DocM
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In the great words of Paul McCartney "Hey Dude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better." Oh wait a minute, that was 'Hey Jude.' My mistake.
As I said before, I agree and believe that I revere all life in general, but you can't always avoid taking life. You certainly can have it be your intent not to kill. Several real life examples come to mind. Years ago, our house had a mouse problem. Rather than kill the mice (which I was loathe to do), I bought "humane traps" where the mouse could breathe, and you could release them out into the wild. I caught about a dozen mice that way over weeks. But the best laid plans of mice and men.......well you get the idea. What happened next was gruesome. Many times the humane trap would be untouched for days or weeks. And they were checked regularly. Except once in a while, a mouse would wander into one and be terrified and die trying to escape. Others would get caught if a trap fell by the mouse pushing it, and die a slow, agonizing death. The bottom line - while I released more than a dozen that way, I felt the times the mice did die in there was more gruesome than any spring mouse trap made. In situations like that infestation, you can't "just live with the mice," for they leave droppings in your pantry, carry disease and die in the walls, in hard to get to places. My intent was not to kill, but there were few alternatives. Living with the mice, and the consequences was not an option. I didn't invite them in to begin with.
With regard to the attacker assaulting you and your family - I train in jiu jitsu, and there are techniques we train in to immobilize an attacker without killing. Only advanced, extremely skilled individuals have that much control in random situations. But..... In the passion and moment of an unexpected attack, sometimes an attacker won't give up or cease as long as they have breath/fight in them. If you are then saying that you would let you and/or your loved one (wife, mother, etc.) die, you are missing a bigger picture here.
Being a pacifist, and revering life does not mean that in the physical world, we should never defend ourselves. We can cherish love - the driving force behind the universe, and defend ourselves or someone else for the sake of love. Was it not correct to take up resistance and yes, arms against the Nazis in Germany? Should the whole world have willingly walked into the gas chambers and succumb to them out of conscience, saying " I won't fight or take a life?" Most would say, "no, of course they should have been opposed."
I stand by my comments that one can believe that killing is wrong, but from a consciousness point of view, it is your intent that matters most. If a person ends up killing insects, mice, or other animals, as a byproduct of a necessary situation in the physical plane, where one has no other reasonable choice, it is different than a person setting out to kill for the sake of killing.
The same is true of defending oneself if attacked. One can defend and have love in one's heart, and yet the attacker may have perished. It is, to me not the same thing as attacking another person with the intent to do harm.
Matthew
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