Great posts everyone...

Like was stated, there is not right or wrong answer for this question... in effect, all answers are right for everyone....

I for one have many mixed feelings about this.

I relish the kill, but not as entertainment, as experience. For death is as important an event in God's eyes as Life. It is how he made the world, to live and die. Nothing lasts forever, nothing but Him. That which dies gives live to others. In more ways than most realize. (see John 3:16). Though it pales in comparison to Christ, that creature's life, be it Whitetail or otherwise, was ended to pass life to me and my family. I know it seems like a reach to some, but Hunting is a reflection of God. Because hunting involves killing, and to kill is to bring death, to bring death is to give life. This is a state of natural affairs, leading to life. Death is a part of life. All things die, all things that die provide for life. Hunting, a predator his prey, is the way of the world as God intended it. By hunting, and killing, we are partaking of the world as God intended us to.

The other side of the coin: I anguish for the kill, but not for reasons one would think. This is my feeling and opinion only, and here it is. We, as humans raised in an age of detachment from the real world(a soapbox in and of itself), are conditioned from an early age to hold animals on a level similar, but not necessarily equal to our own. The similarity drawn between animals and humans in childrens media, lends itself to the misconception that to kill a animal is pantamount(spelling?) to murder of a human being. To kill other humans in war or in self-defense is excusable as it does not constitute murder, yet the public opinion of killing animals is portrayed as such. To draw to the point, it is this detachment from the killing of food that is what shapes and influences our impression of killing. Though we be hunters, and understand the cycle of life as God intended(see above), our phsycological subconcience still hangs to long formed emotional bonds. These subconcience thoughts are the roots of the anguish we all feel to some degree at the killing of our prey.

However, I do not think this anguish an improper emotion to feel for the life that ends for ours to continue. Quite the contrary, I feel it is key to respecting and honoring the entire experience. It is this reverence that we give that beasts life, that makes the hunt so much a part of what we do.


So I pose this to any and all who've not tuned me out by now. The well-heeled hunter, should feel at least some of both, and not be ashamed of a majority of either.