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How bad is murdering someone?

Bob Loblaw

Bob Loblaw

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Well, I mean homicide (premeditated), but how bad do you think it is to kill someone? And why? What if they have hurt someone so badly that you think they deserve it?

Personally I think rape is the worst thing to do, followed by excessive torture, then murder. I don't know for sure how I feel about 'vigilante justice' resulting in death. I don't really belive human life has intrinsic value. We're all animals & the loss of someone I don't know is virtually meaningless. IMO they were probably a shithead like most people.

Is killing someone morally over-come-able? Would karma fuck you?
EDIT: I could be confusing murder & homicide (i'm a tad durnk & can't look it up) but i'm talking about a premeditated killing
 
In countries where only those with money and power get legal, state-sanctioned justice, often the only way for the common people to get justice is to take matters into their own hands. I don't know your definition of karma, but afterwards, whatever they do will affect them as far as feelings of guilt, trauma, ptsd,.... Would the world be a better place if that person were given justice and the only way to administer it is outside of the state-sanctioned justice system?
 
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Personally could I do it yes but I feel like it would way very heavy on my concious.
What gives me the right to take a life and continue on with my own while they sit in the ground.
Then you could be the next victim from some one weighing the same option.
 
that's quite possibly the most situational question I've ever heard
 
Its totally situational.

Say for instance someone is an ongoing threat. They have harmed others. They have killed others, raped your mother, sisters, little sisters. Fucking kill them. Etc.

Better yet, chain them to a rock on a cliff edge, overlooking a vast sea, in a way that immobilizes them, and let them die of starvation/ dehydration. Then there is no violence. Maybe put their ass over a deep hole so they don't have to spend their final days smeared with their own excrement.

But this way they know they are being rejected. They have time to ponder it. But not at the burden of others.
 
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Here's a famous example of vigilante justice that happened in the US. For decades, the "town bully" (to put it very mildly) Ken McElroy annoyed, robbed, beat, harassed, arsoned, killed the pets of, etc his neighbors. Despite 100s of complaints, the town sheriff refused to do anything about it. Finally, in 1982 the citizens of that town had enough. They gunned him down in broad daylight. As far as guilt, I think the sheriff deserves nearly all of the blame for not nipping the problem in the bud.

Ken Rex McElroy (June 1, 1934 – July 10, 1981) was a resident of Nodaway County, Missouri, near the town of Skidmore. Known as "the town bully",[1] his unsolved murder became the focus of international attention. Over the course of his life McElroy was accused of dozens of felonies, including assault, child molestation, rape, arson, hog and cattle rustling, and burglary.[2]

In all, he was indicted 21 times, but escaped conviction each time, except for the last.[2][3] In 1981, McElroy was convicted of shooting and seriously injuring the town's 70-year-old grocer, Ernest "Bo" Bowenkamp, the previous year.[1] McElroy successfully appealed the conviction and was released on bond, after which he engaged in an ongoing harassment campaign against Bowenkamp, the town's Church of Christ minister, and others who were sympathetic to Bowenkamp. He appeared in a local bar, the D&G Tavern, armed with an M1 Garand rifle and bayonet, and later threatened to kill Bowenkamp.[1][3] The next day, McElroy was shot to death in broad daylight as he sat with his wife Trena in his pickup truck on Skidmore's main street.[2] He was struck by bullets from at least two different firearms, in front of a crowd of people estimated as between 30 and 46.[1] To date, no one has been charged in connection with McElroy's death.[1]
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from wikipedia
 
Totally justified. Though his wife should have perhaps been spared from witnessing.
 
the intention to kill another human being is intrinsically bad even in self defence. you can defend yourself, but the intention to kill has no place in it, although the death can take place unintentionally. all of us are predominantly the product of our genes and environment. we have very little real option, and no matter how bad a person is, there is ALWAYS reason to provide the benefit of the doubt that they are just as victimised by their circumstances as the people they may have harmed.

killing undesirables has in history been a cheap way to sweep societal problems under the rug. it is far more difficult and expensive to attempt rehabilitation. so much so, we still don't try it properly. however, fortunately, the costly legal appeals mechanisms currently attached to the death penalty have made it not so cheap any more.

bob, just like our other disagreement in fb, you are talking from the premise that all people have an equal opportunity to succeed in life, so any failures are entirely by their own fault. this is a harmful simplification and completely fallacious.
 
