Posted on 04/12/2005 7:20:07 AM PDT by kcvl
Because you already contend that Terri's wishes weren't accurately determined (largely, I gather, because they were oral), why wouldn't you want to make your own wishes as clear as possible? I certainly do.
One general comment. As with your earlier list (which I critiqued in #307 above), your source appears to be someone who believes in "proof-texting" in the King James Version. Both aspects of this are problematical.
The KJV is an archaic translation which is hard for the modern user to understand and relies on inferior Biblical texts in both the Hebrew (OT) and the Greek (NT). You should consult a variety of modern translations (never rely on a single one) almost all of which use the better texts.
Secondly, the whole concept of prying single verses from their historical and literary context is, as I said before, hugely dangerous. The chapter divisions in the Bible were not added until 1227 and the verse divisions until 1551. The Biblical materials were written, as anything else, as passages of thought. While the Bible is the inspired Word of God, it was still written by human authors with thought patterns, arguments, etc. Thus, we pry single verses from their context at our peril.
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Let me turn to your collected verses. As to your response on the 1Cor 6 and 1Cor 3 passages, you concede that the passages have application to individual sexual immorality and corporate divisions within the Corinthian church respectively, but argue that they could apply to "other sins" as well. While that may be true, you would have to assume that suicide was a sin in order for either passage to have application. Since our purpose here is to find a specific teaching on suicide (not assume one), neither passage is helpful to us.
Ezek 18:4 "All lives are mine—the life of the father and the life of the son. The one who sins will die." Your citation of this verse reflects the context problem. It has nothing to do with suicide or even God's 'ownership' of individual lives. The context is lengthy (18:1 to 18:24) and reflects a major change in prior teaching in Israel given by God to Ezekiel.
Prior to this revelation to Ezekiel, the Israelites used a proverb (v 2) which implied that the sins of the father were visited upon the son. God tells them not to use this proverb any longer because "All lives are mine—the life of the father and the life of the son." meaning that each has a personal relationship with God independent of the other. To make His point clear, God gives a lengthy series of hypothetical examples: a righteous father (vv 3-9) who will live; a violent son (vv 10-13) who will not; followed by a righteous grandson (vv 14-18) who will live. Then God draws the conclusion of v 4 again in v 20: "The person who sins is the one who will die. A son will not suffer his father’s punishment, and a father will not suffer his son’s punishment; the righteous person will be judged according to his righteousness, and the wicked person according to his wickedness." This is indeed the point of God's revelation to Ezekiel; it has nothing whatever to do with suicide.
Ephes 2:10 "For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them." Here you attempt a two-pronged theological argument that (i) suicide is not itself a 'good work' and (ii) 'Obviously, if you kill yourself you will not be around to do any good works'. The former argument again begs the question by assuming that in suicide is 'bad' in all situations. It is not, but in any event you must assume whether it is or not; this verse does not give instruction on suicide. The latter argument is no more than a statement of the finiteness of physical life. The most this verse can be read to say is that "...been created in Christ Jesus for good works ... so we may do them [while we are still alive], it says nothing of the nature of our death. It simply says nothing about suicide whatever.
Gen 9:4-6 Here you respond to the critique in #307 by arguing that "... the individual as well as the social component is inherent in the statement 'Surely I will require your lifeblood.'" But that cannot be.
Try to make sense of the proscription assuming your gloss. Here it is mutatis mutandis
From each person I will exact punishment for the life of the individual [who was killed] since the man [who was killed] was his [the killer's] relative. Whoever sheds human blood [of a person], by other humans must his blood be shed; for in God’s image God has made mankind.”
The first sentence expressly refers to the killer as another person, who is "his relative," not himself. The second sentence becomes nonsensical if one assumes suicide: "Whoever sheds [his own] human blood, by other humans must his blood be shed [again?]" How could that be?
God doesn't make nonsensical statements. This statement cannot refer to suicide and still make sense. It has to do with murder, not suicide.
