The slogan in Canada will soon be Whatever you do, don’t go to the “doctor”. You might not make it out alive. Yeoman Wesley Smith reports “Canada Proposes Forcing Doctors and Nurses to Euthanize Patients“.
The new guidelines, says Smith, will include:
- Death on demand for those with medically diagnosed serious sicknesses;
- Death on demand for those with disabilities;
- Death on demand for those with medically diagnosed mental illnesses.
- Death on demand for “mature” children with the above conditions, perhaps with parental consent required;
- Nurses ordered to participate in euthanasia under the direction of a doctor, normalizing killing as an answer to suffering and making it easier for doctors to avoid the dirty work of homicide;
- Government-paid euthanasia.
As I’ve often pointed out, doctors do not kill, executioners (and soldiers) do. So if these rules, or laws or whatever the Canadian government calls them, hold then some doctors and nurses will be forced to become executioners. And doctors will be forced to refer patients to executioners even though it goes against their religion or consciences. Smith points out that this will happen “even though Canada’s governing Charter explicitly protects ‘freedom of religion and conscience.'”
Words on paper. Alert readers will recall how latterly in the States the words-on-paper which read “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, words which supposedly irrevocably bound the government, were changed to mean “Congress can regulate religion, but people have the right of freedom of worship, as long as that worship doesn’t discriminate.”
It’s a good bet the words undergo a further redefinition to something like this: “Congress shall establish a religion, but the religion won’t be called religion.” This is where Canada will be if the new rules on executing patients are adopted.
The reason these governments won’t call their new religion “religion” is because that word reminds too many people of Christianity, and it is Christianity that is seen as the major stumbling block to a happier system where people are killed when their usefulness is at an end.
That the religion-that-is-not-called-religion is a religion should be obvious. The supreme authority is the State; it alone decides right and wrong; it is the only entity allowed to mete out rewards and punishment. The object of worship is Man himself. Sort of like in protesting Christianity, every man is his own priest, but (as we discussed before) who is a bishop is difficult to tell, and so forth.
This new religion is a form of paganism, which has a supreme deity, which is Man and the State, but which also has many gods, such as Nature, Health, Money, and so forth. It has rituals, from holiness signaling to yoga, and et cetera.
Say, as this new religion replaces Christianity, it makes you wonder if intransigent Christians, those unwilling to convert, will be judged to have a medically diagnosed mental illnesses?
Anyway, the rank utilitarianism which sees lives worth living only when those lives are useful is a pagan notion. Life is here and now and not forever. If it can’t be lived well and usefully then it needn’t and shouldn’t be lived. Hence abortion, hence “doctors” executing patients who can no longer contribute to society. Hence even the seeming paradox of insisting on health health health.
The State is growing ever more obnoxious, intruding into your refrigerator and cupboards telling what you can and cannot eat, insisting that those items which might, even marginally, increase the chance of illness be banned. The State even dictates the meals kids must eat at schools, with health as the goal.
Why? Healthy bodies are useful, unhealthy ones cost money, and degraded ones cost more then their worth. Paganism. This suggests that if we want to know what the future holds, pagan cultures should be closely studied. These will provide only historical analogies, though, because we’re in the position of leaving Christianity, which will certainly leave lingering traces, and ancient pagan societies were in the process of rising to Christianity.
So much is the news. What is probably the most hilarious item is, in the discussion of executing patients, the Canadian Parliament lapsing into standard political correctness. They worried that “Indigenous Peoples and Communities” might not have equal access to death. Be assured that Canada will lead the way in killing indigents at equal rates.
Your title reminded me of the hard contrast in Simon and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair/Canticle.” Those who aren’t familiar with the song can listen to it here, but you’ll want to read the lyrics while you listen.
The song climaxes with the words “Generals order their soldiers to kill” intermixed with innocent thoughts of “salt water and sea strands… then she’ll be a true love of mine.”
The juxtaposition is terribly jarring. So is “Doctors ordered to kill.”
Religion is the business of politics as this post shows if not intended.
Religion is the problem. Christianity is more precise.. Anything can be a club or a religion.
Man behaves tribally once it has an allegiance to a gang religion has often and always will serve this purpose for the unthinking, vain egotists in particular.
The British justice system was based on moral notions of right and wrong. Its authority rests entirely on the power and premise of the word of God which is accepted as ultimate truth.
For those who would break the law because they have no conscience, are ignorant of the law, have forgotten the law, enjoy committing crime, whatever reason, the law is there to protect everybody.
Canada who’s system was the British system was designed this way. The same is true of all western nations and others who borrowed from the system.
So if you want to take the protection away you change the premise.
And another thing, nobody orders me to do anything that my conscience won’t stand.
Once again cherry-picked facts are presented to render a false presentation*. The proposed criteria (and that’s all they are now, proposed) do NOT include forcing any health care provider, including an entire institution, to engage in euthanasia if they object. Here’s actual quotes from the actual recommendations (not hard to find for those interested in fact-checking details and getting the true facts…as opposed to half-truths, which are by their incomplete nature part-falsehoods); what actually becomes law is anybody’s guess because there is no such law and the criteria are still in draft form:
“Recommendation 32: Conscientiously objecting health care providers should be required to appropriately inform their patients of the fact and implications of their conscientious objection to physician-assisted dying. Any ongoing treatment of the patient must be provided in a non-discriminatory manner.
“Recommendation 11: Provinces and territories should establish requirements to ensure a patient declaration form is completed and witnessed by an independent party.
Recommendation 14: Substitute decision makers should not be given the legal authority to consent to/authorize physician-assisted dying on behalf of an incompetent patient.
“Recommendation 25: We do not recommend that an appeal process be established to respond to situations where the attending and/or reviewing physician conclude that the eligibility criteria (other than competency) have not been met. In this circumstance, patients should not be precluded from seeking assistance from other physicians.
“Recommendation 33: Conscientiously objecting health care providers should be required to either provide a referral or a direct transfer of care to another health care provider or to contact a third party and transfer the patient’s records through the system described in Recommendation 4.
“Recommendation 34: All institutions should be required to inform patients/residents of any institutional position on physician-assisted dying, including any and all limits on its provision.
“Recommendation 38: Faith-based institutions must either allow physician-assisted dying within the institution or make arrangements for the safe and timely transfer of the patient to a non-objecting institution for assessment and potentially, provision of physician-assisted dying. The duty of care must be continuous and non-discriminatory.”
The ONLY proposed coercive aspect to this is that health care providers include in end-of-life counseling euthanasia (Recommendation 31) — however, they are not forced to provide that if they object.
* In layman’s terms, this is commonly called a “lie.”
Ken to hear you defend this is sickening.
That piece of documentation didn’t help but dug a deeper cesspit.
The entire point is lost on people who are without conscience.
If you doubt you have a conscience go and spend a day on your local care of the elderly ward. If it doesn’t tear your heart out you don’t have one.
The catholic alternative: suffer atrociously until you die miserably.
No thank you.
The Canadians are finally modernizing and catching up with the UK.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/11796-doctor-british-health-service-euthanizes-130000-patients-a-year
The language about physician “assisted” suicide no longer applies. What comes after? “Mandatory” suicide.
Hans Erren,
Who said anything about Catholic? The UK has not been Catholic for hundreds of years.
Hans, if you think it’s going to be pleasant think again.
Steaming pile of lies.
JMJ
Not at all. The Christian alternative is appropriate palliative care, and meeting your death in the arms of your family and friends, like a human being.
As for this not involving coercion, we know from experience in the Netherlands as far back as 1990, as discussed by the Remmelink Report, that well over a thousand people, and possibly as much as five thousand, were euthanized without a specific request in circumstances where they could have been consulted.
We also know that autonomy/ consent, although important rhetorically in the political arena, really has no role in the argument for euthanasia, philosophically, which principally is about ‘quality of life’ issues.