The idea of dying terrifies me at this point in time...There's a million different possible scenarios where killing someone could be justified...I go back and forth on whether or not I think there's an afterlife. I've had times where I've absolutely believed there was, and other times like now, where the idea of anything spiritual underlying this mundane, physical reality seems like wishful thinking to me. If this one life is the only thing any of us have and ever will have, taking someone else's life has to be viewed as the worst thing you could do.
 
I think that taking someone's life is the most serious thing a person can do and it's not something to be taken lightly, entirely regardless of the circumstances, whether it is in self-defense or otherwise.

I have my conceal carry permit, and I believe in an individual's right to defend himself and the lives of his family and loved ones, but the thought that I may one day have to use my pistol, to take a person's life, makes me sick. It's not something that I would enjoy doing, even if this is a person threatening the lives of my loved ones...

I get the feeling sometimes, as sick as this may sound, that people with their pistol permits, people who take an unhealthy interest in firearms and who believe quite rabidly in the second amendment and such tend to almost fantasize about the day they are given the opportunity to use their pistols. It's like they almost look forward to it, and the idea or the thought excites them, but not me. I can't relate to that, can't wrap my head around why anyone would want to take another's life.

It's not something that I could or would ever feel good about, not even if this man or woman were putting my life or the lives of my family in jeopardy. I might feel relieved, relieved that my life or the lives of my loved ones are no longer in danger, but I wouldn't feel good about having taken another person's life. It would very likely haunt me for a long, long time. I can surely rationalize and justify it by telling myself that it had to be done, that I had no real choice, that the person wasn't a good person, but, even still, I would have taken another human being's life, a person who, at one time, was someone's little bundle of joy, someone who might have loved and been loved, someone who surely could not have been completely evil with there being no good in them at all. So it would have to be a more complex set of emotions I would need to grapple with for a long, long time... not something I would look forward to or fantasize about.
 
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L2R said:
the intention to kill another human being is intrinsically bad even in self defence. you can defend yourself, but the intention to kill has no place in it, although the death can take place unintentionally. all of us are predominantly the product of our genes and environment. we have very little real option, and no matter how bad a person is, there is ALWAYS reason to provide the benefit of the doubt that they are just as victimised by their circumstances as the people they may have harmed.

killing undesirables has in history been a cheap way to sweep societal problems under the rug. it is far more difficult and expensive to attempt rehabilitation. so much so, we still don't try it properly. however, fortunately, the costly legal appeals mechanisms currently attached to the death penalty have made it not so cheap any more.

bob, just like our other disagreement in fb, you are talking from the premise that all people have an equal opportunity to succeed in life, so any failures are entirely by their own fault. this is a harmful simplification and completely fallacious.
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What if you can be certain that if you do not kill someone they will kill many others?

I personally view the harm in killing someone, even if they are an awful person, lies in the harm it causes those who know and love them not in taking their life itself.
 
unfortunately i'm on a shitty cellphone, so i'm not going to go tit for tat with ya, IP :P! But i see your point in this thread, not so much for the fb posts.
and i concede that people are products of their environment for the most part, though IMO e.g. Being abused as a child & therefore abusing one's own child does not excuse the behaviour.

i also don't see how this is incredibly situational. I should have been more specific in OP because i'm not talking about killing someone who is harming others. Maybe they have in the past, but that's not what i'm getting at. I'm wondering about the premeditated killing of a person for any reason.
 
What of the rabid dog?

There's a point where it just shouldn't be my fucking problem.

Bad, or not, my actions to deal with it.

There's one stance.

