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The weirdest question I've ever asked in public is:

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boyne bowhunter said:
This has been an interesting thread with lots of individual takes on why to (or not) hunt. IMO none are right or wrong, its up to each individual and their personal outlook. Lets please not delve into the religious arguments of this and get it shut down.
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I agree there's no sense in arguing one's religion here... and it is also against the forum rules.

However... a man's Faith goes a long way in dictating his belief and take on a subject. And I believe it's high time that we stop shutting down a person's thoughts and how he expressed himself simply because those thoughts are based on his faith.

Now, I know there's a fine line to tow here... And conversations can devolve quickly, and tensions heighten quickly... understood... but speaking in generalities about why one believes it is okay or ethical to hunt or take the life of another creature, when that thought is based on one's faith belief, I don't believe that that should violate any forum rules and shut down a conversation.

I could point to the "faith beliefs" of those who don't believe in a god, who believe in other processes that I don't.. but those won't shut down a forum thread. We can speak on evolution all day long, and I don't think we're going to see that little lock on it... But if we say "I believe... because the Lord says...", well that's it... here comes the lock. Now that's disappointing
If that's what we're going to do, then why have discussion at all?

@boyne bowhunter , not attacking you personally, or any of the mods, I'm just saying in general, we have to stop shutting down people of faith in these in-depth conversations.
We deserve a seat at the table as much as anyone.
 
Wolverinebuckman said:
I agree there's no sense in arguing one's religion here... and it is also against the forum rules.

However... a man's Faith goes a long way in dictating his belief and take on a subject. And I believe it's high time that we stop shutting down a person's thoughts and how he expressed himself simply because those thoughts are based on his faith.

Now, I know there's a fine line to tow here... And conversations can devolve quickly, and tensions heighten quickly... understood... but speaking in generalities about why one believes it is okay or ethical to hunt or take the life of another creature, when that thought is based on one's faith belief, I don't believe that that should violate any forum rules and shut down a conversation.

I could point to the "faith beliefs" of those who don't believe in a god, who believe in other processes that I don't.. but those won't shut down a forum thread. We can speak on evolution all day long, and I don't think we're going to see that little lock on it... But if we say "I believe... because the Lord says...", well that's it... here comes the lock. Now that's disappointing
If that's what we're going to do, then why have discussion at all?

@boyne bowhunter , not attacking you personally, or any of the mods, I'm just saying in general, we have to stop shutting down people of faith in these in-depth conversations.
We deserve a seat at the table as much as anyone.
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@Wolverinebuckman, Please don't take this an attack on your post. I'm simply trying to explain why I posted the simple warning I did.

You'll note, nothings been shut down yet and FWIW no posts have been deleted to this point. The mods are tasked with enforcing the forum rules which we will do. Sometimes posts start to skirt the gray area between acceptable and unacceptable. The warning was just posted as a friendly reminder as it seems the thread was starting to drift in that direction. It was as much a personal request on my part as anything else. I'm enjoying this thread and don't want to be put in the position of having to shut it down.

Also FWIW, many of us mods have strong faith and/or our own political viewpoints. That doesn't change the fact that we are tasked with keeping the forum's posts in line with the rules whether we agree with the views expressed or not. There are plenty of places to cover those topics on the internet. This forum, specifically targeting saddle hunting, is not one of them per the owners request. In my opinion, I agree with him on this. Belonging to several online forums, the limiting of religious and political content is part of what keeps this a special place without the bickering back and forth about topics irrelevant to the area of interest that I see on those other forums.
 
I personally believe that we , as a species, are putting too much human value and perspective on other creatures these days...what's that called, anthropomorphizing?
We know, obviously, that animals can feel some levels of suffering.. pain.. attachment. But we don't know to what depths, especially when we're speaking of wildlife.
I've watched documentaries where you could see a mother lion obviously show care and compassion for an injured cub. But once that cub died, she acted as if there was no effect on her whatsoever. Did she have a long lasting sense of mourning afterwards? Who's to know. But I think as humans, we want to project a sense of our mourning on that creature, because we would mourn in that situation. But perhaps the cat no longer feels an attachment to it's dead offspring. Maybe that's just the way it's wired.

