Liberty is bad??

[Upisoft]

Liberty can be bad, yes. Everything can be bad. It always depends on the context.

 

[Paradoxum]

I'm afraid I do not share your vision of the future as nothing in the past or present would lead one to think that immortality is possible.

I would think that freedom from ageing would be a pretty obvious thing that scientists will figure out. It isn't exactly a crazy thing like faster than light travel. To stop ageing could simply mean changing DNA slightly, or injecting nanobots to repair cells.

As far as I know, the body ages because certain molecules break off cells as they divide. If that break down is stopped then there wouldn't be natural ageing. Something along those lines anyway.

I am saying that if one wishes to die one needs to be the one that causes it to happen we have come to a point in our technology where it is easily arranged that a person who has the ability to communicate has the ability to command a machine to do what that person wishes done. No sentient human is incapable of being the motive force behind their own death.

What about people who lived a few decades ago? I would say that they should have had the choice to die too.

Countries already have euthanasia legal, so it would seem that your fears of abuse aren't founded. It is regulated so there isn't abuse. If your complaint is just that you don't think humans should kill other humans, then that is your choice and not something you should force on others.

Why prevail upon another person when one can surely be equipped with the means to do it oneself?

Well equipping them with be ability to do so is currently illegal. Perhaps that would be better in the future when such technology is more available, but since it wouldn't have been available in the past, and it would have been fine to help someone die then, it should be legal now.

I do not find this to be the case.

Well I can't say much since you don't say why.

The power is and always has been in the hands of the person whose life it is. Though suicide is a crime it is rather useless to prosecute a dead person.

No it isn't. If someone is paralysed then they can't kill themselves. And considering how many people fail at killing themselves, apparently it can't be that easy.

I don't see why you would be against helping another die unless you just don't think suicide is acceptable, or killing someone who can't kill them self is wrong. But again, that is your choice, and if someone else does want to be killed that should be their choice since it is their life, not yours.

I agree wholeheartedly that there are fates worse than death. Taking another's life is one of them. I am not forcing anyone to do anything I am only asking that those who wish to die be responsible for it themselves and not put that onerous burden upon another who will live with the consequences of that act.

You are talking rubbish when you say that taking another's life is worse than death. Comparable to saying that sex outside marriage is worse than death. You might think it is morally worse, but it isn't actually worse for the person. Eg: their life isn't worse to live.

You see it as onerous burden, I don't. Death is natural, but it sounds like Christians are particularly scared of it . There is nothing to feel bad about if you are killing their at their request. It was their decision, not yours.

What you are doing is forcing people to prison who have the heart to actually respect the will of others, and have compassion in their suffering. Taking away their choice to help another. If their is any risk in killing someone then it is their risk to take.

I'm not oversensitive to criticism.

Good... I just know I feel strongly about this subject, so I am liable to thinking the other person evil.

No I am not sure because there are many that actually seem to think that Science is sentient.

Well I don't.

Self defense is the only reasonable exception as survival is instinctual to humans. Killing a person because they ask for it is not instinctual and will most likely cause a non psychotic personality much anguish. I firmly believe that the victim of suicide is not the one that dies but the ones that remain alive.

If it does cause anguish then that is their choice. I'm sure allowing oneself to be put on a cross to save others also causes anguish, but that is their choice to make. Just as I am feel to give my kidney to another to help them, I (if I was a doctor) should be free to help another to die, even if it costs me. To risk oneself is ones' own choice.

Anyway, helping people to die is legal in some places, so it wouldn't be hard to find out. If someone has helped another die more than once then clearly they don't find the 'anguish' to be that great. It really isn't as bad as you think it is.

It fact I would go as far as to say that it is natural to help someone die out of empathy for them.

You brought the subject of dignity up, I don't think it is relevant. We should simply decide that we will never agree on this subject and leave it at that so you can make any replies you want to what I said but I'm finished .

I did bring it up, but it doesn't seem worth it to try to figure out the best use of the word dignity. Do you mean you wont reply to me after this?

 

[RDKirk]

You see it as onerous burden, I don't. Death is natural, but it sounds like Christians are particularly scared of it .

I think that people who believe they are going to a better afterlife should have an attitude toward death that reflects that attitude. There is no reason a Christian should fear death--certainly no fear of death is evident anywhere in the New Testament.

One pastor has said, "Christians spend too much time praying to keep people out of heaven who ought to be let go to heaven."

Having a mission, a role in the Body of Christ, is one thing to want to continue. But when a person comes to a place that he cannot even pray, that's the point Christians should start talking about "quality of life." There is no quality of life for a Christian who cannot pray.

Man has changed the circumstances over the last 2000 years. People who would have died conclusively a hundred years ago are now physically extended in unconsciousness or insensibility. God did not do that, man did that.

