Is it morally wrong? I think it’s extremely gross, but it isn’t harming anyone. I think if we are going to say it’s morally wrong, it’d have to be because of the rights an animal has in death to its corpse not being desecrated - but we have no problem with mutilating and eating animal corpses, so this only differs in terms of its disgustingness and depravity.
I actually don’t think the bible has a compelling stance on this subject. The only relevant things the bible had to say that I can think of are that sex is restricted to marriage and the stuff about not spilling seed. So… the reason a Christian couldn’t have sex with roadkill is because they aren’t married to it or because it can’t get pregnant? That’s a pretty weak argument. And if there isn’t anything else in the Bible about it… then we’re left with soemthing like “necrophilic beastiality is gross” - which, while true, is not a strong moral claim and not something Jesus is recorded as having said, believe it or not.
Too frequently people conflate feelings of disgust with proof of unethical/immoral behavior - in this case it happens to work because the act in question is extremely repugnant, but it’s also similar to how religious people justify all sorts of bad actions and bigotry even when their own religious dogma is silent or unclear on the morality of specific things.
It is a normal human impulse to want horrible and disgusting things like this to be immoral, but we do need actual, consistent reasons that make sense if we are going to call something immoral.
Secular ethics are better able to handle this because they can easily include things like animal rights extending beyond death - or we can be comfortable saying this is a disgusting and depraved act, worthy of punishment even, that doesn’t have moral weight due to the lack of harm or rights violations (if we say animals don’t have rights to dignity in death).
I actually don’t think the bible has a compelling stance on this subject. The only relevant things the bible had to say that I can think of are that sex is restricted to marriage and the stuff about not spilling seed. So… the reason a Christian couldn’t have sex with roadkill is because they aren’t married to it or because it can’t get pregnant? That’s a pretty weak argument.
Leviticus 18:23: “You must not have sexual relations with any animal, defiling yourself with it; a woman must not present herself to an animal to mate with it; that is a perversion.”
To be clear, I’m an atheist and I don’t fuck roadkill. But I do think this covers it from a biblical standpoint – I don’t think it makes any exception for dead animals.
Then again, this comes from some of the same passages that contain things modern Christians routinely ignore like “don’t eat pork and shellfish” and “don’t wear mixed fabrics”. If they can ignore those rules, why not the animal-fucking rule as well?
Oh wow sure enough. Huh. Well nice job leviticus. Then the only question is if that applies to dead animals, too, but I’d think it’s safe to assume it does. And if the “new covenant” means Christians can ignore that part or not.
A compelling moral argument could be made in the case where they have human sexual partners; I would not consider having sex with road kill to be especially safe from a communicable disease standpoint, and engaging in this behavior endangers the partner’s life.
I’m willing to bet the partner doesn’t know, too.
That said, pretty sure the whole spilling seed things comes from a pretty blatant misunderstanding of genesis 38:8–10. It’s part of the story of Judah and Tamar.
Tamar was given to Er- Judah’s first son, who got offed by god for some undisclosed wickedness.so Judah tells his other son- Onan- to fulfill his obligation as Er’a brother and get Tamar preggers.
The idea here is that Onan would give Er and heir, who would inherit most of Judah’s shit. Onan, being not entirely stupid understood that if Tamar never gave birth to a son, then the greedy fuck would instead inherit Judah’s shit.
So Onan gamed the system with his pull out game, and god was like, “you little shit!” And smoked the greedy fucker. It had nothing to do with Onan pulling out and everything to do with him being greedy. If he tried the rhythm method, he’d have still gotten smoked…
And all this because the best social safety nets for single mother’s they could come up with was “hey. If the brother gets her pregnant, a son could be an heir and then she could take care of everything until the son is old enough!” Because women were property and couldn’t inherit anything.
Funnily, this drives at a niche thought experiment in vegan circles: “Is eating roadkill vegan?” That is, is veganism not fully a subset of a plant-based diet*? The Vegan Society’s definition is roughly what most vegans would go by even if they’ve never heard it:
Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment.
To be absolutely clear, no vegan takes this thought experiment seriously. Vegans would prefer the animal be left alone to be consumed by e.g. other animals, and some hypothetical vegan delusional enough to pull that card would be ostracized immediately and plausibly worse than if they’d bought meat to eat for themselves.