From the CCC on Euthanasia
2279 Even if death is thought imminent, the ordinary care owed to a sick person cannot be legitimately interrupted. The use of painkillers to alleviate the sufferings of the dying, even at the risk of shortening their days, can be morally in conformity with human dignity if death is not willed as either an end or a means, but only foreseen and tolerated as inevitable. Palliative care is a special form of disinterested charity. As such it should be encouraged.
Hans, seems like the “suffer atrociously” thing you mention is directly contradicted by the Church’s teachings…
Ken, recommendations 33 & 38 say exactly that conscientious objectors should be forced to take part. I don’t say it is you who lies–I’m sure it was an honest mistake.
Ken, on the contrary, your own citations indicate quite clearly that both individuals and institutions must participate in euthanasia. These agents may not provide the lethal injection directly but they are being forced to make a referral to an agent who will.
Do the idigenes get their own choice of euthanasia? Can they go old school and get the obsidian knife on the stone altar? Do the high priests and attendees get to eat the still beating heart?
Or is that only for abortions?
Ken: The LGBT group in the US just wanted equal rights, except they didn’t. They wanted to destroy anyone who dared to call their behaviour wrong. There is no reason to believe the executions in Canada will turn out differently. In the 40’s, executions were mandatory in Germany, why not Canada in 2016?
Hans Erren: Feel free to end yourself as you chose. Just leave everyone else out of it and have the balls to do what you believe instead of demanding someone else do it. If you want to die, you have that option.
JMJ: Steaming pile of usual drivel from the non-thinker.
All: At least Ken puts up information to defend his point. Those from the “I hate Christians and everyone else not like me” crowd just put up mindless insults. It’s fascinating that those who oppose religion have no arguments, no reasons, nothing except blind hatred. Says a lot, doesn’t it?
Sheri, Ken’s “point” is to call Briggs a liar. He set up a straw man which conveniently side-stepped what Briggs actually said. He then provided citations which directly contradicted his straw man. If you’re going to set up a straw man you should, at a minimum, be able to knock it down.
Quality of life is a projection of the observer and is based entirely on the observers prejudice. Those who advocate euthanasia are displaying their own inability to handle the plight of others.
The Canadian proposals are ‘mysterious’ in a sense. Why does it refer to physicians at all? Meaning (for example), a ‘sensible’ alternative would be to establish a new ‘job’, that of Technician: Execution Enabler.
I mean, it’s just killing somebody, right? It ain’t rocket science, medicine, or anything requiring an advanced degree. A few days training ought to be sufficient to teach someone to kill somebody quite painlessly.
So set up the new job, make it legal, and allow Technician: Execution Enablers to advertise. Period.
But the proposals are not mysterious, if the intent is to corrupt and (literally) de-moralize the medical profession.
Joy, I give you an F on understanding the Canadian law system. Everyone is dumber for what you wrote.
The first thing one learns when studying law is that law is not about being right or wrong, it is not about being Moral, it is not about justice. It is all about the law, i.e. It’s about the interpretation of what is written.
Briggs, the abyss of your ignorance on this subject could fill a chasm.
Joy,
euthanasia is about what the person is living, not any observer. No one can ask for someone to euthanize someone else. Only the person suffering can ask for the services. That person cannot be pressured into asking for it, and they have strict conditions to meet to be eligible, and the process takes months.
Of course, Briggs doesn’t care about anyone else but is idiotic ego. Morally weak man like that are the first to ask for mercy when they are confronted to reality.
TITLE: ““Doctors” Ordered To Kill”
FACT: They are not, nor will they be. At least not in Canada in any forseeable future. The Canadian Supreme Court decision granting limited rights to some patients to have assisted suicide expressly establishes that doctors cannot be compelled to participate.
The Canadian Supreme Court ruling has established that some patients in Canada are eligible to request to, and if approved, exercise the right to a physician-assisted suicide provided their condition meets certain criteria. Put another way, the Canadian Supreme Court has decided that some laws establishing blanket prohibitions on physician assisted suicide are illegal. The decision did not grant, willy nilly, some broad legality to euthanasia; in fact, it established some clear limits.
Under the Supreme Court decision a physician who does not want to assist in the suicide cannot be forced to do so (the actual wording in the Canadian S. Court decision reads in relevant part, “Nothing in this declaration would compel physicians to provide assistance in dying.”).
Put another way, the Supreme Court decision establishes that physicians (religious or otherwise) have the right to refuse to participate in euthanizing a patient. The Court did not limit this right to only apply to those physicians with religious objections.
The Canadian S. Court also noted that the “absolute prohibition on physician-assisted dying is rationally connected to the goal of protecting the vulnerable from taking their life in times of weakness”; the Court’s measured limits of some patient’s right to assisted suicide by no means come anywhere near an accommodation of this kind of reckless assisted suicide.
The C. S. Court in its decision expressly granted the right to “physician-assisted death for a competent adult person” — Briggs’ quotes Smith’s reference to the guidelines that include “mature children.” Maybe the lawmakers will permit that, but until the law changes the Supreme Court’s decision was limited to adults, so the legal foundation to extend the right to some children to request assisted euthanasia seems tenuous, if even that.
The delayed effect of the Canadian Supreme Court decision was intended to give time for the lawmakers to craft some statute on the subject. That hasn’t happened; no telling when it will nor what that law will actually entail. Whatever it might be, Briggs’ sensationalist title, “Doctors Ordered to Kill,” and much of the subsequent “analysis” is contrary to what the Court’s decision permits.
Bottom line: Brigg’s scenario simply ain’t gonna happen.
Some of the recommendations from the Canadian advisory group regarding assisted suicide might not be, or clearly are not, permissible within the constraints of the Canadian Supreme Court decision. They do, however, serve as a worst-case example of what might come — and as such an example even they fall far & away short of the dystopia Briggs, et. al. would have you believe was [or could be] the reality. Recommendations by an advisory group are not binding, they are merely recommendations designed to influence lawmakers — a fact that ought be so obvious that pointing this out should be unnecessary (but clearly some need the reminder). Citing advisory committee recommendations as evidence that things are, or will be, as they suggest is disingenuous, ignorant, …. but certainly not evidence of anything now or to come.
Some articles, Brigg’s above essay included, present as factual truth nonexistent Canadian policies/laws, with emphasis on the most imaginably extreme outcomes as if those are inevitable despite the obvious contradiction with the legal foundation that actually exists. Discussion of the various options actually under consideration, where the future statutory limits may likely end up/where they cannot end up — something approaching a sophisticated reasoned, thoughtful analysis & discourse — are nowhere to be found. Only sensationalist worst-case prognostications, lemming-like emotional parroting from from like-minded non-thinkers, is presented as fact.
The profoundly dystopian worldview presented as fact does not, and within the parameters of the Canadian Supreme Court case, cannot occur anywhere near the extreme scenario purported. The reality of the way things are, or might even become, is nothing like they way they’re purported to be per Briggs, et. al. Its not even close.
Again, most people consider that legally unsupportable (false) dystopian view presented as inevitable (fact) a “lie.”
DISCLAIMER: Nothing presented here necessarily reflects my personal support for, or opposition to, euthansia (in theory or reality), or any other subject. One never fully understands an issue until one makes a sincere effort to argue “the other side” (aka “Devil’s Advocate), and that cannot occur with emotional reasoning. Positions presented [at least by a dwindling number of us] are done so in the spirit of intellectual exploration, not mindless ideological dogmatism impervious to exploration except that honing to one’s preconceptions (and there, increasingly routinely, even the most flimsy & flawed views are accepted mindlessly).
The only point to be extracted is that here today, once again, Briggs (and many others recently publishing on the subject) have grossly misrepresented facts & reality regarding the Canadian situation on euthanasia, and done so to a fanciful degree without clarifying where fact, emotional reasoning, philosophical flights of fancy, and outright fiction were being presented as fact (hopefully, they know those distinctions even if they didn’t say — assuming they did know, they lied [mindless ideological blindness is not a defense even if it is an explanation]; if they didn’t /don’t know then I apologize and extend my pity). Beyond a presentation of some facts that clearly eviscerate the dystopian outlook presented, nothing else should be construed. Any of you perceiving more than that needs to dial up your critical thinking and dial down your emotions…for your sake, not mine or anyone else’s.
