ysabetwordsmith posted (from another LJ) the “10 commandments of Coyote” and I found them amusing. They inspired me to do the following:
1. I am the Divine; by whatever name you shall call Me, I AM
2. Worship Me, not My image.
3. My name — any one of them — is Sacred; to speak it is to invoke Me.
4. Keep the holy days in ways that are pleasing to Me.
5. Honor those who raised you.
6. Take not the life of a sentient being.
7. Engage only in consensual adult sexual pleasures.
8. Take not another’s earnings.
9. Do not lie.
10. Eschew envy.
Regarding number 6–what, in your mind, counts as a sentient being?
I knew that was going to get me into trouble.
I was trying to respect to basic spirit of the original commandment: thou shalt not kill. But I am all too aware of the stance that this is a biblical commandment to be a vegetarian, which I am pretty darn sure was not the original intent. (Some more recent scholarship indicates that the original word was ‘murder’ not ‘kill’ which makes a lot more sense.)
So, in a nod to scifi, I chose the word sentient to define what can an d can’t be killed.
In thinking it through, once again, I may just modify it to the traditional (Wiccan) “harm none” although that obviates the next couple of commandments.
But I haven’t answered your question! Sentient denotes a state of consciousness and self-awareness that can be classed as intelligent; accompanied by tool-using abilities.