New Testament arguments

[Huggy Bear]

Unlikely. I'd be in a pretty small subset of us if I did...and I just don't see that as a credible outcome..that I'm one of the few..rather than another among many.

You think that a dozen people on a mountain have any more power to speak about who I am or what I might do than The Walking Dead would......?

You play a rudderless immoral cunt like a pro.

If you honestly believe that given the choice between starvation and cannibalism, you'd chose to starve, then you are seriously naive. Especially since this exact scenario has taken place though out history.

the will to survive never disappoints.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party

The Donner Party (sometimes called the Donner-Reed Party) was a group of American pioneers who set out for California in a wagon train. Delayed by a series of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas. Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating those who had succumbed to starvation and sickness.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...y-science/

Archaeologists have discovered the first physical evidence of cannibalism by desperate English colonists driven by hunger during the Starving Time of 1609-1610 at Jamestown, Virginia (map)—the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27...expedition

In 1981, a team of scientists led by Owen Beattie, a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, began a series of scientific studies of the graves, bodies, and other physical evidence left by Franklin crew members on Beechey Island and King William Island. They concluded that the crew members whose graves had been found on Beechey Island most likely died of pneumonia and perhaps tuberculosis and that lead poisoning may have worsened their health, owing to badly soldered cans held in the ships' food stores. However, it was later suggested that the source of this lead may not have been tinned food, but the distilled water systems fitted to the expedition’s ships.[2] Cut marks on human bones found on King William Island were seen as signs of cannibalism.

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survi...htm#page=7

NKVD files report the first use of human meat as food on December 13, 1941.[66] The report outlines thirteen cases which range from a mother smothering her eighteen-month-old to feed her three older children to a plumber killing his wife to feed his sons and nieces.[66]

By December 1942, the NKVD arrested 2,105 cannibals dividing them into two legal categories: corpse-eating (trupoyedstvo) and person-eating (lyudoyedstvo). The latter were usually shot while the former were sent to prison. The Soviet Criminal Code had no provision for cannibalism so all convictions were carried out under Code Article 59—3, “special category banditry”.[67]

Instances of person-eating were significantly lower than that of corpse-eating; of the 300 people arrested in April 1942 for cannibalism, only 44 were murderers.[68] 64% of cannibals were female, 44% were unemployed, 90% were illiterate, 15% were rooted inhabitants, and only 2% had any criminal records. The cannibal was generally an unsupported woman with dependent children and no previous convictions, which allowed for a certain level of clemency in legal proceedings.[69]

Cannibalism was by no means widespread and of the millions of inhabitants in Leningrad, only 2,015 cannibals were arrested.[68] Far more common was murder for ration cards.

The underlined portion goes to show what i was saying about people morals going out the window.

Need I go on Saint Rhythm?

---

I guess everyone just glossed over the resident Klansman?

I think he just likes his "bling-bling". It's quite common for simple people to judge things on the basis of how shiny they are. If it were up to them - all the financial transactions would be conducted using golden chains and rims for currency...

Not a word about that, but quoting people in a signature is frowned upon years after the fact...got it.

[FatAndFaithless]

Unlikely. I'd be in a pretty small subset of us if I did...and I just don't see that as a credible outcome..that I'm one of the few..rather than another among many.

You think that a dozen people on a mountain have any more power to speak about who I am or what I might do than The Walking Dead would......?

You play a rudderless immoral cunt like a pro.

If you honestly believe that given the choice between starvation and cannibalism, you'd chose to starve, then you are seriously naive. Especially since this exact scenario has taken place though out history.

the will to survive never disappoints.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party

The Donner Party (sometimes called the Donner-Reed Party) was a group of American pioneers who set out for California in a wagon train. Delayed by a series of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevadas. Some of the migrants resorted to cannibalism to survive, eating those who had succumbed to starvation and sickness.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...y-science/

Archaeologists have discovered the first physical evidence of cannibalism by desperate English colonists driven by hunger during the Starving Time of 1609-1610 at Jamestown, Virginia (map)—the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27...expedition

In 1981, a team of scientists led by Owen Beattie, a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, began a series of scientific studies of the graves, bodies, and other physical evidence left by Franklin crew members on Beechey Island and King William Island. They concluded that the crew members whose graves had been found on Beechey Island most likely died of pneumonia and perhaps tuberculosis and that lead poisoning may have worsened their health, owing to badly soldered cans held in the ships' food stores. However, it was later suggested that the source of this lead may not have been tinned food, but the distilled water systems fitted to the expedition’s ships.[2] Cut marks on human bones found on King William Island were seen as signs of cannibalism.

