Well I'm new to this place and science in general (I'm a computer guy really) but I will submit a little theory I have been thinking about.

Killing is natural

We all know that the majority of us eat meat and vegetables (omnivorous) and of course we have to kill animals to get meat. The majority of us have no problems with this and are quite happy to eat meat. Of course a few of us brand the killing of animals "cruel and unfair" and then quite happily eat a beef burger as of course they don't mind it if they don't have to watch the animal die and if it's killed in a "humane" way.
This is another point that annoys me, what is a "humane killing"? When you think of humanity as a race that has an endless history of self inflicted war and suffering the idea of "humane killings" seems a bit strange. Animals are not human and never will be. Of course this is another interesting point. What separates humans from animals? Well a lot of people will answer "We're more advanced" or "We have society and order" interesting replies actually. Humans aren't much more advanced than animals, yes we have a larger cranial capacity and we have mastered construction and yet we still live of our instincts to some degree. This is where the reply "We have society and order" comes in. What exactly is society? Society is merely an illusion created by humans to give us some sense of meaning and add some value into our lives. Society is the little thing that tells you that you've got to be somewhere at a certain time and that it's "important". As humans are such a tribal race we create our own societies within societes (social classification) another form of natural selection. Now each of us have our own social rank and we act accordingly.
So while you've been listening to all of this you may be wondering how killing comes into this. Have any of you read "Lord of the Flies"? If you haven't go away and read it because this will spoil the storyline

Story Line


Set during World War II, the story describes the plight of a group of British schoolboys stranded on a Pacific island after their plane was shot down en route to England. Two of the boys, Ralph and Piggy, discover a conch in the lagoon near the beach and use it to call all the other survivors, setting up a mock democratic government with Ralph as leader. Piggy continues to advise and give logic and reason to Ralph's rule. A signal fire, kindled with the lens of Piggy's glasses, is established on the mountain to call passing ships to their rescue while shelters are constructed.

However, the school's choir leader, Jack, soon becomes obsessed with hunting the pigs of the island and loses sight of Ralph's democratic vision. Further discord results with an increasing fear of a supposed "beast" on the island, stemming particularly from the younger boys dubbed the "littluns." Jack eventually abandons any thought of being rescued, content instead with hunting and killing pigs with his choir boys turned into hunters. Jack later speaks out of turn during their assembly meetings and eventually leaves the group to start a "tribe." Other children gradually defect to his side except for Ralph, Piggy, Simon and the twins Samneric (Sam and Eric). One by one these children are eliminated from the opposition.

Upon discovering the beast the boys had all feared on the mountain is only the rotting corpse of a pilot whose plane had been shot down near the island, Simon runs down from the mountain to share this happy news. However the boys (including Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric) are all, following Jack's example, caught up in a primal ritual celebrating the murder of a pig they have just eaten and Simon runs into the midst of this. Mistaken to be the beast, Simon is killed by the boys' spears.

Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric remain resistant to joining Jack's tribe. They attempt to cling to the democracy they had set up, still using the conch to call an assembly and struggling to keep a signal fire burning on the beach. Then Jack and his hunters attack the four and steal Piggy's glasses to kindle the fire he needs for pig-roasting fires. Angry and blinded, Piggy decides to go to the place on the island called Castle Rock where the hunters have set up a base. Reluctantly, Ralph and Samneric agree and upon arriving Roger stops them at the gate. Jack emerges from the forest and begins to fight with Ralph while Piggy stands nearby shrieking in fear, wanting only for his sight be restored by retrieving his glasses. Samneric are seized at Jack's command by the hunters and Roger, Jack's second-in-command, drops a large boulder on the head of Piggy, killing him and shattering the conch which he holds in his hands. Ralph alone is left to flee, with no friends left to aid him. Samneric have become hunters as well and betray the secret of his hiding place in the forest to Jack. The island is set ablaze and hunters fan out to kill Ralph with their spears, the sole remaining opposition to their tribe, as even now he tries to cling to his old democratic ideas.

Running wildly and suddenly becoming savage himself, Ralph stabs with his spear at the hunters pursuing him, chased by all until he at last comes to the beach. The shelters he had built with such labor are in flames and, falling at last upon the sand with the sea before him and nowhere left to run, Ralph looks up to see a naval officer. Rescue comes at last to the boys' aid, seeing the smoke from the mighty blaze set by Jack's hunters after Ralph's signal fire had earlier failed to alert anyone of their presence. When the officer expresses disapproval for the savage state and chaos to which the boys have reverted, Ralph breaks down in tears. Soon, all the hunters begin crying at the sight of grown-ups on the beach. Ralph weeps for "the end of innocence" and "the darkness of man's heart."


