What is your view on why they will have sympathy for the dog, but not for a baby?
I'm against any form of needless cruelty and pain to animals, btw, as we all are.
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They have no inner awareness needed to understand what they do not interact with also has life and values beyond their own vision. They reject the notion of person-hood.
There is some truth in a preference for life that one may own, yet this is an egoistical understanding.
There usually is not good reason to destroy any life, although human life is what God teaches us to love. Without God, humans come to believe they are animals with great flaws, where one may judge them more responsible for making wrong choices. In the Divine view, we are all one, and we all must care for each-other.
Hurting a helpless dog is shameful and disgusting. Sheltering a dog over a strange human is sinful. How many people sin this way?
Jesus did not say get to know the poor, rather to give to the poor. One can give thousands to animal shelters, yet this only comforts; God commands us to shelter other humans.