But I can see how it is bad. I can see how it's not desirable. I think taking another's life is bad, without giving them life. It's the worst you can do to someone, and it happens on many levels. Murder is natural. But we murder ourselves always. And we murder ourselves, too.

Those who feel they are deserving or not, of murder, are hiding. You deserve nothing.

But I feel we deserve to exist. Because we are. But If somebody is actively, recognizably murdering, they should be taken down. Ideally, if rehabilitation is possible, they should be rehabilitated. I do believe that actions that can provoke such a reaction in the normal populace are themselves a symptom of a greater disease, and the vessel that they might be found through the system, in, is just a carrier... What the frequency has found- been found in, of such. A sickness might be controlled better. I'm not sure about healed, completely. But I'm not sure not. I tend to feel, or have been through thoughts that tell me that we are in a state that disease has tended to. Without disease, and threats, we may have not better evolved, to now.

I think that we usually try to do the right thing. But we are lazy. Prison isn't rehab. We simply don't know what to do. But at the wire, we won't know what else to do, and they will die. The story above is totally understandable, that socko posted.

It would be interesting if we have a future where we completely understand why things happen, and know how to really "fix" the issue, by means of genetic and other therapies. It could be simple, one day, and very rare for this kind of thing to happen, with our understanding. To identify and take out the threat. It would be almost meaningless to punish a person, if we could simply fix them.
 
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^what a rabid response. 0_o

EliCash said:
What if you can be certain that if you do not kill someone they will kill many others?
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firstly there is no such certainty. secondly, it is also not even considering a more humane approach. what is humanity if it isn't exercising an ability to act humanely?

I personally view the harm in killing someone, even if they are an awful person, lies in the harm it causes those who know and love them not in taking their life itself.
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it's both. denying a person decades of life is harming them, even though they are not there to experience it. harm is more than pain.
 
I added more, but it took me awhile. I guess the first was a rabid response.
 
It's interesting because most people will say it's okay to kill someone in one situation but not in another, so the summation of all those acceptable situations being put together means that killing people is okay.

The reason why homicide laws exist is to maintain societal order. The ruling class are always held to a different standard though. Murdering someone in cold blood seems to be a universal taboo in all societies, but the laws around different kinds of homicide vary. In many places it's okay to kill in self-defense. Most countries say it's okay to kill people in a time of war.

I've watched interviews with people who murdered and when asked what killing did to their psyche, most say it changed their lives forever. It made them break through certain social veneers and realize what humans are truly capable of. Some feel guilty, of course. Nonetheless their testimony uncomfortably reminds us of the potential violence all humans have within themselves.

I suspect that the reluctance to kill is partly instinctual, i.e. killing other humans could be destroying your survival support, but a bigger part of it is surely programming.

As for consequences... I don't know that I believe in karma the way it's described spiritually, since we conveniently don't remember past lives well enough to know what we did or didn't do wrong. If there is karma, it would play out in *this* life. You'd have to deal with your conscience, and human law if you are caught. I don't necessarily believe that it has implications on your soul, if a soul exists. That's social programming and mind control talking. All the religions that talk about soul karma have had leaders guilty of horrible massacres and other atrocities.
 
alasdairm said:
say we decide that the world would be better off without you. we can kill you? and you'd be fine with it?

alasdair
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Obviously I don't think this applies to me. I'm thinking of serial murderers, wife beaters, child molesters/child abusers, and the like. There was someone in my hometown who got off to getting people strung out on IV drugs and watching the destruction ensue. Do people like this add anything of value to society? What about people who willfully inflict pain on other human beings, unprovoked? Do they deserve to live when there are limited resources? Forget about issues like getting the state involved, etc.. because that would only muck things up. I just think on some level, we all know that the world would be better off if certain individuals just, disappeared.
 
to take a life is an expression of power

it fills the empty cup of those thirsty for respect or notice

to murder someone is to tie yourself to a soul that has been extinguished

only a psychopath does not feel the weight of that burden like everyone else does

to meet someone that has been to war tells all
 
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