I believe that all creatures were designed and created with intent and purpose. I don't believe in random happenstance.
I have often considered the relationship between predator and prey. I have wondered if the prey animal is wired specifically to die. I mean, that's what it is... food, right? When a doe watches its fawn ripped away by a coyote and shredded, does it have a lasting sense of mourning and sorrow? Or does it just go on about life, looking for food, cover, and the biggest buck come November...because it's brain is not wired to feel the emotions that we do?

I've looked into the eyes of a dog, and I see that there's something deeper there. They feel something that gives them an attachment to us and us to them. One might say they evolved in this way, to somehow better their future chance of survival... but I would contend that they were designed this way to be a companion to us, and therefore were given varying levels of emotion to attach to us. But that doesn't mean that I would attribute that same emotion to a coyote or a wolf.

One of my favorite jokes in the show Futurama, the robot Bender vaporizes an insect... bug zapper like. He laughs and says "welp, that guy's not going home to his kids tonight!"
Do bugs mourn? When we smash something inadvertently under our foot, does it have a lasting repercussion upon that creature's family? Or are those creatures just programmed and designed to go on (outside of any maternal/child relationship during weaning of course)?
This spring I have run over a large raccoon, a rabbit that was playing with another rabbit in the road, and countless squirrels. Should I have a lasting sense of remorse for those animals lives, that chose to run out in front of my moving vehicle? It sucks to me when it happens, but should I look at their lives like I would look at a humans if it was ended by a truck driving through a stop sign on their way to work?
I guess one could drive himself crazy, and lock himself in a bubble, if he felt that his every action had some "butterfly effect" on the lives of all of the creatures around him.
Or we could come to the realization that many creatures, including humans, have been designed in such a way to reproduce in such abundance that usually the numbers can take a bit of a hit and still rebound.
That statement is obviously not true for all species.

But whether you believe this Earth has been spinning around haplessly for billions of years... or isn't quite that old, and maybe had a little bit more of an intelligent design to it...we see that the Earth continues to balance itself, and the circle of life continues.

Now, I'm not ignorant to the fact that humans as a species do tend to be a lot more destructive, in our nature, to the planet. We pollute and over harvest resources. But we're also smart enough to clean and conserve, to adapt and rebuild. There should be balance in all things... And we should certainly be good stewards of the earth that we were given. But we should certainly make use of the resources that we were given, too, and that includes the food that comes from the land... vegetation and animal. I believe what I do based on this philosophy, written down in the beginning of recorded history, in what is the number one best-selling book in history;
"...have given [man] every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for food."
And:
"All the animals of the earth, all the birds of the sky, all the small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the fish in the sea....have given them to you for food, just as ....have given you grain and vegetables."
And also:
....were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds.... said to him, “Get up,...; kill and eat them.”

Now, I won't give the due credit to this resource (so as to not get this thread locked down)... and he's certainly not Socrates... But it is his philosophy that gives me rest that when I take an animal's life for food, I violate no moral or ethical code. It's because I believe it is what it is there for... What it was created for. It's purpose.
 
Apologies to @boyne bowhunter and all the other mods for any opened cans of worms. Shoutout to them for keeping it civil without being overbearing. Shoutout to all the members for being cool people who are able to peaceably disagree.

MattMan81 said:
If I believe that animals can suffer (I do), and that it is unethical to induce unnecessary suffering (I do)...I really can't personally square hunting with ethical behavior. I could live the rest of my life in health and (relative) happiness and never kill another game animal.

So who's rules are we following for ethical behavior? Who decides what is ethical and what isn't?
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In this case, I'm asking the question, so we're "following" my rules. although the phrasing is yours and not mine.

Same as if a forum member stated they wanted help choosing a saddle, and dictated that that light weight and 3rd party testing were their preference. I don't think any other member would think that was an unreasonable or difficult thread to contribute to. Your options would basically be to agree with the poster on their preference and offer input, disagree but put yourself in their shoes and attempt to offer input, or disagree and explain why you'd recommend a different criteria to analyze. Not a hard thing to do.

