Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Mercy is the perfection of love, the most dear of my attributes.
– Jesus
I was raised Catholic, but I have never believed in the divinity of Jesus, making my name (meaning bearer of Christ) ironic at best, hypocrisy at worst. But that doesn’t bother me, since hypocrisy is a vital element of organized religions, governments, and bureaucracies. They adopt hypocrisy by choice, not by chance.
The elements of religion and government that I can tolerate are those which overlap and are vital to civilized society (read: the ten commandments). Both institutions are a means of controlling the masses, and the masses do need to be controlled. Sheep and sheeple alike need to be told what to do by Border Collies (institutions) who are themselves controlled by the shepherd (authority figures). Just like the shepherd-sheep relationship, authority and institutions are not benevolent, they are all too often exploitive, making the sheep breed and grow so that they can be consumed for the benefit of the authority.
Growing religions (and they all want to grow) often tap into this need–to increase their user base and thus gain power, wealth, and leverage over other groups–by establishing rules to increase fecundity of their existing base: proselytize to the weak, poor, and vulnerable; prohibit birth control; and advocate large families.
Catholic doctrine against birth control isn’t to not waste sperm, it’s to keep Catholic women pregnant with future Catholics. Jewish kibutzim are as much about growing more Jews as growing crops. Mormon polygamy serves to rapidly increase the population by doing away with un-needed extra males, just like one rooster can service a whole house full of hens or one bull can service an entire herd of cows. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have been brainwashed by their flavor of god into being human baby machines and poor Michelle has spent most of her life pregnant pumping out a human-herd of true believers for the cause.
I get all that. What I don’t get is why religions are so interested in keeping you around after you’ve bred and your usefulness has waned. Sure, raising humans is harder than raising most any other animal (we’re useless for more than a decade, sometimes two) and grandparents; aunts and uncles; and older siblings play a larger roll in raising human young than they do in most of the animal kingdom. But moral arguments against suicide baffle me. The abundant fear and hatred of human euthanasia blows my mind.
The fundamental right, in my view, is the right to self determination. If you don’t own yourself, all other rights are meaningless and subject to the authority that does own you. The ultimate expression of that right is the daily affirmation that you choose to live for another day. And the final, graceful, and crucial application of the most basic right is the ability to not choose to live for another day.
Every human should have the right to autonomy, to make decisions about their own life, especially when those decisions are personal, private, and existential.
Humans should live with compassion and decency, especially compassion and decency to one’s self. It is compassionate to die with ease and grace, avoiding the humiliation, agony, and uncertainty of a prolonged death, for both the dying and the living. Dignity is a virtue.
Humans should not do unjustified and unnecessary harm to themselves or others. To extend life at all costs is to also extend dying at all costs, and there is clearly a point at which extended sustenance is malevolence.
Justice is “the moral obligation to act on the basis of fair adjudication between competing claims.” There is certainly no party of consequence that has a more compelling and competing claim on one’s life than one’s self. As such, it’s unfair, inequitable, and unjust for any law or moral to supersede rational self interest and enforce an inhumane death process.
Utility is also morality. It is moral to provide the greatest good to the greatest many. It is moral and utilitarian to allow the dying to end their suffering or avoid it altogether; it is moral and utilitarian to allow the living to grieve efficiently and avoid unnecessary and extended pain, uncertainty, and helplessness; it is moral and utilitarian to allow medical professionals to treat dying with the fastest, easiest, cheapest, and most humane procedure at their disposal.
It’s also utilitarian to maximize the good and minimize the bad. Such calculations for other goods involve multiplying quality and quantity to arrive at gross goodness. If you’re selling a product you multiply the quality (price) by the quantity sold and you produce at a level that maximizes that value (profit). The optimum production level is always when the cost of producing that last unit is equal to what someone will pay you for it (price = marginal revenue = marginal cost).