ASIDE: It is interesting to note how inconsistently many of us truly value the dignity of life. When a family member is suffering horribly, with no hope of recovery & lingering miserable death absolutely certain, a typical outlook is:
– When the family member is a human, say one’s mother-in-law, letting them suffer & linger & die horribly is considered the best course (“…local care of the elderly ward…it tear[s] your heart out…”); however,
– When the family member is a beloved dog, and the prognosis has become certain, delaying euthanizing the animal is considered “inhumane.”
Maybe that’s because we love our pets more (almost certainly [much] more than our mother-in-law)….
Steve E: Yes, Ken’s point may be to call Briggs a liar, but unlike others, he didn’t just say “Briggs lying again” and split. Whether or not his argument failed was not my point.
Ken: Maybe it’s wrong to euthanize the dog. Euthanasia is for the benefit of the living, not the dying. It is done because we don’t want to deal with pain and suffering, including that of pets. We want the animal dead quickly and with as little pain to us as possible. Truthfully, how one dies is irrelevant to the dead person—he is gone. (Unless it’s a religious thing like suicide—I’m going to skip that for this discussion). If one is an atheist or does not believe in an afterlife, mode of death is 100% irrelevant to the dead person/pet. It only matters to the living. The dead don’t remember. The dead do not care. Long painful death or hit by a bus—it’s all the same to deceased.
So to be clear Ken – you are saying that you believe that there is no moral difference in treating a person like a companion animal?
This hit home for me because we recently (yesterday) euthanized our cat. She had lost a lot of weight, and stopped eating and drinking after a long battle with kidney disease. We loved her very much and were heartbroken over the decision. But we understand that it is cruel to allow an animal to suffer needlessly. But if it were our baby? We would do everything we can, and then some. When death appears inevitable, then we would stay with her to her dying breath, ensuring she gets the appropriate pallative and hospice care to ease suffering.
Humans are animals, but are also more than animals.
There is an excellent article that discusses this here:
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-euthanize-your-dog-if-you-like-but-hands-off-me
“People do all these things, which is why we ascribed so much importance to this decision. And therefore cherrypicking one feature of the human-animal relationship by euthanasia advocates — one that happens to dovetail with a desired but momentous change to the human-human relationship — should not be rhetorically admissible as a standard against which to judge our treatment of fellow humans.”
Nate,
If you knew that your Child was in horrible pain you would really fight to keep him alive for a few hours more?
Palliative care is assisted suicide. Nothing is done to help keep the person alive and most patient last less than a week in intensive care.
The problem is with people with degenerative disease where they lose control of their of years which makes their death a long suffering with no hope of getting better. These people don’t want to die right away but they don’t want to live months after they lose their ability to communicate with other. Why would you want to force these people to live.
Of course, if you personally wish to suffer it is also your right.
This is just nonsense. Palliative care is not assisted suicide. There is never an intent to kill the patient; the patient is treated with pain relief and any other measure that can assist them as they die. That is hardly nothing.
Of course, people that want to bring about a regime in which people are deliberately killed by doctors and nurses, or any other person charged to provide ‘MAID’, will argue that there is no difference between deliberately deliberately killing someone or death that results incidentally but foreseeably from this or that procedure. They will do anything to dissolve this distinction. They have tried this same play re abortion.
Just one thing more on my theme of de-moralization. It used to be that offing yourself was a serious crime; and there was considerable philosophical, moral, and legal thinking behind that legal framework.
Then, later, it was the case that killing yourself obviously meant that you were seriously disturbed mentally; to be ‘suicidal’ meant that you were not well, not well at all.
And nowadays, there are plenty of examples, just in the comments here, in which modern people implicitly and explicitly consider that killing yourself can be A-OK; in fact, that wanting to be dead can be an obvious sign of great maturity and wisdom: sanity par excellence.
So we go from suicide as presumptive insanity, to suicide as presumptive sanity, in just a few decades. And within a few decades more than that, from considering those who might advocate suicide, whether for themselves or for others, as patently criminal, evil, even demonic, creatures; to considering them to be the true advocates for compassion, reason, and good.
If I lived in 1916 instead of 2016, it would be absolutely obvious to me that half the people commenting on this piece right here were either patently crazy, or patently evil; that, in short, they had been utterly de-moralized, whether through psychological defect, or from obeisance to the Evil One; and that’s a fact.
Ridiculous ‘boogey-man’ fantasies and projections about palliative care presented as obvious ‘fact’; coupled with a fascinating obliviousness to the number of people who disdain palliative care and a natural end and want the rest of us to pay ad infinitum for themselves or their ‘loved one’ to be hooked up for age upon age to machines that go ‘beep’ — just about anyone from 1916 would consider us both horrifyingly mad, and seriously evil.
Of course, I could reframe the 1916 ‘condemnation’ by translating it into 2016 terms: we are naught but moist robots; life is not a sheer gift from Someone; and a human community in which it’s absolutely fine for anybody, or for that matter, everybody at once, to want to be dead, if that’s how you’re feeling today, is not a problem, not really worrisome at all.
And pretty much everybody alive in 1916 is now dead; so the 1916 judgment and condemnation of 2016-style ideas and practices doesn’t matter a whit. The judgment game only goes one way. We’re alive, they’re not: we automatically win every argument about who’s insane, who’s evil, who’s misguided and twisted.
So here’s our new motto:
As with their abortion argument, the funny thing about this conservative distraction propaganda is that euthanasia has been around forever, dying patients have long been over-prescribed, or unnecessarily supplied up-front, or given off-the-record instructions, etc. There’s nothing new about this. A few dying people have a problem getting what they want, they make a big stink, you guys completely overreact, and somehow all of Christendom is called to the raise their Holy Hand Grenades in defense of Western Civilization. It’s a joke.
JMJ
I find it ironic that people largely from the US, with a murder rate almost triple Canada’s, are lecturing them on euthenasia.
That aside, given the option between a drawn out painful debilitating ailment leading to death, and, shall we say, “enhanced palliative care” which removes most of the suffering and probably expedites the end, I can imagine which option most people would take.
Any care which expedites the onset of death is surely on the grey scale towards euthanasia. It is splitting hairs to say they are different, one brings on the end quickly, the other more slowly while trying to maintain dignity and minimise suffering of the patient. Much like arguing at what point in a pregnancy abortion should be legal. You are either all in or all out if you have a black and white mindset.
Dover_Beach
You realize that this is the patient that request the doctor “kill” him.
The process for euthanasia takes weeks or months before it is completed. No one but the person itself can ask to be euthanized. There are several consultations involved. A family member cannot ask for a relative. No on who stands to inherit can participate in the consultation. The Doctor can be accused of murder if the process is flawed.
The law is there to respect the person wishes not anyone else.
In the USA there are 23k suicide by firearms. Yet these persons who still have all or most of its physical ability can kill herself. But the person that wanted to live until she was unable to care for herself, or even kill herself should suffer the most horrible death.
You people are full of contradiction. The main one is your willingness to let people suffer for your own beliefs.
No one is asking you to kill yourself. We just ask that you respect other people’s desire..
Amazingly what the pro-life refused to admit is that the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortion rate diminishes in country where it is legal and getting higher where it is illegal.
Sylvain, I detect a sense of humour.
The law is a restraint, obviously, it is there to protect citizens and punish.
The law in Canada is as I described.
You are speaking of interpretation of the law once it is written. I am speaking of the law as it originally was set up for crimes relating to killing of another human. The law is a set of rules. There is also an important distinction between civil and criminal law. If a law is broken with respect to power of attorney or palliative care it is passed to the criminal or Crown Court services. What is committed is not a trivial matter, it is a crime. This as with the others who argue for it, are dicing with death and want someone else to do it. They are also only recognising their own situation and failing to recognise that these laws entail consequences for others.