We make pretty much all of our decisions that way. We form a hypothesis based on the inputs we have, ask for additional inputs if we're smart, and road test them. If they work, we keep them. If they don't, we modify them and try again or discard them.

To keep the saddle analogy, a user in the quest for the best saddle may try several. One may suck and be unusable. Maybe lots of people try it and think it sucks too. We'd be safe to assume that's a bad saddle. Maybe one is awesome. Maybe lots of people test it and believe it's awesome. We'd be safe to assume its an awesome saddle. Maybe 2 or 3 of them are ok, but not great. Maybe they work in certain circumstances but not others, or for some butts but not others.

5 years ago, there were very few saddles to choose from and they were often not as good as they could be. As more brains were leveraged towards the task of making a good saddle, more options came about and (most would say) improvements were made. Maybe 10 years from now new technology or new knowledge about hunters' butts means even more options are on the table, or maybe the average hunters' needs change and new criteria are necessary. Maybe we all decide to hunt closer to the parking lot and become ok with heavier saddles, for example. The goalposts would shift, but we could still come to more and less workable solutions to a good saddle, and know they were good because we tested them.

I'd humbly argue that we can use the same process to decide on better or worse ethical systems to operate under.

Just like we don't have to accept what John Eberhart's opinion on the best saddle is, or decide that without such an opinion we're incapable of ever choosing saddles for ourselves, we don't have to base our moral criteria on any fixed and arbitrary standard, at least in my opinion. And my thoughts on this are just one page in a whole book of ways people have suggested to solve the problem.

There are some relatively short and breezy reads that express a more eloquent version of my premise. They're not hunting related and the author definitely writes things that break the forum's no-religion/politics rule, so I won't post them here since it's not the place, but I'd be happy to PM you my number if you'd like to dig into it more or talk without tying up saddlehunter.com bandwidth.
 
Skipped 3 pages because I don’t have time to digest or add value to all this tonight, but it’s one of the best threads I’ve ever encountered in addressing one of the most prevalent internal dialogues I have going at the moment; it’s the elephant in the room that you won’t see addressed much on youtube on October 29th influencer pre rut season check ins.

Beyond the ethical debate, man do I have a hard time meal planning and executing a vegetarian / vegan diet effectively. As an exomorph it’s hard for me to feed the beast clean without much meat but I’m trying. But yes I’m on the same path, to the extent I can pull it off, eating only meat that I kill or I know has been raised “humanely”, whatever that means. But eating way less meat overall. I’m able to justify continuing to bowhunt in spite of my belief that meat is murder, by deciding that there’s no such thing as “ethical”, there is just cause and effect, and personal and societal preferences, the latter being in constant flux. And this path, when comparing my intentions and actions now, to say, me in 2002 feels like progress. I’m working to reduce my carbon footprint, continue to anthropomorphize like a mo-fo and reduce the suffering I cause other creatures, be healthier, while remaining an extreme threat while in the woods between September and February.
 
Saddlehunter.com might be most postmodern hunting forum, meaning there’s maybe a few here… and there’s nothing easy or grounding about postmodernism, you’re genuinely grappling with the void.
 
Here's the way I see the overall thing. If we humans are bringing about another mass extinction through our collective actions then I think the Earth will be just fine in the long term, think geological time. The dinosaurs had their time. We will have ours. Scientists tell us that 90% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are now extinct. Most of those thrived for millions of years and died out millions of years before humans even made their debut on the earth. It is a foregone conclusion if we can't get ourselves off this one tiny rock spinning through space, something, at some point will end us. It may be climate change, nuclear war, a gamma ray burst, a nearby supernova, a comet, disease, you name it. So far, I believe that there have been 5 major extinction level events in Earth's history that we, as humans have identified. Yet today we can go out and greet a beautiful sunrise and feel the cool breeze on our back. So far, the end of the world has just been the beginning. I think we are giving ourselves too much credit.

As far as my personal responsibility in any of this it is very minimal. I don't burn big piles of tires for fun but I'm also not going to go out and spend lots of money on an electric car, etc. I like to eat meat. I buy meat at the grocery store. I hunt. I eat venison. I don't go around killing animals for fun. I don't drink alcohol or smoke. I drink coffee. I try to eat a balanced diet and get plenty of exercise. I treat people how I want to be treated but I'm not going to take abuse off anybody. It's basically all about balance.

