Does it really matter how a person dies? (morals, society, life)

[kokonutty]

Originally Posted by Slowpoke_TX

I should've been more specific: what matters is whether or not their soul was saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, prior to physical (earthly) death.

Your specifics are occurring only in your mind. Life and death are not abstract concepts, but concrete reality. The OP has referred only to the black and white reality of death regardless of how you'd like to spin it.

[Gunluvver2]

I lost my Paternal Grandpa to lung cancer when he was 63 and I was 12. He wanted to die but the doctors at the V.A. hospital had convinced my Grandmother that a CURE for Cancer could happen any day. That was in 1958. He suffered horribly until my Dad and his brothers told the Doctors that they didn't want extraordinary measures used to keep him alive. That is one reason I have a "living will". I am not in a hurry to go to Heaven but I want to do it with dignity when my time comes.
GL2

[kelly237]

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

And I think you're right on how we accept more the death of a 90 year old as opposed to accepting the death of a 6 year old.

And I think that's kind of backward. Most people think of the potential of the 6 year old, but my opinion is the potential of a 6 year old is unknown. They haven't contributed anything yet. Most kids are a cost to society until they start working and paying taxes.

So a child is less of a loss because they are a cost to society and haven't started to work and don't pay taxes.. ?? Disturbing viewpoint...

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

I know the loss of a child is unbelievable, but trust me, losing someone you love who's only been in your life for 6 years, as painful as it may be, is nothing to losing someone you love who's been in your life for 30 or more years...

Have you lost a small child ??? How would you know if not ???

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

It sounds terrible to say, but while most parents never forget the children they lose, kids can be replaced a lot easier.

That is a horrid thing to say..Just because someone goes on to have other children it is not replacing the
lost child.

[rodentraiser]

Originally Posted by rugrats2001

Obviously, this post is meant as an irritant. Nobody can feel the exact opposite of reality on so many levels and survive in our society. Sorry, I'm not buying it.

Have a nice day, better luck next time.

Well, no, sorry, this post was not meant as an irritant. As I said, this is my opinion. You are entitled to not like it. Really, I won't stop you from not liking it.

Originally Posted by kelly237

So a child is less of a loss because they are a cost to society and haven't started to work and don't pay taxes.. ?? Disturbing viewpoint...

If you want to look at it analytically - and that was my point. Again, you're only talking about the potential of a child. If someone spent years and tons of money going to college, gets an education, and is contributing to society in terms of being a doctor, or an engineer, or a physicist, and they die at the age of 35 or 40, then for society, yes, that is a bigger economic loss than a child whose potential could be inventing a cure for cancer OR growing up to shoot all his classmates.

That didn't imply that it wasn't an emotional loss for his parents. There are different kinds of losses, you know.

There are a lot of people who look on other people solely on how they can or cannot contribute to society. Look at what people say about those on food stamps and welfare. Tell me that's not an economic way of measuring a person's worth while ignoring their value as human beings. It's done all the time and not only by me.

Have you lost a small child ??? How would you know if not ???

I haven't, but I have lost people very close to me. I don't know about losing a child, but I know about loss and grief. And please, please, don't make the mistake of thinking that because I haven't had a child, I don't know anything about grief or anger or loss or any of the other millions of feelings us non-parents apparently seem to be devoid of. I have heard until I am sick of it that "because you don't have a child you don't know..." well, yes, I do. We all do. What someone feels as love or loss isn't any different than what someone else feels as love or loss. Just because the object those emotions are directed to is different, doesn't make the feeling greater or holier for one person than for another.

That is a horrid thing to say..Just because someone goes on to have other children it is not replacing the
lost child.

And did I not say that relatives and parents may not get over it? Of course you don't replace the child that has died by having other children. What I meant is that someone you have had in your family for 6 years, for example, is harder to lose than someone you've only had in your family for a month. Someone you've had in your family for 30 years is harder to lose than someone you've only had in your family for 6 years. There are a lot of long married couples who would tell their children that they are part of their parents' life, but that their spouse IS their life. There's a difference.

And as I said, this is my opinion and I am entitled to it, just as you are entitled to hate it.

And, um, to get back to the original post, the grief people feel at a loss is the same no matter who we lose, whether it's someone 90 years old or a baby under a year of age. It's obviously harder to lose someone who's been murdered or tortured to death, and it's harder to lose someone you've been close to for decades as opposed to someone you have only known for a couple years, but grief is still grief and in each case it's just as valid. Why we as a society place a greater value for grief determined by the ages of people who have died, and why we place a greater value on people because of how they died, I have no idea. But we do and as long as we do, I think that value is placed bass-ackwards for the most part.

[kelly237]

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

From another viewpoint, I know the loss of a child is unbelievable, but trust me, losing someone you love who's only been in your life for 6 years, as painful as it may be, is nothing to losing someone you love who's been in your life for 30 or more years, like a spouse or a relative.

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

I haven't, but I have lost people very close to me. I don't know about losing a child, but I know about loss and grief. And please, please, don't make the mistake of thinking that because I haven't had a child, I don't know anything about grief or anger or loss or any of the other millions of feelings us non-parents apparently seem to be devoid of. I have heard until I am sick of it that "because you don't have a child you don't know..." well, yes, I do. We all do. What someone feels as love or loss isn't any different than what someone else feels as love or loss. Just because the object those emotions are directed to is different, doesn't make the feeling greater or holier for one person than for another.


