature as a property item, an investment, a piece of meat, an "it," without degenerating into cruelty towards that creature?
--Karen Davis, PhD (Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs; 1996)

There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.

--Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904- )

Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.

--Froude (1818-1894)

When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him it's called ferocity.

--George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

... the art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports.

--Lord (George) Byron (1788-1824)

The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.

--Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventures, and for hides and furs is a phenomenon which is at once disgusting and distressing. There is no justification in indulging in such acts of brutality.

--His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet (1935-)

Religious quotes

Thou shalt not kill.

--Exodus 20:13 (The Bible)

"He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man..."

--Isaiah 66:3

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed: to you it shall be as meat...."

--Genesis 1:29

If you have men who will exclude any of god's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

--St. Francis of Assisi

Love animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble their joy, don't harrass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you - alas, it is true of almost every one of us!

--Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

Mercy to living beings, self restraint, truth, honesty, chastity and contentment, right faith and knowledge, and austerity are but the entourage of morality.

--Sila-prabhrita (Jainism)

All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure unchangeable law.

--Sutrakritanga (Jainism)

To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana.

--Buddha

May all that have life be delivered from suffering.

--Buddha

"All beings tremble before violence. All fear death, all love life. See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?"

--Buddha

There is not an animal on the earth, nor a flying creature on two wings, but they are people like unto you.

--The Koran

All beings hate pains; therefore one should not kill them. This is the quintessence of wisdom: not to kill anything.

--Sutrakritanga (Jainism)

Even in the worm that crawls in the earth there glows a divine spark. When you slaughter a creature, you slaughter God.

--Isaac Bashevis Singer (author, Nobel 1978)

Law and Justice

We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.

--Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)

The important thing is not to stop questioning.

--Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated"

--Gandhi, the Moral Basis of Vegetarianism

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him that it is right.

--Martin Luther King Jr.

Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of her (or his) own conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life.

--Norman Cousins

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear.

--George Orwell (author)

Suffering

"The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? But rather, Can they suffer?"

--Jeremy Bentham, 19th century Philosopher, Oxford University

"All the arguments to prove man's superiority can not shatter this hard fact: In suffering, the animals are our equals."

--Peter singer - Animal Liberation

"There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties... The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery."

--Charles Darwin

"When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."

--Ingrid Newkirk

To one whose mind is free, there is something even more intolerable in the suffering of animals than in the sufferings of humans.

For with the latter, it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the person who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any person were to refer to it, they would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime.

That alone is the justification of all that humans may suffer. It cries vengeance upon all the human race. If God exists and tolerates it, it cries vengeance upon God. (my highlighting and my agreement  And thus, hangs near my desk.!)

--Romain Rolland (from his 1915 Nobel Prizewinning novel, Jean-Christophe)

Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals - have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and "animals" is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them - without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders suchpretensions specious. They are just too much like us.

--Dr. Carl Sagan & Dr. Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, 1992

Other/Philosophy

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.

--Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931)

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for whites or women for men.

--Alice Walker

The thinking [person] must oppose all cruel customs no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo. When we have a choice, we must avoid bringing torment and injury into the life of another...

--Albert Schweitzer

"Look deep into the eyes of any animal, and then for a moment, trade places, their life becomes as precious as yours and you become as vulnerable as them. Now smile if you believe all animals deserve our respect and our protection, for in a way, they are us, and we are them."

--Philip Ochoa, Board Member, ALL FOR ANIMALS

Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughter houses.

--Ingrid Newkirk (PETA)

I am in favour of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.

--Abraham Lincoln

Bless The Beasts and the children

Bless the beasts and the children

For in this world they have no voice

They have no choice

 

Bless the beasts and the children

For the world can never be

The world they see

Light their way

When the darkness surrounds them

Give them love

Let it shine all around them

Bless the beasts and the children

Give them shelter from a storm

Keep them safe

Keep them warm

 

the Carpenters

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