What Is Murder

I thought it was high-time we had an intellectual discussion about what warrents the term "murder." There's so many opinions on the subject. We're always having discussions about the subject on the nbtsc-l, but never on wiki. So here we go.

Is meat murder? why or why not?

• Well, it's death, and I don't care for it. 'specially when it's not neccesary, and is just for a little tastebud pleasure.
• No, meat isn't murder. It's the food chain. The mosquito eats me, then gets eaten by something else, which gets eaten by something else, and eventually it gets back to me. And when I die, I become part of the soil to help plants grow. Then animals eat the plants, and my grandchildren eat the animals. It's a neat little cycle, unfortunately being thrown off by the immense human population these days. Side note to Ari: it's not just for 'a little tastebud pleasure.' It's for protein, iron, and other nutrients that keep me alive. Sure, I could ship in pesticide-ridden vegetables from southern California to provide me with these nutrients in the winter. But I feel much better about it when I eat meat that has been raised on my own farm, with lots of natural food. - Nikki
• Aah, but on that farm, can you not grow good organic vegetables? Then you don't have to kill an animal.
• Fertilized with what dear? Plants don’t grow if they have nothing to grow in. Not anything animal, sense we don’t have meat we don’t have recourses for that, and defiantly not chemical sense it’s organic. Not vegetable, because it’s just a nasty cycle; you fertilize a plant with a plant and it will grow for a season, until those nutrients are used up, but it takes ten times what one plant will produce in nutrients to fertilize a plant with a plant. And I really can’t get in to the whole ‘tribe’, “grow with energy direction” thing, not that things can’t be helped with an energy boost, but if it was true that we could support plant life entirely on that, we would be able to support our selves like that as well, aka, not eating? (also it might be noted that Nikki said 'winter' as in nogrow no vegetables time, irrelevant to the summer growing season )
• Oooh... perhaps I'm not knowing something! Can we talk about this in GrowingSeason?

Is abortion murder? why or why not?

• Well, it's a death. Early term, pretty painless and of a pretty undeveloped creature. I don't care for it, once again.

Is the death sentence murder? why or why not?

• i ask you one quston.

Why do we kill people who killed people to show that killing people is wrong? point made. Heather CallunaIsRad

• Well, it's death. I rather don't use the term murder, I guess, unless I mean "cold-blooded premeditated killing for selfish reasons" I guess. I don't like the death penalty simply because the government makes mistakes, and it's hard to un-do killing someone.

• I want to disagree with Heather and state that I think the death sentence is a just punishment for murder. The thing that I don't like about it is just what whoever that was above me wrote, mistakes can be made. What I said was on a tangent, and had nothing to do with the actual question posed. I will answer the question now. A life for a life is punishment, a life for nothing is murder. You just have to have absolute proof that this person is the murderer, if there is any other factors at play then the whole thing is faulted. By the way who started this page? Why? Are you considering murder? DON'T DO IT! - Jonah
• laughs i started it. and of course i'm not considering murder. i was simply wondering what others thought of the topic. -jenjengurliegurl
• The death sentence, when handed out by the court, is a bit strange. But I am a big believer in vigilante justice, and if a person kills someone important to me I will be handing out my own personal death sentence. - Nikki

When is "murder" justifiable, and when is it not? What makes incurring someone/"something"[0] else's death not murder?

• like Ari, I think that killing is a lot different from murder. I think murder is when a thinking being kills another being for non-survival needs. So killing an animal to make a fur scarf or something is murder. But if you're in the middle of a blizzard and need something warm to wear, it is not murder to kill an animal for it's fur. (Of course, then the question comes up, why on earth were you in a blizzard with no warm clothes?) But I don't believe eating steak/chicken/fish/plants/etc is murder. I've been trying not to eat meat because the idea of something living just to feed me is repungant to me. But I don't think it's murder. And it's not murder if you kill someone in self-defence, or if the brakes on your car give out and you run over someone. Although, I don't want to drive a car, and that is one of the reasons. All right, I think I'm done now.
• Murder is when you kill something for the 'fun' of it, or for vanity. Trophy hunting is murder, killing animals because you think their fur would look better on you is murder, killing a person because they don't agree with you is murder. Killing animals/plants/humans for food is not murder, killing animals because their fur would keep you warm when you have nothing else is not murder, killing anything that is about to kill or injure you is not murder, accidents are not murder. - Nikki

Debate away.

[0] personally i have the belief that all animals are 'someones' rather than 'somethings' but i'm using the term for convenience' sake