Christian morality: an atheist's point of view (Buddhists, preaching, vain)
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You are causing pain hence harm to the loved ones by killing the terminally ill person.
Speak for yourself. I would be harmed more by watching a loved one denied the right to die and forced to live in pain and indignity, than I would by allowing them the right to choose the time and manner of their own death.
What you describe is purely selfish. The elongation of someone elses painful existence for your own benefit. A morality I am glad and proud to say I do not share with you one iota.
How many loved ones have YOU watched die a slow, horrible pain-filled death? Cause pain? Families are in AGONY watching someone they love go through things we wouldn't let a dog experience. To know someone you love is suffering and to watch them suffer is the worst.pain.there.is.
I have no idea how old you are.... but I'm guessing you're young and haven't been around long enough to experience the truly horrendous parts of human existence.
Good point, Dew. We are kinder to our dogs than we are to our grandparents in this regard.
I clarified my point so drop the brow beating. It's not my fault that I have to be laser precise just so you don't have wiggle room.
So what? That doesn't change the fact that pornography is harmful particular when accessed by a very young child. Or do you think it's cool that they can view graphic images easily? Another thing unheard of in previous generations. Teachers having sex with students. Happens all the time now. Why is that? Do you really think most married women are perfectly fine with their husbands viewing pornography?
First, you have not established objectively that porn is harmful. Second, you keep harping on porn when seen by a very young child. I'd need to see objective evidence that this is a real problem and not an isolated case. My grandson sometimes wants to borrow his Dad's phone or tablet. He watches cartoons. Period. He comes to our house and wants to watch TV. Cartoons. Period. Porn? Never heard it mentioned. He's a pretty normal 5 year old, so that's my view of the mental state of a 5 year old regarding porn. It doesn't exist in a child that young because sexuality doesn't exist in a mind that young.
That's the real issue. You made a claim that flies in the face of common sense and practical experience, do so with absolutely no evidence, and then keep it up. Show you proof.
You are causing pain hence harm to the loved ones by killing the terminally ill person.
Actually the terminally ill person would be killing themselves, or voluntarily requesting assistance with doing so. It is the ill person's decision alone. As with all difficult decisions, there are tradeoffs between ending the unremitting suffering of the ill person, and the grief and loss process of anyone who cares about them and would miss them. But that is, again, only one person's place to decide -- the person who is terminally ill (or suffering greatly from untreatable disease, or whatever). It is not up to relatives to selfishly hold onto them for personal or metaphysical reasons. And in the case of the terminally ill, it's not even going to make much difference in the great scheme of things whether they grieve now or in 6 months.
If you had a dog, a beloved family pet, who was suffering, and whom the vet recommended putting them down, you would be (rightly IMO) considered selfish and cruel to keep them alive simply to avoid the unavoidable processing of your grief and loss. It is no different if the sufferer is human; indeed, if anything, their suffering is in many ways far more important to prevent -- and their continued existence against their will is far more a form of enslavement and therefore immoral.
You are causing pain hence harm to the loved ones by killing the terminally ill person.
Gray areas Jeff. We talked about this. It is moral to balance relative harms.
How would Christian morality perform better? I can tell you. Incredible amounts of money spent, anguish for the family, and a media circus for terry schiavo.
Or by refusing an abortion to a woman having a miscarriage, a young woman by the name of Savita Halappanavar died needlessly in Ireland.
Those travesties are the result if black and white Christian thinking. A secular morality would have prevented both.
Speak for yourself. I would be harmed more by watching a loved one denied the right to die and forced to live in pain and indignity, than I would by allowing them the right to choose the time and manner of their own death.
What you describe is purely selfish. The elongation of someone elses painful existence for your own benefit. A morality I am glad and proud to say I do not share with you one iota.
I didn't speak on the issue. You just assumed my position. I am merely proposing a scenario where there is harm regarding either choice. My point is that it is a moral gray area, and I don't think there is a comfortable easy position regarding assisted suicide even for Christians.
I didn't speak on the issue. You just assumed my position.
You are entirely wrong here. I am commenting DIRECTLY on your own position as YOU wrote it which was "You are causing pain hence harm to the loved ones by killing the terminally ill person."
I am not assuming anything. I am directly responding to the position you espoused in black and white above.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
I am merely proposing a scenario where there is harm regarding either choice.
What you are doing is asserting there is harm, where there is no reason on offer to suggest there is. I do not see granting a terminally ill patient the right to choose the time and manner of their own death as being "harm" to anyone, anywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
My point is that it is a moral gray area, and I don't think there is a comfortable easy position regarding assisted suicide even for Christians.
Yet many of us here have positions we are comfortable with. Even if you do not. I am comfortable with affording people the right to their own life and to choose to end it when they wish. If I wish to die tomorrow, I firmly believe I should have the right to do so. I have yet to hear an argument as to why I should not have that right. Least of all from you.
I didn't speak on the issue. You just assumed my position. I am merely proposing a scenario where there is harm regarding either choice. My point is that it is a moral gray area, and I don't think there is a comfortable easy position regarding assisted suicide even for Christians.
I will let you relocate your goalposts. Ok, it's a moral gray area. Which system deals with that in a better manner? A secular morality that acknowledges conflicting harms, or a Christian morality that relies on absolute statements from the bible?
Indeed. I think the more grey the moral context, the less utility one finds in claims of moral absolutes. Morality needs to be contextual and reactive, not rigid and set in stone.
You are entirely wrong here. I am commenting DIRECTLY on your own position as YOU wrote it which was "You are causing pain hence harm to the loved ones by killing the terminally ill person."
And how does that translate to me choosing a position and being against assisted suicide? I am merely acknowledging that there is harm on both sides.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo
What you are doing is asserting there is harm, where there is no reason on offer to suggest there is. I do not see granting a terminally ill patient the right to choose the time and manner of their own death as being "harm" to anyone, anywhere.
Then you are quite myopic in your critical thinking. (which seems to be limited to automatically disagreeing with anything that is pro-Christian) There are quite a few harms if you made euthanasia legal. Here are some:
1. Emotional pain to love ones.
2. Causing doctors to violate the Hippocratic Oath. Since they are now essentially causing harming, what is the next boundary to tear down? One only has to look at the horrific deeds of Nazi doctors to see how quickly immoral modern medicine can drift once the wheels come off the train.
3. Creates more complicated slippery slopes. Do you allow it only for those who can give consent? If no one has given consent, is it murder?
4. Creates a slippery slope of consent. Where do you draw the line if it is legal? A person diagnosed with cancer doesn't want to suffer through the pain of treatment and wants to die. Should he have the right? If so, wouldn't it be wrong to force a doctor to kill his patient when there is treatment available?
The point here is there is harm either way you go. You are going way OT if you want to argue which harm is greater.
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