Little Creatures

I am taking a Religious Studies class this quarter and it is arguably my favorite class that I have ever taken at UCI. Anywho, we recently learned about the afterlife and the different perspectives that certain religions have on it. One that stood out to me is Hinduism's belief of reincarnation and the stages in between.

Basically, their followers believe in karma and that you can accumulate good karma throughout your life, but if you do bad things, then it will eventually come back to you when you die. If you accumulate enough "bad" karma, then you may go to hell for awhile to pay off your demerits and once you're done paying it off, you are reincarnated into a human again and you continue this cycle until you have enough good karma when you die that your spirit can be set free (sometimes this cycle takes thousands of years). I don't believe in that, but it sounds cool.

But the thing that stuck out to me was that for some people, instead of going to hell for a period to pay off your bad karma, they are reincarnated into a plant or animal. After living as one of those things for awhile, they become a human again.

This is a really long and probably unnecessary introduction for what I'm actually trying to get at, but that idea really struck me and reminded me of my own beliefs. The Hindu belief about being reincarnated into a plant or animal if you had a lot of bad karma basically assumes that being one of those things is equivalent to going to hell...that those beings are in some way lesser than human beings. I guess I can understand it since we have so much shit taking up space all over the planet that it seems easy to assume that humans are the ultimate species, but what about the things we don't see or take the time to explore? Our communities are large because we are, but what about an ant's community? Maybe they don't have iPhones and expensive clothing, but should those things really mark the success and worth of a community? Their home may be smaller than ours, but that doesn't mean it's less important. And that goes for any living creature. It makes me really sad sometimes how little consideration people have for insects, plants, and animals. We're all living creatures on this planet, but we think that we're dominant because we have fancy things. What if we didn't have all of the inventions that we do? Would we still think we were better? Do you think that an insect flying from leaf to leaf can be as happy as a human being?
I do.