Alexs wrote
<This flinging of darts misses the point of acknowledging the
<bonds of life to life... something not likely to
<change until humans are solar-powered (ahh.. but think of all
<those hydrogen atoms in the Sun fusing and giving up their
<"lives" -- but then the helium created would be thankful).

i was going to post on this thread about the interconnectednes of all life
and the "projection" of human suffering onto  the "  pain " of dying. , but
your image of a suffering hydrogen giving up its life to become  a grateful
helium is more meaningfull that anything i could have said.
i just want to add that i read somebody relating his experience of being
almost bitten  to death on the chest by a lion and saved at the last second
by his friend who killed the lion. He said it was the most blissfull
experience of his life to surrender to the power of the lion .
i have been myself 4 times close to death because of unfonctionning adrenal
cortex, and there was no suffering but before i reach this state , by
resisting the sensations of the flow of life going thru my body (that imply
too the "death of one form) i created suffering for myself.
you need to be alive to feel, i can say from  the experiences of not having
cortisone circulating in my blood, i was too" dead" to feel anything either
pain or bliss.
as i say often about this issue, life is risky ,you can died from it...
WHile under the effect of stress hormones (as an animal hunted will be)
there is no room for suffering if it act on it (running away.or
surrendering.) Peoples who have been hurt badly in an accident  and are in
chock might be able to be witness of that.
the human suffering that we project , so easely , on animals come from being
in a fearfull state (secretion of stress hormones ) and getting immobilised
at escaping the source of the fear ( not running away or surrendering to the
sensations).
Sorry i can't stop myself to blablabla ,i definively prefer the image of
thoses poor atomes. killing each over.....
Thank you
jean-claude who have been vegetarian for 12 years prior to make peace with
life and death