(November 13, 2013 at 4:44 pm)Chuck Wrote: Again, comfort and pain are a yard stick. If it were not in the case of you christians, then you wouldn't care for your standard of living, churches wouldn't care to amass wealth, and one spectacularly sybritic Catholic Bishop wouldn't renovate his own official residence in Germany at a cost to his perishners of $50 million. But except amongst certain "captains of industry", christian adherents of the wealth gaspel, and the said bishop in Germany, comfort and pain are usually not the ONLY yard stick. Meaning of life therefore depends on a aggregate measure of which pain and comfort can become, but is not by necessity, a dominant part.
So it is up to those in pain to determine which yard sticks to measure the aggregate meaning of their lives, and how much those yard sticks say. Not you.
Who the fuck are you, beholden as you are to the religion that probably killed more of humanity against their expressed wishes than all others combined, to speak for humanity about how humanity works?
The first paragraph is filled with irrelevant facts. Just because someone believe one things and does another does not diminish the original belief. I believe that you should tell the truth, but if I lie does that diminish the fact that the truth should be told?
The second paragraph holds a fallacy. Just because the believers of a religion carried out immoral acts (which you failed to point out all of the good believers have done) and I am a member of that religion does not automatically make me immoral, nor does it make my point automatically dismissible.
If we could stay on topic -
I would like to add that human life has an intrinsic value that is not negated in anyway, shape, or form by the circumstances that life is put into. Another poster brought up Lou Gehrig's Diseas (ALS) but someone with this disease does not cease to be human. There is dignity, even the life of someone with this disease.
Is it important to defend the weak? Why?
Is it right to give a poor man the same respect as a rich man? Why?
Is it right to save a sick and dying person from danger the way you would save a well person? Why?
These philosophies stem from the idea that all human life has dignity. If you say that someone is uncomfortable and has the right to end their life you have to submit to the fact that life itself is less important than comfort.
I stubbed my toe twice in a day. Can I kill myself?
I can't stand being so embarrassed. Can I kill myself?
Those bullies will not leave me alone. Can I kill myself?
There is too much latitude on you "subjective morals" to contain the dignity of man. Life becomes worthless because no one can tell you what is an appropriate amount of pain or comfort. The natural end of your idea of "My life, My right to death," comes to its natural conclusion like a three year old demanding candy.
I am not rich. Can I kill myself?
I didn't get that promotion I wanted. Can I kill myself?
If you do not agree with me, love me, get me what I want, I am going to kill myself because I own my life and that is my right!
". . . let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist." -G. K. Chesterton