Heaping the weight of the world's problems on your shoulders is just not a heathy way to live, in my opinion. You only have this one short life. Enjoy yourself.
 
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So if I try to put my self into @Nutterbuster shoes. I am questioning the fact of animals suffering is bad. So if I think it's bad, I must stop doing it. It's wrong of me to make animals suffer. You are doing something that your ethical code is objecting to. In this case you must stop shooting and eating animals because you are causing them harm. Jamming hooks into a fish's mouth also causes harm. So catch and release is now off the table as well.
 
neonomad said:
Saddlehunter.com might be most postmodern hunting forum, meaning there’s maybe a few here… and there’s nothing easy or grounding about postmodernism, you’re genuinely grappling with the void.
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I'd say it's definitely not easy to be a human right now. My great grandaddy remembered when the only real method of travel was on a cart pulled by an animal. Same as it had been for thousands of years. No water or power. He was 8 or 9 when he saw the first car. By the time he had died, people in space was old news. Talk about whiplash.

But, I prefer the term "sailing on infinity." There's no contest if you try to wrestle the ocean. But you can still navigate the seas if you're smart and lucky.

The universe is big. We are small. Every day we're learning more and more how true that really is. And it's terribly exciting to me.

We're all public land hunters. We claim we like big, unexplored areas. "More land than I'll ever be able to walk." We claim we don't like easy, sure things. "I wouldn't want to go in a canned hunt." Well, right now it doesn't look like we'll ever have all the answers or have it easy. We opened the back door a few hundred years ago with the curved lense, and I for one don't wanna stay in the house!
 
Nutterbuster said:
I'd say it's definitely not easy to be a human right now. My great grandaddy remembered when the only real method of travel was on a cart pulled by an animal. Same as it had been for thousands of years. No water or power. He was 8 or 9 when he saw the first car. By the time he had died, people in space was old news. Talk about whiplash.

But, I prefer the term "sailing on infinity." There's no contest if you try to wrestle the ocean. But you can still navigate the seas if you're smart and lucky.

The universe is big. We are small. Every day we're learning more and more how true that really is. And it's terribly exciting to me.

We're all public land hunters. We claim we like big, unexplored areas. "More land than I'll ever be able to walk." We claim we don't like easy, sure things. "I wouldn't want to go in a canned hunt." Well, right now it doesn't look like we'll ever have all the answers or have it easy. We opened the back door a few hundred years ago with the curved lense, and I for one don't wanna stay in the house!
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I'd be fine with a canned hunt as long as somebody else was footing the bill. :tearsofjoy:
 
I've been thinking about the catch and release fishing aspect of this. Does it change the equation any when you catch the same fish more than once? I remember a time fishing with my Grandpa where we caught the same walleye ( pickerel since we were in Canada) multiple times. It was a small fish, and he choose to cut a hook off rather than tear the fishes mouth up. Pretty much immediately I pulled up the same fish with his neon green fishing line and hook in it.

Did it figure out it's ok to eat that suspicious food that suddenly appeared? Seems like a lot of credit to give a fish but who knows. Is it not intelligent enough to remember the danger from just moments ago? If either of those guesses are right about fish intelligence it would make a pretty big impact on the ethics of fishing, wouldn't it? I.e. intelligent and sacred or dumb so it's not special like us?
 
The issue I would have from an ethical standpoint about catch and release fishing would be 1. It is purely for sport and the fish is likely very distressed during the process of fighting not to be hauled into the boat and then taken out of the water where it can't breathe. To a fish, I would think that having its head out of water would be like someone holding our head under water or at lease waterboarding. 2. Aside from #1, as long as the process resulted in no damage to the fish, I would not see an ethical issue with it until a fish swallowed the hook to the point it was irretrievable without causing permanent damage to the fish. Once a fish swallowed the hook or the hook got caught in the gills to the point that removing it would seriously damage the fish, I think at that point an ethical line would be crossed if the aim of catch and release is to do no damage to the fish.
 
