Isabella Haberstock

Mr. Bayardi
Honors Religion IV
16 October 2017

Why Humans Murder

When Cain committed the first murder against his brother, Abel, the world

would forever be changed (GN 4:8). The sin of murder was the first crime that humans

committed to hurt each other, and Cain’s sin resulted in a punishment that would last

him forever. In the Bible, it is never clearly explained why Cain’s first response was to

murder. It does state that he was jealous that God favored Abel (GN 4:5), but it is not

made clear why he chose to murder when he probably did not know what murder was .

The concept of why a human would make such a strong decision with lifelong

consequences is still very baffling, but there are some reasons to explain why murder exists.

The first reason why humans kill is intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are

when a person thinks about something that is very disturbing for no apparent reason .

These are caused by the brain wanting to make the strongest decision possible

in that given moment, which is why some people feel the need to jump when they

are in high places (Leahy). These thoughts are very extreme, but they do not indicate

any sign of mental illness. Because of how the human brain naturally functions,

these intrusive thoughts are not rare at all. The thoughts itself should not be a cause

for concern, but having the thought repeatedly can cause a person to turn it into a

reality (Leahy), which could have been the case for Cain. Cain’s jealousy seemed to
be the root cause of why he thought about hurting Abel in the first place, and he could

have had these intrusive thoughts so often that he made them into a reality.

Another reason why humans kill is mental illness. A mental disorder is something

that a person can be born with, and if it is not treated properly, the person can become

unpredictable and their condition will only get worse (Middleton). Since advances in

mental health are still pretty recent and not as effective as they should be, any person

with a disorder in the past would not really have received any treatment. Still to a

lot of people today, mental health is not taken very seriously and many mentally ill

people are left untreated. Many tragedies including suicide and murder are caused by

a lack of treatment (Middleton). It is entirely possible that the reason that Cain hurt Abel

in the first place was because of a mental disorder that would have prevented him

from really understanding the difference between right and wrong. Another possibility

is that he was aware that what he did was wrong, but he might not have understood

the lasting consequences or realized the permanence of death.

Another reason is that the person could be possessed by Satan or some other demon.

In the Bible, God told Cain, “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at

your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it” (GN 4:7-9). It is possible

that when a person has enough intrusive thoughts to start believing in them, evil actually controls

them. There are plenty of cases today of “murders without motives” (Thompson). They

are seemingly normal people who kill a person or multiple people just for the thrill

of taking a human life. This theory cannot really be applied to Cain, since his
motive was clearly jealousy, but many murders throughout history happened for seemingly

no reason. Murder is already very evil, but the fact that the only motive for these

people was that they wanted to kill someone is very concerning. The desire to murder

could be due to intrusive thoughts or mental illness as mentioned above, but it could

also be caused by an unseen evil that is controlling the person and forcing them to

commit a crime. There is no real way to investigate this, but it seems very likely that

some sort of demonic force could cause random people to kill with no motive.

The final reason why human murder is because Cain did it in the first place. Cain

probably did not really know what would happen if he tried to hurt Abel because

Abel was the first human to die. It is very possible that the generations following Cain

saw how he handled his anger and jealousy and just followed suit. There is no real proof

to support this, but an oral rendition of Genesis was pretty much all that some people

heard, and they could have fallen victim to any of the reasons mentioned above and imitated

Cain’s actions.

The real reason why humans murder is still a mystery, but there are several

possible explanations. The first reason is that it could be due to intrusive thoughts

that drive people crazy enough to kill. The second reason is that an untreated

mental illness could distort the difference between right and wrong. The third reason is

that it could be due to some type of demonic influence or possession. The final reason

is that the next generations were just following what Cain did. No matter what the real cause is,

murder is an irrevocable part of human history.

 Works Cited

“Genesis 4.” Bible Gateway. Bible Gateway. Web. 10 October 2017.

Leahy, Robert. “Intrusive Thoughts.” Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 1 June 2009. Web.

10 October 2017.

Middleton, Jenni. “Does mental illness make you more likely to kill?” Nursing Times. EMAP

Publishing Limited Company, 16 October 2013. Web. 10 October 2017.

Thompson, Tony. “The ‘thrill killers’ who murder without motive.” The Guardian. Guardian

News, 15 March 2013. Web. 11 October 2017.