Exactly, hence my near-constant irritation with them.

Originally posted by Ulfrekr:
Wat you’re arguing, however, is that it didn’t matter how he felt about it, he still didn’t have the right to make his own decisions regarding his own life and death.

I never once stated he doesn’t have the right to choose life or death.  It’s the ASSISTED part I disagree with.  Everyone has the right to choose suicide at any age, but I believe the blood should be ONLY on the hands of the one making the decision.  No fair making anyone else a part of this.  If you would like to take the example a step farther and say its a quadriplegic in the same situation that doesn’t have the ability to kill him/herself, then I must say I don’t know what to think about that.  Suicide isn’t an option to them, I guess anyone willing to murder him/her is possible as long as the doctors and nurses aren’t forced into it because of their position.

I realize you said “never impossible,� but there was nothing more powerful to give him, and he was dead 18 days after his diagnosis.

The “never impossible” is reference to my belief in the ever existing possibility of miracle.  Atheists of course don’t believe in this possibility, but for the rest of the theists I think it is a shame to not have enough faith in whatever you believe that you don’t give him/her/it/them a chance to prove himself/herself/itself/themselves.

Theocrat, you count on your miracles. I will count on reality and compassion. Thanks for keeping it mild.

zilch’s position is typical of those who see nothing beyond sociological math, medical science & human logic.  For the life of me I’ve never been able to understand the outrage because I share THEO’s sentiment that by the very nature of physical self-detemination, one can kill him/herself whenever s/he chooses, or two men can live in a self-imposed union all they want.  Who gives a shit about the “dignity” those left behind do or don’t grant you? You’re sionara & there is no afterlife, right?  Why so much stalk in the law?  Can’t you decide for yourselves what’s right anyway?  Who gives a crap about laws or what other people think?

As for being “uncomfortable with death,“ I’m as comfortable with it as possible w/out being suicidal since I see it as a welcoming into a better realm. I don’t understand why one would throw his/her own spirit away ‘cuz you’re physically uncomfortable.  But then if the physical realm is all you understand, I can see how that makes sense.

As to the split hair of assistance, (legally punishing the accomplices,) zilch sez fundies force their opinions on others, but why can’t it just be that we value the life of the spirit enough to want others to share in it while still possible?  Only God has the power to remove another’s self-determination, so recognizing that, I’m gonna do my damnest to persuade others to enjoy Him rahter than allow themselves to be tortured by small-mindedness!

My god-grandmother & great grandmother suffered near the end of their lives, but both were such blessings in their interactions with us I would never have cut it short, & I’m glad they didn’t.

In response to several comments:

Many people have high-minded objections to assisted suicide.  I might be in mortal agony and someone’s talking about goD or self-determination or the sacredness of the gift or whatever.

Fine, get queasy, leave the fucking room or whatever if it bothers you.  But don’t prosecute my compassionate loved ones who assist me in my time of greatest need.  NO ONE ASKED YOU TO BUTT IN with your courts and prosecutors and governors and activists.

zilch’s position is typical of those who see nothing beyond sociological math, medical science & human logic.

Who knew ellie thought so highly of Zilch?

Who gives a shit about the “dignityâ€? those left behind do or don’t grant you? You’re sionara & there is no afterlife, right?  Why so much stalk in the law?  Can’t you decide for yourselves what’s right anyway?  Who gives a crap about laws or what other people think?