Ken,
‘No coercion, but all must provide means by which.…” coercion? or just an order by decree?
“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever, hit the point once, then hit it again, then hit it a third time, a tremendous whack!”
There is a difference between illegal and legal. Many of the remarks on palliative care, on what ‘goes on anyway’ to coin a phrase are missing this point.
Somebody made the point that those with a financial interest are not allowed to be involved.
Had they said Those who have a financial involvement are not allowed by law to use their power of attorney to execute the power given to them by the donor, for example, that would be true.
However, in reality! In effect the are allowed as there is no framework to police this adequately. Those who think this is adequate protection are not in touch with what actually happens and are hoping their living wills work out for the best. They don’t.
Those who make laws that are complex and easy to circumvent and then hope bare responsibility for how those laws are misused. Those who argue for the laws must make their case and I don’t count just calling people liars.
The law was simple, strong and complete on matters of crime. People who would make their wills their laws don’t like the rigidity.
What has been happening is that the atheistic attitude has crept in and so we have additional laws made which then allow loopholes for liberty taking.
This is what happened with abortion in the UK. The abortion law allowed only to protect the life of the mother, then it was the health and well being of the mother, hey presto you have your argument or justification for your patient to be referred for abortion for the flakiest of reasons and not reflecting in any way the spirit of the law’s original intention.
The UK does not permit euthanasia. People travel to Switzerland for this if they are abel and have the capacity to make their own decisions. This is called assisted suicide because it involves swallowing two small cups of medicine. This method is to circumvent the law.
As for euthanising animals, everybody has a different approach on this just as they do with humans. I have never euthanised an animal or commissioned such undertaking.
JMJ:
What a silly ‘argument’. There’s nothing new about murder either.
Sylvain:
Yes, I do, but so what? If consent was doing all the work here you wouldn’t need a list of illnesses that are the prerequisite of such a decision. People could simply seek medical assistance in dying whatever their state of health. That this prerequisite is required shows that it is ‘quality of life’ issues that are doing all the heavy lifting; Glover and Singer are pretty clear about this, the former more so.
What nonsense. No one who receives palliative care will suffer the ‘most horrible death’; stop overplaying this terrible hand, its lost its rhetorical power and is plainly a lie. The situation in Canada will provide ‘MAID’ – an appropriate Orwellian euphemism for such a regime – to persons suffering a serious medical illness, a disability, or mental illness, many of which are not even terminal.
That is certainly true in the Netherlands, where doctors just euthanized at least a thousand people, in 1990 and 1995, without asking them though they could. I’m sure the numbers are more or less the same presently.
Correction:
“Had they said Those who have a financial involvement are not allowed by law to use their power of attorney to execute the power given to them by the donor, for example, that would be true.”
Is not what I meant to say,
It should read
“Had they said Those who have a financial involvement are not allowed by law to use the power of attorney to execute the power given by the donor, to others, for example, that would be true.”
Or
Had they said Those who have a financial involvement are not allowed by law to become power of attorney , for matters of ‘health and well being”, for example, that would be true too.
Dover Beach is correct,
I would just say though that even palliative care is not all the same.
I would advocate CCTV in every room with vulnerable adults at the very least and for people who are for ‘TLC only”.
There is no such thing as “assisted suicide”. Suicide is killing one’s self. It cannot be assisted. Killing someone who asks to be killed used to be called murder. Killing someone society thinks is useless used to be called murder. Whether we call it murder or not, killing someone is NOT in any way assisting suicide. It’s killing someone, plain and simple. Renaming it does not change the reality of it.
John K: I agree. We used to consider suicide bad, but now only if it’s due to bullying and we can get some mileage out it for a preferred group. I’m surprised there are still antiquated things like suicide hotlines, assuming of course those are not handing out instructions for suicide these days. (Not all the world thinks this way, of course, but it does seem to be the direction the world is headed.)
JMJ: And murder has been around for eternity too. So we can modernize and allow murder? Rape, theft? Really, these are all antiquated moral ideas, so toss them out and kill and steal away. It’s the new progressive manta. Out with the old, in with anarchy. GO TEAM.
Bulldust: Strawman argument there.
Joy: Interesting that I finally find someone who does not automatically condone euthanizing animals. That’s rare these days.
Sheri, in America you are free to carry guns, in Holland you are free to terminate your own life in the presence of a medical professional. I know which country I prefer.
In Holland, ‘you’ don’t terminate your own life in the presence of a medical professional, the medical professional terminates your life, sometimes in accordance with your will, on other occasions, without consulting you at all.
Dover,
“on other occasions, without consulting you at all.”
Some people like myth. I’m sure you have concrete example of that.
How many people die because they got shot by someone who did not consult them before?
“Yes, I do, but so what? If consent was doing all the work here you wouldn’t need a list of illnesses that are the prerequisite of such a decision.”
The list identify people who don’t have the ability to take their own life because of these illnesses.
“That this prerequisite is required shows that it is ‘quality of life’ issues that are doing all the heavy lifting”
What is the problem with that.
“No one who receives palliative care will suffer the ‘most horrible death’”
I saw enough people suffer because doctor could not offer high enough doses of morphine to alleviate the pain. Not considering that for several hours before death the person isn’t conscious of her surrounging.
And again you are free to follow you way to die.Why do you wish to impose on other your views?
” I’m sure the numbers are more or less the same presently.”
Again where is the proof?
Try the Remmelink Committee’s report in 1990 I mentioned upthread. Did you miss it? They identified at least 1000 cases and the possibility of up to 5000. They found more or less the same in 1995.
Why are you even talking about this?
It does nothing of the sort.
Because if quality of life issues are doing the work than consent in due course will play a diminishing role.
It isn’t about imposing my views. It’s about preventing our medical systems from becoming one’s that deliberately take the life of another. It’s about keeping them safe for our relatives and friends.
Dover,
“Try the Remmelink Committee’s report in 1990 I mentioned upthread. Did you miss it? They identified at least 1000 cases and the possibility of up to 5000. They found more or less the same in 1995.”
Can you tell me which version of the report you read? The English translation on Lancet, or the original Dutch version?
Here is what the Report said concerning the 1000 deaths you mention:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/searchq=cache:acnUlFIKZiIJ:www.chninternational.com/breakdown_on_dutch_euthanasia.htm
“In more than half of these cases the decision had been discussed with the patient or the patient had in a previous phase of his or her illness expressed a wish for euthanasia should suffering become unbearable. In other cases, possibly with a few exceptions, the patients were near to death and clearly suffering grievously, yet verbal contact had become impossible The decision to hasten death was then nearly always taken after consultation with the family, nurses, or one or more colleagues. In most cases the amount of time by which, according to the physician, life had been shortened was a few hours or days only. (147)”
The main point is that those 1000 people were killed while in palliative care after considerable discussion between physician, nurses and family.
Meanwhile a doctor in Britain has been convicted of murdering 100s of patients without their consent.
http://www.biography.com/people/harold-shipman-17169712
So, doctors killing patients without consent has nothing to do with legal euthanasia.
“Why are you even talking about this?”
Your concern seems to be about the legalization of euthanasia leading to murder. Yet you don’t seem to want to take any step in reducing the number of deaths by firearms.
“Because if quality of life issues are doing the work than consent in due course will play a diminishing role.”
It’s putting the plow before the horse/mule/bull.
The last still requires consent from the patient. For example, my parents already told me their wishes and they would not like to have me pursuit treatment when all cause is lost.
You can also read the newest report which includes some of the author of the first here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2733179/
“No slippery slope seems to have resulted. Physicians seem to adhere to the criteria for due care in the large majority of cases. Further, it has been shown that the majority of physicians think that the euthanasia Act has improved their legal certainty and contributes to the carefulness of life-terminating acts. In 2005, 80% of euthanasia cases were reported to the review committees. Thus, the transparency envisaged by the Act still does not extend to all cases. Almost all unreported cases involve the use of opioids, and are not considered to be euthanasia by physicians. More education and debate is needed to disentangle in these situations which acts should be regarded as euthanasia and which should not.”
