I would extend my life to the limit of current science.
I would extend my healthy life to 120 (?human natural max?)
I wouldn’t fool about with my lifespan full-stop.
0voters
Just struck me yesterday night as funny, the whole “life is a bit shitty, but don’t worry heaven is waitin’ fer ye” bit. With the added on “No cheatin’ btw - suicide is a mortal sin.” clause.
So, basically the bottom line is - don’t try to hasten your passage to heaven by screwing around with your lifespan.
But, within some bizzare frame of logic that occurs only at 4am in the morning, I wondered why then we seem obsessed with longevity…? When we are, biblicaly speaking at least, only prolonging our agony.
So, a question to the believers in the crowd:
If actively shortening your life is a sin, against assuming what is God’s plan, what about extending it by equally artificial means…?
I mean, asuming we don’t bite the biggie as a species this century, we’re talking vastly extended spans. Screw three score and ten - six score the norm and further.
In short - Does God have a problem with chronovores…?
Geeze, 18 views and 3 votes, but no one wants to answer…
I’m not a believer, but I’ll take a stab at it. Assuming an omniscient creator, then all one would have to do is live out whatever life span is or can be provided. Whatever it is, it is the “will of god”. To not take advantage of any longevity possible, would be a form of suicide in itself, albeit a perhaps slow suicide. Life, all life is precious, and only god knows when to pull the plug. So even if I’m in my wheelchair drooling pablum down my front and suffering from Alzheimers and incontinence, it is my god-directed imperative to live as long as god chooses. I have no choice in the matter. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”
As a heathen, I sort of think I’d like to make my decision based on quality of life. But it is my decision to make. I don’t believe in suicide, but I’m not a great believer in an endless extension of life at any cost. Whatever this being is, it came and it will leave of it’s own accord.
Besides, who wants to hang around on this ball of shit forever?
Actually, if I’d been more on the ball and less sleep-deprived I’d have answered this one myself: Self-fulfilling prophecy.
A ‘no’ to longevity is as good as a shot to the head. Let’s say we have a hundred priests, all aged thrirty. We have a poll. The results check out at 70/30 in favour of “Only God should say when we kick the bucket.”
Then we repeat that poll with the same group fifty years later. Miraculously, all the original hundred are still alive and preaching. This time the result is 60/40 in favour of “Only God should say when we kick the bucket.”
Another fifty years. This time the congregated clergy is somewhat thinned in rank. And those that are left are looking remarkably spry for their age. This time the result falls 0/100 in favour of “We should take advantage of the tools that God, in his infinite wisdom, has seen fit to grant us.”
Well, it is back to the either/or position that all life is precious and we have no control of it’s ending. Therefore, we must preserve life in all ways possible for the longest span possible within our means. God will tell us when to hang it up.
An interesting side note: While believers accept the concept of maintaining life god-given, few will accept the concept that perhaps a childless couple should be willing to to accept the notion that God has decided that they should remain childless. Fertility drugs, test tube conception, surrogate mothers, all defy God’s choice to NOT create life. Further, humans take it on their own to prevent conception through chemical and physical birth control methods.
Apparently, the inconsistency of giving over life and death decisions to god is a matter more of convenience than belief. If belief were consistent, there would be no birth control pill, no condoms, because that is a sin. Believers cannot makes choices for God.
Catholics may now pat me on the back for upholding their principles.
How could taking care of a gift be a sin? If you are given something you care for it you cherish it. If you purposely break it or destroy it, that would be wrong and insulting to the person who gave it to you. Life is a gift.
I dunno Kris. The act of giving, as compared to the act of lending, implies the severence of any control, indeed, any right to control, or place provisos upon the use of, the thing gifted.
On a more mundane level, think of the “you break it - you buy it” rule in shops around the world. To reverse the equation - buying it, gives me the right also to break it.
But Tab, it isn’t your life. God gave it to you and your supposed to let god tell you how to live and when to give it up.
Kris, what is being isn’t a gift, it is the persistance of a particular pattern. For it to be a gift, there would have to be a giver of the gift. You aren’t a theist are you?
Of course it is yours to do with as you please, to control it. Also, If you end your life then it is not your life now is it? You just gave up control. You just threw it all away.
On a social note: You just insulted not only the people that fought to give you life, you also just insulted the ultimate creator of life. I don’t know how things are handled in your neck of the woods but, that kind of insult is not quickly dismissed around here. You just slapped your parents in the face and you just slapped your god in the face by saying you would rather be dead. As a mother that went through the birthing process, dude, I would kick your butt if I was your mother or your father. If I was your god, I would dangle your little rear end over a nice hot hellish fire for insulting me in such a dismissive way.
