I agree that animals have no soul, yet people and some animals come to have bonding relationships, at least as far as one can love his dog, cat, horse, whatever. I think that God put us here to rule over his domain, and that includes both caring for, and harvesting from, the animal kingdom.
What you did was not for entertainment, like dragging animals behind trucks, as I have heard sick tales of. But it was not harvesting either. It was a practical solution to a problem as you say, and the outcome, minus suffering, is the same. Dead kittens.
Given the circumstance you described, I am not sure I would have come up with the same solution. If my daughter ever found out her father beat kittens to death, I am not sure I would want her to label me with that. Put a suffering old dog or lame horse out of its misery with a clean head shot, ok. But not a kitten beater.
None of my business, but I hope you did not let your kids know the truth of what happened.
Thank you for the well considered and tempered response. You are right, my daughters never knew. Women tend to deal with this sort of thing, emotionally, on a different level than men. We are just wired differently - generally speaking.
The only time I ever killed an animal for pleasure was in 5th grade I killed a robin with a bb gun. It was very traumatic for me, believe it or not. I think a lot of little boys go through the same experience and come out more respectful of animals as a natural resource. I agree with your comment about God putting us here to rule over his domain.
If one passes through puberty and adulthood and continues to take pleasure in torturing animals, they have not properly matured, although some just take longer than others. I think they are wrong, but I really don’t think the government should come between them and their cruelty to animals unless the animals are not their property or they are doing it in an offensive way - slaughtering a deer on their front lawn for example.
Regarding my kitten thing: it repulsed me at the time, but it had to be done. I bit the bullet and did it. The hardest part was inspecting to make sure they were all dead.
>>Interesting moral study.<<
BTW, I like that choice of words. That is literally how I view these threads. It is extremely interesting to ask others AND myself questions about this, the answers to which often break old paradigms. I have changed and solidified my position on this “animal rights” stuff based on both my own questions as well as my, and other posters, responses to those questions.
It is amazing how many things “everybody knows” but when you drill down with the right questions it turns out that what everybody knows is actually a dead wrong assumption.
I also like to watch John Stossel on Youtube. :)