Reverence is a two-edged sword

The impulse to associate Man with God is always coupled with the simultaneous impulse to separate Man from his animal origins. It is precisely because man evolved from his animal forebears that we need repeatedly to mark the distinction between man and animal, to show how man has domesticated some animal species and has thereby imitated the Creator, which imitation entitles man to consume the domesticated animals' flesh. 

Animal sacrifice of domesticated species delimits the eating of flesh to the technology of husbandry and away from the technology of the hunt. Wounded animals or animals killed in the hunt are not kosher. The flesh of animals killed only in captivity can, for all practical, ritual Israelite purposes, be eaten. The flesh of animals of the sea, the species more distant from humankind, may indeed be eaten by technology that kills them in the hunt. Of course, all plants are kosher. 

The impulse to deny any human relation with the divine often coincides with the notion that humans are little more than smart animals. The question of divinity is as much a question of man distinguishing himself from the animals as it is of man associating himself with the gods. 

Reverence is a two-edged sword, submitting to God while acknowledging man's superiority to, and thus his responsibility for, the animals.