And did I not say that relatives and parents may not get over it? Of course you don't replace the child that has died by having other children. What I meant is that someone you have had in your family for 6 years, for example, is harder to lose than someone you've only had in your family for a month. Someone you've had in your family for 30 years is harder to lose than someone you've only had in your family for 6 years. There are a lot of long married couples who would tell their children that they are part of their parents' life, but that their spouse IS their life. There's a difference.

You are the one that is claiming to know what a parent's grief is like when you state that it is nothing compared to losing someone you have known your whole life...
You are a troll or an idiot..

[Arach Angle]

The classic divide. How important is a blade of grass on a golf course green? I just don't know. But when it comes time to "pluck" some out to make the whole green better some of the choices aren't so easy. Leaving everyone alone is not the best option. Cutting out the wrong ones just to keep things "fair" isn't right either. Now what?



But would I kill a child to save the whole? I really don't have an answer. I would go to a CHOP hospital and ask them guess.

[rigby06]

From a scientific perspective all life on the Earth will eventually die it is inevitable; for our sun will eventually grow to the size of either coming just short of fully engulfing the planet, or it will fully engulf the earth and get most of the way to Mars. This is just the normal evolution of a Main Sequence star, it is born, it grows in size; eventually it swells to a massive size, it sheds off most of its outer layers, and what is left is burring core that is much smaller than it started as, and will eventually burn it’s self out. Our Star has about 6 billion years or so still left of its fuel.

This same process occurs all over the Cosmos; so it is entirely possible that entire civilization have gone extinct during this Galactic Star dying process. I don’t know about anyone else, but I cannot feel any remorse for people that I did not know, and maybe that is the only we as a people we can grieve is by having a physical connection to the person who died. Whit out that physical connection it is a story, a tale, or some other recorded fact that a person died at a particular time. But if we were to treat each death as if we have a personal connection to that person who died, our history might have been much less bloody.

[Utopian Slums]

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

I'm not sure why you are asking this from the perspective of people other than the one dying. I don't think it matters to anyone how someone dies except the person doing the dying. If I were in pain and knew there was no way I was going to survive, I wouldn't give a whoop or a holler about what someone else thought. I'd end it, then and there. Likewise, if I was set on dying naturally, I'd hang on past what some people would probably think of as the proper time to die.

And I think you're right on how we accept more the death of a 90 year old as opposed to accepting the death of a 6 year old.

And I think that's kind of backward. Most people think of the potential of the 6 year old, but my opinion is the potential of a 6 year old is unknown. They haven't contributed anything yet. Most kids are a cost to society until they start working and paying taxes. From another viewpoint, I know the loss of a child is unbelievable, but trust me, losing someone you love who's only been in your life for 6 years, as painful as it may be, is nothing to losing someone you love who's been in your life for 30 or more years, like a spouse or a relative. It sounds terrible to say, but while most parents never forget the children they lose, kids can be replaced a lot easier.

When it comes to the 90 year old, don't forget that no one is any more willing to die at 90 than they are at 30. Maybe some people that age are less afraid of death, but if they are in sound mind and not in unreasonable pain, and can be independent to the degree that suits them, they are just as happy to keep on living and doing the things that they've enjoyed all along. Having someone come along and say that at 90 their death should be expected and accepted, is sort of ludicrous, because there's no real reason for saying that. When someone dies, that's when they have come to the end of their life. And it doesn't matter if the age is 10, 50, or 100 years old. I wish people would quit trying to bury older people before they're actually ready to go.

And of course, all of this is my opinion and I know it probably won't be a popular opinion.

I feel exactly the same was about children's deaths. Yes, it is cold and the logic is based solely on economics. We waste a lot of money and resources as a nation on children who are going to die as children or live a life of suffering. It angers me that we see a child's life as more important than an adult's.

When i see commercials for Shriners hospital and St Judes it upsets me to think of all of the funds children get for free medical care yet adults are left to go into bankruptcy and perhaps even die with lesser diseases.

I'm not saying to not treat sick children, but how have they earned the right to be treated any differently than a sick adult? Especially when we may spend millions in care saving one child's life.

But then again, biological children are a selfish urge over adoption. We even "save children" who are orphans and keep them in the foster system only to pay a lifetime of hospital bills for not much of a "life."

[rodentraiser]

Originally Posted by kelly237

You are the one that is claiming to know what a parent's grief is like when you state that it is nothing compared to losing someone you have known your whole life...
You are a troll or an idiot..

And you have obviously missed my point yet again. Since I've stated it twice now, I'm not going to try to explain it a third time.

What I really am is a little more mature than you. Notice I haven't stooped to calling you names because you don't agree with me.

[hotzcatz]

It could also be the unexpectedness of a child's death. I think one of the reasons parents love their children so much is that is is safe to love them since they aren't supposed to die off on you. You get a puppy knowing that more than likely you will live longer than the puppy and at some point it will die and you will be sad. With kids, you aren't supposed to have to go through that process so folks can wholeheartedly love them and not ever expect to lose them. So, a child's death is much different than a parent's death.

If someone is accidentally killed or murdered, you also don't have the time to prepare yourself for the grieving process, nor do you have time to choose to say goodbye if you should want to.