Introduction
One major part of a person’s political philosophy is their view on murder and how it is defined. The Bible makes it seem pretty simple: Thou shalt not kill. However, throughout the years, this simple maxim has been challenged by one ambiguous example after another. Is abortion murder? Is capital punishment murder? In order to help you think through your feelings on death and responsibility, I encourage you to work your way through the following exercise....
Exercise
Each of the following examples presents one case in which a person dies. Please read each example and apply one of the following three responses:
A. This is immoral, and I am responsible.
B. This is immoral, but I am not personally responsible.
C. This is just the way the world works, and while it is sad, no one is personally responsible.
Example 1: You shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
Example 2: You come home to find your spouse in bed with another person, and, in a fit of rage, grab a gun and kill them both.
Example 3: A person breaks into your house. You grab a gun, and shoot him as he is fleeing out the front door.
Example 4: You are mugged in a back alley, but manage to wrestle the attackers knife from him and kill the man with it.
Example 5: You forget to use contraception, and as a result you/your girlfriend gets pregnant. Raising a child does not fit with your life plan for the moment, and you have an abortion.
Example 6: You are a soldier in the army. You kill a soldier in an enemy army.
Example 7: You are a pilot in the Air Force. You are given a target upon which to drop your bombs. You ask no questions and complete the mission, but later learn that the target was mis-identified and was actually a school.
Example 8: You are a judge in Texas, and you are presiding over the case of a serial murderer. It’s your call whether he is executed or spends his life in jail, and you elect to execute the man.
Example 9: In a prenatal screening within the first trimester of pregnancy, you learn that your child will have Downs syndrome. You elect to have an abortion.
Example 10: You are a doctor. Your emergency room is suddenly flooded with patients, and you ignore several critical patients who will probably die regardless of treatment in order to tend to several other patients who you have a better chance to save.
Example 11: You are the head of a household, and you find yourself in this situation: you have limited resources and money, and can either pay for an expensive treatment that will keep an 85-old relative alive for another year, or for two treatments that will significantly improve the quality of life of two teenage relatives.
Example 12: Your spouse suffers a car accident and loses brain function. After several months on the respirator, you elect to pull the plug.
Example 13: A child dies in Africa from malnutrition. You were aware that this is going on and had the money to donate to the charity that could save this child, but you elected to purchase Netflix instead.
If you feel comfortable posting your results, please do. I a interested to know where other people fall on the spectrum.
Sorry for the recent scarcity of updates. It turns out that school is more time consuming than I’d remembered. To sate your appetite for semi-coherent bloggerel, I recommend: pedagogue-blog.blogspot.com, an account of one young man’s trials and tribulations as a fresh-out-of-college music teacher in a New York City charter school.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Quotations
Sorry, I know that the updates have been few and far between lately. I'm home in the land of dial-up internet and ongoing farmwork for a few weeks. I'll tend to this patch of page much better starting in September.
For the meanwhile, here are a couple quotes that have struck me of late. I'm often skeptical of rigid quotations, because they frequently simplify a complicated problem, but these are working for me for whatever reason:
I'm reading thrugh Grapes of Wrath right now, so I might amend "or money" to the end of that quote. But maybe that is a religion.
Before anyone takes offense: I sincerely believe that if everyone observed the rules that Christ or Mohammed or Whoever described, the world would be a better place. The problem is that religion in the great justifier of all otherwise unjustifiable acts.
For the meanwhile, here are a couple quotes that have struck me of late. I'm often skeptical of rigid quotations, because they frequently simplify a complicated problem, but these are working for me for whatever reason:
With or Without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
Steve Wienberg
I'm reading thrugh Grapes of Wrath right now, so I might amend "or money" to the end of that quote. But maybe that is a religion.
When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.
Sinclar Lewis
Before anyone takes offense: I sincerely believe that if everyone observed the rules that Christ or Mohammed or Whoever described, the world would be a better place. The problem is that religion in the great justifier of all otherwise unjustifiable acts.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Where I see God
I've never been a very religous person. In high school I briefly flirted with the idea of joining a church. However, as I mulled the descision I could not supress my misgivings at the fact that these organizations were responsible for centuries of war and persecution, for rationalizations of slavery and sexism, and for repressing such dangerous notions as the belief that the world was round. I found myself disgusted that an organization that was founded on a visionary man's novel idea that maybe we should all try being nice to eachother for a change could pervert his message to that extent. These misgivings, combined with a skepticism that makes it hard to trust the literalism of words written millenia ago, effectively turned me off from organized religion.
Despite this cynicism, I cannot deny the phenomenon of spirituality. I believe that there are two sources of spirituality: first, a humbling recognition of the magnitude and capacity of the universe, and second, the awe inspired by the serene example of another person. The first source of spirituality is the reason that religion was initially created: to explain the wonders of the natural world. The second source is the one which I would like to talk about: the inspiration one derives from the sublime action of another. I think of this type as a social spirituality, derived from our ability to empathize. It is responsible for the foundation of most monotheistic religions--while the other sort of spirituality brought about the polytheistic, nature-worshipping religions, this sort of spirituality breeds the worship of certain special persons. While several people have been a source of this sort of spirituality to me, the most profound by far is His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
My admiration for the Dalai Lama is best summed up by this anecdote:
When asked how he would respond if science were to prove some facet of Buddhism impossible, the Dalai Lama responded: "If science were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."
