[inavalan]

You spent time expressing your opinions, so I thought you deserve an honest reply, even if we disagree.

I don't intend to convince you of anything, nor to argue. I'm just honestly replying to the points you made.

Originally Posted by Debrah

You also said:

I believe that everything is consciousness, and that everything is in contact at a non-physical level................This includes non-physical beings as well as all physical kingdoms. Death doesn't exist as a tragic act, as it just is a wake up into another reality, to one's whole-self.

If everything is consciousness and in contact at the non-physical level, that would include all the animals, the trees, rocks, mountains, etc. Would you accept that?

Yes

And if everything is consciousness and the animals have their own emotions that we can recognize simply by watching them,

Not really. There are various levels of emotions, and what we interpret them feeling, I believe isn't what they experience. They are dominated by instincts; we are dominated by emotions.

that suggests definitively, that we are All One

No. I aren't All One. We are all connected, at a non-physical level. We here are only some part of our whole selves. We are All Individuals, with individual will, and individual paths.

(with that same over-arching Consciousness that energizes us all. And to follow that to the logical conclusion, to hurt one of them is to hurt us all.

No. And it isn't a matter of hurting anybody. Nobody gets hurt. That is an example of anthropomorphizing.

There are all kinds of Bible verses too, that tell us to be careful for our animals interests. Coupled with the original admonition that we all eat plants and taking into consideration that the New Earth will see the 'wolf lay down with the lamb and the leopard will eat straw like the ox', it's pretty obvious to see how the Biblical God (the Oneness, the Source of All That Is) had planned for animals to exist in the hierarchy of Creation.

I am not familiar enough with any dogmas, and it doesn't mean that if that's written there it is so. It doesn't mean that what one is interpreting to be said in a dogma, it is true, because all the seminal texts are symbolic.

Oneness is a misunderstanding. It is looking backwards (Source). The wider reality is in permanent expansion and individualization. All That Is doesn't really mean anything, in my view. It is just a place holder.

Animals, as plants, as minerals, as humans are part of an evolvement hierarchy. Nobody gets hurt in it by others, only by themselves.

Ecclesiastes 3:18-21
18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. 19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath[c]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. 21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” (and that's a question that is obviously meant to challenge the notion that we might have a different destination than the animals)

That's somebody's belief. Everybody can believe whatever they want and / or can.

No life-form can survive without feeding from another life-form. You have to draw the line somewhere. The way human body is built, humans are designed to be omnivores.

The question as I see it, then remains, how can any of us preordain the existence of another, force them live in squalor and terror and then take the one thing that is theirs, particularly if we have the understanding that we all have the same Source and will return to to that Source at death.

As I've previously written, physical death is just re-focusing into another reality, and it is decided by the one that dies, not by any external will.

We won't return to any Source. That is a misunderstanding. We expand away from where we originated, we individualize more and more.

When I've tried to understand Source and Oneness, the easiest picture that I've been able to come up with, is that it's like a lava lamp. There's a Universe of Love just overhanging this world and periodically, little bits and blobs of that Love separate for a time and move into this relativistic world, bounces around gaining experiences through our humanity until the time comes for it to return to the greater Universe of Love where it blends right back in with it's original Source. As you've already agreed that we are all consciousness, it seems reasonable then to accept that the animals also 'blend right back in with their original Source'. Which begs the question then, why would we want to injure ourselves (we are all One) over and over and over again as we infringe on the free will of other parts of Ourself. Does not make a whole lot of sense and especially as we now know how to live without doing that, especially if our goal is to live in spiritual harmony.

I've already expressed my opinions and these.

I respect your right to believe whatever you believe.

When a mineral, plant, animal, human "kills" another doesn't infringe on that unit of consciousness' free-will, ever! Any unit of consciousness may will whatever they want or can, it doesn't mean that they'll get it. That's why we all go on this evolvement path, to grow, to become independent self-determining entities, to expand limitless (not to return to nothing).

The emotions a unit of consciousness feels creates situations that perpetuate those emotions. If you feel sad, sorry, fearful, angry, hateful, you create in your existence situations that cause you to feel more of the same, sad, sorry, fearful, angry, hateful. You don't help in any way the one you feel sorry for. You don't hurt in any way the one you hate. Your emotions affect only your reality, hence yourself.

Anyway, you spent time expressing your opinions, so I thought you deserve an honest reply, even if you disagree with it.

EDIT: We aren't here to live in spiritual harmony. We're here to practice conscious reality creation, until we can do it well enough to function in an instantaneously thought-responsive reality, as the wider reality is.