Oscar Heck / VHeadline / Venezuela / April 4, 2005
Excerpt from: Venezuela's democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez for the Papacy?
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=29338
8 -- Not directly having to do with the above, but yet another interesting co-related subject is (according to a documentary about wolves which I saw recently), the notion of "hunting for the sake of hunting" originated with the Christian church ... where the doctrine of the church (in the name of God) elevated "man" above the animals and made "man" the "master" over the earth.
This doctrine apparently first appeared on the map of humankind's arrogance somewhere in the 700s or 800s AD (with the rule of Pope Constantine, if my memory serves me correctly) ... and the doctrine was, to this day, a major impetuous in the spreading of the "Christian" doctrine (mostly in the "western" world).
Apparently, this was one of the main factors in the "extinction" of the wolf in Germany (over 150 years ago!).
One more recent example of humankind's arrogance with respect to nature (and about wolves) is the fact that some researchers are capturing male wolves and giving them vasectomies (without their permission, of course!) because the research-grant-needy researchers are afraid that the increasing wolf population (in northern Canada) will eventually lead to the reduction of caribou (elk) herds.
Instead of letting nature take its course, we "masters of the world" need to take irrational decisions in order to fulfil our role of being "God's gift to the world."
Now ... isn't all this information interesting?