And this is what happens when people subscribe to a death cult. They become so focused on what happens AFTER you die, they forget to really think about all that stuff happening BEFORE.
  Full disclosure here: I do not deny the possibility of there being any sort of afterlife, although I sincerely doubt that anyone alive now has any idea what such an afterlife might entail. Maybe, in the final throes of death, your brain goes into some sort of repeating perceptive loop, such that you experience your last nanoseconds of brain activity as an endless hallucination constructed around your own preconceptions of the hereafter. Who the hell knows? The only way to be certain is to die. However, one thing we CAN be certain of is that which happens in the physical world. For example, we can be certain that people who die are remembered by people who live. It doesn’t matter what your religious beliefs are, or whether you believe that you will only live on after death in people’s memories; it is a simple fact that when you die, you will leave a memory of yourself in the minds of your loved ones. This is the best argument, in my mind, for dying with “dignity”. When I die, I want people to be sad, but I don’t want to leave them with lasting psychological scars. I don’t want my death to be so horrific that it becomes hard to think of anything else when remembering me. So I’d be willing to sacrifice a teeny slice of my lifetime to ensure that I left my loved ones with good memories of me.
  That being said, I’d like to address what I find truly ironic about ellie’s logic in the quote above. She suggests that atheists don’t have any compelling reason to follow the law or to care what other people think, since they can “decide what’s right for [themselves] anyway. Who gives a crap about what other people think?“ Well ellie, the answer that immediately springs to my mind is “not you”. You don’t care that other people might not want to live their lives the way you do, because you’re just right, and they’re just wrong. You only care about what other people think insofar as they think they way you do, i.e. the way they believe an ancient text told them to. Any other modes of thought are worthless to you, they are the “torture of small-mindedness”.

zilch sez fundies force their opinions on others, but why can’t it just be that we value the life of the spirit enough to want others to share in it while still possible?  Only God has the power to remove another’s self-determination, so recognizing that, I’m gonna do my damnest to persuade others to enjoy Him rahter than allow themselves to be tortured by small-mindedness!

It’s all fine and dandy if you value the life of the spirit, and want others to share in it. Good on ya! But doing your damndest to persuade others, and doing your damndest to FORCE others are very different things. But it seems like you guys just can’t be happy unless everyone does acts the same way you would, whether they want to or not.

ellie- Welcome back.  I missed you too.

Dying with dignity isn’t about the survivors.  It’s about what the dying person wants.  Nobody has the right to tell him that just because he’s “physically uncomfortable” (thank you for minimizing the physical and mental agony that some terminally ill people endure), YOU want to force him to stick around because YOU want some kind of interaction with him (or you want him to believe in your particular fantasy).  I can’t think of anything more selfish and less respectful of life than to force someone to endure it for the sake of your own spiritual choices.

Ellie, I am glad GeekMom grabbed a hold of your “uncomfortable” comment before I did.

Only God has the power to remove another’s self-determination, so recognizing that, I’m gonna do my damnest to . . .

What? Fight his will? The contradiction in that kind of belief structure is quite entertaining for the easily amused. If only god has the power to remove it, and it is gone, what business is it of yours then? It seems to me “god’s will” really has no place for fundamentalists but to mask what would be their own authoritarian desires.

I’m gonna do my damnest to persuade others to enjoy Him rahter than allow themselves to be tortured by small-mindedness!

But it is disease that tortures them, and the only small-mindedness involved in that torture comes from people who cannot accept reality as it is. My father-in-law was not “uncomfortable.“ His pain was excruciating. His son was willing to assist him in his death. No one else had to be involved. The others around them were going to have to deal with his death anyway. Now they are dealing with the agony he went through before he died. You can apply all the “beliefs” you have to this scenario, but the truth is, in doing that you refuse to accept the reality of his situation. And that is why he suffered longer than he had to - because the law allows people to be tortured by small-mindedness.

Justice, this is another case of “can’t imagine it for myself, so it can’t happen.“  I doubt that particular affliction’s ever going to be cured.

That was exactly the point I intended to make with the minimality of “uncomfortable.“  Everything physical is merely a picture of the spiritual, & to say Christians are “uncomfortable” with eternal spiritual death of others is just as much of an understatement.

to say Christians are “uncomfortable� with eternal spiritual death of others is just as much of an understatement.

Jesus fucking Christ, I can’t believe I just read that!  It’s beyond appalling.

Are you seriously asserting that the emotional reaction of a Christian to their own failure to convince someone to join the God Squad is comparable in any way, shape or form to the physical suffering and agony endured by Justice’s father-in-law and many other people who are dying slowly and painfully from a disease?

That is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever laid eyes on… well, second only to claims of biblical inerrancy.

BTW, my heartfelt condolences to you and your family.  It’s hard enough to lose someone you love, never mind strangers having the power to drag it out so long by refusing to grant that person’s LAST WISH. 