In humane terms, when the cost of living is more than the benefit you gain from life, you’re better of shutting down unless you expect future profits and have enough reserves to run deficits. When you’re old and tired and sick, you don’t have appreciable reserves and you might not want to wait it out for an unlikely upturn. This is simply an economist’s way of saying that Quality of Life is more important than quantity of life.
We, as a society, have no problem making these calculations for our dogs. Is it because we don’t think they have souls and our human ethics don’t apply to them, or is it because we are more brave, honest, and humane with our animals than we are with ourselves?
I think we all know that the “rainbow bridge” is bucket of crap just like the pearly gates of heaven or the iron gates of hell. We entertain these fantasies because they are easier to swallow than the alternative of endless and meaningless Nothing.
So how fitting it is that a recent article titled “The Sweet Death of Karol Wojtyla” theorizes that the greatest face of religion on the planet, the premier pontiff, the holy see, the champion of Catholicism chose to die like a dog:
In a provocative article, an Italian medical professor argues that Pope John Paul II didn’t just simply slip away as his weakness and illness overtook him in April 2005. Intensive care specialist Dr. Lina Pavanelli has concluded that the ailing Pope’s April 2 death was caused by what the Catholic Church itself would consider euthanasia. She bases this conclusion on her medical expertise and her own observations of the ailing pontiff on television, as well as press reports and a subsequent book by John Paul’s personal physician. The failure to insert a feeding tube into the patient until just a few days before he died accelerated John Paul’s death, Pavanelli concludes. Moreover, Pavanelli says she believes that the Pope’s doctors dutifully explained the situation to him, and thus she surmises that it was the pontiff himself who likely refused the feeding tube after he’d been twice rushed to the hospital in February and March. Catholics are enjoined to pursue all means to prolong life.
When my time comes, I hope to die like a dog too, put out of my misery swiftly and humanely. I see no morality and only cowardice in dying otherwise. Apparently, when push came to shove, so did Pope John Paul II despite his words to the contrary.
Artificially administered food and water are a natural means of preserving life, not a medical procedure. Therefore, their use must be considered ordinary and appropriate and as such, morally obligatory.
Even when the vegetative state lasts longer than a year, one cannot ethically justify abandoning or interrupting basic care, including food and hydration, of the patient.
Hastening death by starvation or dehydration, consciously or deliberately, is truly euthanasia by omission.
We are governed by the moral principal according to which even the slightest doubt of being in the presence of a person who is alive requires full respect and prohibits any action that would anticipate his or her death. The value of the life of a man cannot be subjected to the judgement of quality expressed by other men; it is necessary to promote positive activities to counteract pressure for the suspension of food and hydration, as a means to putting an end to the life of these patients.
– Pope John Paul II, 3/20/2004
It’s pointless for me to badger the hypocrisy in such words if the theory is true, since in my view, hypocrisy is clearly better than stupidity and conformity in this case. The crime of hypocrisy only has teeth when people preach justice and practice injustice. When they preach injustice and practice justice, they are still hypocrites, but it is a crime of words, not deeds.
I’d rather hear your lies than be shackled by your misplaced morality. I’d rather you tell me all about heaven and hell and the rainbow bridge if you give your dogs a just end and allow me to give myself the same.
Right now there are plenty of Catholics who are wearing condoms, and all the better. Birth rates in Catholic countries are lower per capita than the rest of the world. Catholics are a more pragmatic bunch than the church would have you believe. Right now there are plenty of Catholics who are having a vet put their pooch down with dignity. Right now there are likely Catholics who are choosing to die like dogs.
I applaud them for rejecting the threat of eternal damnation and avoiding the real threat of a long, meaningless, and painful death.
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for theirs is the kingdom of autonomous men
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for they assuage suffering
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for they abound in beneficence
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for they eschew maleficence
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for they magnify utility
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for they shall see Peace
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for they shall obtain and provide mercy
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for they are not persecuted for the righteousness of others
- Blessed are those who die like dogs, for they reject all manner of evil done to them for the sake of another’s god
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is the reward for those who die like a dog.
