Is killing bugs a sin?

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Is killing a bug in your home, or a potato beetle or destroying a fire ant hive or poisoning a wasp nest a sin? Actually, given the potential ability to harm humans, I’d think the opposite.

But to, say, go kill little black ants for fun would be a sin.
 
I’m only killing them in self defense. My niece Tatianna is allergic to fireants, I’m protecting her. Well, also, sometimes, my pets eat bugs.
 
Not intrinsically, no.

But neither can we kill them for simple pleasure. There must be a just reason for doing so.
 
I would imagine that even killing bugs for pleasure would be at most venial, unless it was rooted in a general malice towards God’s work of creation (and not just a dislike of bugs), but I’m no priest…
 
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Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
Is killing a bug in your home, or a potato beetle or destroying a fire ant hive or poisoning a wasp nest a sin? Actually, given the potential ability to harm humans, I’d think the opposite.

But to, say, go kill little black ants for fun would be a sin.
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Agreed.

We has a discussion on this a few weeks ago in fact.

I’d never kill bugs just for the joy of killing them, but we have a right to maintain our homes and our property.

For example, carpenter ants are capable of doing extensive damage, as they damaged someone else’s house in our neighborhood. If they get in your house you should kill them before they cause damage.
 
If they are invading your house, I think not. If they are crawling on you, your food, that’s fine in my opinion. If you’re killing insects because they are there and they aren’t bothering you, it seems a little mean
 
I do don’t believe so. I agree if you do it just torture them well that’ different. If I saw a bug and I mean the “Nasty” ones for example, there they go. quick and in a hurry. Let’s step things up a notch, what about a mouse? I no I would not have that. would do everything possible to get rid of it God made all creatures ’ bugs '.yes but not to cohabitat with man. God Bloess
 
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Wesrock said:
I would imagine that even killing bugs for pleasure would be at most venial, unless it was rooted in a general malice towards God’s work of creation (and not just a dislike of bugs), but I’m no priest…
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I would tend to agree. I would even support the systematic extermination of certain species of insects, such as mosquitoes, and other invasive species that have no natural predators.
 
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anna said:
I do don’t believe so. I agree if you do9 it just torture them well that’ different. If I saw a bug and I mean the “Nasty” ones for example, there they go. quick and in a hurry. Let’s step things up a notch, what about a mouse? I noww I would not have that. would do everything possible to get rid of it God made all creatures.yes but not to cohabitat t with man. God Bloess
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You’re right, there are many non-insect pests which we deal with. Because nearby construction forced foxes and other predators away, we had an overrun of chipmunks. The most humane thing was to kill them in a merciful way. For instance, the appropriate amount of chipmunks per acre is 2-4. We had nearly 20 per acre. Because there were too many they had gotten into our cars and chewed wires, they had made huge holes in the lawn and were starving to death looking for food. It was merciful to kill them and we were very respectful to them and not malicious.

We did not kill them to be cruel, and we left them out so that scavengers could eat them. It worked well, and being attracted back, many preditors have now kept the balance.

Sometimes humans have to do unfortunate things to maintain balance-- mostly because of things that we do.
 
There was a Peanut Comic strip in which Charlie Brown discusses good and evil with Linus and Snoopy. He establishes his own view, which is, for example, whenever he walks down the street he always tries to avoid stepping on bugs.

Several bugs then applaud this.
 
Sadly, a big factor in this is just how BIG is the bug. So in some instances size does matter. For instance people crush small gnats, ants, spiders, and mosquitos all the time. But what about squashing cute ladybugs or pet tarantulas? It’s a very interesting topic, but I think it comes down to motive really.
 
Jamie5 said:
Sadly, a big factor in this is just how BIG is the bug. So in some instances size does matter. For instance, people crush small gnats, ants, spiders, and mosquitos all the time. But what about squashing cute ladybugs or pet tarantulas? It’s a very interesting topic, but I think it comes down to motive really.
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Actually, there’s a type of “ladybug” that invades houses in the fall. ICK! We kill them if we see them because otherwise they will get up into our light fixtures and die. We don’t use incandescent bulbs…we use LED…but there have been fires where I live because incandescent bulbs lit the corpses of these bugs!
 
Bugs do creep me out, especially yellow jackets, termites and of course mosquitos!
 
Bugs aren’t so bad. They have faces. They look like outer space beings, and sometimes they entertain us. There was a dragon fly in the kitchen one evening. I gently put him outside, and he hung around for a long time.

I kind of like the green lacewings. Of course I wouldn’t want a roach infestation or anything like that.

Moths come around a lot and like to sit on my finger. I haven’t seen any butterflies lately.
 
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