Hunting and Religion, By James Swan Ph.D

[Justin Crossley]

Hey Roksliders, please meet fellow hunter James Swan. We're happy to have just published his first article on Rokslide "Hunting and Religion", an interesting piece on how the various religions of the world view hunting. Not surprisingly, there is nearly world-wide support for hunting.

James, a Ph.D, is a former college professor of ecology and psychology, who today writes articles for magazines and is the author of 10 non-fiction books and one novel. His latest book, IN DEFENSE OF HUNTING, has sold over 70,000 copies. See James Swan for details.

If you have any questions or comments pertaining to this article, please post them up. As you guys always are, please be respectful in responses.

 

[robby denning]

Thanks James, interesting article for sure. Seems the heart of misunderstanding about hunting's place/importance/ is often right here in America, but we might also enjoy the strongest support.

 

[FURMAN]

Very good read. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Glendon Mullins]

Very interesting read, learned alotof stuff I didnt know, thanks for cntributing to rokslide!! Look forward to more articles by you

 

[28bang]

This was a great read. Thank you

 

[elkguide]

Very interesting read.

Hunting always has been a spiritual experience for me.

 

[Stilpr]

Nice article! It’s always tough to articulate the spiritual connection hunting gives me to the natural world and the people in my life (who aren’t with us).

 

[tttoadman]

It would be great if more people on the planet could recognize our commonalities instead of only our differences.

 

[Beendare]

I was hesitant to click on this topic....glad I did....enlightening

 

[James A Swan Ph.D]

Thanks from James Swan, Ph.D.

Nice to hear that readers like my article on hunting and religion. My research on the human aspects of hunting, as a psychologist, has been to try to understand why people develop attitudes toward hunting. Religion and spirituality are powerful forces in forming or changing attitudes. What has surprised me is how nearly all religions support hunting and see it as part of human nature that can be guided by spirituality, as well as hunger and enjoyment of life in general. What seems clear is that when people in a place decide to restrict or even oppose ethical hunting, the reasons are generally political, not based on religion. There is also a growing body of psychological research on hunting and anti-hunting. Aside from my own books, one book I do recommend is THE PALEOLITHIC PRESCRIPTION. This book has started a new diet, The Paleo Diet, but look closely at the credentials of the three authors -- Eaton, Shostak, and Konner. Melvin Konner is a psychiatrist, and he spent two years after getting his MD, living with the Bushmen in Africa. That kind of experience, which people like Carl Jung had, helps one understand human nature. One quote I especially like is "Our 'hunting instinct' has gone awry in 'civilized' society, where the thrill of the chase and the kill are no longer part of our experience and there are no clear avenues of expression, except, perhaps to our peril, in the streets and subways of today's urban jungles."

 

[Jordan Budd]

Great article, looking forward to more!


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[Ross]

Thank you for article.....hunting brings a spiritual aspect for many

 

[Sodbuster]

Dr. Swan. Your article's title made me a little hesitant to read it but I am glad I did.
Very interesting and informative. Thanks for sharing.

 

[justinroraback]

Great read, thanks for sharing.

 

[freebird134]

all religions support hunting and see it as part of human nature that can be guided by spirituality, as well as hunger and enjoyment of life in general. What seems clear is that when people in a place decide to restrict or even oppose ethical hunting, the reasons are generally political, not based on religion.

I have to admit I don’t really get this article. Not trying to be a jerk here—I just don’t get it, so please help me out.

First, I’ve not encountered many people who argue against hunting from a religious angle. So, I’m having a hard time seeing the importance of pointing out that religions are almost unanimously not anti-hunting.

Second, (and related to #1) it doesn’t seem like a very strong argument to defend hunting from a religious point of view. For many folks, myself included, what any religion thinks about hunting is completely irrelevant. Just because a bunch of philosophies have a consistent belief doesn’t make it true.

It would be nice to hear Dr Swan’s response to this. He and I probably speak the same language, having come from similar backgrounds ( PhDs, ecology professors, and inspired by Leopoldo). So maybe he will appreciate where I’m coming from and have something to help me understand this articles value a bit better. There are so many objective arguments for hunting that I don’t get the need for religion to be part of this.


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[robby denning]

Freebird134, good questions and I can only answer as the editor who chose to run the article.

I found it interesting because even as a Christian myself, I didn’t really know what other people of my faith and other faiths around the world really thought about hunting. I figured if I didn’t know, maybe others did not either. That’s all.

Maybe the author will chime in.

 

[James A Swan Ph.D]

Freebird134, good questions and I can only answer as the editor who chose to run the article.

I found it interesting because even as a Christian myself, I didn’t really know what other people of my faith and other faiths around the world really thought about hunting. I figured if I didn’t know, maybe others did not either. That’s all.

Maybe the author will chime in.