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/survi...htm#page=7

NKVD files report the first use of human meat as food on December 13, 1941.[66] The report outlines thirteen cases which range from a mother smothering her eighteen-month-old to feed her three older children to a plumber killing his wife to feed his sons and nieces.[66]

By December 1942, the NKVD arrested 2,105 cannibals dividing them into two legal categories: corpse-eating (trupoyedstvo) and person-eating (lyudoyedstvo). The latter were usually shot while the former were sent to prison. The Soviet Criminal Code had no provision for cannibalism so all convictions were carried out under Code Article 59—3, “special category banditry”.[67]

Instances of person-eating were significantly lower than that of corpse-eating; of the 300 people arrested in April 1942 for cannibalism, only 44 were murderers.[68] 64% of cannibals were female, 44% were unemployed, 90% were illiterate, 15% were rooted inhabitants, and only 2% had any criminal records. The cannibal was generally an unsupported woman with dependent children and no previous convictions, which allowed for a certain level of clemency in legal proceedings.[69]

Cannibalism was by no means widespread and of the millions of inhabitants in Leningrad, only 2,015 cannibals were arrested.[68] Far more common was murder for ration cards.

The underlined portion goes to show what i was saying about people morals going out the window.

Need I go on Saint Rhythm?

---

I guess everyone just glossed over the resident Klansman?

I think he just likes his "bling-bling". It's quite common for simple people to judge things on the basis of how shiny they are. If it were up to them - all the financial transactions would be conducted using golden chains and rims for currency...

Not a word about that, but quoting people in a signature is frowned upon years after the fact...got it.

What about every case ever of multiple people starving to death together without resorting to cannabilism?

[robvalue]

Smaug: No, not at all, don't worry I was seeing if I did in fact fit into any, and it could be argued that even suicidal longing for death is "foolish" given we have only one life. But I don't think so, I don't subscribe to the idea that life is always more desirable than death no matter what.

Sorry if I gave that impression, I didn't mean to imply that. You're right, I'm sure I'd instinctively save myself from death. And as my life is now, I would consciously avoid death as well, because it would be selfish of me to allow myself to die. That's why a terminal disease seems "desirable" in a twisted way.

I am stable, so I don't want anyone to worry that something they say is going to make me go top myself. I have sincerely promised my wife I will not do that, so even though I'm fucking sick of life, nothing anyone could say is going to drive me to that.

[Huggy Bear]

By the way, you only don't fear death in four cases:
- you're so old that you don't really care any more
- you don't actually face it
- you're a fool
- you're a fanatic or a berserk or otherwise brainwashed

I've read some memoirs (WWI, WWII,Russian & Allies, German) and heard quite enaugh interviews with veterans of Great Patriotic War (Russian World War II campaign) and even talked to some myself and NO ONE has ever said or wrote that they were completely unafraid of death. The most common answer is "only fools aren't afraid". Instinct of self-preservation isn't that is easy to suppress. In fact it's only moments of either complete apathy from tiredness or short moments of last heroic feat when one loses their fear of death on frontline or in other such situation.

foxe's book of martyr's might be a good read for you then.

[Smaug]

Huggy74

To choose death for a greater good and to not be actually afraid of it are very different things. You may overcome your fear but it will still persist. You may choose to sacrifice yourself but still be afraid. If not, than you're in the fourth category.

[The Grand Nudger]

If you honestly believe that given the choice between starvation and cannibalism, you'd chose to starve, then you are seriously naive. Especially since this exact scenario has taken place though out history.

Adding the Donner party to the dozen in SA (and any residents of jamestown, so forth and so on) previously we're still talking about a fantastically low number of incidents. People have been and continue to be starving to death...the world over, without the thought crossing their minds. Is it really so hard for you to to imagine a situation in which you wouldn;t eat another human being.....excepting your accountability to some god? Just isn't that hard for me, or the rest of us...apparently.

-and I don't think for a minute that it would be a matter of choice. I didn't choose not to be a cannibal in the first place, eh...so I'm not sure what my choices have to do with anything?

[Faith No More]

By the way, you only don't fear death in four cases:
- you're so old that you don't really care any more

Well, I'm only 35, so that can't be it.

- you don't actually face it

I stared it down and welcomed it, so that can't be it.

- you're a fool

Despite my history of stupid decision making, I'm pretty sure that's not it.

- you're a fanatic or a berserk or otherwise brainwashed

Nope, nope, and nope, so that's not it, either.

Fear of death isn't as hard to override as you seem to think. All it takes is the devaluing of one's existence. Constant struggle can do that easily.

But what do I know. They tell me I'm mentally ill(probably another category for you).

[robvalue]

Smaug: I agree. I'd defend certain people even if it meant me probably getting killed, but I would still be scared.

Which shows you are right. Even though sitting here right now I couldn't care less if I suddenly died and am not afraid, I would be scared shitless if I was being attacked by guys with knives.

FNM: Yeah, that's it really. Once you're to the point where you value your life as more suffering than its worth, you stop being scared. And mental illness can alter the balance further and remove our natural survival instinct to some degree.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, there's pain avoidance...and then there's consideration of ones own mortality. I think sometimes "fear of death" is taken to mean one or the other -often enough exclusively- without any real footnotes on that usage.

My two cents.

[daver49]

I don't know whether this is relevant, but I don't fear death because I'm desperately depressed. I'd welcome it. I've wished that I'd get a terminal disease so that I could die and it wouldn't be my fault. I stay alive only because of what my death would do to others. It's very sad, but I crave death.

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I (will) fear no evil"

A friend of mine is clinically depressed and has had some success with ECT.