Is it ok to steal from Mother Nature?

Question

Is hunting and killing animals wrong and immoral?

Anybody who uses the stealing of fruit and vegetables is using an incorrect analogy. Fruit is simply is by product of reproduction and photosynthesis. There is not killing involved. The tree, shrub, vine is still alive.

Answer 1

yes to the main question

no to the rest....

we need food, other animals are food...

animals do it, so we do too....

Answer 2

This question seems to be skewed toward pro-vegetarianism, and its based on faulty logic. You coment that hunting is killing while harvesting is not because the tree or vine survives. Well..plenty of harvesting DOES kill the plant. Digging up carrots removes the entire plant from the ground, for example. Also, while taking an apple doesn't kill the plant, it does still kill the apple. THe apple is no longer alive. It's like you've just amputated part of the tree. I certainly don't see that as more or less moral than hunting.

We need food to survive. We are also a part of Mother Nature. So starving ourselves doesn't really sound more logical...or ethical...either. Mother Nature doesn't suffer from the loss of an animal or a tree or an apple. These also aren't possessions as we generally understand the word, and thus renders the idea of "stealing" rather moot.

Answer 3

To clarify, hunting for sport is almost non existent. Hunting is "a sport", but I've never heard of anyone who does not eat what they hunt. Maybe rumors of "american" yahoos who come up here (I'm canadian), but never heard it confirmed.

Hunting is not really stealing at all, because in many ways it gives back to mother nature. For example hunting rabbits creates more food for deer. Where I live, hunting deer creates more area for moose to live. The thinning of herds creates healthier herds because they are not competing with each other for food and cover. In this age of wildlife management, the amount of science that goes into regulating hunting is incredible. Not to mention the fact that the money we pay for hunting licenses and associations does way more to preserve habitat in a year than PETA will ever do.

Hunted food is treated much more humainely than a farmed animal which spends int's life in a prison. It's also organic and lean, so it's good for humans (also part of mother nature). It's also arguable that hunting is more ecologically sound than farming.

I would say it's more of a transaction, not theft. And yes, it's ok.

Answer 4

Okay hunting and killing animals is stealing from Mother Nature but eating fruit and vegetables isn't? Anyway God gave us animals to serve us. He instructed us on which animals were accetpable for the Jews to eat and which ones were to be offered as sacrafices.

Answer 5

The only time hunting and killing an animal is morally acceptable is if you are doing it to feed the hungry. These people that consider hunting a sport are idiotic. If you could give the animal a weapon and teach it to shoot back, that makes it a little more even. The human is the only species that kills for the thrill of killing. Other species of life kill to protect and feed their young, and to survive.

Answer 6

No ..but one is expected to obey hunting seasons and purchase a license which the money goes to help consevation of the land and animals alike.

I do not believe an animal should be killed as a trophy item.
If one survives on the meat of the animal that is fine. These animals were placed here for our survival and enjoyment of their beauty.

Answer 7

The food chain exists for a reason. You're screwing with Mother Nature a hell of a lot more if you DON'T hunt then if you do. Crazy idea! Everyone pick up a book and learn. If deer aren't hunted the over populate and starve to death. That's better??? Deer are only one example.
Good goddess people.

Answer 8

How is this so different from harvesting plants? Broccoli is also murder, and plants have been shown to respond to the threat of damage or death (Screaming trees experiments, for instance). If we look at number of animals killed per calorie eaten, due to modern agricultural practices a vegan diet is responsible for more animal deaths (field mice, rabbits, etc.). Of course, this is an argument against modern agricultural practices and not any particular diet. But the idea that diet is about anything but the health of the person is misguided.

Answer 9

to steal is wrong...to live with, no.

as long as you take care of it as well as it has you
then yes you may take of it's ripened fruits, hunt it's many animals, and build upon it's soil.

(aka: try to keep it doing well because what you do affects it the worse you make the worse it'll be for you.
kinda like karma or um maybe more like for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.)

long example) if you kill the fish in the ocean by polluting > we have no fish... other animals have no fish > other animals that lived off fish die > now we have no fish and no animals that lived off fish > animals that ate the animals who lived off the fish die...and etc....
eventually it all comes back to huant us

be good to the planet and it'll do the same.

:-}

Answer 10

There is no Mother Nature.

If you believe in God, creation was made for us and we may use it.

If you don't believe in God, we are the products of evolution and are part of the ecosystem. As part of it, we live off the rest.

Hunting is necessary to control some species because there are no longer enough predators. Cruelty to animals just to be cruel, not as part of slaughter, is wrong because we know better than cats who toy with mice or orcas who toy with seals.

Answer 11

When the modes of passion and ignorance increase in human society, giving rise to unnecessary economic development, the result is that people become involved with wine, women and gambling. Then, being mad, they maintain big slaughterhouses or occasionally go on pleasure excursions to kill animals. Forgetting that however one may try to maintain the body, the body is subject to birth, death, old age and disease, such foolish rascals engage in sinful activities, one after another. Being miscreans, they completely forget the existence of the supreme controller, who is sitting within the core of everyone's heart (éçvaraù sarva-bhütänäà håd-deçe 'rjuna tiñöhati [Bg. 18.61]). That supreme controller is observing every bit of one's activity, and He rewards or punishes everyone by giving one a suitable body made by material nature (bhrämayan sarva-bhütäni yanträrüòhäni mäyayä [Bg. 18.61]). In this way, sinful persons automatically receive punishment in different types of bodies. The root cause of this punishment is that when one unnecessarily accumulates wealth, one becomes more and more degraded, not knowing that his wealth will be finished with his next birth.
Animal killing is prohibited. Every living being, of course, has to eat something . But one should be taught what kind of food one should take. Therefore the Isopanisad instructs, tena tyaktena bhuïjéthäù: one should eat whatever is allotted for human beings [ mantra 1]. Krishna says in Bhagavad-gitä (9.26):
"If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it." A devotee, therefore, does not eat anything that would require slaughterhouses for poor animals. Rather, devotees take prasäda of Krishna. Krishna recommends that one give Him a leaf, a flower, fruit or water [Bg. 9.26]. Animal food is never recommended for human beings; instead, a human being is recommended to take prasäda, remnants of food left by Krishna. If one practices eating prasäda, even if there is some little sinful activity involved, one becomes free from the results of sinful acts.