Quote Originally Posted by Shuddhasattva View Post
Namaste

My understanding is that most if not all scriptures and traditions are in agreement that human beings often and easily fall into animal rebirths.

I would like to raise a question at this point:

Scientists observe that we are currently going through a mass extinction period (50,000 species per year according to the UN.) This rate, which is increasing, if not halted and reversed will cause the dissolution of the ecosystem, which functions as our life support system, within 100 years.

Let's use this possible future (I know that humanity is ingenious enough to design, together, a solution to the problems which currently face us as) a thought exercise.

If humanity were to go extinct, along with most of the 'higher' life forms, to the point where only some reptiles, small mammals, and insects are left among the animal kingdom, where would the souls, previously in human bodies to work out their karma, go to work out their karma?

I think the answer is apparent, especially considering the responsibility those souls would have had in mass extermination (whether intentional or not - the deed is done) - and I personally cannot think of a greater sin than the expurgation of an entire species, a crime that we are all, as members of modern civilization, essentially accomplices of. Though responsibility may be distributed very widely, when it comes to the point htat our species has gone extinct, along with many others, what will be the weight of that karmic burden, such that the jivatmans will have to sojourn through tens of thousands of more rebirths before nature once more evolves organisms, perhaps modeled on the same sort of primate template, perhaps something completely different, are capable of god realization and release from the cycle?

Namaste
Definitely, from an Advaita point of view at least, we are all one. Should humanity and other species go extinct we just have less matter of ourselves manifested, and then yes we have to do it all over again. Hopefully we will do better next time.

Maya