When does killing an animal constitute murder?

When does killing an animal constitute murder?Well if you take your example from nature if you want to eat it then its ok to kill it. I thimnk that is a god version of when it is not murder but survival.When you kill an animal for no reason other then sport and leave the meat sometimes the trophy that is what i would call murder and anything worse then that.

There was a law for stranded sailors that they could kill and eat a shipmate selected by lottery if their own survival was dependent on that act. And troought history this law was used quite a few times by sailors.

Would a wolf rather eat a puppy or a chicken, if it came down to me or the puppy i would eat the puppy. There are cultures around the world that do not descriminate witch animal is good for eating and witch is not. I hear dogs and cats are a delicasy down in china while in western culture it is a Taboo.I do not perticulary mind that animals get killed for food, i do have problems with the way some animals are raised for food. Some cows do not know how a pasture looks like, they have barly enough space for them to turn. Some do not even have that they spend their lives chained to the manger (dunno if uncle google gave the right translation).I do not have problems with hunters killing off the excess of the population since most of the predators got killed by the order of the curch, a gold coin for a dead wolf way back in history. I do have a problem with pochers that kill the animal soly for the trophy or soly for the kill.I have a few horses and i do like horse meat though my horses have a 3 hectar pasture always open to them, fresh water, and they often get corn, apples, carrots and the like. And when one does get killed to go in to the fridge it is done nice and fast he does not feel a thing. A pistol like thing slams a steal piston like thingy in its forhead the horse dies before he could feel the pain of the piston. Tough i can never watch the death i have no problem with the butchering and packing of meat.

Well you are clost there is a slightly diference in my moral line between humans and animals. If you kill an animal for food it is ok in my book and if you find some vegetables to go with it even better , kiling it for sport or some other reason except hunting the excess wildlife like i written in the post above, if you kill a human and have no other choice for survival it is somewhat ok, tough i would not judge some one who would do it in a situation like some saliors where in history cause i would not know if i would do it or not if untill i was in the same situation.

We humans kill other humans all the time and not for so different reasons then animals kill the same typ of animals.We go to ware and kill the enemy so we can rule over that land and take benifits from that land. Or a person sometimes so we geet a benifit unless you are a sociopath.A lion kills a noter lion To become the alfa of his pack and gain his hunting grounds and all the oter benifits.Some murder their souses for cheating, lions murder the cubs from a previus alfa.The only difference we have laws that punish such actions. A trait that came with language where the weak could turn on the strong bully/alfa so each individual had roughly the same chance of passing on his gens.

Well there is a sliding scale, humans are on top and only in some special casses killing a noter human is not murder. Then come the animals that have a social taboo on eating them, after that come the animals that we usualy eat.Tough in all animal cases pointless killing of them is wrong in my book. And pointless mistreatment is also wrong, as for the taboos on eating some animals i do not get them tough i do follow them, tough if someone wants to eat a dog and he cares for the dog so the dog had a nice life and he kills him in a humane manner then i would not have a problem with him eating the dog i on the other hand would have to be really hungry to eat a dog. I did eat a Dove once in Greece, i had no problems with it tastes like chicken, tough i doubt i will ever in my life prepare one on my own.Why is there a difference, well i am not sure social norms and all the oteher crap that shapes our decisions.

Pranists (i dunno how to spell it) from India, they walk around naked with a peacock feather in their hand sweaping the flore so they do not step on a bug accidently.

Eating ones own species is very rare in the animal kingdom, probably because i would not want to be killed and eaten so i do not kill and eat other humans. Well unless you are from china go and kill a cat on your yard, skin it, roste it, eat it and make sure the naighburs are watching. If i where you naighbur i would not have a problem with it i might even try a bite if you offered, tough i would not do the same in my back yard, tough most would think you are a freak, posesed, a satan worshiper ...... If the stake was alredy cut redy for the barbeque sure why not, if the chimp where still alive i would have a problem killing or watching you kill a relativly sentient animal for the pure purpose of knowing how it tastes.I know my moral lines are very blurry tough there is a method to my madness i do not know what the method is tough there is one.

Well it depends, say you are stranded on an island and you made a field and planted some seeds you found in a fedex box floating in the ocean. If maggots where eating your only food source you would kill them, And if a human would come along and say well this field is mine you will tend for it and i will eat of of it or i kill you you might kill the human bully.

We apply personal morality every where, there is no clear defined moral code out there all our morals are personaly constructed with the help of our society, parents and all those around us.Morals are not clearly written laws, they are blurry ideas of wahat is right or wrong.If every body had clear morals, with clear lines for every possible action, and these morals would be unchanging torugh history and trough ones lifetime, then the creos would actually have some indirect evidence for a creator.

Would any of you eat this And why not? http://www.worsleyschool.net/...ce/files/biggest/spider.htmlEdited by frako, : No reason given.

And still if you where bourne in that tribe they would be a delicasy for you. Strange how society detirmens our actions, our likes dislikes, aour notion of morality and immorality.

No tough it is still strange. If you where bourn in India, you would most likely consider killing animals is always murder if you eat them or not you would hold them on the same level as humans. In china all animals are food dogs are good for "nightly activities" and skinning a cat while it is still alive is good for the costumer so they know their cat is fresh when they buy it. In western regions some animals are food others pets you do not eat pets, and you do not nedlesly cause harm to animals of any kind that is wrong.It all depends on the society you live in our personal morals are shaped by it

True i would kill or at least beat up many a polititian tough the price for me landing in jail deters me from it.

So you are saying i can make a virus to kill of all known bat species and that would not be a crime, or immoral. Or would the fact that when the bats ar gone insects would swarm most nations eating their crops causing starvation and death on a large scale make it a crime? And there is nothing special about your dog that guars your house brings you the newspaper and slippers. Nothing special about the bats that keep insect populations down, nothing special about the cattle that feed you with their meat and milk, the only species that is special is us humans who are doing more harm then god to nature. You are right if you beat up a dog real good before you kill and skinn him he tastes much better. Why should puppy mills be a problem all they do is make more puppies the older dogs do not look as cute so they can go live on the streat or get a bullet in their head. Or better you can slowly starve and torture them to death. Why should whales be protected good money can be made of their meat so what if they go extinct and all the other species that depend on whales in the ecosyistem can die off too we will raise more cattle to supliment our fish diet, we can cram a few more in the stall the cattle do not nead to have enough space to turn that wastes energy and wasted energy meens less meat. Who cares if the meat tastes bad, or that it is less god for our diet, or that viruses have an easier way to jump to humans in those conditions. So if i kill your cat skinn it and eat it all i owe you is 200 bucks. And if you go on a vaccation you leave the cat to starve at home if it survives you saved on some money on some food if not well you can always get a new TV i mean cat, you probably do the same with the tv you leave it pluged in and you hope no lightning strikes happen while you are away.