I don’t. I usually end up shooting my friend in the face instead.
First!
I dunno. According to PETA, fur is murder. So I’m not sure. Unless I’m murdering crows. Lots of them. Then it’s a murder! And if you’re Dick Cheney, it could always be accidental murder.
I accept the traditional view of murder. The needless killing of wild animals for hunting pleasure may be a debatable activity, but it is not murder.
Is it immoral? Yes. Technically murder? No
I think it is wrong to hunt for sport. It’s cruel, and it destroys life for no other end then taking pleasure in destroying life.
On the other hand, it’s also wrong to use animals cruelly for food (i.e.: commercial production of meat, etc).
I don’t think it is wrong to kill, quickly and painlessly, an animal who was given a good life if you need their meat. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in eating animals. There is something wrong with needlessly torturing them or killing them.
Depends on what you define murder to be, but i think of murder as being unlawful and human, best if we keep it that way.
Non-human animals don’t have immortal souls. If it is morally wrong–if it is “murder”–to kill an animal, then this has other repercussions as well. If we cannot kill them then we cannot eat them of course. We also cannot own them or sell them or even give them away (this would be akin to slavery). We cannot buy/sell or consume their products (eggs, milk, etc.), we cannot cage them in zoos, so on and so forth. Human civilization and its relationship to animals is based on the fundamental principle that the human being and the animal are two entirely different things, not merely two dissimilar things. I believe that we must yet have a good deal of respect for animals but more based on Who created them and gave them to us as opposed to anything an animal possesses that deserves such respect. Killing for the pure fun of killing I object to, but killing for sport AND harvest, I am wholeheartedly in favor of, especially since wild game is quite tasty.
Plus Jesus, as a devout Jew, had to eat lamb at least once a year at Passover, and He ate fish (at the feeding of thousands it can be safely assumed that He ate as well, and then there is the beautiful story of His post-resurrection breakfast of fish with Peter on the seashore). If Jesus is cozy eating animals, then I’m cozy with it as well!
I figure the article has it right.
“Can hunters and animal advocates talk and listen together about their different ways of thinking through these issues? Such conversations can be difficult, but also mind-expanding. And “Murder” is best left out of them. It just doesn’t apply in this context.”
@Ancient_Scribe - How do you know they don’t have souls? Are you God? If not, then you shouldn’t try to speak of things you cannot know.
My definition of murder is to kill someone you have something against personally. I have no grudge against animals, I’m not targeting a specific deer when I go hunting. I’m just looking for food for my family.
I don’t think wasteful killing of animals or tortured killing of animals is right though.
I don’t consider it murder, but I would shy away from killing an animal with no good reason
I think what separates “killing” and “murder” is whether or not it’s illegal. So I guess it depends on what you’re hunting, and what the law says about it.
It’s murder if you’re hunting people.
Since none of us are immortal except for God alone, it would be discourteous to unjustly kill an animal that God created for His purpose. If we will not respect the lives of animals, then why should we respect human life?
@wordwarrior39 - If you use your logic, then we shouldn’t eat fruit or vegetables either. Ripping that carrot out of the ground effectively stops its life, and eating it alive would definitely cause pain in its nervous system. Many studies have been done of plants, when wired to a monitor, and a nearby plant has been shredded and destroyed, when that same person who killed the plant comes near the monitored plant, it has measurable reactions. When others come near, it doesn’t. Are we so “superior” we can claim to know how God designed each plant, animal, etc? What should we eat, then?
If we believe in the Bible, it teaches the Garden of Eden was created for man to manage, and to provide him everything he needed to survive. Plants, fruits, animals for him to eat, animals for him to clothe himself with in cold, fresh water, milk, etc.
Even Jesus ate fish, drank wine.
Murder is an intent, an act. Taking of a life with malice. Killing is the ending of a life, whether harvesting corn, picking an apple, or cleaning a chicken.
Those who eat their meats from McD’s or Taco Bell or Long John Silvers seldom give a thought as to where that meat comes from.
Visit a working farm and see a chicken killed, cleaned and fried, from barnyard to table. Gives you a different perspective. If you have the stomach for it, visit a slaughterhouse or butcher, see how larger animals are harvested and prepared. Or even a packing house, although I doubt you could get into the insides of one. The smells alone will send you reeling. Tough place to work.
