{"id":108189,"date":"2020-10-30T18:12:16","date_gmt":"2020-10-31T01:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108189"},"modified":"2020-10-30T18:12:16","modified_gmt":"2020-10-31T01:12:16","slug":"the-sanctity-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/30\/the-sanctity-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sanctity of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senaka Weeraratna<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The underlying basic premise of the\nAnimal Rights movement is the regard for the sanctity of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanctity of life of all living\nbeings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is highly regarded in Buddhism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buddhism and Jainism (both Dharmic\nreligions) see kinship with animals in the Sansaric journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One American Buddhist writer ( Norman\nPhelps) in his book ‘ The Great Compassion – Buddhism and Animal Rights’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

said as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “Buddhism ought to be an animal rights religion par\nexcellence. It has long held that all life forms are sacred and considers\nkindness <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and  compassion the\nhighest virtues. Moreover, Buddhism explicitly includes animals in its moral\nuniverse. Buddhist rules of <\/p>\n\n\n\n

conduct\u2015including the first precept, Do not kill\u201d\u2015apply to our\ntreatment of animals as well as to our treatment of other human beings.”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When someone says \u2018all lives matter\u2019\nit should not be seen as all lives of only one species i.e. human beings, but\nrather as all lives of all species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you are born you have a right to\nlife until you die of natural causes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This applies to all species. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the natural law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One sidedness in this context means\nthat you value only the interests of your species and disregard the claims of\nall other species to live in freedom and contentment in a natural environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We evolve when we give up\nself-serving and self-centeredness, and extend care for others, who are in need\nand would benefit from such care. Others must necessarily include animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our moral conscience and life are\ndiminished when the precious life of another being is taken away by the hand of\na human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No unacceptable conduct however\npainful can justify the killing of another person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the huge difference between\nBuddhism and other major world religions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why as Buddhists we must\ncondemn the killings of 4 people in France recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Killing another because he or she\nbelongs to another faith is wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three innocent people were killed in\na church in France in a barbaric fashion two days ago for no reason other than\nthey belonged to another faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such conduct must be condemned\nunreservedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, iconoclasm i.e. the\nrejection or destruction of religious images of people of other faiths as\nheretical, is also wrong and should not be entertained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calling\nadherents of one’s faith in sacred texts to destroy idols of other religions is\ntantamount to hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such\nconduct must be criminalized through amendments introduced to the Penal\nCode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nhappened at Mawanella in Sri Lanka in December 2018 constitutes the best\nexample of people blindly following hate speech in the religious texts\nand destroying what was sacred to others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/apr\/26\/mawanella-was-the-start-small-sri-lankan-town-reels-from-bombing-links\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Such conduct has potential to blow up\nthe country through civil unrest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It must not be allowed to be\nrepeated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ntrue test of a civilization is tolerance of differences and not intolerance of\nothers’ right to worship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People\nmust engage in worship in spaces allotted for such worship without causing\ndisturbance to others through use of sound <\/p>\n\n\n\n

amplifiers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nRight to Silence and the Right to Quiet enjoyment of property are well\nentrenched in our law that under no <\/p>\n\n\n\n

circumstances\nmust these Fundamental Rights be allowed to be breached under the facade of\npractice of one’s religion.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nthese cardinal rules are broken then the authorities must step in and enforce\nthe law as a matter of public duty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senaka\nWeeraratna<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senaka Weeraratna The underlying basic premise of the Animal Rights movement is the regard for the sanctity of life. Sanctity of life of all living beings. This is highly regarded in Buddhism. Buddhism and Jainism (both Dharmic religions) see kinship with animals in the Sansaric journey.  One American Buddhist writer ( Norman Phelps) in his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-senaka-weeraratna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}