Sport Hunting

[aloha918]

i dont think it is a sin.....but i dont like it.......your killing an animal for no reason.....for the fun of it.....GO PLAY VIDEO GAMES!

[crusader1234]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' date='Dec 2 2004, 10:55 AM'] It is not illogical, you couldn't have read my post because I said quite directly it very well mightbe needed in order to keep the instincts of the breed up to par so that when they are called on to hunt actual problem foxes/ cougars/ coyotes they are able to do it, lack of practical work in the field quickly( from a generational point of view) causes dogs to lose thier hunting abilities. If those are lost then when there is a problem animal there will not be dogs capable of hunting it. Practice is needed if one is to keep dogs hunting abilities at there optimum level. [/quote]
The potential reason you gave is not valid. This is not the idea behind sport hunting, never has been and never will be. The reason for sport hunting is a) having fun b) getting a trophy to stick on the wall. Neither of these are acceptable. They serve no purpose.

Hunting for food, and enjoying it, is not a sin.
Hunting for food and or fur, and enjoying it, is not a sin.

Hunting for fun, or decoration, is a sin. It is the needless kiling of, and cruelty to, God's creation.

And yes, I do donate money to Animal Protection funds.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote]The potential reason you gave is not valid. This is not the idea behind sport hunting, never has been and never will be.[/quote]


I was talking about fox hunting specificly and hmmm lets see it was just given as a reason so I guess it has been given as a reason and probably has been before and probably has been agian.

[jrndveritatis]

PSPX, I am very interested in getting the details of your discussion, especially what purposes sport hunting serves and virtues it develops.


One thing I noticed reading through this thread is that it was asserted with no evidence to back it up (at least explicit evidence) that it is a MORTAL sin to go fox hunting or bullfighting. What was said, by Ironmonk, is that these are against the seventh commandment, presumably because they are a form of stealing through not excercising stewardship over God's creation.

So something is a mortal sin because it is against a commandment? What? I thought it had to be a serious matter? Killing a fly just for the heck of it, for no purpose at all, in fact to be cruel, is a mortal sin??!?!? I don't think so. The life of a fly is not a serious matter. I think this argument can be mounted for most animals which are hunted, including foxes and oxen. They do not have souls, and thus killing them is not a serious matter. Neither is it a serious, grave abuse of our stewardship to kill an ox. Certainly the argument can be made that it is an abuse, and thus a venial sin. But killing one ox is not endangering the existence of oxen and through our stewardship oxen are still doing fine as a species.

So, applied to the individual case, I don't see how it can be considered a grave matter to kill an animal, unless that killing is threatening extinction of the species and thus is a misuse of stewardship.

Please, before everyone goes crazy, I am not advocating sinning venially, obviously. I am just saying you should go around asserting that certain sins are mortal which are not mortal.


Secondly, I find it very hard to believe that bullfighting and fox hunting are sinful at all if the Church has not declared them to be so. These sports (and yes they are sports and are for pleasure not for food) are important, high-profile parts of British culture and Spanish culture, and were in times in which the Church had much more influence in secular society. As far as I know (and I could be wrong) the Church never condemned these actions. If the Church never condemned these actions, undertaken by kings and nobles and attended by thousands of people at festivals undertaken to celebrate them (e.g. Pamplona), I cannot hold that they are sins, much less mortal sins.

No I am not a heretic. If someone finds a document with magisterial authority declaring these actions to be sins, I will accept it.

However, the Catechism citations above, say nothing about hunting. They are in the context of medical studies on animals.

I am willing to change my position if it is shown explicitly that I am incorrect by the Church's standards, but that has not been shown.

Again, I am interested in what Fr. Vitali has to say.

[MagiDragon]

Ironmonk, I've rarely disagreed with you, but in this case you are just being stubborn. PSPX hasn't said *anything* that contradicted your first post! Yet you continue to say that he is being anti-Catholic and heretical. Simmer. We've got room to move and still be *within* the bounds prescribed by The Church.

I think that in the vast majority of cases it would be sinful to kill an animal (or have your animals kill an animal . . .) without using the dead animal for something. Yet, the hunt itself *can* be useful, as demonstrated in Don John's post.