This man is the leader of church that has been around for thousands of years, and is based a set of beliefs that he has dedicated his life to protecting from repression. Despite this, he has the serenity to change his convictions if it is determined that science does not support them (Aside: for an idea of how another major religion might react to such a challenge, check out the reaction to James Cameron's recent excavation of a tomb that may contain Jesus' family).
Bear in mind that this open-mindedness belongs to a man who was born the fifth of nine children to a family of rural Tibetan farmers, who was named the head of a major religion within a year after saying his first word, who was 23 when his country was invaded and its inhabitants brutally repressed by China, who has spent the rest of his life in exile from the land that his countrymen had made their home for millenia and is considered to be the sacred ground of his religion. By all rights, he should be surly and world-weary, not gentle and wise. What's even more amazing to me is that he became the Dalai Lama by correctly picking the previous Dalai Lama's cane and glasses from an assortment of other items when he was two years old.
As you might guess, I'm not the sort of person to believe in superstitions, but the fact remains that a seemingly random process picked perhaps the one man in a million that could emerge through such turmoil and remain the beacon of wisdom that he is. This is a phenomenon that I cannot explain. This sublime coincidence inspires the the first type of spirituality, but that's not what gets me the most about the Dalai Lama. I am awed by the second type of spirituality, by the ability of this man to remain so righteous, so magnanimous even after a lifetime of persecution and hardship. If I were to point to someplace that I see God in the world, this is it.
I believe that religion is the pursuit of this sort of spirituality. People wish to find a way to connect with that feeling, and create a system of rituals that is designed to help them to access it. I am not trying to disparage religion, just to define it. If it is a ritual that allows you to achieve spirituality--believing that you are consuming your deity's blood and body, or prostrating yourself towards an important city, or covering your head to show humility--then more power to you. Where I get lost, and I think that this describes many other people as well, is when the ritual itself supercedes the spirituality it is meant to access. I think that this is a common misinterpretation, prioritizing the form over the function. It seems to be present in all religions, and results in people attempting to force the way that they find spirituality on others. I believe that it is the misunderstanding that it is the spirituality that is the important part, not the vehicle, that leads to the bastardizations of religions that instigate war or justify tyranny.
Update:
I've decided that the best definition for the quality that inspires spirituality in me is a resistance to situational ethics, or people whose ideals remain uncompromised by adversity.
Despite this cynicism, I cannot deny the phenomenon of spirituality. I believe that there are two sources of spirituality: first, a humbling recognition of the magnitude and capacity of the universe, and second, the awe inspired by the serene example of another person. The first source of spirituality is the reason that religion was initially created: to explain the wonders of the natural world. The second source is the one which I would like to talk about: the inspiration one derives from the sublime action of another. I think of this type as a social spirituality, derived from our ability to empathize. It is responsible for the foundation of most monotheistic religions--while the other sort of spirituality brought about the polytheistic, nature-worshipping religions, this sort of spirituality breeds the worship of certain special persons. While several people have been a source of this sort of spirituality to me, the most profound by far is His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
My admiration for the Dalai Lama is best summed up by this anecdote:
When asked how he would respond if science were to prove some facet of Buddhism impossible, the Dalai Lama responded: "If science were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."
This man is the leader of church that has been around for thousands of years, and is based a set of beliefs that he has dedicated his life to protecting from repression. Despite this, he has the serenity to change his convictions if it is determined that science does not support them (Aside: for an idea of how another major religion might react to such a challenge, check out the reaction to James Cameron's recent excavation of a tomb that may contain Jesus' family).
Bear in mind that this open-mindedness belongs to a man who was born the fifth of nine children to a family of rural Tibetan farmers, who was named the head of a major religion within a year after saying his first word, who was 23 when his country was invaded and its inhabitants brutally repressed by China, who has spent the rest of his life in exile from the land that his countrymen had made their home for millenia and is considered to be the sacred ground of his religion. By all rights, he should be surly and world-weary, not gentle and wise. What's even more amazing to me is that he became the Dalai Lama by correctly picking the previous Dalai Lama's cane and glasses from an assortment of other items when he was two years old.
As you might guess, I'm not the sort of person to believe in superstitions, but the fact remains that a seemingly random process picked perhaps the one man in a million that could emerge through such turmoil and remain the beacon of wisdom that he is. This is a phenomenon that I cannot explain. This sublime coincidence inspires the the first type of spirituality, but that's not what gets me the most about the Dalai Lama. I am awed by the second type of spirituality, by the ability of this man to remain so righteous, so magnanimous even after a lifetime of persecution and hardship. If I were to point to someplace that I see God in the world, this is it.
I believe that religion is the pursuit of this sort of spirituality. People wish to find a way to connect with that feeling, and create a system of rituals that is designed to help them to access it. I am not trying to disparage religion, just to define it. If it is a ritual that allows you to achieve spirituality--believing that you are consuming your deity's blood and body, or prostrating yourself towards an important city, or covering your head to show humility--then more power to you. Where I get lost, and I think that this describes many other people as well, is when the ritual itself supercedes the spirituality it is meant to access. I think that this is a common misinterpretation, prioritizing the form over the function. It seems to be present in all religions, and results in people attempting to force the way that they find spirituality on others. I believe that it is the misunderstanding that it is the spirituality that is the important part, not the vehicle, that leads to the bastardizations of religions that instigate war or justify tyranny.
Update:
I've decided that the best definition for the quality that inspires spirituality in me is a resistance to situational ethics, or people whose ideals remain uncompromised by adversity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)