The show," Aunt Sizzy was want to say, "may not have to go on, but we don't buy groceries unless it does! - Sheri S. Tepper

No matter who I ask, they answer out of the Dicta! Even when it doesn't fit."
"Doing such is not a new thing. In the former world, there were people who said all truth was contained in this or that holy book, this or that holy image, these or those holy beliefs. No matter how complicated their world became, no matter how much it changed, the only answers permitted were those that grew ever more tortuous and convoluted."
"Until?"
"Until, some say, God turned his back on them for their failure to use the minds they had been given.

Marjorie thought: It always comes down to something like this, doesn’t it. No matter what our consciences say, no matter how much doctrine we’ve been taught, no matter how many ethical considerations we’ve chewed and swallowed and tried to digest, it always comes down to us arming ourselves with weapons as deadly as we can manage and going out into combat...

It is our minds and not any other attribute which gives us personhood and value. We share intelligence with other living things, and they are no less important than we. Even creatures without detectable intelligence have adapted themselves to play necessary roles. To make God in our image or we in God’s is blasphemy.