EUTHANASIA
Euthanasia is the act of ending the life of a person because they are perceived as living an intolerable life, in a painless or minimally painful way either by lethal injection, drug overdose, or by the withdrawal of life support. Euthanasia is a controversial issue because of conflicting religious and humanist views.
THE FAMOUS DR. KEVORKIAN
Jack Kevorkian, M.D. is a controversial pathologist. He is most remembered for publicly championing a terminal patient's "right to die" and claims to have assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He is famous for his quote "dying is not a crime." Imprisoned in 1999, he is currently serving out a 10 to 25 year prison sentence for second-degree murder in the 1998 poisoning of Thomas Youk, 52, of Oakland County, Michigan.
On the November 24, 1998 broadcast of 60 Minutes, Kevorkian allowed the airing of a videotape he had made on September 17, 1998, which featured the voluntary euthanasia of Thomas Youk, an adult male with full decisional capacity who was in the final stages of ALS. After Youk provided his fully-informed consent on September 17, 1998, Kevorkian administered a lethal injection. This incited the district attorney to bring murder charges against him, claiming that Kevorkian single-handedly caused the death. Kevorkian filmed the procedure and the death and submitted it for broadcast on "60 Minutes."
THE LAW ON ASSISTED SUICIDE
On July 26, 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld decisions in New York and Washington state that criminalized assisted suicide. These decisions overturned rulings in the 2nd and 9th Circuit Courts of Appeal which struck down state statutes banning physician-assisted suicide. Those courts had found that the statutes, which prohibited doctors from prescribing lethal medication to competent, terminally ill adults, violated the 14th Amendment. In striking the appellate decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court found that there was no constitutional "right to die," but left it to individual states to enact legislation permitting or prohibiting physician-assisted suicide.
QUESTIONS:
Do you agree with Euthanasia in anyway? (consider being in a vegetative state and never coming out of it) If you dont agree with it, why? (religious reasons, morally)
Should this law stay the same? Could you ever see our country being ok with this practice?
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Life After Death
How different religions deal with death.
Christianity
For Christians whose lives are guided by the Bible, the reality of death is acknowledged as part of the current human condition, affected by sin (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5; Hebrews 9:27). There is "a time to be born, and a time to die" (Ecclesiastes 3:2). Although eternal life is a gift that is granted to all who accept salvation through Jesus Christ, faithful Christians await the second coming of Jesus for complete realization of their immortality (John 3:36; Romans 6:23; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54). While waiting for Jesus to come again, Christians may be called upon to care for the dying and to face personally their own death.
Judaism
Judaism has stressed the natural fact of death and its role in giving life meaning. The fear of death, concern about the fate of our own soul and those of our loved ones, ethical concerns that some people die unfairly, all these and many other issues are discussed in Jewish literature. Since God is seen as ultimately just, the seeming injustice on Earth has propelled many traditional Jewish thinkers into seeing the afterlife as a way to reflect the ultimate justice of human existence.
Traditional thinkers considered how individuals would be rewarded or punished after their deaths. There are a few rare descriptions of life after death. Traditionalists gave the name Gehenna to the place where souls were punished. Many Jewish thinkers noted that since, essentially, God is filled with mercy and love, punishment is not to be considered to be eternal. There are, similarly, many varying conceptions of paradise, such as that paradise is the place where we finally understand the true concept of God. It is also possible that there is no separate Heaven and Hell, only lesser or greater distance from God after death.
Judaism does not believe people who are Gentiles will automatically go to Hell or that Jews will automatically go to Heaven on their basis of their belonging to the faith. Rather, individual ethical behavior is what is most important.
Buddhism
From its inception, Buddhism has stressed the importance of death, since awareness of death is what prompted the Buddha to perceive the ultimate futility of worldly concerns and pleasures. Realizing that death is inevitable for a person who is caught up in worldly pleasures and attitudes, he resolved to renounce the world and devote himself to finding a solution to this most basic of existential dilemmas.
A Buddhist looks at death as a breaking apart of the material of which we are composed. However Buddhism does not look at death as a continuation of the soul but as an awakening. Dying and being reborn has been compared by some Buddhist as a candle flame. When the flame of one lit candle is touched to the wick of an unlighted candle, the light passes from one candle to another. The actual flame of the first candle does not pass over but is responsible for lighting the second candle.
When preparing for death Buddhist generally agree a person’s state of mind while dying is of great importance. While dying the person can be surrounded by friends, family and monks who recite Buddhists scriptures and mantras to help the person achieve a peaceful state of mind. Buddhism asserts that all being live beyond the various fluctuations of this life. Death is merely a passage to rebirth in another realm such as the human world, a pure land or the flowering of the ultimate nature of the mind.
QUESTIONS:
What are your views on life after death? Did you get those views from your religion or upbrining?
Some think religious views on the after life is a way to help people cope with death and losing people? What are your thoughts on these views?
