Topic: Pope’s white doves of peace attacked by gull and crow over St Peter’s Square

[Mooning Freddy]

This is beautiful. The symbolism of this story is almost poetic. A clear anthropomorphism for the way the good will of humans crashes against the harsh reality of the corruption of human nature.

Two white doves released by children as a peace gesture from a window of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope's official residence in the Vatican, have been attacked by other birds - for the second year running.

With tens of thousands of people watching on Sunday the boy and girl, standing alongside Pope Francis, let the doves go over St Peter’s Square to conclude the Vatican’s annual “Caravan of Peace” event.

But straight after they were release, a seagull and a large black crow swept down and set upon the doves.

One dove managed to break free from the gull, losing feathers in the process, while the crow repeatedly pecked at the other dove.

It was not clear how badly injured the doves were as the birds eventually flew off.

The pope called for a peace in Ukraine, where violence is raging for more than a month over economic government decisions which favored promoting a relationship with Russia rather than the EU. Massive Pro-EU demonstration escalated into wide violence recently in which opposition leaders claimed the government is taking away people's dreams for cooperation and job opportunities in the Union. This is escalated by a harsh East-West divide (Or pro-Russian vs nationalist divide) that has been prevalent in the country since its independence from the Soviet Union. 

[Shiroi Koumori]

I agree.
I think this also symbolizes that evil will always find a way to harm the good.

[X]

To me personally I'm not seeing symbolism here. That's something that we ourselves label to which we think might have some form of significance. But in only some cases does true symbology ever really stand out. What I'm seeing above is a predator going for his prey. Rules of the animal kingdom. The law of the jungle. Hunt or be hunted. That Crow and Seagull are hungry and what should appear on the menu? White Dove surprise.

[Ratty]

Welp, I'm glad I don't believe in prophecy lol.

[Super Waffle]

Bunnies can fly...proof

[Mooning Freddy]

Damn Waffle, you just won the internet.

[darkmanx_429]

To me personally I'm not seeing symbolism here. That's something that we ourselves label to which we think might have some form of significance. But in only some cases does true symbology ever really stand out. What I'm seeing above is a predator going for his prey. Rules of the animal kingdom. The law of the jungle. Hunt or be hunted. That Crow and Seagull are hungry and what should appear on the menu? White Dove surprise.

I agree. I can appreciate the symbolism here, but it could also just be a case of the Crow and Seagull's kinda caught on to the fact that these doves are released in the same spot time and time again and adjusted themselves accordingly. I mean when did crows become inherently evil? (Minus Castlevania games...and old folklore..lol)And Seagull's? Other than the occasional dumping on people's cars and the occasional person, I wouldn't read too much into this without going into a lot of illuminati babble and conspiracy stuff...

[Kale]

To me personally I'm not seeing symbolism here. That's something that we ourselves label to which we think might have some form of significance.

Isn't that the case? The doves were a symbol for peace, and they get attacked by crows, just as they were released to symbolize peace.

That said, I don't really think such things truly means anything, as it could just be happenstance or that someone has a horrible sense of humor.

[X]

Isn't that the case? The doves were a symbol for peace

Funny thing about Doves. They will kill in order to survive and have been know to kill others of their own kind. The Dove isn't such a peaceful symbol when you take nature into account. And when you think about it, it kinda represents humanity rather fittingly. The majority of us want to live in peace yet we will kill one another when something doesn't go as we want or expect. That's our primate brains for ya. To truly be a peaceful people we would have to literally cast away our desire to kill and that's not going to happen any time soon since it's engraved in all of us.

[Morning star]

This reminds me of all the black birds that died over the Vatican a few years ago on New Year's Eve. If i remember right it happened all around the world and lasted around 5 days. Birds falling dead and fish washing up on river banks and coasts all over the world.

Make no mistake about it guys. This may just be nature, but we are living in a time of great evil. The signs have been clear for the last 15 years. All a person needs to do is pay attention.

[Kale]

Funny thing about Doves. They will kill in order to survive and have been know to kill others of their own kind. The Dove isn't such a peaceful symbol when you take nature into account. And when you think about it, it kinda represents humanity rather fittingly. The majority of us want to live in peace yet we will kill one another when something doesn't go as we want or expect. That's our primate brains for ya. To truly be a peaceful people we would have to literally cast away our desire to kill and that's not going to happen any time soon since it's engraved in all of us.

The most heinous criminal can still be a symbol for love or whatever. Not likely, but it's based on perception. Like if someone like Hitler or Stalin had a kid, and they dote on him. To the rest of the world they might be a symbol for evil but to the kid, he's probably a symbol of love.

[RegalSin]

Well, doves are actually the same exact bird a pigeon is, but they are white. I think those birds, realized those birds did not smell or acted natural, so they struck the doves. Like if a wolf or lion checking to see if something is eatable or not. Chances are, the doves had the scent of human food on them, and seagulls and crows as we know are natural hunters. It could also be confirmed both the seagulls and crows were hungry. Another thing is that many of the doves do not survive, and are eaten as food by the seagulls and crows, so by that a gene/instinct is passed down to attack the crows. Also the incident has been on going for sometime, so we should ask, is their anything in the area that has changed? A local food source for the birds? Something built? Radio waves?

A crow for that matter is an extremely smart bird, and when in a crowd they are called a "murder". While people could call the pigeon the rats of the sky, crows just like rats can be trained, for many purposes. Some people say a crow can challenges a parrots intelligence as well, make good pets, for people willing to train them. A seagull is known for being a thief, at the beaches. You can spot them swiping food from each other as well as peoples belongings.

I had a pet pigeon for awhile, we took the bird in, thinking it was something else, but it was really a baby pigeon, that boinked it's head. We released it, in the park and the first thing it did, was fly on top of a person who was jogging, that was something to behold. The bird was getting used to humans to the point where it could see them as friendly. 

[Mooning Freddy]

lol my friend showed me this video:
Gangsta-as-nails dumbass Mexican Americans "gang-bangers" went to Syria to fight for the rebels... LMAO I don't think they even have any idea what the conflict is about... Could be fake, but it's the kind of video you would say "well, they're probably dead by now". 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMPCHLO06n4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQDP3QNBLhY

[Morning star]

lol my friend showed me this video:
Gangsta-as-nails dumbass Mexican Americans "gang-bangers" went to Syria to fight for the rebels... LMAO I don't think they even have any idea what the conflict is about... Could be fake, but it's the kind of video you would say "well, they're probably dead by now". 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMPCHLO06n4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQDP3QNBLhY

Yep, that's dumb alright. Can't say i would feel bad if they didn't make it back.

[Intersection]

Funny thing about Doves. They will kill in order to survive and have been know to kill others of their own kind. The Dove isn't such a peaceful symbol when you take nature into account. And when you think about it, it kinda represents humanity rather fittingly. The majority of us want to live in peace yet we will kill one another when something doesn't go as we want or expect. That's our primate brains for ya. To truly be a peaceful people we would have to literally cast away our desire to kill and that's not going to happen any time soon since it's engraved in all of us.

Eh... That's heavily debatable. If killing was a fundamental human desire, then chances are we'd all be dead already.

For some more insight, you could take a look at Locke's natural law, or Rousseau on the savage man. In particular, the latter points out that we're used to describing the natural man from the wrong referent -- our desire to harm is a product of our own societal interactions, not of our "primate brains". Which makes sense, in context: in nature, humans don't have the opportunity to build enough of a constant relationship to spawn hostility. Unless the self-preservation instinct kicks in, they simply don't care to kill each other.