text: why do we have the right to destroy? humans. what do we do? annihilate everything that we believe to be "lesser", to make way for our sky scrapers and parking lots. i must wonder, why do we believe that we are above the rest of nature, we are, after all, natural. why do so many march blindly through a forest with a torch? i must say that our arrogance in believing that we are something more than all these other species of plants and animals, in the water, land and sky, enrages me, and so, maybe i am not thinking clearly, but could somebody tell me why we must destroy everything around us, along with ourselves? if someone is to answer this, please do not bring in religious ideas, such as the idea that god created animals and things as our crop, for us, nothing else. i have read the bible, out of interest, i do not intend to be discriminatory, but i would like to take religion out of your answers to avoid other conflict. please, somebody explain to me, what gives us the right to destroy, it confuses me. if you think about it, since we do all of our work with existing materials and spaces, we are not able to create anything without destroying something else. if we build a house, we have destroyed an open space in the place we built our house. if we use wood to build a house, we have destroyed a tree to get the wood.  it is impossible for us to make anything without un-making (or drastically altering) some other thing as part of the same process.  but since we are capable of thinking about our choices, we should always pause when we have an idea to build something, while we decide whether the accompanying destruction will be worthwhile. i don't mean for this to sound so lofty, idealistic and unreal.  it is a simple, often overlooked truth. everything that a human can take as food is a thing that was once living, with very few exceptions, notably milk and honey. destruction goes hand in hand with creation. our mistake is in focusing on one, but not acknowledging the other.