Sins are about insult and injury, about crime and harm. A sucide does not just affect you, it affects those around you. If suicide harmed noone then it would not be a sin nor would it be a crime. In fact in many overpopulated areas it probably would get encouraged. It is your life but, your life is part of a social order and family. A hermit could get away with it and end up only insulting his or her god, Frankly, I don’t think anyone in their right mind would really wish to piss off and insult a god. Mind you , I did say right mind. That sort of leaves out the ones that are not alltogether. If you feel you fall into this latter category you just might be forgiven by those that love you. They may understand, but then again maybe not. This does include your God. Is it a risk worth taking? Do you really wish to insult and cause harm just to die, to lose control of your life? Insults are wrong. destroying a gift is wrong and it is an insult. Its your life yes, but, its not like it is an ugly vase, there is more to your life than just you. You are a part of others.
Tent, no theist, just a person that has gone through the process of giving life. Perhaps that is why women that have given life and loved that life, tend to be protective over life. We know first hand the pains and the joys of giving life and protecting life.
As I recall, I hand a part in helping create three lives, and I managed to have the pleasure and pain associated with protecting those lives, but life isn’t a gift, it is another happening in the universe. A thousand stars died today, was that a gift? The coming and returning just is.
If you think that your life only belongs to you, Please go to your wife and tell her she has no say in what you do or how you act, tell her that she can never ever stick her nose into your life again. Please do that and please audio record the whole session, I think it might prove interesting and be a life lesson for some and down right entertaining for others.
If I believed that God enacted His will upon the world, which I don’t, then I would have no problem with extending my life via medical science. Because presumably, God will either allow this or forbid it. So if I die young anyway, then that was God’s will. If I do extend my life, again it was God’s will. Technically if this belief is true, it is not me making the choice, but God.
If I believed that God gave me life and it is my responsibility to look after that life, which I don’t, then again I would have no problem with extending my life, so long as I was not rendering that life worthless. As Ieso said, it’s the quality, not the quantity. If God was concerned with how many miles I have on the clock when I finally conk out, then He sure has made it difficult to clock them up. However the fact that we do die, suggests to me, that God would be more concerned with what we do with that life, rather than how long it is. So, if medical science allows me to extend my life, I should, providing I can still use it in a way that satisfies God’s required rules. If medical science will let me extend my life, but would render me useless, then what’s the point, other than my own desire to live?
As I do not believe in God, I have no problem with extending my life via medical science, so long as doing so does not negatively affect others. As a world full of people who never died, or lived unnaturally long lives, would create a bigger demand on resources, I think my choosing to extend my life would negatively affect others. Unless such technology was accompanied by the technology to share or produce adequate resources, then it would be wrong to do so.
I think I’d prolly have trouble removing my flash recorder outta my ass.
Sure Kris, you’re right that no-one’s life is lived without linkages, but when you’re in the state of mind to kill yourself, I’m guessing you don’t really give a shit. The two kinda go hand in hand.
One of my old friend’s Dad killed himself “out of the blue” as soon as his last child married. Coincidence…? Or conscience…?
But anyway - we’re not talking about suicide - it is a sin. We’re talking about artificial extention of life - which is a little grey.
This is exactly my point. Without choice, the sin is God’s. With omniscience, if everything is knowable, then the sin is god’s also. With choice, why should a choice to curtail be sinful and a choice to extend be not…? Both are a circumvention of the great “your will be done.”
Without choice, there can be no sin. I can’t sin as I haven’t technically done anything, and if sin is defined as going against God’s will, then God can’t sin because what ever He does will be His will.
So if divine predestination is correct, and sin is defined as anything against God’s will, then how can God send ‘sinners’ to hell? Certain teachings of Christianity seem at odds with one another.
Lessee… Gods will… yup, that removes sin. But that isn’t the end of the perks! No free will means no matter what I do, it is God’s will. (some things may be painful)
Tab, you and I got rid of external morality a couple of years ago, but this is even better. Gods will is the umbrella release of all responsibility for everything.
The lack of theist participation? They’re reading this BS and saying “Tsk Tsk”. But they are praying for us…
Ahh but, see, when you only think of yourself then that is a sin, it is covered in the 7 deadly ones.
Add to that, religion is a society with a heirarchy. God is the president, god declares a law; his strong arms/priests/preachers enforce it and interpret it. sin/crime. Just a different word for doing something your ultimate boss does not want you to do. Think of hell as the ultimate prison with no parole. Killing yourself is self murder, murder is a crime for very valid social reasons. Life is held sacred in certain religions so killing yourself or another is a sin because you just took what was not yours to take from the society. A society cannot survive without bodies not even a religious one. So pragmatically the head dude says Ok you are not to kill anyone and that includes yourself because you will be destroying the society by removing a living breathing body. You may be depressed and want to kill yourself but, if you fear the punishment of murder more than you hate your life, it gives you time to reevaluate your situation in many cases. You stop and think. A vast majority of humans contemplate suicide or murder. What stops them? Fear of punishment or guilt. If there was no fear,we sure and the heck would not be here or at least be a sentient somewhat advanced species. There would not be enough of a gene pool, we are hunter/predator type of species. We kill, we are violent, so we need a leash to control that violence. sins/crime make that leash.