Joy,
“The law is a set of rules. There is also an important distinction between civil and criminal law.”
In all ancient British countries, including the USA, the criminal and civil law were based on the Common law, which was not codified until recently. For the civil law, there is an exception in Québec where the civil law is still base on the French civil code of Napoleon.
Punishment in the criminal common law was base on the similarities and differences between the discussed case and the jurisprudences.
At first, only the king could render justice and decision often depended on his mood.
Sylvain,
That thing which dare not speak it’s name,
Magna Carta was the birth of a common law in England. I have a replica copy somewhere, I’m sure God even there is mentioned. I’m not trusting Wikipedia which is not fit for purpose. other than spell check and if there’s money or power in spelling it’s not fit for that either.
It is also where the confusion starts about ‘common law’ . The term is descriptive of the concept of justice, in it’s pure honest sense not the masquerade of capture and punishment, for everyone.
There is no appeal to ‘common law’. There is civil law and criminal law.
The criminal legal system in England i.e The Crown Court with judge and jury come later. Civil law is dealt with by the County Court.
Who’s Napoleon?
They may have been in palliative care facilities but they were not deliberately killed by palliative care. As for the second part, you’re now admitting, without blushing, that they were killed, without any specific request, by agreement of secondary parties like doctors, nurses and family. As I said, autonomy and consent has nothing to do with euthanasia; their decision was determined, in part, by ‘quality of life’ issues (I’m sure resource issues also intruded as well), “near to death and clearly suffering grievously yet verbal contact had become impossible”, or they had expressed some vague interest in the past about euthanasia “if suffering became unbearable”.
And the significance of Shipman is? We just discussed above, and you quoted an excerpt from a report, in which doctors killed patients without their consent.
Well, now you’re just making stuff up. But, no, my judgement is that euthanasia is murder, not that it leads to murder; it just is murder.
Firstly, no it doesn’t as was demonstrated above where patients were killed without their express consent. Secondly, not aggressively undertaking medical treatment where there is little hope of recovery and the like, or a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order, are not euthanasia. Euthanasia is deliberately killing a person. You need to stop confusing this or that separate issue.
Sylvain, people in their 30s, suffering from mental illnesses such as autism, are being killed by doctors in the Netherlands. In Belgium, children of any age, are, curiously, be allowed to ‘consent’ to euthanasia as well.
Dover,
You probably glance over this since it was inconvenient to you:
““In more than half of these cases the decision had been discussed with the patient or the patient had in a previous phase of his or her illness expressed a wish for euthanasia should suffering become unbearable. In other cases, possibly with a few exceptions, the patients were near to death and clearly suffering grievously, yet verbal contact had become impossible The decision to hasten death was then nearly always taken after consultation with the family, nurses, or one or more colleagues. In most cases the amount of time by which, according to the physician, life had been shortened was a few hours or days only. ”
The Remmelink report you claim to make you case through misrepresentation of its content, as per the author of the report themselves. The report actually destroys your claim. The follow up report called:
“Two Decades of Research on Euthanasia from the Netherlands. What Have We Learnt and What Questions Remain?”
It concludes:
“Two decades of research on euthanasia in the Netherlands have resulted in clear insights into the frequency and characteristics of euthanasia and other medical end-of-life decisions in the Netherlands. These empirical studies have contributed to the quality of the public debate, and to the regulating and public control of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. No slippery slope seems to have resulted. Physicians seem to adhere to the criteria for due care in the large majority of cases. Further, it has been shown that the majority of physicians think that the euthanasia Act has improved their legal certainty and contributes to the carefulness of life-terminating acts. In 2005, 80% of euthanasia cases were reported to the review committees. Thus, the transparency envisaged by the Act still does not extend to all cases. Almost all unreported cases involve the use of opioids, and are not considered to be euthanasia by physicians. More education and debate is needed to disentangle in these situations which acts should be regarded as euthanasia and which should not.”
“Sylvain, people in their 30s, suffering from mental illnesses such as autism, are being killed by doctors in the Netherlands. In Belgium, children of any age, are, curiously, be allowed to ‘consent’ to euthanasia as well.”
This is the point where you lose much of your credibility. This is what you want to believe happens and not what is actually happening.
One, if any of these things happened it is not euthanasia as intented by the law but murder. I have shown that physician can be murdurers or even serial murderers in the case of Shipman. So if person like these are killed the doctor could and would face murder charges.
Second, if any of these things where happening you could easily show example of that. Yet you don’t. You only pointed to a report that you did not read the original version, but read the version which misrepresented, by omission, the findings of the report.
Joy,
Here is a definition of what common law really is.
http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/C/CommonLaw.aspx
Magna carta concerned the relation between freeman and the King. It had no or little relation to common law.
Sylvain,
You are wrong, plain wrong.
Magna Carta is the first example of a written law which was a contract between the highest authority, King John, and the barons and thus everybody else.
There are no earlier examples.
It is hard for you to acknowledge , I know, but the authority of the law rests with a moral argument about right and wrong. Atheism has nothing to contribute in discussions of morals. When they do, they borrow from the church and try to hide the fact. Like you are doing right now.
“common law” is a concept like common sense.
It’s not difficult or complicated.
Let’s begin at the bottom:
Quite the opposite: people in their 30s, suffering from mental illnesses such as autism, are being killed by doctors in the Netherlands, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/where-the-prescription-for-autism-can-be-death/2016/02/24/8a00ec4c-d980-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html; and, In Belgium, children of any age (in the Netherlands, children over the age of 12 can be killed), are, curiously, be allowed to ‘consent’ to euthanasia as well, see https://www.rt.com/news/belgium-king-sign-euthanasia-bill-566/. I should add, there was also the >recent case of Nathan Verhelst, 44, whose dissatisfaction with his sex change operation ended in a request to be murdered, see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2440086/Belgian-transsexual-Nathan-Verhelst-44-elects-die-euthanasia-botched-sex-change-operation.html#ixzz2gUOEBIYG“.
Have you not been following the situation in Europe regarding euthanasia before opening your mouth and accusing people of being fabulists?
Again, not at all. As we are find, euthanasia is being extended to people that are not seriously ill and suffering from terminal diseases, but it is being extended to persons suffering chronic illnesses, mental illnesses, and no illnesses but who are going through some sort of psychological trauma or dis-ease. It has now even been extended to children. We are finding also that some patients are being killed even where there is discord between consulting physicians, leading to some professional disquiet on this side of the pond, see http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2491354.
This isn’t inconvenient in the slightest and does nothing to destroy my argument at all. It shows that they discussed it with there doctor without having made a specific request, or they had discussed it in the past but again made no specific request. You know, being killed, given its finality, should require a specific request not only a general discussion. And what about those cases were patients were near to death, had not even discussed euthanasia with there doctor let only made a specific request and yet been killed? Apparently, you saw fit to emphasize this passage without noticing that this obviously destroys your claim re autonomy.As to the last passage you emphasized, regarding life being shortened by a few hours or days? What is your point? Are you suggesting that shortening someone’s life by a few hours or days is morally insignificant? Are you seriously suggesting this?
Sylvain,
You have to see it to believe it, obviously.
I don’t believe most people have the faintest clue how these things actually work out.
Perhaps it is too abstract for you to countenance that anything could be going wrong.
I am not even speaking of euthanasia but even in palliative care which should be
simple enough administration of care and comfort, I am afraid a cold cynicism has set in and that is the nicest way I can describe it.
In reality lives are ended early and often not comfortably.
Spare the details, you either credit it or you don’t.
Anyone fully informed and or witness to what goes on, who justify the process of termination of life are the least equipped to be near patients or to make decisions about their care.
Joy,
I take it you haven’t read the link I posted.
At which university did you learn about law? Me Université de Montréal.
There were other laws written before Magna Carta. See code Hammurabi, 1750bc, Justinian code in the sixth century.
