the purpose of the study of biology is to gain more of an appreciation and respect for the myriad living beings that we share our planet with. it is not to learn how to manipulate individuals and species and use them in whatever ways we see fit to serve our ends.

knowledge is useless at best and torturous at worst if it is not controlled by the guiding principle of respect for the lives of other living creatures and concern for how our actions may negatively impact them.

when we move our hands or our fingers it appears to us as though it is our hands and our fingers that are doing what they want to do. but it is our muscles and our tendons that act as the "strings" which are making our hands and our fingers move and when the pull of the flexion strings is complete it is the opposing extensor strings that will bring the wrist and fingers back to their original position.

but it is we who are the controllers of those strings when we have the idea to move our hands. we are the puppeteers of and in our own body which makes it move. however it is the chemicals, specifically the sodium and potassium ions, and electrical action potentials that control our ideas to move our bodies. so in fact we are the puppets and the chemicals are the puppeteers which allow us to have the ideas to cause our body to move.

it doesn't matter whether christ actually existed or not. it doesn't matter whether god exists or existed or if god never was. what matters is that goodness and kindness and pity and compassion for all sentient creatures can exist if we make them real by our actions of goodness and kindness and pity and compassion or they can remain but an illusion which shall never come to fruition. we can make a more loving world if we will it or we won't. the choice is up to each one of us

good health is a beneficial result of eating ethically

some people argue that it would be wrong to stop activities like the seal hunt, rodeos or the meat and dairy industry because of the amount of people these occupations employ. an action cannot be judged right or wrong based upon the number of people who are employed by it but it can and indeed must be judged by the harm inflicted, upon those who have the capacity to experience pain and suffering, because of it*. if this were not the case then robbery and murder would be moral acts based on the number of people, from policemen to paramedics, from judges to jailers, who have jobs because of them.

*and to be treated merely as a means to serve the ends (wearing fur, being "entertained", satisfying some petty pleasures of the palate) of another or to have your life ended prematurely against your will are very great harms indeed, far worse than being unemployed from such occupations which use these tactics for profit. perhaps all those who would be without a job when these barbaric practices cease can find employment in less harmful vocations; those which promote a good quality of life rather than those which disrespect, enslave and destroy life. to profit off of another's pain is a shameful way to make a living.

1) we demand others to do for us whatever is not within our power to do for ourselves

2) we demand others to do for us whatever is within our power to do for ourselves but which we have no desire to do

if a thing becomes measurable, it becomes calculable. when it becomes calculable, it becomes knowable. when it becomes knowable, it becomes predictable. the seemingly infinite number of variables involved in physical and biological cause and effect phenomena, that are as yet unkown to us,  give the appearance of randomness or free will. but all actions are knowable and therefore allowable or preventable. we just don't know all the variables yet. the study of physics is a good place to start in one's quest to comprehend the ordered laws of the universe and begin to grasp the mysteries of existence.

rather than distinct categories of "race" or "species" we are finding more of a continuum through time and space of geographically interesting beings who adapt themselves as circumstances dictate. we must consciously drop the old semantic and psychological traditions based on classifying by irrelevant criteria in order to free our minds from these harmful and therefore dangerous archaic stereotypes.

in the past, people looked at life on earth in a way that we could call "the human gestalt". in this view only humans were of supreme importance and all other living creatures were subordinate to mankind. this paved the way for misleading distinctions and allowed all manner of cruelty and barbarity toward others.

the tide however has begun to shift and people are beginning to realize that life on earth is a complex unity of individual beings, with no hierarchical greater or lesser, who deserve our respect and consideration.

why does life make life inimicle to life? that is, why do living beings make the act of living detrimental to their own lives and the existence of other beings? along with the will to live, is there some original "death wish" embedded in the genetic code of biological beings that causes them to destroy themselves unwittingly?

why does the act of living require an effort by living beings to remain alive? why, as living beings, should we have to eat, sleep, house and transport ourselves simply to remain alive? why can't all living beings have everything they need to live without trying to acquire it? beyond simply remaining alive, what do living beings seek? power? recognition? dominance? omniscience? control? is death a way of tricking life at its own game of effort?

while one exists can one even fathom non-existence? can non-existence ever exist? can existence be without consciousness of it? is life the universe's way of being conscious of itself or was it somehow aware of its being (or some smaller segment thereof) prior to the existence of life? is gravity insipient awareness? are the strong and weak nuclear forces nascent consciousness? is our definition of awareness too narrow?

is the real motivation for living not the love of life but hatred for those things inimicle to life?