Life is Sacred

I believe that all life lives with this imperative: Survive and thrive as long as you can.  Everything we do is to survive first, then reproduce, and beyond that to pursue happiness.  We must breathe, drink and eat in order to survive.

Eating requires each of us to kill other organisms.  We take their lives in order to live ourselves.    Vegans, omnivores, and carnivores all eat other living things that are trying to survive and thrive.  Our ethics is that we kill to survive.  There is not yet any practical way around this.  We can debate the ethics of eating animals vrs eating plants.

I believe that all life is "sacred" whether it has been created by God or is the product of evolution.  I believe that if we kill another living organism, we should do it for the sake of survival.  I try to be consistant in this belief.  I will kill to eat.  I will not kill just for pleasure.  I would kill to defend myself, my family or others in danger.  I would not kill for vengence or justice.  Therefore, I am against abortions except in the case where the pregnancy harms or endangers the woman's life.  I am also against capital punishment.  I have no problem with a killer being shot and killed in defense of innocents.  I do have a problem with a prisoner being executed.  I have no problem with a nation defending itself from invasion; I do have a problem with a nation invading another country and going into battle to secure oil fields.

I know I making this very simple and black and white... in my mind, either life is sacred, or it isn't.  I want to live; and I believe all living things want to survive and thrive.