In law, Magna Carta is related to the evolution personal liberties, as well as the 1689 Bill of Right England.
Common Law was the judiciary system in the United Kingdom until the creation of the parliamentary system slowly codifying the law in the UK.
There is nothing pure in law. Laws are there to help arbitration between civilian in civil matters, and to punish the people that did not respect the personal liberties of others in criminal matters. What is protected is the individual body.
Until recently, before the 1900s, deformed babies were killed at birth to alleviate their suffering. The same was done to unwanted children, or the children that could not be taken care of for lack of means.
On the other matter, I studied nursing, and while at the hospital there was a handicap patient who was in constant pain. To help the child the doctor cut all the tendons in her body, so the child was like a puppet without strings. She still had a lot of pain and the maximum doses of opiate was given to her on a regular basis. There was no hope of getting better, no consciousness of her surroundings only pain. This would have been a good case for euthanasia. Everybody was wishing her death as fast as possible. It took years, the parent divorced. She never left the hospital but for a few days at some point. She never spoke, never showed signs of a reaction to the environment. But she showed a lot of pain. There was no mercy for her.
Hans: So do I.
Dover,
Your first link, yes he is autistic, which seems to be mild at that since he is able to communicate. And it took over a year before the act was done. Do you think it is easy to go through life without no one loving or caring for you. Some people can’t stand it, and many suicide is done for this exact reason. Many guys often kill their girlfriend or wives and children because they can’t stand to be alone. I guessed murder/suicide are better than euthanasia in your book.
By the way, I don’t mind that people use guns to kill themselves, but I do mind that the gun is used to kill other people before killing themselves.
Second links: It took 2 years (2 YEARS) for the deaf, probably mute, going blind brother before a doctor consented to their request. Let’s put you in a cell without any chance of communicating with someone to see how long it will take you to kill yourself.
Also, they have strict criteria to meet:
“The legislation, which grants children the right to request euthanasia if they are ‘in great pain’ and there is no available treatment.”
Plus, all these people requested to be euthanized. It is not the state that told them that they had to die. Most of them the family was not aware (though they should have been) which shows it is not the family that put pressure on them.
So you are a fabulist, because the state didn’t elect to kill anyone, doctors just don’t kill anyone willy-nilly, the process takes months to two years. Only those, that request it, are euthanized. As for the psychological suffering, it can trully be unbearable. Two of my friends killed themselves because of bullying in my teenage years.
Me, instead of suicide, I chose to make the life miserable to those who made mine miserable, meaning I was in their face everywhere they went.
“Again, not at all…”
Between your opinion and those of the people who actually studied it over decades, I’ll let you guess which one is most credible.
It would be a problem if people were euthanized by forced. Until now they have been euthanized by choice.
from your third link:
“The euthanasia review committees found that one case failed to meet legal due care criteria.”
This means it should be murdered and the doctor prosecuted or at least the case reevaluated.
You just have to watch the show on TLC “Untold stories of the E.R.” to see that there is often disagreement between doctor. Medicine is not an exact science.
“Are you seriously suggesting this?”
Yes, it is morally insignificant to shorten a life by a few hours or a few days when the outcome is inevitable.
I have a big problem with people using guns to terminate the life of others without their consent. It happens 10,000 times a year in the US. There is also 23,000 suicide by guns in the USA. How many are killed by drunk drivers, yet people can still drink.
Are you suggesting that those are okay and nothing should be done to save them.
Sylvain, you are a rather dishonest interlocutor aren’t you? I just demonstrated, with those links you are absolutely desperate for, that euthanasia now encompasses killing more than those who are suffering terminal illnesses, including children and the mentally ill, and some not so mentally ill, and you go and suggest that I also claimed that they never ‘requested’ euthanasia when I said no such thing. Still, the state did elect to kill them on their request because it could have simply said, “No, we don’t kill patients in our care”.
You don’t need to rely on anyone’s credibility, the argument is everything. Euthanasia was initially argued only for the minority of cases involving terminal illnesses at their end stage, but now we find that it is being extended to the (not so) mentally ill, and so on. So, yes, it’s clear that there is indeed a slippery slope, although strictly speaking, it isn’t a slippery slope. They could never as a matter of principle quarantine euthanasia so as to only ever include the terminally ill given the argument itself.
We’ve already seen that people have been euthanized without their consent but you keep ignoring that. The Remmelink Report admitted that.
You’ve missed the point of the authors entirely, and that was that the committees appear to be rubber stamps providing no independent overview.
Oh, well, so why should we even need to ask terminally ill patients before we euthanize them if, as you say, “it is morally insignificant to shorten a life by a few hours or a few days when the outcome is inevitable.” As I said in the beginning, consent and autonomy is only a fig leaf.
Dover,
“and you go and suggest that I also claimed that they never ‘requested’ euthanasia when I said no such thing.”
This is what you put in bold text above:
“without having made a specific request”
“I just demonstrated, with those links you are absolutely desperate for, that euthanasia now encompasses killing more than those who are suffering terminal illnesses, including children and the mentally ill, and some not so mentally ill, and you go and suggest that I also claimed that they never ‘requested,’ euthanasia when I said no such thing.”
These are Belgium and Danemark laws. The law that is applied here is this:
“DIVISION II
MEDICAL AID IN DYING
26. Only a patient who meets all of the following criteria may obtain medical aid in dying:
(1) be an insured person within the meaning of the Health Insurance Act
(chapter A-29);
(2) be of full age and capable of giving consent to care;
(3) be at the end of life;
(4) suffer from a serious and incurable illness;
(5) be in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability; and
(6) experience constant and unbearable physical or psychological suffering which cannot be relieved in a manner the patient deems tolerable.
The patient must request medical aid in dying themselves, in a free and informed manner, by means of the form prescribed by the Minister. The form must be dated and signed by the patient. The form must be signed in the presence of and countersigned by health
or social service professionals; if the professional is not the attending physician, the signed form is to be given by the professional to the attending physician.”
Explanation of the law:
http://sante.gouv.qc.ca/en/programmes-et-mesures-daide/loi-concernant-les-soins-de-fin-de-vie/
The complete law that is now valid in Québec.
http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=5&file=2014C2A.PDF
The Dutch and Belgian Act on Euthanasia’s wording is very different than what is applicable to Canada or Québec.
“Still, the state did elect to kill them on their request because it could have simply said, ‘No, we don’t kill patients in our care’.”
These States decided that they would respect the wishes, rights and liberties of their citizen. I know that you are not familiar in the USA where cops should kill unarmed black kids on sight.
“Euthanasia was initially argued only for the minority of cases involving terminal illnesses at their end stage, but now we find that it is being extended to the (not so) mentally ill…”
Less than 2% of death are euthanasia related, this is pretty much the definition of a minority (7% of US deaths is suicide by firearms). Why exactly do you care that people’s wishes, rights and liberties are respected by the states. These laws have tremendous support in their country. The basis for the laws are individual liberties. Where each individual is entitled to determine what happens to them.
I admit that this not what Catholics and Christian American are used too. The Catholic Church claims power over the individual in their societies. Women were forced to have babies or they were shunted. They killed hundreds (thousands if we include effigies) during the inquisition because the person was not supposedly behaving as good Christians they. This was a mass state of euthanasia. In the USA you euthanized criminals and some of them are now known to have been innocent. These people did not request to die.
Have you read the Remmelink report itself. No, because the author refuted that claim themselves.
“You’ve missed the point of the authors entirely, and that was that the committees appear to be rubber stamps providing no independent overview.”
You confound to things that they agree with the physician often doesn’t mean they don’t look at the case. Since they do find irregularities. Meanwhile a doctor has murdered 100s of people where it was not permitted.
“Oh, well, so why should we even need to ask terminally ill patients before we euthanize them if, as you say, ‘it is morally insignificant to shorten a life by a few hours or a few days when the outcome is inevitable.’”
These cases are extremely rare and the vast majority have expressed the desire to be euthanized to their physicians. The other was already unable to communicate and in extreme pain.