I deer hunt, and when I harvest a deer, I stop and give a prayer of Thanks to God for that life, for the use of the animal. I save the deer hide and donate it to my local Elks Lodge, who in turn has the hide tanned, and has the tanned leather made into gloves and distributed to wheelchair bound veterans. I have my local meat processor bone it, make some of it into jerky, sausage, ground, roasts, tenderloins etc. Venison is very lean, low cholesterol meat, far better for you than beef. Naturally raised and fed, no hormones or injections or chemicals in its feed, etc.
here in Texas they are doing the animals a favor by thinning out the herd otherwise the deer will be coming into our neighborhoods wanting us to feed them and I guess some call it murder. If they don’t thin our the herd then it’s more painful for the animals to suffer and starve to death.
No, we eat.
It depends on your view of things. Vegans will tell you killing animals for food is murder. Some Buddhists would argue the same as they tend toward vegetarianism. (Not all of them though) Also some Hindu followers will also agree that killing is murder as they’re supposed to follow non-violence toward animals and people. But to me, if you’re going to eat the meat, use the hide and not waste a bunch of it just for sport then it’s not inherently bad so no, not murder. Only if it’s for sport, then it’s murder.
@EmilyandAtticus1 - I wouldn’t ever claim to be God. However, murder is the taking of a person’s life; you don’t need to believe in God to see that animals are not rational (neither actually or potentially) nor are they persons. As I tried to illustrate in my previous point, were it the case that animals were “persons” or there were some other property that make them morally equal to human beings and it were “murder” to kill one, then humanity’s relationship with animals would have to undergo radical change. We would have to release all our pets into the wild, become vegan, stop using their furs for clothing, rugs and decoration, stop farming them, etc. If they do have souls and are “persons” of equal moral value to human beings, should we hold them morally accountable for their actions? To begin giving animals equal moral worth to human beings and to say that killing an animal is the same as murder presents a great many problems. If it is morally reprehensible to hold a human being in slavery and if laws were passed and wars fought to end this practice, where is the outrage and the sweeping legal and cultural change regarding the millions of pets in America, or farm animals? Even if we are not killing them but merely holding them as pets, if “murdering” an animal is wrong, wouldn’t their involuntary imprisonment be wrong, too? Is it wrong for animals to harm, kill and eat each other? Why is it wrong for me to harm, kill or eat another human being, but it is perfectly acceptable for an animal to do so toward other animals, and even to human beings?
- I love animals…they’re delicious!
Not if you’re eating what you’ve hunted. I don’t see the point of just hunting with no goal of consumption in the 21st century.
Not sure how you can consider all animals as not “rational.” There are animals (example: certain apes and gorillas) that are very intelligent and self-aware, to the point that they may be higher-functioning than some humans, especially those with cognitive disabilities. You of course can fall back to the argument that only humans have souls, but it seems problematic to me if you link the idea of a soul with intelligence or consciousness, since then that might make you choose between concluding that some humans don’t have souls or certain animals do have souls.
We’re all murderers. If you eat plant life or other animals or kill humans. Society just never likes to address it.
I could never hunt a animal! I would feel almost as bad as if I killed a person.
By definition, no.
If it were my pet guppy, Minerva, then yes it would be murder.
It’s just hard for me to understand why someone would choose hunting as a sport.. then they must be vicious somehow to kill just for the sport of it..
I think it is pretty bad, but I find that it’s a lot more honorable than
letting
others factory-muder animals for you, so you can eat an unhealthy, fatty burger. At least these animals have a bearable life in the wild and don’t chew each others ears off because they are stressed.
hunting is not murder.
@Ancient_Scribe - On the contrary, the animals I know are more humane, rational, and compassionate than most humans. You don’t see animals arguing about how they are superior and still even admirable for engaging in barbaric cruelty. If animals have no souls, then for sure neither does the barbaric human species. Your attempt to analogize animals killing each other fails. Animals kill to live. They don’t create sick factory farms to mistreat their prey before slaughtering them. Go to a factory farm and then try to convince me it is the animals who lack a soul.
Only if you hunt on Ship-Trap Island.
Only when I’m MILF hunting.
As long as it is for food I dont see the problem… human bodies were made to eat plants and animals, that is why those that go against nature tend to be more sick. We weren’t made to live on vitamins
If you just kill to kill that is not a good thing but if you feed your family and others then it is a good thing…
Fuck all animal activists… They step on humans from other races to save animals. They just want to be in the limelight to impress others how softhearted they are.
maybe not murder. but i find anyone who enjoys the taking of life to be at least slightly psychotic.
Since murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being, then no.
But I do subscribe to the old hunter’s adage: Never shoot anything you’re not willing to eat.
When we die, our bodies feed the ants and the worms. The worms get eaten by the birds, the birds by us again. Circle of life, but if we could grow chicken breast (Google it), hell, I’d eat it instead and we can stop supporting the food industry.
When we hunt, do we murder?
