God and creatures

In one of my rehearsals the other day some of the girls said some things that seriously bugged me. These girls are super religious, like - won't be friends with me because I'm not "good enough". They are entitled to their own opinion, but so am I. These girls were adamant that animals are soulless, and are only are here for human consumption. And of course, since they do not have souls they can't go to heaven.

Those statements are so completely ignorant and arrogant, that it's been bothering me for days. I can't even believe it.

To believe, first of all that humans are the only ones that have "souls", is a way to believe that humans are better than animals. Doesn't your precious bible teach that the animals were created by God? Why would he only bestow the gift of a "soul" to humans, animals make choices and live full lives just like you do. By the way, humans are animals, and evolved from other animals. Nothing you can do or say about that, its fact.

Animals were not "placed on the Earth for us". That nice little bible of yours also tells you that animals were created before man, and man was placed here to care for God's creatures. So for you to tell me that I should consume animal meat because they were put here for us to eat, makes me want to slap you. The creatures of the Earth are here for the same reason as us, to live.

Oh and the whole heaven thing. God created the animals didn't he? Why would he decide that once the world ends there would only be humans left? He is supposed to love all of his children (hey guess what, all those creatures? they're his children too), so I would think that he would want to have them around too. I know I wouldn't want to be in a heaven where there were only humans and nothing else.