Hm. Just finished reading this thread. The silver feline suggested it was interesting. It is.
But I am not a religious person at all. I'm into nature, yes. I believe a spider, or an ant or a bee or wasp, a wolf, or cow or eagle or platypus, plants, etc, all have as much right to life as I do. I avoid killing things, and try to save the lives of things. (I kill slugs, reluctantly, when there are so many my plants are all being killed by them. And I kill fleas because I can't stand my cat - or me! - being tormented by them. But I feel like a murderer...)
Yes, I do eat living things - plants, occasionally meat or fish - because I am part of a system that is dependent on everything eating some other living thing. It is a natural part of the planetary eco-system. I am a part of that system, bound up in it, born of it and destined to die and have my flesh contribute to the life of other living things, as other living things have contributed to my life. I feel that I am an integral part of this world, this universe. I take from it and I give to it, as we all do. I love it because I am a part of it and it is a part of me.
I see nothing in this that is anything to do with worship. I have no need of worship.
I don't know if there is a creator or not. I don't know if the universe, this planet, or the life on it is any part of any god. It doesn't matter.
In the end, it is love that matters.
Love for life in all its variety, love for the eco-system, love for the planet, for the universe itself. To me, that is too big to be bound up in any human god-system. To vast and unreachable to be trammelled by the gods we create in our own petty images.
I guess I really shouldn't be in this thread!
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Dubbed Queen of the Illuminati by Diogenes.