Also, just because it might be cheaper to get meat at kroger doesn't mean that it's silly to go hunting: if there is overpopulation of deer, we'd be causing more suffering by *not* killing deer, and we'd be squandering resources. (The deer that starves or is hit by a car will probably suffer, and it *still* won't end up on anyone's plate.)

Don't condemn an action simply because it *seems* wrong in general. Each case must be examined in detail to determine whether it actually *is* wrong.

Thus, it would be wrong to make a blanket statement that it is *always* wrong to go hunting for sport . . . other reasons may also apply. (I think the same probably holds true to bullfighting . . . though i can't think of any real use for bullfighting.)

Peace,
Joe

[onwardchristiansoldier]

i had a hard time deciding what to vote on this issue... since i know for sure that Morton is in fact the name of the electrified penguin, but i did vote no that hunting is not a mortal sin, and i too took hunting for sport to include things such as deer rabbit and possibly things like squirrels as well.

peace and love and a shoutl out to Duc_In_Altum


bj

[yiannii]

Killing animals for the sake of killing animals (meaning for no particular reason at all) is wrong. I don't care if it is for sport or not - it is wrong.

Fair enough killing an animal for food or clothing etc but for no reason at all is an act against God's creation.

Of course if there was a population problem (like too many rabbits in the Australian outback) then I believe that this would be justified because you would be protecting the balance of things.

[Mary's Knight, La]

couple of things i would really like a response to what Don John wrote about the need to keep up the dog's instincts so that they can be used in "real" situations as in when there is a problem. I think that is an interesting question.

next, I could be wrong about this but I thought hunting limits were set by figuring out how many should be killed to maintain a stable population, hence the requirements not only on how many but how big they have to be etc...

It seems then that anyone who purchases a license and kills a deer or other animal within legal limits is automatically acting to keep a stable population. Wouldn't this meet the criteria for it being okay, unless their getting a license kept a potential hunter who needed the meat from getting one?

now all that being said, what most hunters today do barely qualifies as sport. Let me trick my opponent into coming onto my territory (feed plots) and then kill them... even duck hunting is at best gambling...

if you want a sport let's see you grab a knife and take on a bear, actually bears are pretty big so you can have a baseball bat too.

I don't have anything against hunting, i just fail to see the sporting (read that: fair) aspect of it.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote]if you want a sport let's see you grab a knife and take on a bear, actually bears are pretty big so you can have a baseball bat too.
[/quote]

Well i don't hunt over bait, and duck hunting is actually pretty hard, hunting with a spear or a knife is illigael in texas, bows are legal. Back when I went Gator hunting we did it in a 15' canoe, we had a shot gun but you had to be within a foot or so forthe slug to penetrat it's skull, the 12 footer lifted the canoe 3' up into the air, bent its body back at what seem ed like an impossible arc and snaped it's jaws just a few inch's from my head, we were in his element, that sporting enough?

[popestpiusx]

Also, try wild boar hunting. They have the home team advantage and if you make a mistake, you will pay dearly.

Edited December 10, 2004 by popestpiusx

[BeenaBobba]

[quote name='popestpiusx' date='Dec 10 2004, 03:27 AM'] Also, try wild boar hunting.  They have the home team advantage and if you make a mistake, you will pay dearly. [/quote]

Ouch! But it's homefield advantage.

God bless,

Jen

[BeenaBobba]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' date='Dec 1 2004, 03:13 PM'] I am curous as to why none of my points were never answered,  what quality is it that makes something " needless" ho is to say what is needless, I have shown fox hunting is in fact not needless, can anyone answer that or do you concede that in fact fox hunting serves a purpose and is thereore not sinful? [/quote]
Hunting skills are inherent in dogs. Believe it or not, dogs are still pretty primal. For example, my dog sometimes sleeps under tables because of her instinct to sleep in den-like spaces. There's no evidence that their senses are declining due to the lack of fox hunting. Plus, there are other ways to keep their senses keen. Since that's the case, fox hunting is unnecessary and immoral nowadays. Dogs were originally bred for specific purposes, and if they're no longer needed for those purposes, what's the point of adhering so strictly to breeding guidelines? To me, that seems needless. It's good that the dogs used for fox hunting had good chasing instincts, but what use is fox hunting to we humans now? To say it's good because it benefits dogs is wrong. The bottom line is that they're no longer of use when it comes to killing foxes, and they never will be again (at least not in the ways they used to be). They're no longer needed now that we have guns, and since guns offer a less painful way for foxes to die, using dogs would be unnecessary.

