Again, Hellen Keller was considered an animal because she was totally denied the abilitity to communicate with the humans around her. All she could do was grunt or scream when pain was inflicted upon her. She was considered an animal.
A dog is unable to talk or write because of simular physical limitation. But just like the poor human child denied the ability to communicate, are you absolutly sure that it does not have intelligence?
Since the two of you are unable to communicate, how do you know?
BTW, Hunble, I was going to remark about your screen name, which I mistook for "Humble" thinking you had chosen one of the wonderful characters for Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, but now that I see I am mistaken, what is the souce of your screen name?
Also, BTW, I mean no offense by the comments above.
Hank
I don't. The people who felt that way were flawed in their thinking, at least from the Christian perspective, which is the only one I can respect. I would ask those people a simple set of questions with simple answers:
1. Who did Christ die for? All human-kind.
2. Who was created in His image? All Human-kind.
3. Who has authority over all nature? All human-kind.
4. Is Hellen Keller a human? Yes.
5. Is a dog or a dolphin a human? No.
6. Other than as an allegory on how to treat humans, does the bible say anything about the way men should treat animals, for the animals sake? NO.
Therefore, as a human, I am not concerned one whit about the welfare of any non-human BM, other than to ensure, when necessary, their abundant supply for the use and pleasure of human BMs.
That said, I think that anyone who tortures animals for the pleasure of it is one sick individual. But he should suffer no consequences other than paying others for the loss of their animals, and maybe for pain and suffering to the animals owner, since part of the pre-programming in our human BM causes us to automatically grow attached (yes, even me) to these animals which can mimic, to some degree, human emotional and physical responses, to the point that we interpret this to mean that they "feel" the same as us.
As you can see, I draw the line at "human" which, by the way was what prompted the animal rights activist to call me a name. It was beyond his comprehension.