ptgatsby
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
- Messages
- 4,476
- MBTI Type
- ISTP
Fair point. Given the reality of life and the world as it is today, it's an impossibility - on a largescale/cultural level. But it kind of depends on what element you're looking at, and how you're defining 'equal', as I'm not sure how you're defining it. I might have a different answer, depending.
Perhaps I'm speaking on more a philosophical level -- more the buddhist approach/respect/love for all life...
The reduction to 'equal' could mean 'the same as', and it is next to impossible to treat them like a human, since they aren't human...
However, even ignoring that, as a society, we engage in wholesale slaughter of animals. If such a thing occured in a human society, our reactions would be vastly different (FWIW, if I remember correctly, we would kill the entire human population every couple of years, in terms of how many animals we kill for consumption.)
In that sense, we don't treat them equally in terms of respect or honor their right to life... certainly not as we do with humans.