God bless,

Jennifer

[BeenaBobba]

[quote name='popestpiusx' date='Nov 30 2004, 01:18 AM'] No, what has happened is that what you are condemning is finally getting more narrow and specific. My point from the beginning has been that you cannot condemn all fox hunting. I still maintain that position. You are now narrowing your condemnation to one specific form of it. Fine and dandy. But I'll say again, not all fox hunting is immoral.

[/quote]
I don't think all fox hunting would be immoral. For example, I don't think it'd be immoral for dogs to aid humans in finding a fox so that a human could shoot it. But letting dogs chase a fox (that had already been caught) and tear it to pieces would be like letting a cat have its way with an injured bird. If the bird is hurt beyond repair, I'd want the bird to be put out of its misery as quickly as possible. Letting a cat have its way with it would not be putting it out of its misery as quickly as possible, and I think that'd be bad stewardship. Likewise, I think there are better ways to kill foxes. If you're gonna kill it, kill it, and kill it quickly. Don't catch it, release it, and make it run for its life, only to be torn to bits. That's just not necessary.

You mentioned cases where the fox is allowed to live. Honestly, I'm not sure if this would be immoral. If it's immoral, perhaps it's less immoral than allowing dogs to tear the fox apart. I suspect it's immoral because having dogs chase a fox for the heck of it isn't necessary, and it causes a fox to suffer for no reason. All that money for horses, dogs, and hunting expenses would be much better spent feeding the homeless, helping women in crisis pregnancies, etc.

God bless,

Jennifer

[Winchester]

Fox hunts conducted in such a manner are intemperate and not sporting in the least.

Mortal sin? Probably not, but I don't think Jesus is going to slap you on the back and say "good show, old boy on following dogs on your horse and having them rip him apart."

It's wasteful, it's lazy, it's dishonorable.

It's the pursuit of the decadent.

[Don John of Austria]

[quote]Hunting skills are inherent in dogs. Believe it or not, dogs are still pretty primal. For example, my dog sometimes sleeps under tables because of her instinct to sleep in den-like spaces. There's no evidence that their senses are declining due to the lack of fox hunting. Plus, there are other ways to keep their senses keen. Since that's the case, fox hunting is unnecessary and immoral nowadays. Dogs were originally bred for specific purposes, and if they're no longer needed for those purposes, what's the point of adhering so strictly to breeding guidelines? To me, that seems needless. It's good that the dogs used for fox hunting had good chasing instincts, but what use is fox hunting to we humans now? To say it's good because it benefits dogs is wrong. The bottom line is that they're no longer of use when it comes to killing foxes, and they never will be again (at least not in the ways they used to be). They're no longer needed now that we have guns, and since guns offer a less painful way for foxes to die, using dogs would be unnecessary.
[/quote]

BeenaBobba it would be helpful if you read the entire post, I gave very specific reasons for why keeping the Fox Hound's hunting instinct was important to people not to fox hounds. Now that being Said i raised dogs for more than a decade, Including Hunting Dogs, if you don't work Dogs over a period of generations hunting ability is lost, not because they havn't been hunted but because that part of line selection goes out the window and selectionstarts to be made soley on other things, this has happened to numerous breeds of Dogs ( cocker spanials, poodles{ yes they where originally a hunting breed} and Irish setters { although this was somewhat successfully fought by the AKC allowing english setters to be breed into them in the early 60's to get the hunting instinct back) The gun comment is strange because Fox Hunting in it's current form is really only about 250 years old, we have had guns since the beginning of this activity, however often the Dogs do not kill the fox.