Spareribs...steak...chicken...mmmmmmm
Bottom line, homo sapiens is an omnivore, and I don't feel guilty about eating meat. I refer people who try to make me feel guilty about it to God to air their uh, beef, as it were. As an Intelligent Designer, She must have had her reasons, go talk to Her.
It's the killing without the necessity of eating that's still a thorn in my side.
Also, if a species is numerous enough to safely hunt without fear of reducing its numbers significantly, why not?
I don't think it's a question of "why not" so much as a question of "why"? If we're talking about a pest whose numbers need to be reduced for the greater ecological good, OK, must be done. But enlisting hunters to do it is pandering to a base pleasure in killing--what we ironically call killing two birds with one stone. Let's be honest about that. Even more problemmatical is the implication that you think that if there are no practical drawbacks to killing, why not kill? Again, why? Isn't that just, at best, the amoral rationalizatioin that if you can get away with something, it must be OK to do it?
Certainly it's no more or less murder to shoot and eat a deer than it is to kill and eat a cow.
Yes, although I think we come to opposite conclusions from that observation. To me, since I have to be honest and admit that murder's involved in bringing that juicy steak to my plate, I'm obligated to keep it to a minimum. The credo "minimize harm" is not a bad foundation for an ethical system.
It seems to have been a constant across hunter-gatherer societies that hunters will say a prayer or make some other gesture of respect to an animal newly-killed or about to be killed. It often takes the form of thanking the animal for allowing itself to be killed and eaten by the hunter. That, it seems to me, is the proper attitude. Be thankful for what Nature [or insert deity here] has provided, and don't mess up a good thing by getting greedy.