Christianity
For Christians whose lives are guided by the Bible, the reality of death is acknowledged as part of the current human condition, affected by sin (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5; Hebrews 9:27). There is "a time to be born, and a time to die" (Ecclesiastes 3:2). Although eternal life is a gift that is granted to all who accept salvation through Jesus Christ, faithful Christians await the second coming of Jesus for complete realization of their immortality (John 3:36; Romans 6:23; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54). While waiting for Jesus to come again, Christians may be called upon to care for the dying and to face personally their own death.
Judaism
Judaism has stressed the natural fact of death and its role in giving life meaning. The fear of death, concern about the fate of our own soul and those of our loved ones, ethical concerns that some people die unfairly, all these and many other issues are discussed in Jewish literature. Since God is seen as ultimately just, the seeming injustice on Earth has propelled many traditional Jewish thinkers into seeing the afterlife as a way to reflect the ultimate justice of human existence.
Traditional thinkers considered how individuals would be rewarded or punished after their deaths. There are a few rare descriptions of life after death. Traditionalists gave the name Gehenna to the place where souls were punished. Many Jewish thinkers noted that since, essentially, God is filled with mercy and love, punishment is not to be considered to be eternal. There are, similarly, many varying conceptions of paradise, such as that paradise is the place where we finally understand the true concept of God. It is also possible that there is no separate Heaven and Hell, only lesser or greater distance from God after death.
Judaism does not believe people who are Gentiles will automatically go to Hell or that Jews will automatically go to Heaven on their basis of their belonging to the faith. Rather, individual ethical behavior is what is most important.
Buddhism
From its inception, Buddhism has stressed the importance of death, since awareness of death is what prompted the Buddha to perceive the ultimate futility of worldly concerns and pleasures. Realizing that death is inevitable for a person who is caught up in worldly pleasures and attitudes, he resolved to renounce the world and devote himself to finding a solution to this most basic of existential dilemmas.
A Buddhist looks at death as a breaking apart of the material of which we are composed. However Buddhism does not look at death as a continuation of the soul but as an awakening. Dying and being reborn has been compared by some Buddhist as a candle flame. When the flame of one lit candle is touched to the wick of an unlighted candle, the light passes from one candle to another. The actual flame of the first candle does not pass over but is responsible for lighting the second candle.
When preparing for death Buddhist generally agree a person’s state of mind while dying is of great importance. While dying the person can be surrounded by friends, family and monks who recite Buddhists scriptures and mantras to help the person achieve a peaceful state of mind. Buddhism asserts that all being live beyond the various fluctuations of this life. Death is merely a passage to rebirth in another realm such as the human world, a pure land or the flowering of the ultimate nature of the mind.
QUESTIONS:
What are your views on life after death? Did you get those views from your religion or upbrining?
Some think religious views on the after life is a way to help people cope with death and losing people? What are your thoughts on these views?
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Worth More Dead Than Alive
Why is it that when someone famous dies they become legends? Death makes famous people be venerated icons. Why do they suddenly become more special than they were when they were alive?
Being buried in the ground is hardly the end to a famous person’s carrier. When a famous person dies unexpectedly our society turns them into venerated icons. Suddenly they become more famous, more remembered. They can even gain fans that were not even born when they were alive. What is keeping these stars “alive”?
The Top Earning 13 Dead Celebrities (as of 2006):
1. Kurt Cobain
2. Elvis Preseley
3. Charles M. Schulz
4. John Lennon
5. Albert Einstein
6. Andy Warhol
7. Dr. Seuss
8. Ray Charles
9. Marilyn Monroe
10. Johnny Cash
11. J.R.R. Tolkien
12. George Harrison
13. Bob Marley
QUESTIONS:
How does these stars have staying power? Is it from their death? How they died? Their legacy they left?
Who (living now) do you think will make the most after they die? (i.e. Paul Maccartney, Britney Spears, Dan Brown, Oprah, Jeff Koons….people like that)
Being buried in the ground is hardly the end to a famous person’s carrier. When a famous person dies unexpectedly our society turns them into venerated icons. Suddenly they become more famous, more remembered. They can even gain fans that were not even born when they were alive. What is keeping these stars “alive”?
The Top Earning 13 Dead Celebrities (as of 2006):
1. Kurt Cobain
2. Elvis Preseley
3. Charles M. Schulz
4. John Lennon
5. Albert Einstein
6. Andy Warhol
7. Dr. Seuss
8. Ray Charles
9. Marilyn Monroe
10. Johnny Cash
11. J.R.R. Tolkien
12. George Harrison
13. Bob Marley
QUESTIONS:
How does these stars have staying power? Is it from their death? How they died? Their legacy they left?
Who (living now) do you think will make the most after they die? (i.e. Paul Maccartney, Britney Spears, Dan Brown, Oprah, Jeff Koons….people like that)
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