Sad or funny? "Tolerant San Francisco fed up with dirty, smelly streets"

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

Obviously you know there is more to that story than your own interpretation of a translation, of a translation. All of which is easily researched, if one cares to do so.

[CS1983]

I try not to cast my morals upon other people, by far and large. (I'm not picking on you, btw).



Why is it considered entirely ethical for a pet owner to undertake euthanasia, but entirely unethical for a person to choose it? This one of society's moores is one of the most illogical, and it's not really rooted in *anything*. Forced euthanasia is clearly wrong, but so is forcing someone to be alive who doesn't wish to be - e.g. terminal patient forced to practically be on life support until every last penny of their estate can be eeked out for medical costs. If it's wrong for a pet to do that, why is it conversely "right" to do the opposite, and force Grandpa to suffer against his own will? Where in religious studies does it declare that all interventions possible must be utilized to forcibly keep someone alive?



In our generation, we need to be careful not to adapt morals and moores that are merely expected of us "just because", we need to apply some reasoning. We are not that far removed from outright superstition in medicine and bizarre practices premised on the most moronic of assumptions - grandpa got sick because of evil spirits, and he deserves his suffering. That literally was a blink of an eye ago; and those carry-overs have not yet left our society. How many people don't walk under ladders, for instance? [although there is some slim logic to that].



Point being, it's not our place to force decisions upon other people based on how we want the decision to be for ourselves. We don't have the slightest right to dictate their morals when the only affected individual is themselves. I do absolutely agree we need to fight any *push* towards, e.g. recommending euthanasia. But if someone elects it of their own free will, people need to stop shitting all over their choice.



ETA:

Addressing the bolded:

Why is it ok to eat animals but not people? Because human life != the same thing as animal life. Would you be ok with cannibalism in this country if the meat were "ethically" sourced, i.e., not murder but the terminally ill who choose suicide, a willing participant who was nucking futs and chose to off themselves for their consumer (looking at you, Germany), etc.? Goodness, I hope your rationalism and desire to win the argument won't say yes on that.

As for terminal patients, I don't know what other claimants to the Christianity say specifically -- at least officially. I do know that your bolded comment would be an extreme position and is certainly not that of the Catholic Church. Terminal patients have no obligation to continue treatment, and pain management is encouraged if needed. Especially egregious would be the notion that one must "practically be on life support until every last penny of their estate can be eeked out for medical costs." As for "Where in religious studies does it declare that all interventions possible must be utilized to forcibly keep someone alive?", that too is a red herring.

To that end specifically:

Life Sustaining Procedures: Assisted Suicide and euthanasia are never morally acceptable options, and our care is oriented toward eliminating the demand for these acts that often stem from unrelieved suffering and misguided compassion. Under ordinary circumstances, we are obligated to provide food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration (MANH), until such time as the patient cannot reasonably expect to prolong his or her life through these means. If MANH cannot be assimilated, causes significant physical discomfort or generally becomes unduly burdensome, then it may be declined. However, every effort should be made to safely offer food and liquids that can provide comforting tastes and moisture to the mouth, even if they cannot be fully ingested. While we have a duty to preserve life and use it for the glory of God, at the request of the patient or patient’s appointed guardian, we may reject life­ prolonging procedures that are insufficiently beneficial or excessively burdensome.

http://dmsci.org/resources/catholic-...-care%E2%84%A2

Example: I find out in a week that the reason the vision in my left eye has decreased over the past year has not been due to computer use, but a brain tumor pressing on an ocular nerve. It's operable. I should probably look into getting that done. But what if it's inoperable? Must I essentially clean out my wife and kids' future money that they'll need to live on, in order to simply extend the inevitable? Absolutely not. In emotional moments some people do that. It's far more prudent to manage whatever pain, get my affairs in order, and die. I'm going to anyway in such a situation. To do otherwise would likely be a real violation of the virtue of prudence.

Per your other post where you quote SOARS' website:

If you notice in the commandments, there are commandments which qualify with "thy neighbor". There is no such qualifier on the 5th commandment. Suicide IS premeditated murder, and that includes of self.

The "Christians" it references in the Early Church were not Catholics. They were heretics, including Circumcellions, Donatists, and others. This mentality sprung up again in the middle ages with the Cathars.

SOARS' website quoted St. Paul in Acts 20:24. They say he says, “I put no value on my life” and leave it at that. But that results in an interpretive error due to lack of context.

What he said (using KJV here):

21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

22 And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:

23 Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.

24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

Acts 20

Douay-Rheims translation is:

[21] Testifying both to Jews and Gentiles penance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. [22] And now, behold, being bound in the spirit, I go to Jerusalem: not knowing the things which shall befall me there: [23] Save that the Holy Ghost in every city witnesseth to me, saying: That bands and afflictions wait for me at Jerusalem. [24] But I fear none of these things, neither do I count my life more precious than myself, so that I may consummate my course and the ministry of the word which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.

