Venting Religious' anti-euthanasia, anti-suicide logic

[TAW122]

This is an argument that religious people use to oppose the right to die, suicide, and euthanasia in general. They claim that "God is the author of life and death." or "Only God can decide when (insert person name) goes home." or any variant of this. If religious people are being intellectually honest, then they should not pick and choose where and when to apply it (even though most of them do). To take the claim quite "literally" and applying it bluntly, then they cannot be against passive euthanasia (meaning let nature run it's course). I simply don't see how religious people (usually evangelical Christians - no offense to anyone who is a believer) can be so dishonest with themselves and their logic.

For example, suppose a Christian disagrees with euthanasia/right to die for even people who are terminally ill (stage 3, stage 4 cancer) or have permanent conditions (quadriplegic, ALS, MS, to name a few) because he/she believes that only God can decide when said person should die or not, then it would not make any sense for them to prolong life, because in a sense, they are still going against God's plan. If they are to make pure logical sense, then they would have allow natural causes and other causes of death. Just the sheer amount of intellectual dishonesty, mental gymnastics, and cherry-picking that they do to justify their own subjective, personal (and oftenly selfish) values, then imposing life on others is inhumane, disgusting, and sickening.

I had suspicion that most religious people are making their beliefs based on their personal values and then appealing to the Bible to justify their personal moral values, instead of the other way around. If pointing out their inconsistency and hypocrisy, they tend to become defensive and sometimes just downright ugly about it. However, that's another topic for another thread.

Does anyone feel or perceive the same loophole in their logic?

 

[Soul]

That certainly is a major flaw, @thrw_a_way1221221. I guess it's Christian Scientists who refuse medical treatment for themselves and their offspring, which sounds very troubling, but at least they're being consistent with the "God decides" view.

All respect to everyone.

 

[56709]

I agree.
It seems like Theological Determinism by it's own premise has no implications for the moral decisions of humans(as it places the responsibility for all events on God) and can't be used to argue against the moral acceptability of any act or belief.

 

[TAW122]

Thanks for your feedback guys and yes, it's incredibly frustrating that most religious people do not see this flaw (let alone even wish to acknowledge it). Anytime it is brought up, it is as quickly swept under the rug or dodged faster than dodge ball. In a sense, the are just despicable, hypocrites who want to push their pro-life views and will onto the pro-choice people, and what is the most unfortunate is that these hypocrites are the majority and maintain the status quo of anti-suicide, anti-euthanasia policies. So even by their own standards, they don't even meet it, but instead they keep shifting goalposts and criterion until it fits their "predefined" views.

 

[Carina]

Short version: to me, people want to 'play god' to extend life, but not 'play god' to end it.

Long version:
I've long since noticed that people just want to prolong life even if that means having a person hooked to machines to serve as the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and digestive tract as far as nutrition directly inserted. They call this 'living' because the brain 'may' still be alive and the soul is living. I've asked some religious that if they believe it's gods will for when you die, why do they want all of the things like that, and they replied that god wanted humans to create it so they could live longer, just like with vaccines, and everything else.

But to me.... People seem to (in general) want to do whatever they can to avoid death. I find it a thing where it's not really religion or wanting to even say it's god who's responsible (even if they say it), but just an outright fear of death, and not wanting others to die, as it forces them to face their own mortality. It's fear of death that drives people to hate ending of life, pulling the plug, suicide. People don't want to die I think because part of them doesn't really know what will happen when they die. Some believe that they'll go to heaven, but even then I've wondered why they don't want to die early (no offence to anyone!).

There's a darkmatter2525 video I believe on this actually... but basically if heaven is a perfect place where there's no pain, no suffering, and everything is perfect in every way--people would want to get there asap. They would embrace death. They wouldn't wear seatbelts, they wouldn't vaccinate, they'd have DNR's so no CPR/etc to save them. because they'd want to get to heaven.

But again, just my and some other thoughts. And no offence meant toward anyone of course! People can believe whatever they want.

 

[TAW122]

Excellent post @Carina.

