[PretzelPirate]

> but made me seriously reconsider the "sacredness" of life

When I think of life mattering, I think of the individual, not life in general.

I think nature is quite cruel and there's very little about nature to suggest that the life of an individual matters at all, but to that individual, their life is the most important thing they have.

It's like the argument people make to vegans: if we stop eating cows, they'll go extinct and that's bad.

It initially sounds bad to think of a species going extinct, but the species doesnt matter in this case. What really matters are the individuals who make up the species, and they're living a short existing with a cruel death. No cow would suffer if we stopped breeding them and let the species go extinct, but people think of the species as a being that woukd somehow be hurt by not existing.

[peebeebee]

I agree. I did not mean to say: “all life is meaningless “, but more that the green/ecological imagery of ‘mother nature’ that cares for you and needs caring was changed for me. Life itself can be a terrifying force. That the individual feels suffering is an effective but brutal feature of Life trying to maximise itself. We are all born in this system, and we should obviously try to minimise this suffering.