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Where did the phrase "cold-blooded", as in murder, come from?

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Posted - August 24, 2019
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  • 46117
    Off the cuff, I would say, it refers to the reptilian part of the brain that does not have emotion.   Like a reptile.  And they are cold-blooded.



    This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at August 25, 2019 1:11 PM MDT
      August 24, 2019 5:42 PM MDT
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  • 4624
    Guessing only...

    It has long been assumed that reptiles have no emotions of empathy or love, no ethics,
    that they're driven purely by simple instincts such as hunger, breeding, power over other reptiles, territoriality.
    Having spent time observing water dragons and crocodiles, I think it's probably true.
    They have a brain stem with an amygdala, but no limbic brain, and no neocortex.
    That would suggest that they have as much capacity for higher emotions as an oyster has for sight.


    It may come from a perception that when a murder is carefully planned and executed,
    it must mean that the killer has no emotion whatsoever concerning the victim or the situation.
    I doubt that that would be true.
    Rather, I think the perpetrator would be full of emotions like rage, or maybe greed, but totally lacking in empathy -
    so the murderer is in that respect very much like a crocodile, even though reptiles cannot think or plan the way humans do. This post was edited by inky at August 25, 2019 3:41 PM MDT
      August 25, 2019 12:57 PM MDT
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  • 1893

    In battle you kill and you sweat because your blood gets warm - physical exercise.  Killing someone in Battle was acceptable unless you were on the losing end - then you may be killed in Cold Blood.

    If you were plotting, scheming whatever someones death you were not worked up in the heat of the moment/battle your blood was cold.  So cold blooded was the term.

    Aramaic texts of the Bible state thou shall not commit murder.  Murder was defined as the unjustified taking of a life.  If the killing was justified as in an execution it was not murder.  If it was mot justified it was cold blooded murder.  Manslaughter was a lesser crime BTW

    Look to Byzantine, Old English, and Latin for your contexts.  Christian, Muslim, and Jewish all held to these standards in the early days.  The Koran states very similar if read in Arabic. Since I cannot read Hebrew I have to depend on English translations of texts.

    Today we have a semantic wars going on and the definitions are all goofy.  Look to English common Law for your eveidence here

    This post was edited by Archerchef at August 26, 2019 5:05 PM MDT
      August 26, 2019 3:30 PM MDT
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