What you said is true of human nature. Humans by default are indeed selfish creatures and want what is best for themselves, sometimes even at the cost of others' interests and freedom. I do believe it makes sense the way you explained how humans don't want to face their own mortality, therefore, in order to avoid the uncomfortable topic and prospects of 'death' they selfishly impose their will onto other humans to force them to 'live', instead of allowing the freedom to decide if and when to die.

Yes, I think darkmatter2525 had a video related to that, not sure which is the title of the video as he has many videos in regards to Heaven and Hell. I assume you are referring to this one?

 

[Carina]

Excellent post @Carina.

What you said is true of human nature. Humans by default are indeed selfish creatures and want what is best for themselves, sometimes even at the cost of others' interests and freedom. I do believe it makes sense the way you explained how humans don't want to face their own mortality, therefore, in order to avoid the uncomfortable topic and prospects of 'death' they selfishly impose their will onto other humans to force them to 'live', instead of allowing the freedom to decide if and when to die.

Yes, I think darkmatter2525 had a video related to that, not sure which is the title of the video as he has many videos in regards to Heaven and Hell. I assume you are referring to this one?

Yep that's the one! (or I believe, looks like it at work so couldn't listen--but the clips of the car, etc looked right!)

 

[Misanthrope]

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve? There is no good rebuttal to faith based arguments, because faith by its definition is complete trust in a belief/doctrine without the need for proof. Conviction is enough. What you perceive as dishonesty and mental gymnastics isn't, as it falls in line with their faith based reasoning. They value something entirely different. All the materialist logic in the world brought to bear may as well be a different language to them. Just as their faith based logic is a different language to us and we entirely disregard the authority of their scriptures. Even that faith based logic is not unified either, they have just as fierce disagreements as rationalists do.

For the most part people don't want to convert their view if they are heavily invested in that view to the extent it is their pillar of meaning or integral to their personal self. Something you recognise. In a lot of cases it is wasted effort. Likely to provoke the backfire effect. So who do you want to waste your energy on and what value will come out of it if you did succeed? Especially considering, trying to alter their view may simply be viewed as an attack on faith. There is also the trump card of you being a godless cretin to fall back on. So can be ignored on that basis. Doubts sown, the work of your evil tongue and a test of faith in of itself. There are probably more productive fulfilling things to be doing mate than banging your head against faith. Especially if all it does is invite frustration.

 

[TAW122]

I guess you are right @Misanthrope and I should be focused more on non-religious arguments that are against euthanasia and try to debunk those instead of the "faith based arguments". I guess I couldn't help sometimes to try to argue back against what I see as delusional, illogical, and intellectually dishonest as it's glaring in my face. In all seriousness, yes I do think you are correct and there is probably no winning just by nature of what 'faith' is. I suppose it would be fair to say that I don't have a very strong faith in things that I can't prove or have any reasonable evidence to believe. I believe that maybe if there is a way to not engage in the conversation in the first place (or quickly end discussion before things escalate) then that would be ideal.

 

[Heart of Ice]

No offense to anyone but these anti-religion posts about stawman logic make me cringe, reminds me of places like r/atheism.

My understanding is that Christians don't like euthanasia because killing = bad, and euthanasia is killing to them. Then again, many priests I know have expressed that they support euthanasia because, to them, it represents the highest form of mercy man can give to his fellow man.

Then again, I'm not going to make statements about Christian theology. I've read the Bible but haven't read the popular interpretations.

 

[TimeToBiteTheDust]

Few weeks ago in my country, I priest hung himself because he was accused of pedophilia. So... if suicide means going to hell. Well, he knew what awaits for him. I don't believe in that anyway.

 

[TAW122]

My understanding is that Christians don't like euthanasia because killing = bad, and euthanasia is killing to them. Then again, many priests I know have expressed that they support euthanasia because, to them, it represents the highest form of mercy man can give to his fellow man.

Yes, that is true and I think it is a popular stance they take. However, the irony is that they support the death penalty (at least in the US and maybe certain countries around the world), which is essentially still killing the condemned, even if it is done by another organization (the state, the government).

 

[Heart of Ice]

Yes, that is true and I think it is a popular stance they take. However, the irony is that they support the death penalty (at least in the US and maybe certain countries around the world), which is essentially still killing the condemned, even if it is done by another organization (the state, the government).

I understand that this is an American thing.