Acts 20

In other words, he was not going to stop doing what he was doing simply because it might get him beaten or even killed. Even more simplified: the mission was more important than his mere physical life, as he believed its fulfillment to be eternally beneficial.

I'm honestly surprised you of all people would simply quote a suicide advocacy site without offering a counter-point or even looking at their claims to sift the agenda from their sources' supposed claims. If that's how you operate, I'll be reading all your "not legal advice" exactly as such despite the "between the lines" *wink wink nudge nudge* nature of it.

As for suicide being a mortal sin, your comments bespeak an ignorance I've even seen in fellow Catholics, including so-called Traditionalists who pride themselves on being "more Catholic than the Pope"(which ain't hard the past few pontificates).

Mortal sin is comprised of 3 parts to be such: grave matter, full knowledge, full intention (requires untainted rationality, which allows consent). Suicide-as-act is grave matter. In order to qualify as mortal sin, it MUST contain all three elements.

Let's look at it from a non-mortal sin perspective:

Jimmy goes to confession. He's got at least imperfect contrition, and gives a good confession. He's absolved. In view of the Catholic Church, and God, Jimmy is in a "state of grace" -- meaning unless he sins mortally and dies before confessing or making an act of perfect contrition, he will be saved upon death. He leaves and goes to dinner. The waitress recognizes him as the jerk who turned her down for prom in high school. Being a loser who hold grduges, she has a lapse in judgement and spikes his Dr. Pepper with LSD. Jimmy finishes his dinner and goes home. A while later, the LSD kicks in. Jimmy doesn't know what's happening but he is starting to trip balls. He hallucinates and due to it comes to the conclusion that he must shoot himself in the head because: 4 is orange and oranges are grown in Florida, and Florida Man is in his apartment taunting him, and if he can get 4 shots off it cancels out orange, and that cancels Florida, and then there's no Florida Man! He gets 1 shot off into his melon. To the outside world, Jimmy committed the mortal sin of suicide. However, he didn't. He couldn't. He committed the act of suicide, but not the sin of it due to lack of ability to consent and thus he had no element of intention as understood by moralists. Jimmy, welcome to eternity good and faithful servant.

Unfortunately, that is not the case in willful acts of suicide which ARE mortal sin.

But there is, at least in the tradition of the Church some hope (note, I said tradition, not Tradition -- T = oral traditional passed on by the Apostles in an extra-Scriptural manner; t = tradition comprises practices, stories, etc., which are post-Apostolic).

I believe it was St. Alphonsous Liguori, or maybe St. John Vianney, who had a woman in his parish whose husband killed himself by jumping off a bridge into a river. Convinced he was in hell, the widow was beside herself. The saint had a vision that between the point of no return of the jump, and his actual death, the man cried out to God for mercy and was given the grace to make an act of perfect contrition. He was in the transitory place of purgatory, but not the hell of the damned. He was saved.

Let's look at the case of my own patron saint, St. Maximilian Kolbe, Auschwitz prisoner #16670. He did not kill himself, but he did expose himself to death for another's life. Some would call that a form of suicide, but that would be a stretching of the term. There was an apparent escape. Being the understanding lot that the Nazis were, the deputy camp commander ordered 10 men to be placed in a starvation bunker in retribution and to discourage escapes. One of the 10 cried out about how his wife and children would never see him again. St. Maximilian stepped forward and asked to take the man's place. He knew full well he would die, perhaps even for that mere act of defiance of stepping out of formation. He was granted his wish. The other man lived. St. Maximilian was the last to die, not by starvation but by an injection of carbolic acid 2 weeks later on 14 August 1941, and was cremated in the ovens the next day. The only first class relics are some hairs one of the Franciscan brothers saved from a haircut he gave him prior to him being sent to Auschwitz. Everything else flew into the wind or was scraped in the trash like so many others. The "escapees" were later found drowned in one of the latrines (read: outhouse pit).

[Bailey Guns]

I've had some pretty severe pain issues for the past several years. I've been given plenty of opioids. I tend to avoid taking them because, to be honest, they don't really do anything to kill the pain for me. They do alter my mental state to a point I don't focus on, or care about, the pain as much as I would otherwise. I've always considered them "mind-numbers" more than "painkillers". The pain has been getting worse over the past several months and is now to the point that physical activity that requires standing for more than 10 minutes or so pretty much puts me down for the rest of the day.

A few years ago I was given Tramadol like it was free (after another injury). I never took it for the pain because it didn't solve my pain problem. But the pain wasn't allowing me to sleep, and the injury really limited my physical activity, so things were just spiraling out of control. I developed really bad RLS (restless leg syndrome) due to being so inactive and it would drive me batty at night. The only time I'd take the Tramadol was at night because I found it relieved the RLS. I could lay still and not focus on the pain or RLS because it would just kind of shut my mind down for a while...so at least I got some peace, even if I didn't sleep. Fortunately, after my activity picked up again, the RLS went away with time.