Comments (38)
I don’t. I usually end up shooting my friend in the face instead.
First!
I dunno. According to PETA, fur is murder. So I’m not sure. Unless I’m murdering crows. Lots of them. Then it’s a murder! And if you’re Dick Cheney, it could always be accidental murder.
I accept the traditional view of murder. The needless killing of wild animals for hunting pleasure may be a debatable activity, but it is not murder.
Is it immoral? Yes. Technically murder? No
I think it is wrong to hunt for sport. It’s cruel, and it destroys life for no other end then taking pleasure in destroying life.
On the other hand, it’s also wrong to use animals cruelly for food (i.e.: commercial production of meat, etc).
I don’t think it is wrong to kill, quickly and painlessly, an animal who was given a good life if you need their meat. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong in eating animals. There is something wrong with needlessly torturing them or killing them.
Depends on what you define murder to be, but i think of murder as being unlawful and human, best if we keep it that way.
Non-human animals don’t have immortal souls. If it is morally wrong–if it is “murder”–to kill an animal, then this has other repercussions as well. If we cannot kill them then we cannot eat them of course. We also cannot own them or sell them or even give them away (this would be akin to slavery). We cannot buy/sell or consume their products (eggs, milk, etc.), we cannot cage them in zoos, so on and so forth. Human civilization and its relationship to animals is based on the fundamental principle that the human being and the animal are two entirely different things, not merely two dissimilar things. I believe that we must yet have a good deal of respect for animals but more based on Who created them and gave them to us as opposed to anything an animal possesses that deserves such respect. Killing for the pure fun of killing I object to, but killing for sport AND harvest, I am wholeheartedly in favor of, especially since wild game is quite tasty.
Plus Jesus, as a devout Jew, had to eat lamb at least once a year at Passover, and He ate fish (at the feeding of thousands it can be safely assumed that He ate as well, and then there is the beautiful story of His post-resurrection breakfast of fish with Peter on the seashore). If Jesus is cozy eating animals, then I’m cozy with it as well!
I figure the article has it right.
“Can hunters and animal advocates talk and listen together about their different ways of thinking through these issues? Such conversations can be difficult, but also mind-expanding. And “Murder” is best left out of them. It just doesn’t apply in this context.”
@Ancient_Scribe - How do you know they don’t have souls? Are you God? If not, then you shouldn’t try to speak of things you cannot know.
My definition of murder is to kill someone you have something against personally. I have no grudge against animals, I’m not targeting a specific deer when I go hunting. I’m just looking for food for my family.
I don’t think wasteful killing of animals or tortured killing of animals is right though.
I don’t consider it murder, but I would shy away from killing an animal with no good reason
I think what separates “killing” and “murder” is whether or not it’s illegal. So I guess it depends on what you’re hunting, and what the law says about it.
It’s murder if you’re hunting people.
Since none of us are immortal except for God alone, it would be discourteous to unjustly kill an animal that God created for His purpose. If we will not respect the lives of animals, then why should we respect human life?
@wordwarrior39 - If you use your logic, then we shouldn’t eat fruit or vegetables either. Ripping that carrot out of the ground effectively stops its life, and eating it alive would definitely cause pain in its nervous system. Many studies have been done of plants, when wired to a monitor, and a nearby plant has been shredded and destroyed, when that same person who killed the plant comes near the monitored plant, it has measurable reactions. When others come near, it doesn’t. Are we so “superior” we can claim to know how God designed each plant, animal, etc? What should we eat, then?
If we believe in the Bible, it teaches the Garden of Eden was created for man to manage, and to provide him everything he needed to survive. Plants, fruits, animals for him to eat, animals for him to clothe himself with in cold, fresh water, milk, etc.
Even Jesus ate fish, drank wine.
Murder is an intent, an act. Taking of a life with malice. Killing is the ending of a life, whether harvesting corn, picking an apple, or cleaning a chicken.
Those who eat their meats from McD’s or Taco Bell or Long John Silvers seldom give a thought as to where that meat comes from.
Visit a working farm and see a chicken killed, cleaned and fried, from barnyard to table. Gives you a different perspective. If you have the stomach for it, visit a slaughterhouse or butcher, see how larger animals are harvested and prepared. Or even a packing house, although I doubt you could get into the insides of one. The smells alone will send you reeling. Tough place to work.