_______________________
To Freebird 134

From James Swan


The future of hunting in this modern age of Information, I believe is going to be heavily dependent on how hunters, now a minority group, are perceived by not just hunters, but society in general, as currently there are about as many anti-hunters as there are hunters.
Attitudes about things are developed both by individuals and social norms. What I aimed to do by writing this article is to show how religion can support hunting. It’s not the only social factor that creates or kills off attitudes by any means, but religion is a very important part of culture and ideally religion touches the heart of the soul.
I began college as a wildlife management major, but then I switched to conservation education, resources planning and creating a new field blending conservation and human behavior – environmental psychology. (My Ph.D. from U. Michigan was the first in environmental psychology, and I helped set up that division in the American Psychological Association.)
My initial research was looking at how people develop environmental attitudes. (I have written a book about this, NATURE AS TEACHER AND HEALER.) It is very clear from my data and that of others that strong positive personal experiences are a key to developing what Leopold called “The Ecological Conscience.” Religion, for most people has a very strong personal experience content. So, you combine the experience of hunting with religion, and it breeds conservationists. This has been the case of human nature for thousands of years. In my research on environmental attitude formation, I also looked at how other cultures perceive nature. This has included traditional cultures – American Indians, Inuit, Polynesians, East Asians, and Scandinavians. (The Swans are descended from the Sweyns of Normay, Saami.)
What I found in all traditional cultures was that hunting and religion were very closely tied together. In addition to my book, THE SACRED ART OF HUNTING, I would recommend Dr. Richard Nelson’s book MAKE PRAYERS TO RAVEN that covers much of the same territory.
Certainly there are many other aspects of culture that influence hunting, but religion is a powerful force and hunters now are a minority group that needs all the support they can get.
I also wanted to share my study of how religion and hunting do work together as some anti-hunters try to use religion to attack hunting, and it may be their idea of this attitude, but it does not work globally. And as the number of hunters decreases, hunting needs all the support it can get from as many different aspects of culture. Cultural elements shape attitudes. Religion is one element. So are our schools and politics. And most importantly, in The Information Age, mass media shapes attitudes about hunting. And mass media these days tends to be 10-17 times more negative and sensational that being simply objectively reporting the news, as we were taught in journalism many years ago.
Today my focus is on mass media. That’s how we shape attitudes and we need to have more mainstream media show hunting in a positive light. Hopefully calling attention to how religion in general supports hunting, will inspire people to acknowledge that. Also, I have encountered animal rightists who try to use religion to argue against hunting – especially using Asian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism to justify their beliefs. We do not teach much about other religions in schools, so that makes for a weak point. As I point out, Hindus in India do eat meat. They don’t hunt that much because there are so many people in India, many of them hungry, and wildlife is not that abundant. The Dalai Lama eats meat. Many Buddhists do, too. I once helped produce a concert by the Guyuto Monks and they all ordered Big Macs before going on stage.
I talk more about the psychology of hunting in my book, IN DEFENSE OF HUNTING. There is no research to show that hunters in general are bad people, and many of the best-known psychologists of the 20th center were hunters – Erich Fromm, Carl Jung, Karl Menninger, Jerome Bruner, etc. – and they talked about the “hunting instinct” was part of the human soul. For thousands of years, religion has helped guide that soul.

I just wanted to expand on that a little in the article.

 

[Btaylor]

I have to admit I don’t really get this article. Not trying to be a jerk here—I just don’t get it, so please help me out.

First, I’ve not encountered many people who argue against hunting from a religious angle. So, I’m having a hard time seeing the importance of pointing out that religions are almost unanimously not anti-hunting.

Second, (and related to #1) it doesn’t seem like a very strong argument to defend hunting from a religious point of view. For many folks, myself included, what any religion thinks about hunting is completely irrelevant. Just because a bunch of philosophies have a consistent belief doesn’t make it true.

It would be nice to hear Dr Swan’s response to this. He and I probably speak the same language, having come from similar backgrounds ( PhDs, ecology professors, and inspired by Leopoldo). So maybe he will appreciate where I’m coming from and have something to help me understand this articles value a bit better. There are so many objective arguments for hunting that I don’t get the need for religion to be part of this.


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As to your second point, here are my thoughts as an under educated redneck from Arkansas. The first amendment protects the right to free practice of religion. As a Christian, I am called to be a steward over the earth and all the creatures of the earth and that those same creatures are provided for me as food. I have both the responsibility to conserve and protect but the right to utilize. Any legislation or rules put in place to eliminate hunting and therefore conservation is effectively a violation of my first amendment rights as a Christian. How is the first amendment a weak position?

 

[freebird134]

_______________________
To Freebird 134

From James Swan

Thanks for the response James. Pretty sure I still have a copy of In Defense of Hunting on my office bookshelf. I remember reading it and “The Hunting Apes” one summer when I still had time to read for fun!

Welcome to Rokslide!


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[smoke]

A very good article. I read your book, "In Defense of Hunting" years ago and enjoyed it. Historically speaking, Christianity informed Western thinking on virtually everything and most fundamentally, on what is intrinsically "right" and "wrong". Those values still resonate in our society whether or not you ascribe to any particular religion. For some of us, those historical religious figures still guide our thinking and I take heart in the knowledge that my feelings about hunting have been met with approval from those who were far more intellectual and spiritual than am I.