Matt 27:5 You return again to Judas with a humorous comment about Judas being "a possibly positive role model." Of course, I did not say that. I merely said that all Matthew says is that "Then he went out and hanged himself." He doesn't say, "[sinfully] hanged himself" or "hanged himself [which was wrong]". He simply is recording what happened. [Although Luke reported that Judas died in a fall on his ill-purchased land (Acts 1:18)]
And does anyone doubt that Judas deserved the death penalty for his acts of betrayal? Matthew was not about to try and expound about Judas' suicide being undeserved or wrong. It was not.
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I'll be happy to deal with any other passages you might cite, but I think it is clear that the Bible simply does not proscribe suicide. Our cultural intuitions that 'suicide is a sin' are simply holdovers from the corrupt "traditions" which are non-biblical. They do not come from the Bible; they come from corrupt human institutions.
Thanks again for your diligent efforts. I hope that many here are motivated to read carefully what the Bible has to say for itself.
I am a possible candidate for kidney transplant. There's a real need for organ donors. If people who are alive and well would be willing to donate a kidney or part of a liver or whatever, you might not be seeing people's organs harvested like that. Think about it folks.
I, too, am on hemodialysis. It's not bad. I'm on 3.5 hours in a small facility with good nurses. I've made friends with a number of the patients there. Some have died. Some are on for 4 or even 5 hours, depending on how good the blood is being filtered. My numbers are good and I don't eat much differently than I ever did except I don't eat bananas, oranges, lots of chocolate and colas. I get to watch tv or read. Yesterday I went in one day early because a friend died and I'm going to her funeral today. I sat next to a woman I had never met before and we had so much in common that it was weird. Both of us are born-again, I know her brother, she knows friends in our church, we were both married in 1958, have three sons of similar age, she graduated from high school the same year I did, etc., etc. So while I don't like the time it takes from me, I am grateful that I am alive and feeling better than I have in years.
I agree with you 150%. Life is precious and we are becoming swiftly a country with a culture of death. God is not pleased and we will pay for this dearly if we don't stand up and fight for those like Terri and for aborted children.
The article in post # 36 was written by a friend of mine who has had his second kidney transplant.
He has also has had hemodialysis.
Thanks for sharing your experience. God Bless you!
God bless. There is an awful undercurrent here (among some) against organ donation. It is a life-giving process. I hope you find yours soon.
I would want the people that I love to make the decision for me. I actually do have parents like Terri so I would want them to be a part of the decision making process not excluded from it. If they decided that it would be best to let me die then I would be ok with that. Since I know them well I know they would make a decision based on my best interests. If for some reason my parents and my spouse did not agree on what was best for me and my spouse was living with another person then I would want my parents to make the decision.
Do you see the dichotomy in your thinking? You and I know no more about the parents than the husband, and vice versa. The husband has certainly given us reason to doubt his creditability, but so have the parents. Judge Greer was clearly right to distrust both of them. His extended discussion in his decision (which I won't reproduce again here) makes clear that, but for the husband and the parents fighting over access to the two portions of the malpractice settlement, there almost certainly would have been no lawsuit.
I disagree 100%. In order for Judge Greer or you to discredit the parents you would have to believe MS's version of things. For it was him who accused the parents of wrong doing. So you can not possibly come to the conclusion that the parents were not credible unless you first thought MS was credible. So I think you are being totally disingenuous when you say you do not trust either side. You and Greer have obviously decided that MS was the one to believe. He was a lying cheating adulterer and the parents are the ones who love Terri. Any fool could see that. That is except for you and judges like Greer. The parents wanted the money to be spent on Terri. MS was not doing what he promised he would do with the money. The money was supposed to go to Terri's rehabilitation and care. Once MS got it he put a DNR on her and started proceedings to have her killed.
It is beyond dispute that the parents and the husband had their falling out over Michael's refusal to share his $300K with the parents and his refusal to share his status as Terri's heir at law with respect to her $700K. Of course, once the falling out occurred, each side adopted their respective public persona and the rest, as they say, is history.