Corrected:
Yes, but not in relation to the cases I linked to involving autistic patients or children being euthanized, which explains why you failed to mention the context in which the bold text was made, namely, the Remmelink Report.
I’m Australian, you bigoted clown.
Because this so-called ‘right’ involves other people deliberately taking the life of an innocent human being.
Which claim?
I confound? I confound?!
No, no, you are evading what you have said. You said that “it is morally insignificant to shorten a life by a few hours or a few days when the outcome is inevitable”, and as the Remmelink Report noted, that vast majority of cases of euthanasia then involved shortening the life of the patient by “a few hours or days only”. So, again, if the doctor has objectively determined that the patient has only a few hours or days to live, than as you said, it is morally insignificant to shorten the patients life when the outcome is inevitable”, whether or not they have provided consent.
I was a hospice volunteer for several years and had love ones that passed away under hospice care not long ago. I have always wondered if the so-called palliative care by starvation and hydration and morphine is indeed of any comfort to the patient.
Oh, I just happened to have watched the following last night!
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-aid-in-dying-lapook/
Dehydration. Dehydration. (Typed twice to meet the minimum requirement of 15 characters.)
Sylvaain,
The history of English law starts with The Magna Carta.
What happened BC and elsewhere is separate.
Common law does not exist in England except as a concept and a reference to history.
Perhaps it does in Canada I didn’t read your link you are quite right since I saw your data on Rape I thought it might not be fruitful exercise. I brought it up to illustrate how the law started and that it was intended to be universal within the realm, not a privilege for some.
My point that the law is a set of rules with original purpose and the authority which I described is true. The basis of the authority was right and wrong. Reference to God in legalese is still present with all lay persons expected to swear on a holy book (with atheists excused of course) and which I was hoping not to have to write out ought to be obvious to you that the ultimate
truth will be judged by God. I am not asking you to agree that the ultimate authority rests with God but simply to acknowledge fact.
The law has grown exponentially in Europe so as to erode power from it’s member states and render unrecognisable the law as it was intended.
Canada has no doubt done similar things to itself without the help of Europe! what’s your excuse!
So my argument is as always that morals start with the individual. The law is secondary but WAS strong and unambiguous with regards to euthanasia. For those with no faith in ultimate justice the law is God.
The little girl you describe is a vague story but I take it that this was a long time ago because what you describe sounds like mutilation. Certainly not what goes on. Nobody has “all the tendons in their body cut”, nobody. There would be no point.
Tendons are lengthened surgically, released, transplanted, transferred and rarely severed altogether without a very good clinical reason.
If tendons were released it would be to treat complications from contracture and not for treatment of pain. Without the brain’s descending inhibition, as in babies, the limbs take the foetal position. This is not painful. Sometimes when there is brain injury in later life flexion deformity is painful. This type of pain can be treated or managed.
Understanding and detecting pain in patients who cannot communicate is complex and should be assumed only when there is evidence of pain. A deformity which is unsightly is not necessarily and often is not painful. Prescription of morphine for chronic pain clearly brings problems that beget more suffering if not managed correctly. A local consultant paediatrician prescribed 5ml sugar solution to neonates when they had pain and with good effect. She then had neurotic people saying she was damaging their future teeth! The sugar stopped them crying and was used if the crying was considered a sign of pain. Frankly the example is really too vague to guess.
It is because more is known and understood that treatment has and will continue to improve.
Giving up is not the answer.
Jh,
You’re absolutely right.
What is happening now is people with dementia who are ‘a bit of a nuisance’ are ‘deemed’ to have tummy ache, prescribed sedation when food is coming round where they need assistance feeding, i.e. prompting to eat, so they become frail, go off their feet, are prescribed more morphine and then, when they are completely dehydrated and beyond rescue, are left. “for nature to take it’s course”
A patient with dementia can be dealt with by concerned relatives with or without power of attorney. Paperwork is not checked and yet to pay money into an account as power of attorney can be such a big deal.
Would that medicine cared as much as the banks.
“I’m Australian, you bigoted clown.”
You would fit quite well in Redneck country USA. It is a good thing that majority of Australian do not share your point of view.
What is your experience with palliative care?
Palliative care shorten life. They make choices to increase mophine dosage, to dehydrate the patient, to not feed him. All these action are done to expedite the inevitable.
There is very little difference between palliative care and Euthanasia as intended in Canadian laws. The law is simply there to protect the physician.
“No, no, you are evading what you have said.”
You are missing the point. With the Canadian law able bodied people will not be elligible for euthanasia. In Europe they have more permissive laws. But when a patient go see the physician to die. The process is long and hardous. In the end it is the individual that makes the choice, not the doctor not the state.
Joy pointed to Magna Carta which was the beginning of individual human right and the Habeus Corpus. Which was marking a difference of centuries where individuality was repressed by an ever more strict and powerful Church. People that were different mainly because they were mentally ill were killed for these differences. Babies that were difformed were killed at birth because they couldn’t be taken care of.
Individual liberty apply to a physical body. The consience that control that body can do whatever it wants with that body. What is not tolerated is the imposing of ones wishes on a body it does not control.
If someone whishes to die and that a full year a discussing with that person does change is mind, then maybe this is the only solution for that person. Who are you to tell that person that you are forcing her to be alive because you don’t care for them. You only care about yourself.
Joy,
I realize that you have not studied law at all which explains your confusion.
Magna Carta mainly created the Habeas Corpus which prevented imprisonment/banishment on the whims of the King. It had nothing to do with common law which was the base of for the law system that was created by the parliament after the restoration. The English were envious of the French who had codified their law is the 1500s with the Coutume de Paris and other towns.
After the restoration, the English parliament cumulated the jurisprudence of the common law and codified it. England and all its colony legal system, including the USA, were base on a system of Common Law.
There never has been a system of laws that was pure and based on right or wrong. Laws were to favor some people who had enough influence to reach the King or the parliament.
The original Bill of Rights in England and the USA only applied to white English men. The women and colored people had no standing in front of the law because they were not people. If a woman was raped or killed, the husband or father received monetary compensation for the loss of value of is the wife or daughter. Women had no freedom. They seldom inherited anything unless they were the only surviving person of the family. If they were married, it was their husband that inherited from her family.
The presence of God in the law is only there because of when the system was started. God rejects laws created by men. And all written law is written by men including the 10 commandments and Deuteronomy (this is the base of criminal law.
That God is the ultimate judge only means that it is not because a court of men judged someone guilty or not guilty that God will judge him guilty or not guilty. God doesn’t need anyone to tell what you did was good or wrong, he knows.
The Church has been a proponent of euthanasia for a long while. What do you think the inquisition and witch trial were about. They were about killing anyone who did not conform to the Church. The Church has never been afraid to kill anyone. The demented and those with psychological deficiencies were shunted out of the community left to die in the wild. Deformed kids at birth were killed because they were evil.
The example was from 1994-5. A few years later there was a similar case. The father killed his daughter that was suffering from the same medical problem.
http://ethics-euthanasia.ca/case-study-robert-latimer/
My position is not about giving up but respect for the individual person choices. Not to force my belief upon them.
Sylvain,
That is the point. People like you are pushing your beliefs on others by decree. That euthanasia must be legal. If people chose to do evil acts they must be forced to stay on the illegal side and face the consequences.
Your way allows for erosion of the value of life, the endeavour of saving life and advancement of medicine. The most apparent defeatism that I have seen elsewhere in your remarks.
legalising euthanasia to suit a few allows the most vulnerable people to be exposed to unthinkably cruel and callus treatment whatever their living will states. Read JH’s experience and my comment
As for my knowledge of the law, I have had rather more dealing with the law than you might imagine. I have never studied law. What I say is true or false whether or not I’ve studied law.
A lot of your argument is untrue and you know which parts those are.
The part about English envy of the French was funny but if you’ve ever known an Englishman who was jealous of a Frenchman you’ve met a rare specimen you should have him stuffed. There is an attitude that ‘hey, no one picks on the French’, ‘that’s out job’. It is meant rather kindlier than it might sound to the individual without humour.