If we don’t have the final say-so over our own physical bodies, WTF makes us FREE?

Once again showing ignorance of the spiritual realm, I am comparing a spiritual reaction to a death of the spirit that person is choosing to hasten, not any personal failure.  Failing to convince a member of your own family not to throw their life away on crime causes your spirit to suffer in more ways than a mere personal failure to convince them to join the law-abiding squad.

Once again showing ignorance of the spiritual realm, I am comparing a spiritual reaction to a death of the spirit that person is choosing to hasten, not any personal failure.  Failing to convince a member of your own family not to throw their life away on crime causes your spirit to suffer in more ways than a mere personal failure to convince them to join the law-abiding squad.

What the hell are you talking about?  Are you likening the experience of the physical death of a loved one to the feeling you have seeing the “spiritual death” (i.e. eternal separation from God) of that same loved one simply because they’d rather die in the manner, and at the hour, of their own choosing; rather than spending their last days in excruciating physical pain?

Are you also saying that the acceptance or rejection of Jesus is the same as a choice between being a criminal or a good citizen?

My first instinct is to call “bullshit,“ but I realize that I should probably ask for clarification first… since it’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m tired… perhaps I’m reading it wrong…

OB, “bullshit” is a charitable response. Considering all of her posts, I think Brock’s quip about Stupid Evil Ellie was right on target.

On the upside, she’s making a good case against Christianity or at least against her newage version of it.

GeekMom, probably so. But maybe someone sitting on the fence will read all this and jump off into reality.

OB, thank you.

Ellie, I can imagine: There he is; the strongest, most dignant man you have ever known. People will write extraordinary things about his life when he is gone. But for now, his face is hardly recognizable with the blackness around his eyes, and his bones protruding through very thin skin - it is thin because he has lost so much weight you wonder how he is even still alive. He looks like he has been locked in some third world prison and been starved and tortured for some time. The pain medication knocks him out, but a good portion of his awake time you spend next to him listening to him scream and make some animal-like sounds you cannot even put familiarity to. He is going to die, and that is all he is waiting for. There is no hope for any other outcome. He says to you, “Please take me out of this.“

And your response is, “Why would you want to ‘throw your life away’?“

Someone I know used to say that fundamentalism was a mental illness currently unrecognized by modern psychology. I used to laugh, thinking that was a joke.

Justice, do you mean dignified?  I haven’t really known older people in my life who aren’t saved, & they don’t handle their pain that way, though they did look like that.  In the case of the 2 women I know, it was mercifully only a few months, & I spent the time telling them I loved them. So I don’t know how I’d respond.  The movie Magnolia comes to mind…

Perhaps crime wasn’t the best choice, I was thinking more along the lines of drugs anyway.  But in either case, I would compare acceptance or rejection of Jesus to a choice between happiness & excruciating pain for not only one’s self, but for those surrounding him/her.

I would compare acceptance or rejection of Jesus to a choice between happiness & excruciating pain for not only one’s self, but for those surrounding him/her.

Some choice, huh?

Dignified. Yes I did.

I haven’t really known older people in my life who aren’t saved, & they don’t handle their pain that way, though they did look like that.

I did not miss the presumption. My tongue is bleeding. You are not worth speaking to.

Originally posted by Justice:
But maybe someone sitting on the fence will read all this and jump off into reality.

Well here we go.  I guess we’ll soon enough find out whether I broke an ankle on the dismount.

Originally posted by ellie:
...Christians are “uncomfortable� with eternal spiritual death of others is just as much of an understatement.

Originally posted by OB:
Are you seriously asserting that the emotional reaction of a Christian to their own failure to convince someone to join the God Squad is comparable in any way, shape or form to the physical suffering and agony endured by Justice’s father-in-law and many other people who are dying slowly and painfully from a disease?

