Letter to the editor

Every once in awhile I write a letter to the Bangor Daily News.  I can't say exactly why I feel compelled to do this........I guess it's an attempt to reach out in the world with an opinion I feel is too rarely expressed, or to point out something I feel is very wrong.  The only good it does is to relieve my own sense of indignation at things I feel strongly about.  Certainly I don't expect anything to change because I wrote it, or to alter one single other person's way of thinking. 

I guess I have to blame Christianity for the attitude that has become so much a part of our western civilization.  The Bible certainly implies that human beings are very different from other species, and that God gave man dominion over other animals.  I doubt that His intention was that we use that power to  abuse and torture them without any sense of empathy.  It's a little contradictory to call them "God's creatures," and then treat them as objects of no particular intrinsic import beyond serving our own biological and psychological desires.  But I guess the Bible endorses everything if you look for it hard enough.  It's a book that has caused so much suffering, not only for animals, but humans, too.