Certainly, we generally consider human life sacrosanct above all animal life...but there are certainly exceptions to that...if I had to choose between a Geoffrey Dahmer or my German Shepherd, you can bet Dahmer would get short shrift. If as speculated, the mauling victims were taunting the tiger or even encroaching on its enclosure, it's not a matter of whether or not they "deserved" it, but merely a natural consequence of their actions...one might just as easily speculate if a person who put a loaded pistol in their mouth and pulled the trigger "deserved" to die.
Likewise, from a biblical perspective, humans are responsible to the beasts merely out of respect for God's creation. Certainly, I have no problem with the police officers doing what they had to do to save the lives of other people, even to protect those who may have provoked the tiger, but if the tiger died because of the foolishness, recklessness, and hubris of the *victims* then they should be viewed in light of that as well.
As I've stated to others on this matter, I don't want to misrepresent completely innocent zoo guests as miscreants, but likewise, I don't want to make martyrs out of morons. I suspect the facts will eventually come to light, but I don't think it's fair to accuse others here of demeaning the value of human life, when this entire incident may be the result of some individuals exhibiting a blatant and careless disregard for their own lives.
I wouldn’t quite equivocate Jeffrey Dahmer with run of the mill tiger teasers myself.
I think this thread is a convergence of Mike Vick/Animals rule threads and what some here call Darwin cleans the gene pool threads
and they speak loudly how some FReepers are what they are.....animal worshippers meet the cool to death crowd ...and some are better suited for Prayer threads
and some like me.....in between
the only beast I've ever been responsible to was my ex-wife
I'm not aware of anywhere in the Bible it says I'm responsible to the beasts.....the Bible mainly starts on about how they are food after Noah when before Man was not a meat eater.....later on about how an Ox gores ya the you kill it and don't eat it....even if God forbid...someone teased it...and while we are on Jesus....I would wager Jesus would offer more empathy to dead kids and their families than a dead tigers....just a hunch....you brought it up
we live in an age where many place much much more value on neat animals like tigers and elephants and whales than on babies....i think that's screwy and this thread sorta dances around that Gaia style theme.....pretty weird for a conservative forum.....
it's threads like this that give me pause about the average maturity around here.....but than I can go to a prayer thread and see how wonderful conservatives can be