Murderous Vampires: The Sixth Commandment: (Murder)

Murderous Vampires are such interesting creatures; especially in relation to the sixth commandment. They are human yet un-human, dead but un-dead, mythic, yet alive in the stories and tales of individuals. Their species designation has a huge effect on their relationship to the Sixth Commandment, and that is what my students and I kept coming back to.

If the vampire is not a member of the human species, then it has just as much freedom to kill humans as humans have to kill animals, (or those not members of their own tribes in war). I am formally not discussing vegetarianism here. I am only concerned here with the dining habits of vampires. Does it count as murder if a vampire, who is not a human, kills a human? Does it count as breaking the Sixth Commandment; as sin when a vampire drains a human of his blood which as a side effect, kills the human? If it does count as an abridgment of the Sixth Commandment then we also must figure that vampires have souls since, arguably, one must have a soul in order to sin.

I think it is important to note that those of us that are still fully human can’t agree amongst ourselves on how the Sixth Commandment should read:“Thou shalt not kill” is the King James version, while the more modern NIV has it “Thou shalt not murder.” Why does this change matter, you ask? Because kill means to cause any person or animal to die, whereas to murder has a wider range of humans or animals which may be killed. Animals may be “murdered” for warmth or food (since we are supposed to be care-takers for animals, I am leaving out sports-hunting). A soldier in the heat of battle has a mandate to kill the soldiers of the opposing force. This is not “murder,” in the eyes of the surviving soldier’s society. After all, the other soldier was trying to kill him in return. While murder implies that both are members of the same society, same household, working together for the same good, and one citizen bonking another over the head until death ensues is not helping the culture’s cohesion. (This is a vampire website; after all…I am not an ethicist.)

If the vampire is “born” into a new species when it is re-born, and is no longer a member of the human species, then can we call it evil? It would no more be evil for killing a living human than a lion is for killing its prey. It is simply doing what is necessary for its own survival. At that moment it is not a part of humanity and shouldn’t be subject to human expectation of what evil is. Yet the vampire is born (usually) out of a deceased human carcass. Because it walks like a human and talks like a human, we expect it to also behave as a human. But has it not passed through the doors of death and emerged on the other side changed into something no longer human, if humans are defined by the twin borders of birth and death?

For the first time since I began this site, I am going to open this up into a discussion. Below is a contact form which will allow you to add to this page. I am neither a ethicist nor a Biblical scholar, so this one has me beat.

Because this site needs to be kept pretty pristine, I will receive your additions and comments, and post the ones I deem fit. Any comments with tons of swear words, or comments that refuse to wrestle with the issue of the relationship of vampires to the sixth commandment, will simply be ignored. (In my real job I have to deal with bad writing; I don’t have to here – this is my site.