So now you know the story you see how these young children have had western morals imprinted on them since an early age and how some of the group begin to reject these morals in favour of a "feral" lifestyle and this facilitates killing. Of course Ralph and Piggy had these morals imprinted so deeply on them they clung onto them until the end.
But who may I ask comes out on top? The feral children. This is because they adapted to their environment and learnt to follow human instinct which is if neccesary to kill your fellow man. Also you may have noticed that they followed the "tribal instinct" as well.

In conclusion I just want to say that before some of you start lecturing others on how wrong it is to kill and steal just remember. Who's telling you it's wrong? Your instincts or society?

Thankyou.
Regards sas01

a.) that humans are omnivorous by nature is debatable. We are discussing it in another thread.

b.) Of course killing is natural, but in nature, the reasons for killing are quite different from why people kill each other today. Even animals don't kill each other unnecessarily. When males fight for females during the mating season, e.g., they only fight till a point where it is not fatal. If killing is natural so is a regard for the lives of others. Even lions don't kill unless they're hungry.

Today's humans kill in the name of religion.

c.) And then there are the psychopaths, who just have an innate desire to kill for the sake of it (natural no doubt) but still a genetic disease!

Yes apart from point a (which I am currently taking a look at) you are correct. However killing and war does have an established place in the food chain and in evolution itself. If we had no wars and phsychopaths then our population would be out of control. These people and events regulate our population so it doesn't get out of control. It's essentially natural culling. And the reason we have a lot of deaths in society today is because of reasons society created. So perhaps we are better off without society?

Yes apart from point a (which I am currently taking a look at) you are correct. However killing and war does have an established place in the food chain and in evolution itself. If we had no wars and phsychopaths then our population would be out of control. These people and events regulate our population so it doesn't get out of control. It's essentially natural culling. And the reason we have a lot of deaths in society today is because of reasons society created. So perhaps we are better off without society?
The biggest reason for our population explosion is the marriage institution --- and how the majority of men are forced into the procreation process --- when in nature so many males never participate in the procreation process. Add to it the successes of modern medicine in eradicating infant mortality rate. I don't think culling has any role at all in controlling human population.

Our society is not the ideal one. But I think mammals need a society --- they can't live without it......if we were birds it was different.......only thing is our society should be as close to nature as possible.

You will be surprised that in several ancient cultures, there are sects which do all sorts of things as part of 'satan' worship which involves things like sleeping with dead bodies or eating them......and although it is not a mainstream thing, these societies have given them a place. So anyone with a rare genetic inclination towards that kind of thing can find an outlet which does not harm the society......

In the modern, civilised world that would be considered a pscyhological disease, and the society would not have any outlet for such things. Consequently such rare people will then go about killing people after having sex with them and doing other socially harmful stuff.

Humans kills to keep the structure of society intact.

That story is just that: a novel. "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding. It's not a real historical event. I think "Lost" is more representative of the way adults would behave in that situation. There are some bad guys but they're outnumbered. And we know the good guys will win in the end.

People debate over the point Golding was trying to make. But I think the point that he actually made is that children can still be taken over by their base instincts... because they're children. They haven't fully matured yet and don't have the emotions and reasoning powers of adults.

More importantly though, adults are able to overcome their base instincts, even in difficult circumstances, because we have been trained to by those who came before us. Humans have slowly built up a culture that superimposes morality and responsibility over our basic survival instincts.

You dismiss culture casually but that is what differentiates us from the other animals. We have invented culture and they haven't.

More precisely, what we have that they don't is language. It allows us to communicate in a way that is qualitatively richer than theirs. We can pass on subtle ideas and very specific knowledge for hundreds of generations. We still have the basic survival tricks our stone age ancestors learned the hard way, like which herbs are nutritious and which are poisonous and how to make friends with a dog. But we've continued to add to them so we also know how to make grains grow right next to our camp, how to build houses instead of tents, how to create a surplus through division of labor so everyone is more prosperous, how to make music, etc. And how to write all of this down so we're not dependent on some elder's memory for all of it.

Yes, a few other animals are capable of learning our language to some degree. Dogs understand words, some species of parrots can speak words and know what they're saying, and chimpanzees and gorillas can "speak" rudimentary American Sign Language. Nonetheless none of those animals has invented language so at the most they are just starting a journey that we started more than 100,000 years ago. They have a lot of catching up to do with those rather small brains.

Cetaceans utter complex changing patterns of sounds that may be primitive language. And... cetaceans also have primitive morality, much more strongly than almost any other non-domesticated animal. They do things for the sake of the group.

Language is the key to whatever superiority we have over the other animals, and the fact that cetaceans have both what seems like a bit of language and what seems like a bit of morality supports that thesis.

So: To answer the question, what makes us so much different from them all is our vastly superior communication.

Humans kills to keep the structure of society intact.
True. E.g. they execute people who break laws and harm the security/ health of other people.

Unfortunately, they also kill to uphold the 'evil' part of their society. The group that draws power from a particular social system will kill to keep their power base intact --- if the society allows such a killing.