* Notably, no, it isn’t. Regardless of this particular scenario, there are edge case scenarios you can come up with that vegans would consider vegan but are definitionally not plant-based – because veganism stipulates “as far as is possible and practicable” while a PBD is a bright line.
Is it morally wrong? I think it’s extremely gross, but it isn’t harming anyone. I think if we are going to say it’s morally wrong, it’d have to be because of the rights an animal has in death to its corpse not being desecrated - but we have no problem with mutilating and eating animal corpses, so this only differs in terms of its disgustingness and depravity.
I actually don’t think the bible has a compelling stance on this subject. The only relevant things the bible had to say that I can think of are that sex is restricted to marriage and the stuff about not spilling seed. So… the reason a Christian couldn’t have sex with roadkill is because they aren’t married to it or because it can’t get pregnant? That’s a pretty weak argument. And if there isn’t anything else in the Bible about it… then we’re left with soemthing like “necrophilic beastiality is gross” - which, while true, is not a strong moral claim and not something Jesus is recorded as having said, believe it or not.
Too frequently people conflate feelings of disgust with proof of unethical/immoral behavior - in this case it happens to work because the act in question is extremely repugnant, but it’s also similar to how religious people justify all sorts of bad actions and bigotry even when their own religious dogma is silent or unclear on the morality of specific things.
It is a normal human impulse to want horrible and disgusting things like this to be immoral, but we do need actual, consistent reasons that make sense if we are going to call something immoral.
Secular ethics are better able to handle this because they can easily include things like animal rights extending beyond death - or we can be comfortable saying this is a disgusting and depraved act, worthy of punishment even, that doesn’t have moral weight due to the lack of harm or rights violations (if we say animals don’t have rights to dignity in death).
Leviticus 18:23: “You must not have sexual relations with any animal, defiling yourself with it; a woman must not present herself to an animal to mate with it; that is a perversion.”
To be clear, I’m an atheist and I don’t fuck roadkill. But I do think this covers it from a biblical standpoint – I don’t think it makes any exception for dead animals.
Then again, this comes from some of the same passages that contain things modern Christians routinely ignore like “don’t eat pork and shellfish” and “don’t wear mixed fabrics”. If they can ignore those rules, why not the animal-fucking rule as well?
Oh wow sure enough. Huh. Well nice job leviticus. Then the only question is if that applies to dead animals, too, but I’d think it’s safe to assume it does. And if the “new covenant” means Christians can ignore that part or not.
A compelling moral argument could be made in the case where they have human sexual partners; I would not consider having sex with road kill to be especially safe from a communicable disease standpoint, and engaging in this behavior endangers the partner’s life.
I’m willing to bet the partner doesn’t know, too.
That said, pretty sure the whole spilling seed things comes from a pretty blatant misunderstanding of genesis 38:8–10. It’s part of the story of Judah and Tamar.
Tamar was given to Er- Judah’s first son, who got offed by god for some undisclosed wickedness.so Judah tells his other son- Onan- to fulfill his obligation as Er’a brother and get Tamar preggers.
The idea here is that Onan would give Er and heir, who would inherit most of Judah’s shit. Onan, being not entirely stupid understood that if Tamar never gave birth to a son, then the greedy fuck would instead inherit Judah’s shit.
So Onan gamed the system with his pull out game, and god was like, “you little shit!” And smoked the greedy fucker. It had nothing to do with Onan pulling out and everything to do with him being greedy. If he tried the rhythm method, he’d have still gotten smoked…
And all this because the best social safety nets for single mother’s they could come up with was “hey. If the brother gets her pregnant, a son could be an heir and then she could take care of everything until the son is old enough!” Because women were property and couldn’t inherit anything.
Funnily, this drives at a niche thought experiment in vegan circles: “Is eating roadkill vegan?” That is, is veganism not fully a subset of a plant-based diet*? The Vegan Society’s definition is roughly what most vegans would go by even if they’ve never heard it:
To be absolutely clear, no vegan takes this thought experiment seriously. Vegans would prefer the animal be left alone to be consumed by e.g. other animals, and some hypothetical vegan delusional enough to pull that card would be ostracized immediately and plausibly worse than if they’d bought meat to eat for themselves.
* Notably, no, it isn’t. Regardless of this particular scenario, there are edge case scenarios you can come up with that vegans would consider vegan but are definitionally not plant-based – because veganism stipulates “as far as is possible and practicable” while a PBD is a bright line.