Originally Posted by FXjohn
If you don't think your life, your emotion, creativity, etc aren't superior to a fieldmouse, who am I to disagree with you? Hell, chop yourself into catfood, equal it all out.
Superior? Maybe so. Maybe not. That's a human term and value system you are projecting on to the fieldmouse, who (for as far as we know) is perfectly satisfied with its existence.
The fieldmouse can live anywhere and doesn't pay rent. He doesn't have to deal with divorce, the IRS, drive by shootings and maintaining an expensive residence. He just gathers his food and keeps a watchful eye for snakes and hawks and spends his or her days running about and making other fieldmice. So, maybe the fieldmouse has the "superior" existence.
I used to think as you do, but my point is this. The fieldmouse and all species, including humans, all play important roles in an ecosystem. In the world of biology, no species is more or less important than another. This concept of "superiority" is a construct of the Judeo-Christian world and its theory of man being the only species created in the image of god, a belief that has contributed heavily to species extinction.
Folks can believe, based on faith alone, these sorts of stories, but the equality of species in an ecosystem is rooted in scientific fact.