My research paper began as something along the lines of “why it sucks to be a Christian animal.” I was going to write about the reasons that Christianity was sort of harsh to animals. I was going to write about things like animals not having souls and no hope of an afterlife, being sacrificed and killed to cover for the sin of humans, or being dominated by man. I tweaked it a little bit to make it a bit more formal, and came up with a thesis: Man’s sacrifice of animals for God’s appeasement is taking advantage of basic rights that animals have for life and pleasure. I have found that a soul and hope for some sort of afterlife is not a requirement for a being to be important. Animals can still feel pain, as well as pleasure. Michael Morris argues in his essay "How Should Christians Treat Animals" that the killing of an animal is depriving it of the only pleasure it will ever know; he says that it "cuts short this gift of God, and therefore harms it in a real way." Animals are still a level below humans, but they are still creatures that God has made and given life. The difference Morris argues is "our ability to show spiritual, as well as natural, awareness, and to form a spiritual relationship with God. That this difference is such that God will allow us to place our own interests above those of non-human animals." So sacrifices are okay if they cover for the sins of humans, whose soul will live on forever in either heaven or hell. But animals still get the short end of the stick. Animals are not the ones that sinned against God. They were obedient and just did whatever animals do. Now since sin has occurred, death has come to animals as well, through no fault of their own. So whether or not they have a soul, they could have lived forever in the Garden before there was death. Leave it to people to screw things up.