We are so used to the current method of social organization that we think it's natural and instinctive to be warlike and violent, but we forget that at the beginning of civilization, the peaceful Goddess-worshipping ways evidenced in ancient Crete and Catal Huyuk that lasted for more than 1500 years were destroyed by violent barbarian nomads, instituting the male-dominated organizational structure we still see today. Our religion both reflects and propagates this warlike culture.

Unfortunately, they also kill to uphold the 'evil' part of their society. The group that draws power from a particular social system will kill to keep their power base intact --- if the society allows such a killing.

thats the part i was implying the most.

Ha, ha ha, ha :D
Funny stuff

because we are animals, omnivours, we eat animals therefore we kill them,


peace.

Yes apart from point a (which I am currently taking a look at) you are correct. However killing and war does have an established place in the food chain and in evolution itself. If we had no wars and phsychopaths then our population would be out of control. These people and events regulate our population so it doesn't get out of control. It's essentially natural culling. And the reason we have a lot of deaths in society today is because of reasons society created. So perhaps we are better off without society?
I am wondering. have you prsonally ever experienced war...? if am guessing you haven't, for you seem to see it so simplistically. actully it is utter horror. especially NOW what with the 'video-games' style of war where the fighter doesn't even have to get covered in lood. war is fukin evil, horror. kids limbs blown off horror. if THA is wat you think is 'natural' i truly feel sorry for you.
you rather have to look at te MYTHS told us and which become so indoctrinated in us we believe WE believethem. the myth of social darwinism for xample. the fave myth of our materialistic times. that we are natrually cruel and aggressive and etc, all v ery convenient for a man arsed corporate world dont you think?

i am aware Nature in its natrual state is wild, and obviousy we are a part of Nature and in OUR natrual state are wild to. but by WILD dont mean savage.
think about it, some of th worst ever atrocities, genocides, ecocide hashappened NOT in pre-modern times but modern times. and the terrible atrocites of pre modern times wereusally connected with culture andcivilization, NOT in Indigenous rtraditions whereEarth and Nature was held as sacred. so what does that tell us?
that when we are suppressed by conformtive tradition hioch also seeks to manipulate us via its oppressive mythic interpretations is when evil infolds

checkout all about Nazism. it was abll a combinaton of politica; propaganda and supression of our natural state and dodgy mythology all togthe actualizing HELL on earth for many!

My advice on this subject is to live in the woods for one month. Then think about it afterwards cuz youre just masturbating your brain

Killing for other than feeding is not unique to human. Do you know that lions kill hyenas and don't eat them?

"In Botswana's Chobe National Park, hyena clans, sometimes numbering as many as 40, have confronted lion prides, not to compete over food but to fight. Lions, in what appeared to be an attempt to rid their territory of hyenas, attacked the rivals. The lions killed--but did not eat--the hyenas. Lionesses sought the dominant female hyena." - http://www.hlla.com/reference/anafr-hyenas.html

An interesting short video on lion vs hyena:
http://www.compfused.com/directlink/524/

to add to daktaklakpak post, there is also the effect of bloodlust or maybe its just confusion in animals, anyway have you ever seen a henhouse after the fox been there :)

Hyenas probably taste bad. Full of testosterone. The fox actually kills all hens as a precaution measure (save up food for lean times). If he has the opportunity he will actually bury all the hens he cannot eat (and eat them at a later date), but often he is interupted before he has a chance to do so.

I read the Lord of the Flies and did not find it believable. At least a group of my classmates would not have acted that way.

Everybody seems to think that the bullies would dominate a small group left on their own on an island or in some primitive environment. Perhaps this might have been true of our prehistoric ancestors. In modern times, I would not expect it to happen. Is a bully or two tried to dominate, I would expect a few bright ones to gang up on the bully. If I could not handle a bastard on my own, I would find somebody to help me put him down.

"The survival of the society is more important than the individual, and the survival of the individual rests on the society"

I read the Lord of the Flies and did not find it believable. At least a group of my classmates would not have acted that way.

Everybody seems to think that the bullies would dominate a small group left on their own on an island or in some primitive environment. Perhaps this might have been true of our prehistoric ancestors. In modern times, I would not expect it to happen. Is a bully or two tried to dominate, I would expect a few bright ones to gang up on the bully. If I could not handle a bastard on my own, I would find somebody to help me put him down.

Bullies would usealy get eliminated by an alliance of lesser males to eliminate their potential threath. To dominate a group, you need to be able to mix whitin that group seamlessly. If you are too big for the group you will be considered a threath by the group and the group will be against you.

Ever watch survivor types shows where the group eliminates other people as the compete trough various competition, and only one remains at the end. Well, the group always eliminate the most sociable and easy to get along with first because everyone recognize him as the most likely to win the match.