Again that is MS spin on it. They wanted the money to be spent on Terri. So your claim that it is beyond dispute is factually not true.
I do not accept "MS's line lock stock and barrel." In fact, I (like Judge Greer) distrust him and do not feel he could have been allowed to make the life-death decision as Terri's surrogate. BUT, (again, as with Judge Greer) neither do I trust and accept "the parents' line." They have pr oven themselves hugely money-grubbing people. [BTW, wait for the forthcoming ghostwritten 'book project' from these two promoters.] Judge Greer looked largely beyond the husband and the parents for the basis of his determination of Terri's wishes, because of their mutual problems of credibility.
The only one in this story that was not credible is MS. All the parents wanted was to have Terri in their custody. You and judge Greer have no basis to find them not credible. However there is ample reason to find MS not credible.
The only way to get the result that Terri's wish was to die was to believe MS and HIS brother and HIS brothers wife. So it had everything to do with trusting and MS to represent Terri's wishes. As I have said before he should never have been trusted because he abandoned Terri when he started sleeping with Jodi. He is NOT credible and so I will say it again the COURT GOT it WRONG.
What about the 5th commandment - "THOU SHALT NOT KILL"? I suppose you have heard of that since you seam to be such an expert in religion. And if you want to go down the route that you started about do onto others as you would have done on to you. I say there is no way that anyone would want to stay married to a person that was sleeping and having children with someone else. So why wouldn't the court give Terri a divorce - that would have been an very obvious wish that we all could agree on. So this was not about doing what Terri would want because there is NO WAY she would have wanted to stay married to MS.
I found interesting what you stated:
**If you want to be maintained indefinitely after your mind is gone, that's absolutely fine with me (provided, of course, you pay the cost of your own care).**
Most interesting, I thought, was the idea that the person pay for the cost of their own care. How can one pay for their own care, if they cannot work; or once their insurance runs out?
Should society be expected to bear the costs of the decidedly infirm? Is that a religious belief (hence should not be covered by government, i.e., medicare or medicaid)? or is it truly a governmental responsibility?
Even as a Christian, I am not sure that I believe that the deeply infirm (cannot eat, swallow, drink on their own, cannot "think" to request to eat, swallow or drink, etc.) are *entitled* to life prolonging measures (including resuscitators, feeding tubes, etc.).
I've been searching the Scriptures for information about this, but obviously there were no resuscitators or feeding tubes in those days (perhaps primitive feeding tubes?), but it seems today that Science has preempted God. And so we have the dilemma.
What do you believe would be the
(a) moral answer
(b) legal answer
to the issue of the infirm paying for the cost of their care. Should it be the responsibility of the government, or mandated social responsibility (monies raised through taxes--and essentially socialistic)?
Regarding all the people that believe the infirm should be maintained at all costs,
"Don't get all hung up on whether she was PVS or MCS. The important thing is that, after 15 years, no improvement was possible"
Hey and her "loving husband" made sure no improvement was recorded in her files, no nothing for Terri. No therapy,
no antibiotics, no light in her room, no nurses station,
no visitation (which was difficult but he did his best with the help of Greer). What did all the settlement money buy anyway? Perhaps lawyers to kill her?
Also your comment "don't get hung up on PVS or MCS", lets see, wasn't PVS used as a justification to murder the woman?
She was not in a PVS. Videos are clear on that. MS, Felos, and Greer used PVS to murder this poor woman.
1THE EARTH is the Lord's, and the fullness of it, the world and they who dwell in it.2For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the currents and the rivers.
3Who shall go up into the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His Holy Place?
Psalm 24:1-3
I likewise thank you for you very considerate responses to me
Let me start by saying that I actually agree with your very careful explication of the contexts of the passages in question. You may wonder then why I don't agree with you, but I would just say that there are in Scripture broader concentric circles of context, if you will, expanding outward from the specific passage in question that provide patterns, principles and applications for how we should live (and die). Let me say again, I do not disagree with your statements of the contexts of the passages. They are right on the mark, as far as they go.
