Is war different from murder?

War is government-justified murder.

Killing is Killing no matter what the reason.
Governments commit murder by starting wars and sending innocent people to fight them.

To say that war is justified because a group of individuals want to commit this act in the name of a government does not make it right.
When people conspire to kill is it not still murder?

When people representing a government start wars they know people are going to get killed.

But just like the murderer, "they don't care" about the victim.

They are only interest in what they can gain by killiing.

Soldiers are mercenaries, They will kill anyone they are told to kill by the people who pay them.

War is Murder on a massive scale.

Maybe if we called it what it is. we could put an end to it.
If people saw war for the horrible act it is, governments could no longer rally people into supporting government sponsered Terror and murder.

Remember, War is non discriminating, It not only kills other soldiers and war machines.
It kills innocent families, and destroys lives and homes.
individuals worlds are destroyed.

And you know what the government says about that?

Oh thats "collateral damage, You have to expect that in wars".

Today war kills more innocents than it does enemy combatants.

If its wrong for us the people to kill, its wrong for a government of these same people to kill.

Don't sugar coat it, call it what it is and maybe we can stop it.
Murder.

In a murder the victim often has no foreknowledge or chance.

In a war, you are trying to kill them and they are trying to kill you. Its kill or be killed and its not murder.

That doesn't mean that war is justified or good but its not the same as murder.

Yes, murder is committed by the person who chooses to do it.
War is when governments tell people to kill each other for a supposedly justifiable cause.
Very different.

Dropping cluster bombs on innocent civilians, what else would you call it?

Of course war is murder, and everyone in the armed forces is an accomplice to murder. War is the crowning horror of national selfishness.

How can I dignify that with an answer.

I don't think there is a difference. I'm against both unless you are trying to defend yourself or your country.

I must say that I never even thought to think twice about the two, but I was determined to find the line that divides them. I looked up definitions and definitions of definitions trying to find a suitable answer. But after I considered all the scenarios and under all context in which both occur I found only one difference. Authorization. Both can occur for the exact same motives with the exact same intent and emotion, but the difference is one is authorized and the other is not.
Murder is killing with out authorization from the governing authorities.
War is killing authorized by the governing authorities.
So the big thing to consider is who is authorizing the war and what authority do they have? I would say that a war or the killing of an individual can only be authorized by God. For who is man that he should consider himself above another man? The only authority men have is that which the individuals of a group give him or that which God gives, which is above the authority of any man.
I suppose the next question would be: Is the authorization justifiable?
In short, yes, they are different.
I hope this answer satisfies you.

Yes, it is different. Murder is the killing of an individual by another individual for small scale reasons. War is defined as a violent conflict waged between two entire groups of individuals in pursuit of political interests.

In a sense yes and no. It is murder to kill one person, so in the detailed sense yes it is murder. However war is more argument than fighting. In murder it is the killing of the other person. In war it is to prove a point. Yet, if you are to look at it in law terms, most of the deaths were caused by self defense.

In a good sense war is very different than murder. War is more than slaughtering, its conquiering.
Or you can say murder is for one's self, and war is for a group's cause.

In murder when a cop comes to the case they look for 3 things, why, when, and how. Why would this person be killed, when would someone have the time to do it, and how did this person murder the other. In war its why, who, and where. Why did this war start, who started it and which side will the different whos go to, and where will the front be taken.

The prophet Isaiah was inspired to write: “[God] will certainly render judgment among the nations and set matters straight respecting many peoples. And they will have to beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning shears. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.”—Isaiah 2:4.

Murder is defined by societies authority, authority trains and commisions officers schooled in knowing the rules of war and to an enlisted point of view its our countries business, its not murder, its defending freedom; 911 was murder.

I really don't think murder is different from war. People are getting killed without much of a choice. People are being shot in Iraq every day with out a decision in it. Just as a killers victims really has no choice. So no I really don't think it is. But the government obviously disagrees

Its "justified killing" if such a thing exists...

It depends on your view on the subject.
Technically one can argue that murder is to kill intentionally and with premeditation and war is the waging of armed conflict against an enemy.


In war random people of the opposite site gets killed, without premeditation of killing that particular individual, but when a murder takes place contemplation and planning is involved in the killing of the particular individual.