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Anton
Christopher
Lawrence Dillard
Lech
Stephanie
Essere
And who do you think owns all of, or the biggest chunck of, most of the hospitals in this country (and maybe other countries too)? Churches, is my guess. The longer the stay, the bigger the bill.
Laws vary by state, but plenty of families loose their home, including an already 100% paid for house! just because one of the parents was, basically DOA, but was kept on machines until the hospital bill was so high that, even with insurance paying part of the bill, the amount of money owed was so much that the remaining parent and their children became homeless, after the church owned hospital took their already paid for home, by forcing a practically dead man to exist for awhile longer on machines before he was allowed to die the rest of the way.
That’s why some workers, who are married with families, even with good insurance, say, if I have a heart or stroke just let me lay there until I’m dead, then call the hospital. They don’t like the idea of working 30 years to pay for a house, then loosing the whole thing in one hospital stay.
I noticed once on TV, when there was talk of legalizing doctor assisted suicide, that the protestors picketing all said they worked in places like nursing homes – they would be out of a job if sad sick people died.
A better answer would be to make nursing homes nicer places so that the basic emotional needs of the customers would be better fulfilled, so that the people would enjoy life.
If suicide was legal, those wanting to die could go to the doctor and be directed to some help (if that state offered any). Robin Williams might not of died yesterday if he lived where there was doctor assisted suicide because he would have had to get counseling and happy pills first, to be allowed a quick death.
As for a quick death for the old and suffering:
What if someone left you their old dog in their will, and $1,000 per day to care for the dog? But the old dog was old, and after 2 months he looked half dead? You might keep the suffering dog alive at a veterinarian hospital for several months just to get more money?
Are hospitals much different? Everybody there, the nurses, the doctors, the paper pushers, the owners, they all make their money from filled beds, not empty beds.
Paddyannie recently posted..Robin Flys Away.
Paddyanne: I will share a personal story that gave me new insight into this topic. My mother was finally diagnosed after several emergency hospital trips with Subclavian Steal Syndrome? There are more answers for this disease today, but then they called it Clavian Steal Syndrome with Parkinson Plus disease. The difference between this disease an Alzheimer’s as the patent dies like a dog:
Subclavian Steal Syndrome takes away one by one the function of involuntary muscles, and generally last sense to lose is hearing. In the advance stage of death, the eye become fixed in the head, they can not swallow food.
So to make it brief my siblings and I are called to the Nursing Home which due to need of 24 hour care could no long mentally, physically , or psychologically care for her. My mother is strapped in a chair, because involuntary muscle and brain connections without warning would signal to stand. Falls and injury were frequent without this precaution. So you bet with over $5,000 a month plus the extras such …speech therapist, getting her hair done was a hefty sum in the cash register for them. At this point in time, speech therapist had managed with her determination to be able for her to clearly say Yes, and No.
So we had been called for our approval to put Mom on a feeding machine. Tears poured down my face. Mom looking hard…clearly said, “Why are you crying?”
My siblings wanted the feeding machine. I did not. I ask the Doctor if he felt my Mom was mentally competent? He said, “Yes, today she is 1oo per cent all her children are here.” Against everyone wishes, I put the question to my mother. You see Mom and I had this discussion long before her condition became so critical. No machines to keep her alive! She had three times on previous visits begged me to kill her. She stood holding this heavy chair strapped into it….Her answer was NO, NO, NO! Mom fell asleep a few weeks later and for three days did not wake up, and passed in her sleep. This cost every penny that she and my Dad had acquired their entire lives.
Yes, Chris and Paddyannie like the spread of Ebola complicated with religious beliefs. I will never understand why? Ashes to Ashes dust to dust! I believe in a Practical God.
It is like those going to the funeral of an Ebola victim. They all came down with the virus and died. The Ebola virus was found in fossils of bats and the virus likely around for a millennium in the ground. So now they bury those infected bodies in the ground for another generation to die of the disease? Apparently came from some religious icon that cremation was EVIL because they wanted to be assured a fancy burial site.