My mother lay in a coma for eight years after suffering massive brain damage in an auto accident. she was on life support, and the doctors had told us very soon afterward that her frontal lobes were "nothing but scar tissue." We continued her on life support for several weeks. When we took her off life support, she continued to live--but then, it doesn't take much brain function to live.

My thoughts at this point, ten years later: I don't know where her spirit was all that time. Had it left the body at the beginning and did we merely keep a shell alive for eight years? Or did we keep her spirit trapped for eight years?

If I thought then what I think now, I would have argued strenuously with her sisters to take her off life support as soon as we knew that her brain was damaged beyond healing, rather than waiting long enough for her cerebellum to heal enough just to keep her body functions going. Yes, God can do anything...but she was already old and she was in Christ. She had actually been leaving church when the accident occured. God's design is for people to die when subjected to that level of brain injury.

I don't have answers, and I realize that every single situation will be different, but I do think Christians should have a real discussion about this, and not just canned, knee-jerk reactions.

 

[grasping the after wind]

I would think that freedom from ageing would be a pretty obvious thing that scientists will figure out. It isn't exactly a crazy thing like faster than light travel. To stop ageing could simply mean changing DNA slightly, or injecting nanobots to repair cells.

As far as I know, the body ages because certain molecules break off cells as they divide. If that break down is stopped then there wouldn't be natural ageing. Something along those lines anyway.



What about people who lived a few decades ago? I would say that they should have had the choice to die too.

Countries already have euthanasia legal, so it would seem that your fears of abuse aren't founded. It is regulated so there isn't abuse. If your complaint is just that you don't think humans should kill other humans, then that is your choice and not something you should force on others.



Well equipping them with be ability to do so is currently illegal. Perhaps that would be better in the future when such technology is more available, but since it wouldn't have been available in the past, and it would have been fine to help someone die then, it should be legal now.



Well I can't say much since you don't say why.



No it isn't. If someone is paralysed then they can't kill themselves. And considering how many people fail at killing themselves, apparently it can't be that easy.

I don't see why you would be against helping another die unless you just don't think suicide is acceptable, or killing someone who can't kill them self is wrong. But again, that is your choice, and if someone else does want to be killed that should be their choice since it is their life, not yours.



You are talking rubbish when you say that taking another's life is worse than death. Comparable to saying that sex outside marriage is worse than death. You might think it is morally worse, but it isn't actually worse for the person. Eg: their life isn't worse to live.

You see it as onerous burden, I don't. Death is natural, but it sounds like Christians are particularly scared of it . There is nothing to feel bad about if you are killing their at their request. It was their decision, not yours.

What you are doing is forcing people to prison who have the heart to actually respect the will of others, and have compassion in their suffering. Taking away their choice to help another. If their is any risk in killing someone then it is their risk to take.



Good... I just know I feel strongly about this subject, so I am liable to thinking the other person evil.



Well I don't.



If it does cause anguish then that is their choice. I'm sure allowing oneself to be put on a cross to save others also causes anguish, but that is their choice to make. Just as I am feel to give my kidney to another to help them, I (if I was a doctor) should be free to help another to die, even if it costs me. To risk oneself is ones' own choice.

Anyway, helping people to die is legal in some places, so it wouldn't be hard to find out. If someone has helped another die more than once then clearly they don't find the 'anguish' to be that great. It really isn't as bad as you think it is.

It fact I would go as far as to say that it is natural to help someone die out of empathy for them.



I did bring it up, but it doesn't seem worth it to try to figure out the best use of the word dignity. Do you mean you wont reply to me after this?

Not quite.
I'm not about to go further with this particular line of discussion because we seem to both have made our positions clear and I do not see how further discussion along the same lines will profit us. I would not have you think that I am simply refusing to discuss the topic only that I am simply finished saying that which I wish to say.

 

[pjnlsn]

Self defense is the only reasonable exception as survival is instinctual to humans. Killing a person because they ask for it is not instinctual and will most likely cause a non psychotic personality much anguish. I firmly believe that the victim of suicide is not the one that dies but the ones that remain alive.



You brought the subject of dignity up, I don't think it is relevant. We should simply decide that we will never agree on this subject and leave it at that so you can make any replies you want to what I said but I'm finished .

Weren't you two talking about assisted suicide?

If the person is suffering and their end is in sight, then "killing a person" is actually a form of mercy. And if they've asked for it, and they have good reason to want it, as in, they accept the inevitability of death, and so just want their suffering shortened, then it's to allow them to have control of one more thing before they go.

I said it before but you seem to just have been taught that to 'kill' anyone is wrong, no matter the situation, but see above, hmm?

 

[Paradoxum]

Not quite.
I'm not about to go further with this particular line of discussion because we seem to both have made our positions clear and I do not see how further discussion along the same lines will profit us. I would not have you think that I am simply refusing to discuss the topic only that I am simply finished saying that which I wish to say.

Okay