I deer hunt, and when I harvest a deer, I stop and give a prayer of Thanks to God for that life, for the use of the animal. I save the deer hide and donate it to my local Elks Lodge, who in turn has the hide tanned, and has the tanned leather made into gloves and distributed to wheelchair bound veterans. I have my local meat processor bone it, make some of it into jerky, sausage, ground, roasts, tenderloins etc. Venison is very lean, low cholesterol meat, far better for you than beef. Naturally raised and fed, no hormones or injections or chemicals in its feed, etc.
here in Texas they are doing the animals a favor by thinning out the herd otherwise the deer will be coming into our neighborhoods wanting us to feed them and I guess some call it murder. If they don’t thin our the herd then it’s more painful for the animals to suffer and starve to death.
No, we eat.
It depends on your view of things. Vegans will tell you killing animals for food is murder. Some Buddhists would argue the same as they tend toward vegetarianism. (Not all of them though) Also some Hindu followers will also agree that killing is murder as they’re supposed to follow non-violence toward animals and people. But to me, if you’re going to eat the meat, use the hide and not waste a bunch of it just for sport then it’s not inherently bad so no, not murder. Only if it’s for sport, then it’s murder.
@EmilyandAtticus1 - I wouldn’t ever claim to be God. However, murder is the taking of a person’s life; you don’t need to believe in God to see that animals are not rational (neither actually or potentially) nor are they persons. As I tried to illustrate in my previous point, were it the case that animals were “persons” or there were some other property that make them morally equal to human beings and it were “murder” to kill one, then humanity’s relationship with animals would have to undergo radical change. We would have to release all our pets into the wild, become vegan, stop using their furs for clothing, rugs and decoration, stop farming them, etc. If they do have souls and are “persons” of equal moral value to human beings, should we hold them morally accountable for their actions? To begin giving animals equal moral worth to human beings and to say that killing an animal is the same as murder presents a great many problems. If it is morally reprehensible to hold a human being in slavery and if laws were passed and wars fought to end this practice, where is the outrage and the sweeping legal and cultural change regarding the millions of pets in America, or farm animals? Even if we are not killing them but merely holding them as pets, if “murdering” an animal is wrong, wouldn’t their involuntary imprisonment be wrong, too? Is it wrong for animals to harm, kill and eat each other? Why is it wrong for me to harm, kill or eat another human being, but it is perfectly acceptable for an animal to do so toward other animals, and even to human beings?
- I love animals…they’re delicious!
Not if you’re eating what you’ve hunted. I don’t see the point of just hunting with no goal of consumption in the 21st century.
@Ancient_Scribe -
Not sure how you can consider all animals as not “rational.” There are animals (example: certain apes and gorillas) that are very intelligent and self-aware, to the point that they may be higher-functioning than some humans, especially those with cognitive disabilities. You of course can fall back to the argument that only humans have souls, but it seems problematic to me if you link the idea of a soul with intelligence or consciousness, since then that might make you choose between concluding that some humans don’t have souls or certain animals do have souls.
We’re all murderers. If you eat plant life or other animals or kill humans. Society just never likes to address it.
I could never hunt a animal! I would feel almost as bad as if I killed a person.
By definition, no.
If it were my pet guppy, Minerva, then yes it would be murder.
It’s just hard for me to understand why someone would choose hunting as a sport.. then they must be vicious somehow to kill just for the sport of it..
I think it is pretty bad, but I find that it’s a lot more honorable than
letting
others factory-muder animals for you, so you can eat an unhealthy, fatty burger.
At least these animals have a bearable life in the wild and don’t chew each others ears off because they are stressed.
hunting is not murder.
@Ancient_Scribe - On the contrary, the animals I know are more humane, rational, and compassionate than most humans. You don’t see animals arguing about how they are superior and still even admirable for engaging in barbaric cruelty. If animals have no souls, then for sure neither does the barbaric human species. Your attempt to analogize animals killing each other fails. Animals kill to live. They don’t create sick factory farms to mistreat their prey before slaughtering them. Go to a factory farm and then try to convince me it is the animals who lack a soul.
Only if you hunt on Ship-Trap Island.
Only when I’m MILF hunting.
As long as it is for food I dont see the problem… human bodies were made to eat plants and animals, that is why those that go against nature tend to be more sick. We weren’t made to live on vitamins
If you just kill to kill that is not a good thing but if you feed your family and others then it is a good thing…
Fuck all animal activists… They step on humans from other races to save animals. They just want to be in the limelight to impress others how softhearted they are.
maybe not murder. but i find anyone who enjoys the taking of life to be at least slightly psychotic.
Since murder is defined as the unlawful killing of a human being, then no.
But I do subscribe to the old hunter’s adage: Never shoot anything you’re not willing to eat.
When we die, our bodies feed the ants and the worms. The worms get eaten by the birds, the birds by us again. Circle of life, but if we could grow chicken breast (Google it), hell, I’d eat it instead and we can stop supporting the food industry.