De-Natured

Western Man has come to believe that he is the master of all living things, and that nature is there to be tamed at best; despised, broken, and destroyed at worst. This has led to a very dangerous situation: the belief that human beings can build a shining technological future without animals, and trees, and other life forms. Until this attitude is combated and erased from the human mind, Westernized human beings will be a danger to all earthly life, including themselves.

I say we must take a great spiritual leap backward. We must embrace the original view of creation: that everything around us is part of one great and interconnected whole. We must change this habit of regarding ourselves as superior or special creatures. This misconception has led us to the very brink of destruction.

We have become denatured. In old Africa, we believed that human beings could not exist without animals, birds, and fishes or trees. We believed that the universe was not only all around us, but also within us. For this reason, many African gods were depicted as part animal and part human.

If your God had the body of a man and the head of a lion, would you shoot lions for sport, or commercial reasons?

--shaman Credo Mutwa,
as quoted by Linda Tucker in Mystery of the White Lions.
(emphasis mine)