No, what is being asserted or should be asserted (I’m not going to put words into ellie’s mouth) is that Christian’s feel bad when people die making their own choice to reject God because Christians believe that there is no pain on Earth that will match the pain those people will go through in Hell.  There is a common dogmatic statement thrown around in the church: “For Christians this world is the closest we will ever get to Hell.  For nonChristians this world is the closest they will ever get to Heaven.“  I feel really bad when people die without realizing the power of God around them.  This world sucks and I could use my imagination to think of ways it could suck worse, but I believe that best attempt to come up with Hell in my imagination is still a long ways off.

Originally posted by ellie:
Once again showing ignorance of the spiritual realm, I am comparing a spiritual reaction to a death of the spirit that person is choosing to hasten, not any personal failure.  Failing to convince a member of your own family not to throw their life away on crime causes your spirit to suffer in more ways than a mere personal failure to convince them to join the law-abiding squad.

Originally posted by OB:
Are you also saying that the acceptance or rejection of Jesus is the same as a choice between being a criminal or a good citizen?

Once again I’m not going to put words in ellie’s mouth.  I’m simply going to answer according to my own beliefs of Christianity.  No, it can not be likened that the choice between Christ and anything else is akin to criminal vs. law-abiding.  Choosing Christ is a decision likened to realizing you are lost and in all sorts of trouble trying to hitchhike back home to start over but everyone you accept rides from only takes you farther away from home.  When it is realized you are going farther from home with every choice you make you discover your own mother has been following you the whole time doing everything she can think to get your attention so she can take you home, fix you up, and help you get your life on track.  The choice of Christ is realizing Mom has watched you and desired you to come back the whole time and then making the choice to let her help you.

The choice of Christ is realizing Mom has watched you and desired you to come back the whole time and then making the choice to let her help you.

So Jesus wants you to be a 40 something guy living in your mom’s basement?

I think I missed something…..

Theocrat, in order for that anology to work, your Mom doing “everything she can to get your attention” would have to exclude her doing things such as, I dunno, trying to actually get your attention. If God exists, and is omnipotent, then there is really no good reason why he can’t just appear in the sky one day and let us all know so that we’ll believe in him. There is literally no way to understand your conception of God without admitting that he is perfectly okay with the eternal torture of billions, which makes him kind of a sick bastard. If it bothered him all that much, then as an omnimax being, he could figure out a fool-proof way of doing something about it, beyond giving us a musty old book that, even if it formed a universally convincing argument (which, if he was omnipotent, it would), would hardly matter in the scheme of things since billions of people would die without ever having seen it.

Perhaps crime wasn’t the best choice, I was thinking more along the lines of drugs anyway.

Yeah, Jesus brings drug addicts to mind for me, too.  Probably because of all the people I know who have been “born again,“ I’d say a good 8 out of 10 did so because they were so fucked up on drugs their conversions were likely the only reason they’re not pushing up daisies today.  Of course, what they actually did was replace their drug of choice (generally cocaine or meth) with bible-thumping; it’s called substitution.  “I used to be hooked on drugs, but now I’m hooked on Jayzus!“

Dennis Miller once commented (about televangelists, but it can be applied to most bible-thumpers) that it’s fun to see if you can tell who was raised a Christian, and who just did so much blow they had to convert before they blew their own heads off!

I suppose I’d rather my loved ones be Christians than crackheads… less chance they’ll steal from me.  I have to admit, though, I consider both drug addiction and fervent belief in the bible to be conditions that damage the intellect and cognitive ability of those afflicted by it to a high degree.

But in either case, I would compare acceptance or rejection of Jesus to a choice between happiness & excruciating pain for not only one’s self, but for those surrounding him/her.

Having to watch a few of my friends who were brilliant, clear-headed people who had no problem with the way other people lived their lives become drug addicts was pretty painful.  It didn’t become excruciating for me (and others in our circle) until those same friends got saved and not only seemed to have lost every ounce of intellect they once possessed, but started believing in an invisible superfriend, and couldn’t stop preaching that our gay friends were going to hell, the unmarried among us were living in sin and that we’re living in the End Times.  I also find it almost fucking criminal that these people are indoctrinating their children with fairy tales that justify their bigotry. 

It almost makes me wish these folks had simply succumbed to their drug addictions in the first place, rather than infecting a whole new generation with the mind virus that is fundamentalism.