I'm gonna have to do something eventually but the docs I've seen can't seem to agree on what "something" is.

I guess I'm fortunate that I don't have an addictive personality for the most part...except for sugar. I swear that stuff is more powerful than any drug and I constantly fight the battle with it.

[Gman]

Seized fentanyl enough to kill 26M people, Nebraska police say

Nebraska authorities seized 118 pounds of fentanyl – a highly addictive opiate – during a routine truck stop last month. Nebraska State Patrol said Thursday that the seizure was the largest in the state’s history, and “one of the largest ever in the U.S.”

The quantity was enough to kill more than 26 million people, the Kansas City Star reported.

[Irving]

https://www.inverse.com/article/4523...-opioid-crisis

Every two years, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife scientists take mussels out of a pristine aquaculture source on Whidbey Island and place them in the more urbanized regions of the Puget Sound. Because mussels are filter feeders, their tissues are a good way to measure pollution of all kinds, including contaminants like cocaine or pharmaceutical drugs. On Thursday, local news reported that a new substance has been found in the mussels: opioids.

The contaminants got into the Puget Sound through discharge from wastewater treatment plants, which filter water from local toilets. When humans ingest opioids, they excrete traces of the drugs in their urine, and even wastewater treatment isn’t enough to get rid of all of it. The trace chemicals are being categorized as “contaminants of emerging concern.”

[bellavite1]

Your theological argument boils down to premeditated murder of the self, but the original language doesn't cast it that way. When you look into Retzach, like I said, it is also used to describe a lion waiting to ambush a deer. Retzach is not legally justified murder. And it was never, to my knowledge, used to describe suicide, for which they had another word. So while I respect your argument, it is mere argument; and like I said - nowhere in the bible does it say suicide is a mortal sin. by the logic applied, masterbating is equal to adultery with your neighbor because you're not with your spouse. Sorry - not - thelogical twisting to come up with "gotchas" works as well in religion as it does in government. E.g. we are prosecuting you as a drug dealer because you dispensed drugs to yourself. We are prosecuting for distribution of alcohol to a minor, because you were 16, and you clearly distributed it to yourself.

Also, the red herring is e.g. saying I am comparing human life to cannibalism or equating the two. The specific example I provided, animals are treated better than human. By your reasoning, that may make your acceptable position to be less than animals.

You illustrate my points rather well though. And no, I don't advocate for suicide. Your position is common, and say:

1) Someone is diagnosed with a class 4 astrocytoma in their brain. Incurable. No question.
2) In order to not burn in hell alongside the pedophiles, they can only do "pain management" until the bitter end of natural death - which is poorly managed, for the record.
3) If they intentionally take too much pain medication in the throes of the worst and end stages of the disease, they burn in hell alongside the pedophiles.
4) If they do something like get their affairs in order and eat a bullet, they burn in hell alongside the pedophiles; how dare they not have their family suffer alongside them until the bitter end.

Like I said - sure, you can argue theologically all you want, books if you want, construct arguments, go on and on, but the basis in this is not original; it is a creation of adherents. Other creations since have been abhorrent, but we don't act like they are "divine law".

You also claim to have greatly diminished respect for me simply because I do not agree with you that people who contemplate and conduct suicide are as evil as those who rape and molest children and subject to the same "mortal" punishment. Once again, you illustrate my point. If one of your children ever had suicidal idealization, would you want them to seek help ASAP without fear of social ramification, or do you want them to be terrified that dad would forever view them as something less, as someone who contemplates an unforgivable "mortal sin".

If I can't even argue that - 1) people shouldn't commit suicide but 2) it's their right to do so and it's not a "mortal sin" and 3) They should not feel ostracized for seeking help without falling in your and other's graces... shit Houston, we have a problem with our suicide epidemic and it isn't from people like me.


ETA) I'll throw a hiccup out for you too. U.S. airman gets shot down somewhere over arabia, gets taken hostage by Isis. Knows they will soon behead him on camera for political purpose against his country, and where his wife and children can see his death forever available on the internet.
Explain why he should not contemplate, or conduct, suicide, and why he should be condemned to hell if he does. You don't want him to, but by your theological position, the law is the law and he's no better than a kiddo raper in hell.

(Funny, you think the bible would have mentioned the mortal sin of it when it described soldiers doing the historical equivalent of the above situation.. hmmmm)

From an outsider point of view (and it does not get more "outsider" than me on matters of religion), it seems obvious that if one believes in a Supreme Being governing the universe, taking matters in one's hand (be it suicide or contraception) would be akin to try to interfere with God's plan, hence a sin.
I am all for euthanasia and contraception, waaay to many people on this planet, but then again I am not religious...