Let me tackle Ephesians 2:10 again.
Ephes 2:10 "For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them." Here you attempt a two-pronged theological argument that (i) suicide is not itself a 'good work' and (ii) 'Obviously, if you kill yourself you will not be around to do any good works'. The former argument again begs the question by assuming that in suicide is 'bad' in all situations. It is not, but in any event you must assume whether it is or not; this verse does not give instruction on suicide. The latter argument is no more than a statement of the finiteness of physical life. The most this verse can be read to say is that "...been created in Christ Jesus for good works ... so we may do them [while we are still alive], it says nothing of the nature of our death. It simply says nothing about suicide whatever.
I think the first prong of my argument here that suicide is not itself a 'good work' is a properly basic belief. I base it on the principles of God's ownership of my life, and the proscriptions against murder. Nevertheless, even if it is a only defeasible inference, meaning that it could be defeated by positive evidence against it, e.g., some Biblical instruction approving or commanding the practice it is still a properly basic belief absent such evidence. Since the Bible, as you say, warrants our careful reading of what it has to say it seems noteworthy that there is no mention of the goodness of the practice anywhere in the universe of the Bible. The few instances of its practice are associated with evil men. You will say that this is an argument from silence, but I think it would be a very odd silence indeed from Scripture that is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for EVERY GOOD WORK. I hope I don't get flamed for saying this by my R.C. FRiends, bless their hearts, but when they tell me that praying to the Virgin Mary, or believing in her immaculate conception or assumption are good works, I ask where that rule of faith is in the Bible. And regarding (ii) 'Obviously, if you kill yourself you will not be around to do any good works', it is more than a neutral statement of the finiteness of life if a positive action is taken to shorten that life, which is what what suicide is by definition. Again, the overarching principle is that your life is not your own to do with as you please if God owns you. If suicide is wrong, and you do it, then you would be encroaching into the sphere reserved for God's decision, which would be a form of rebellion against the Creator's authority. That type of decision should be based on something more than Biblical silence, which is what I think, at least, your position is on the Biblical texts.
Now, with regard to Genesis 9:5,6. (btw, I do use multiple translations - I am not wedded to the KJV.) It is apparent that portions of this passage refer to the killer as another person, but at least one Jewish commentary (linked at #302) says the following about verse 5:
Each phrase of the immediately preceding passage, "The blood of your lives will I require; from the hand of every beast will I require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of a person's brother, will I require the life of man," provides a related rule. "From every beast will I require it" promises punishment to those who incapacitate someone, such as by tying him up, thereby leaving him defenseless to the fatal attack of a wild animal. "From the hand of man" assures punishment to those who hire someone to commit murder for them. "The blood of your lives will I require" assigns punishment to those who commit suicide. These pronouncements, which refer to heavenly imposed punishment, apply not only to direct acts of murder or suicide, but also to acts which indirectly cause the loss of life."This interpretation seems eminently reasonable to me, especially because it agrees with my position.:^)
I reiterate that you are not your own. You did not cause yourself to come into being. God did. The number of your days is in His hand.
Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139: 16
Cordially,
No, I don't believe anyone's health care is the responsibility of 'government' in our Constitutional system. If the person has insufficient resources, it should be a matter of charity and the charitable impulse which brings it back to the 'moral' question you posit.
Yes, I believe we have a moral responsibility to (privately, non-governmentally) provide care for those who cannot provide it for themselves if it is care that we would want for ourselves if we were in that situation.
For example, we have no moral responsibility to provide care by a witch doctor to an African nor by a 'Christian Science practitioner' to a Christian Science adherent. Because the moral obligation is always the obligation imposed upon us by God, it is always personal to us. (Matt 7:12) Thus, its scope and nature are dependent upon us, not upon the recipient.
I know. I could feel that. They should be in our shoes for a while to see how important it is to be a LIVING donor.
Thanks, Julie. I don't mind dialysis so much but it sure does steal my time!
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