Discussion Why is prolonging life not seen as being against God's will?

[Forever Sleep]

It seems to work in the other direction more- that suicide is seen as a sin by some (not all) religious people because it's up to God when we die.

But then, why doesn't that work in reverse? What if God wanted to kill off that person with cancer or covid? What if they're thinking- WTF? I keep trying to kill that Mrs.Smith and those bloody doctors keep ruining my plans! Some gallows humour:



I guess they'll argue that it was God's will that enabled us to find the cure for these various diseases (that God also presumably inflicted on us.) So- it's up to us to make use of them. But then- God surely also enabled the discovery/ formulation of numbutal. Or, do they blame that on the devil or, an apple? (The 'dangerous' knowledge obtained by eating an apple from the tree of knowledge anyhow.)

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

I vaguely remember there being some verse in the Bible somewhere that actually clearly says that God is more than okay with people doing what they can to live as long and as healthy lives as possible. I think it says somewhere that some of the people in the older books even got to live hundreds of years just cause God was cool with them.

Now I don't remember why he thinks that's okay when dying early isn't. It's especially off-putting considering whenever loved people die, often the Christian copium to that grief is that it was "God's Plan" or some bullshit meaning God is perfectly okay with killing people just to further other peoples' character developments. Seems kind of weird to me but then again my understanding of this stuff is of course very limited.

 

[avalokitesvara]

I struggle to understand the logic as well. Like why are christians so sad when they find out they're going to die or someone they love dies? Surely you should be happy because you believe you get to go to heaven and be with your jesus?
All these questions make sense when you realise god is just a tool of control. It can have any number of contradictory characteristics such as punishing suicide while also sanctioning other things that could be seen as being against "gods will" because it's just there to control people and enforce societal rules.

 

[PhDone]

Theres a You Tube series of a brilliant Yale Uni lecture programme on the philosophy of dying that has a section on this. That religion says we shouldnt intervene in God's will but then we selectively determine how we apply this. They work through when it is moral and rational to ctb. It was about the most sensible discussion on ctb I've come across.

 

[dumbnhappy]

Because how will you create value for shareholders if you die? I am of the belief that religion is crowd control. The goal was always to keep people in check, in today's world its to keep workers in check lmao

 

[ijustwishtodie]

Because religion is made by humans therefore it operates based on what most humans support. Most humans support the idea of preserving a life for as long as possible but are against the idea of ending a life earlier and religion merely reflects that. Religion is man made and people will apply logical inconsistencies like this for it to satisfy their world view

 

[Pluto]