Is "Thou Shalt Not Kill" realistic? Some people try to hold to this as a precept, regardless of circumstances. The Jains (which is usually pronounced more like "Jines") live according to strong principles of nonviolence. Not many others do, so far as I know. Why?
If the King, Queen, Emperor or Nation (etcetera) sanctions killing, people will kill, some without compunction. In self-defense, people will kill. In the heat of passion, people will kill. In wars, people will kill. In the "line of duty," people will kill. As sanctioned punishment, people will kill. For a sense of power or amusement, psychopaths will kill.
By contrast, the Jains will try avoid killing as much as humanly possible: including animals and plant life. Are they crazy, or is the rest of the world crazy? Or does it depend on the situation?
If limits are put on killing -- and there usualy are, even in extreme situations -- what should they be? A universal problem with human activities like war is that even cultural and religious limiters are usually broken. Support "our troops" whether they are Waffen SS or 101st Airborne or French Foreign Legion? Support "our troops," even if they rape, plunder and kill civilians? I think not. But I might be singing to a different tune if the enemy was at the gates, ready and able to sack and destroy my city and everyone I know. That's the rotten damn fool I could be.
Basil: I don't believe you give a damn about your country.
Zorba: Don't you talk to me like that! Look here, here, here -- nothing on the back. I have done things for my country that would make your hair stand. I have killed, burned villages, raped women, and why? Because they were Turks, or Bulgarians. That's the rotten damn fool I was. -- Zorba the Greek, 1964.
Today's Rune: The Self.
4 comments:
Never kill without necessity. Yet in a split hair of a second one must at times decide if it time for me to die or for you to die. Ask me when that second is splitting and I will know the answer to the morality of of the question.
I would kill another human in self defense of myself or in defense of my loved ones. I would not feel guilty about it. Otherwise I don't see killing as an acceptable behavior. I imagine I would kill if I were sent to war, but that kind of adds in the self-defense thing.
Back during my pagan period I had similar concerns with the Wiccan rede (although I wasn't Wiccan, most pagans I knew were.) Things can be so incredibly relative, y'know? I could kill if I HAD to (& to be completely honest, I probably wouldn't even lose sleep over it.) To be honest, I'm all for taking certain criminals OUT. Get them off my planet--we have no use for their antics here. Like most people, I just want to live in peace, ironically.
I don't mean this to sound trite, but if killing animals and even plants is morally questionable, how far "down" the evolutionary tree should we go? What about bacteria and fungi - should they be on the 'do not kill unless you have to' list? Simply by being alive we cause some organisms to die and others to thrive. I'm much more concerned about the wholesale extermination of other species that our species is bringing about.
-JC
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