Yes, the pictures are touching, very touching.

It seems like the history of man is one of endless roaming and often seemingly unnecessary fighting.

Perhaps the smaller groups raided to steal women. I would imagine that could be common under certain circumstances.

Or because of a grudge, a raid to restore honor to another tribe.

Lucy, people will argue over absolutely anything. In fact, they will punish others brutally just for not having the same beliefs as they do.

They often call it freedom during and foolishness afterwards. But the group mind can talk itself into things that the individual would not do alone.

Perhaps that works both ways, for the blessings and the ills of this world.

It takes a strong-willed individual to get through life in many of the circumstances human beings find themselves.  Also, it did take courage to do many of the things demanded of our ancestors.

Perhaps there are natural limitations to our psychological makeup. I know quite a few kind, nurturing people, but I also know many who cannot always control their outbursts. It must work similarly in the group mentality. No one seems to get through this life without experiencing this, from both sides.

It appears to require finesse to solve these problems. They are varied and complicated. At times a person might simply need to relieve their own suffering. At other times, perhaps the person is part of a cause, a group belief system, that there is no simpler way.

There is always a simpler way, but people don't always see it.

nice article, interesting, blink

OK spooky what is a justifiable reason!

the underlying question is, do we kill just to kill? I mean are we predispositioned to do that? What is it in our psychological make-up that makes us want to punish others for thinking differently than we do?

I know this has been asked before because most animals don't kill their own kind as easily as we do.

I still get amazed that there were so many cultures back then. As a child, I thought it started with Adam and Eve and the Jews, which would to my child-like thinking, make things start about 2000 years after this happened. But humans were around a long time after that, and the folks in Egypt were doing some pretty culturally complicated things. Of couse, they were still killing each other too.

Spooky said :  "Don't know what's the key factor,
the society, the personality/soul, fate, stress,
there are so many factors."

Trying to find the key factor but have trouble getting past a couple --
killing to defend self or one's territory
killing to defend highest beliefs or at least one's belief in high beliefs

or being made to think that you have to kill for those reasons.

Recreational killing (like 'drive-bys') could be an overly extended version of defending selfhood?




Bets

Lucy, Some animals do kill just for the sake of killing. Some cats, as an example, will go out and kill birds or mice/rats just to kill them. Then there is the weasel. When I was a kid on the farm we had a killing machine in the chicken coop. This weasel just couldnt get enough of the killing. Not eating. Just killing for the sake of killing. I am sure there are other examples. Now as for humans, I would think power, like you, and ego. Those would be the biggest reasons for someone to kill without proper justification. The other thing is that I also think everyone could kill, if put in a position that it becomes necessary for personal or family survival. The unfortunate thing is that there are many who kill for no or little reason at all. Mostly in the name of governments and religions and faith. Greed, money, sex, also come into play, but really are they not all still about power and ego?
Joe

Hi again,

I got off track in my previous post here.
Hawkeye points out that a person might have to kill for defending loved ones, and that reminds me, a bit late, that ultimately there are only one or two major forces we're dealing with --  Love and Fear.
Love is an outpouring of positive energy and Fear is an aversion or drawing back type of energy. Fear can be and will be overcome by Love. We experience this in our afterlife contacts because it is the underlying energy pattern of our lives.

Even the agressive lawlessness that is so murderous starts originally wth fear, fear that something necessary was being taken from them. A kind greeting to a tough kid might not turn him from fear but it will erode just a bit of the shell he's built to protect himself from more fear.  Maybe enough kind words.....

Bets

Isn't it all about desire, wanting what is perceived to be more available....and willingness, to do what is necessary to achieve the goal?

When adrenaline or some of our other body chemicals 'kick in' then 'conventional reality' can disappear for a human. There is such a thing as blind rage, or the physical urges to survive and bear young to further the species. Those are certainly very strong motivators, with much mind/body support for their expression.

How about the urge to 'go along' with others who are physically stronger? Doesn't it stem from desire - for security?

I would have to say, we can blame it on fear, various emotional states, 'a killer gene' (does that exist?), etc. etc.

But isn't the tendency to blame also based on desire - for a solution, for an answer that 'makes sense' to us.

Do we try to 'make' this world make sense? Is it our desire to confine it and explain it to each other?

Does that make it any easier? Can we ever speak to others in such a way that understanding will always be achieved? That appears doubtful to me, using only words aimed to convince the other of the 'rightness' of one side or position to take in a situation.

I personally find it much easier to put myself aside for a while, to find the 'love' state which is also natural to our being - when it is cultivated. It is easier to function in a peaceful way when in the 'love' state.

I believe it is within a 'frame of mind' - let us call it 'nonmercy' or 'lack of mercy' for self and others - that killing takes place. If the 'decision' to kill were delayed until the 'love state' could be revisited, many problems would be solved. New solutions appear when a person is in the 'love state' which is a state of fullness, not a state of lack.

When fully in the 'love state' then any 'killing' would be those acts based on mercy, perhaps an action to relieve suffering of some kind, so to put a creature out of a miserable situation.

However, honestly, in the fullest state of love, I don't know if that is possible. In the fullest state of love, I believe there is a kind of 'acceptance' which has no interest in 'self' of any kind.

love, b