Personally like to have a Vikings burial and everyone to celebrate life. That is against the law however. You have to get a permit to scatter ashes.
Hi Kathy, that is very sad about your mom. Other people’s religion being forced onto your family tortured your mother in front of you and there was nothing you could do about it.
And if the same disease gets you, these same self-called Christians will do the same to you. And the government will ruin anyone who tries to send you to Peace. Crazy sad world we live in.
I will share about how my dad died. I wasn’t there, and was too sick with an ear infection which caused me to have to crawl because my balance was so bad (I got better after a short while). But at that time I was weak, sick, and dizzy.
My mom had to go away for a few days so she put dad in a temporary nursing home for just a few days. He died in less than 48 hours, he was there 2 nights. The body was moved to a morgue, but we did go to the nursing home later. I had never been there. The woman was one of those super sweet types. My dad was not sweet. He was afflicted with honesty.
And you know how many people hate honesty (if not read pedigreedogsexposed about how people hate the truth being told about what they are doing to dogs).
The woman said she wanted us to know that dad had been converted before he died. WTF??? This is like if someone dropped Carl Sagan off for a few days of elder sitting and came back to find him dead, and if Carl’s family was told that, before he died, Carl admitted that all species are the result of special creation.
It was like a bucket of cold water to me. Shock. Dad had told her his beliefs, (or from her point of view, lack thereof). That was clear. And instead of respecting his different beliefs, his belief that nobody can know for sure what the truth might be, they’d converted him, and he died?
It gets worse, but what could be proved? My mother wanted an autopsy but the doctor, who turned out to be a strong Christian, said no, it would be expensive, nothing would be found, he’d already signed the death certificate without an autopsy.
That is more than just rude. Someone took an older man with mobility problems and had a Christian immigrant sit up all night reading to him out of the bible. Why? I gloss over the bad parts. I met this immigrant who sat up all night reading the bible to dad. He was scary, and angry towards me. I can’t help but feel that bad words went between the two of them on dad’s last night alive. Something happened and dad died.
The woman was pleased that dad had been converted. I wasn’t. She said she thought we would all be glad. Perhaps she had a relative that she would have liked converted? Why would she assume we would want him converted to her religion?
But if it is like she believed, the joke was on her, dad lived his life without going to church, then converted at the last moment. I still worry that that last moment wasn’t due for months or years yet, but his truthfulness about his beliefs …… Well you know what I wonder about.
And will I get any better treatment? I found a religion which accepts dead converts, because you don’t really ever die. They are going to send somebody to stand in for me, after I am dead, so if I am in hell, I can quickly convert and go to heaven. Can’t beat that. I guess it will be an angel that would come get me, or the spirit of someone from their church. I don’t know. But I feel i have that option covered.
But I am a good person, so if there is a heaven and loving merciful God, and if these are similar to what I was taught, I’m OK there too. And if people just die like dogs, with no afterlife, then I’m good with that too.
Paddyannie recently posted..Robin Flys Away.
Well, Chris sorry but I believe All Good Dogs Go to Heaven. Yes, I believe in a personal God and he is merciful. I believe he is the same God of the Moslems. It is only man that tells his followers that it HE is a different God.
Your story of your Dad is somewhat like my father’s with one exception. A Catholic Priest was summoned believing he would desire his last Rights as a Catholic. A young Priest came to the Intensive Care. He began to talk with my Dad. My father told him of the terrible injustice of his family on his wife and children due to doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. I decided that my children would not be brought up in these doctrines and married my wife against church and family. “I have lived my life the best that I could and Christ died for my sins if this is my sins”. HE knows my heart and have no fear of Hell. This young priest and my Dad had several conversations thereafter. This young Priest said to me, “your father is right making me question these doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church”.
I do know one thing for sure and seen those who have taken advantage of mine and others Christian values, morals and Philosophy as Spirituals say, Karma is Hell.