In both situations people get killed, but the meaning of the words are different from one another.

war entails murder of individuals. in conflicts of nations or groups of people, a cause for war may be announced, and under guise of war, murder is acceptable. So I think murder during warfare is different than murder between individuals in a societal sense, even though they may have similar motives, like aquiring or protecting territory, or revenge, or dominance.
i think we are genetically predisposed to murderous killing, but have hope for behavioral changes. maybe i'm kidding myself.

In a way. Murder can be, and very often is, the killing of one individual by another. War is mass murder.

If you were a soldier in the middle of a war and you had a choice: Kill or be killed, what would YOU do?
Comes down to SELF DEFENSE in a way.

It depends on the circumstances. If it goes on beyond the point it has to, then it's arguable.

wow, people really have gotten off the moral path, tho shalt not murder, if a group of people go into another country and start a war, it is murder, the other people did not agree to it, the leaders may but the leaders do not speak for the population. no doubt the government wants you to believe war and murder is different otherwise they have people who have a moral delimma . they need you to believe there is a difference otherwise who will do the fighting for them?: the rulers are not going to set the example and take the lead, contrary to when kings of old fought. the wealthy don't go to war.

The religious leaders if they had done their job then most of the wars in this century would of never happend,. 99 percent of wars (as far as the us empire goes can't speak for other nations)are not self defense they are economic or political. this is percisly why God will enact punishment against religious leaders and their supporters first, (babylon the great). they are responsible for teaching Gods moral laws but they have watered them down, and destroyed any faith in the bible because of their myth making ideas. so babylon gets the ax first.

so yes wars (especially if not really self defense) is murder, it is mass murder. you cannot change what something is by changing the label. a snake by any other name still bites posion.

Rosa

War is a state that exists between nations so I would have to say that no War itself is not murder. Can murder happen in war? most definitely but I would have to argue that war itself is not murder. Just like murders happen during times of peace they also can happen during war. I think the real question that people want to ask here is killing during times of war murder? Once again I think it would be situational at best just as killing in times of peace is situational. One would have to define murder before you could answer a question like this.

Yes, War is death for a reason. In WW2 that reason was securing the freedom of people from a dictator or for securing power depending on which side you were on.
Not all reasons are acceptable, however. So some people tend to disbelieve based on the fact that they cannot relate to the reason. Murder is death inflicted on the unwilling. In war, only the soldiers are willing. Civilians dying in war is commonly classified as murder.

No. Murder is the unlawful killing of another human. War is not unlawful... immoral, but not unlawful.

Nope, war is the murder of lesser humans for the expansion and profits of the corporate elites, and the 1% of the population that rules the other 99% of us through the complete hilter-like dominance of 50% of the world's wealth.

Not really because the whole idea of war is to destroy the opposing force, or at least sustain it. Which is usually by any means necessary. This can also lead to the question of is murder different than govermental hit men??

not to the victims of it

murder-self sanctioned killing
war-community sanctioned killing

Going against the community will always get you in trouble no matter the country.

Yes. Just as there is a difference between war and conflict. Murder typically (operative word) applies to the killing of one person by a person or persons. War is a conflict/battle/whatever you wish to call it between large groups/numbers of people. Since the question asked the diffrence between the 2, I answered literally.

Merriam Webster:

War
1 a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations (2) : a period of such armed conflict

Murder
1 : the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

The answer still stands at yes they are different as far as I am concerned.

Yes it is.

The difference is in the scale.

War is mass murder. Yet the law doesn't treat it that way. Why not?

They can be the same or completely different. What realy determines it is the why. If one goes to war because your are forced to defend yourself, country, family, fredom, etc., then it is not murder. If you go to war because you want to take something you have no right to, overthrow someone who is innocent, seek revenge, things like that, then yes, it it murder. But it gets complicated. Say you go to war for the right reasons, but during that war an individual soldier starts killing people who are trying to surrender out of hate for a fellow soldiers' death, or an officer orders the needless killing of the enemy or of private citizens, then its murder. Once the general cause has been deemed worthy, it really falls back to what is in the heart of the person pulling the trigger. Some murder in war might by law be allowed or overlooked, but its still murder.
War may or may not be justified, murder is NEVER justified. Hope that helps some........