Vtbow said:
I think this is a great discussion. Can people please be respectful and keep politics and religion out of it? Two things to spark a fire not needed here.
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religion being removed from the conversation is why the world is in the shape it is today. Religion should guide every decision we make. God is to be first in our lives so if He is first than everything that follows will be guides by it. Now, I'm not trying to turn this into a religious debate but for serious questions like @Nutterbuster is asking for religion to be left out would be a mistake.
 
CooterBrown said:
religion being removed from the conversation is why the world is in the shape it is today. Religion should guide every decision we make. God is to be first in our lives so if He is first than everything that follows will be guides by it. Now, I'm not trying to turn this into a religious debate but for serious questions like @Nutterbuster is asking for religion to be left out would be a mistake.
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Agree. But nutter asked for an answer to the question according to his rules of ethics. So my last response reflected that. If you are going to base your decisions and ethics on your own personal beliefs, than you have to follow them. If your self rules and ethics continue to change are they really rules or ethics since they change? Math doesn't change. We claim science changes things. But nothing is really operating differently now than it has 1000 years ago. Technology has changed. But the same laws of physics are here. Just interpretation.
 
NMSbowhunter said:
The issue I would have from an ethical standpoint about catch and release fishing would be 1. It is purely for sport and the fish is likely very distressed during the process of fighting not to be hauled into the boat and then taken out of the water where it can't breathe. To a fish, I would think that having its head out of water would be like someone holding our head under water or at lease waterboarding. 2. Aside from #1, as long as the process resulted in no damage to the fish, I would not see an ethical issue with it until a fish swallowed the hook to the point it was irretrievable without causing permanent damage to the fish. Once a fish swallowed the hook or the hook got caught in the gills to the point that removing it would seriously damage the fish, I think at that point an ethical line would be crossed if the aim of catch and release is to do no damage to the fish.
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And one must consider driving a car down the road. Should he/she (or whatever someone calls themselves) with all of the bug life that is murdered by your windshield? Those same bugs may be the one that feeds the fish that feeds the bear that dies that feeds the plant that grows seeds that die and grow more plants that bugs eat to live that fly from plant to plant that get murdered by car windshields. You must consider that it will never end( the questions of what is moral to kill or not kill) if you consider all of your actions outside of a base truth. Where does truth come from. Who can define truth? Is truth all just in our head? Or is there a truth that has stood the test of time? Is there a truth that has proved itself over thousands of years? Is it true that we evolved into what we are now all from a big bang? Is it true that there was a creature that intelligently designed all of this. Who can know truth? Without truth how can we make decisions about "ethic"? Without truth how can one reason? How can you read this post without there being a truth somewhere that says "there is different than their" or "two is different than to or even different than too" so there has to be a truth somewhere or everything would be chaos. But who decides where truth is or started or even if there is truth? If you read this post than you must believe in truth somewhere or else you would think that two means also. But you dont believe two means also because someone told you somewhere in your life that too means also. My point is there has to be truth somewhere. Where does truth come from?
 
CooterBrown said:
And one must consider driving a car down the road. Should he/she (or whatever someone calls themselves) with all of the bug life that is murdered by your windshield? Those same bugs may be the one that feeds the fish that feeds the bear that dies that feeds the plant that grows seeds that die and grow more plants that bugs eat to live that fly from plant to plant that get murdered by car windshields. You must consider that it will never end( the questions of what is moral to kill or not kill) if you consider all of your actions outside of a base truth. Where does truth come from. Who can define truth? Is truth all just in our head? Or is there a truth that has stood the test of time? Is there a truth that has proved itself over thousands of years? Is it true that we evolved into what we are now all from a big bang? Is it true that there was a creature that intelligently designed all of this. Who can know truth? Without truth how can we make decisions about "ethic"? Without truth how can one reason? How can you read this post without there being a truth somewhere that says "there is different than their" or "two is different than to or even different than too" so there has to be a truth somewhere or everything would be chaos. But who decides where truth is or started or even if there is truth? If you read this post than you must believe in truth somewhere or else you would think that two means also. But you dont believe two means also because someone told you somewhere in your life that too means also. My point is there has to be truth somewhere. Where does truth come from?
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Ain't that the truth? :grin:
 
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