Gruesome behaviours in medieval times changes not the fact about right and wrong and whether or not ending an innocent life is right. There is no way to assert this without reference to God. God is not mentioned in the definition of the crime because the court is structured and premised on the given that God exists! This Part of my argument I received from several sources, one of whom was a high court judge (“for naughty boys”…aka legal malpractice. Another source is a history programme called ‘this sceptre’d isle” which describes in detail the matters of England from the picts to the present day and covers development of the law.
Your description of the King and Magna Carta reiterates mine. That The King’s justice was considered ‘unfair, flakey’. I also was making the point that what we understand of our legal system today, with jury and judge IS based on the concept that there is right and wrong. The judge is not there to decide in criminal cases he is only there to ensure that justice is carried out correctly. i.e. that the machine stays in order. Decision is made by the jury (in most cases).
Clearly we are entering a differentt era where faith in God is being replaced by faith in the law alone. Can you see the difference?
So the law is intended to work like a machine or a factory and if things are simple it works.
The definition of murder (from a barrister, |female|) is simple. I’ll let you look it up. It varies now in different states and in Canada no doubt.
“pure? honest? law?
” The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God.”
Palliative care shorten life. They make choices to increase mophine dosage, to dehydrate the patient, to not feed him. All these action are done to expedite the inevitable.
There is very little difference between palliative care and Euthanasia as intended in Canadian laws
There is a great difference. Palliative care does not involve a deliberate intent to kill the patient. Pain relief is administered to ease pain not to shorten life. Euthanasia involves a deliberate intent to kill the patient.
Joy pointed to Magna Carta which was the beginning of individual human right and the Habeus Corpus. Which was marking a difference of centuries where individuality was repressed by an ever more strict and powerful Church.
Magna Carta was not the beginning of any such thing; its was an agreement between barons and the King and was promptly torn up by King John after he signed it and then proceeded to kill the barons. Individuality was repressed by the Church? There was no such thing as individuality before Christianity appeared on the scene. The Romans and Greeks would have laughed in your face if you raised anything like human rights, or individual subjectivity or spontaneity. You really ought to read Remi Brague’s Eccentric Culture; that would be a good start. Joseph Pieper is also recommended.
To say I am ‘forcing’ them to live is absurd. Moreover, why am I, or anyone else, obliged to actually kill them? Further, why am I obliged to approve a medical system in which doctors and nurses routinely and deliberately kill their patients? There just is no such obligation and very good reasons not to, like not habituating doctors and nurses in the practice of deliberately kill their patients.
Corrected:
There is a great difference. Palliative care does not involve a deliberate intent to kill the patient. Pain relief is administered to ease pain not to shorten life. Euthanasia involves a deliberate intent to kill the patient.
Magna Carta was not the beginning of any such thing; its was an agreement between barons and the King and was promptly torn up by King John after he signed it and then proceeded to kill the barons. Individuality was repressed by the Church? There was no such thing as individuality before Christianity appeared on the scene. The Romans and Greeks would have laughed in your face if you raised anything like human rights, or individual subjectivity or spontaneity. You really ought to read Remi Brague’s Eccentric Culture; that would be a good start. Joseph Pieper is also recommended.
To say I am ‘forcing’ them to live is absurd. Moreover, why am I, or anyone else, obliged to actually kill them? Further, why am I obliged to approve a medical system in which doctors and nurses routinely and deliberately kill their patients? There just is no such obligation and very good reasons not to, like not habituating doctors and nurses in the practice of deliberately kill their patients.
Joy,
“That is the point. People like you are pushing your beliefs on others by decree. That euthanasia must be legal. If people chose to do evil acts they must be forced to stay on the illegal side and face the consequences.”
Who is forcing is beliefs on who.With your position no individual has a choice. He must suffers. With my position everyone is free to make its own choices. No doctors are forced are force to inject their patient if they don’t want. At worst they refer to another doctor. This by the way is common practice inmedecine where the patient and doctor disagree to refer to another doctor.
Beliefs are linked to an individual. For me to push my beliefs upon woud mean that I would force force you to either euthanize someone or to be euthanized yourself. This is not the case.
“Your way allows for erosion of the value of life, the endeavour of saving life and advancement of medicine. The most apparent defeatism that I have seen elsewhere in your remarks.”
Sorry but I see that they other way around. Your way devalue life and individual liberties. My view does not erode medecine one bit. There will always be people who are willing to fight to the end which give medecine its willing subject. Each person is defferent.
When a process takes one to two years there is no hurry to pass to the act. The patient has a long time to either get better and change is mind or to confirm is choices.
If the state decided like germany that those that are weak (vulnerable) handicap, difformto be executed, then you could talk of evil. This is not what we are talking about. We are talking of individual freedom and liberty to choose what happens to them.
You have religiouconception of what law is. But what you say is simply false wheter or not you have studied the law or its history.
My argument may not be as good as an academic that has studied law and the history of legal systems but it remain true.
You know that the British royals are of French lineage since William the Conqueror in 1066, and to the exception of the Cromwell interlude in the 1600s.
“I also was making the point that what we understand of our legal system today, with jury and judge IS based on the concept that there is right and wrong.”
What is right or wrong has never been static over time. It has always been determined by those in power who sometimes acted for the good of the people and sometimes against.
The Church charity toward the poor has usually been for the good of the people, yet the Church has also done the inquisition, declared war and killed unknown number of innocent.
You mistake the belief of wanting to do good through law and the reality of its outcome. How many offenses should end in death in the Bible? That’s because it was how people defined right or wrong around 1000 BC. Things changed over time. 143 people have ben cleared of the death penalty since DNA testing. How many innocent were there in those who were killed.
“Clearly we are entering a differentt era where faith in God is being replaced by faith in the law alone. Can you see the difference?”
We are going back to times where law was indivildual in nature and where not everyone shares the same beliefs.
Only your own action can affect God judgment upon you. Nothing I can do can change its judgement, because he knows you and doesn’t need my help to judge you. This is the same with all individual. It is very dangerous and false argument that the action of others are responsible for a disaster like Pat Robertson who said that Katrina happened because of gay people. Yet Québec as much more progressive law than New Orleans and we have no disaster coming our way.
If god is everywhere, what place does it leave for the devil if not inside yourself. only you (any human) can reject god to create a house for the devil.
Personally, I don’t believe in the devil. I don’t believe that life is only corporial. For me there is three substances (body (material-muable-(can be perfect or imperfect)-soul(line of communication between the 2 others)-spirit(immaterial, perfect, immuable).The Catholic Holy Trinity of 1 in 3 is total BS.
Nothing is simple in laws, it is because it is complicated thatthere are lawyers. If it was simple there would not be any need of judges because everyone would knowwhat is what.
Murder seems simple yet there are condition where people can kill someone because they don’t realize it. Such an example is a woman who took antibiotic and a a bad reaction, while in her head she was thinking she was slicing tomato she really was slicing her arm. She didn’t kill anyone yet she never realized that she was cutting her self. She felt no pain until after the effect of the anitbiotic died out.
The belief that law is pure and divine is very Islamic in nature.
Killing does not equal murder. Murder is deliberately killing an innocent person. In the example you provide, the person that provides an antibiotic that leads to a fatal reaction has not deliberately killed that person. The worst that we could say is that they may have been reckless in administering the antibiotic if there was a history of such reactions in the past , the doctor knew, but risked such a reaction nevertheless.
Dover,
In the example, no one died but she still wasn’t conscious of what was happening to her. But she could have slice anyone at that time. Her case was not unique and the antibiotic was recalled nationwide.
In one of the link I wanted to post but was rejected by the blog filter, palliative care doctor admitted giving higher dosage morphine knowing that it would shorten the life of the patient. If death was not the primary reason, they knew it could or would be the outcome. Less than 30% of all euthanazia request are acted upon.
“To say I am ‘forcing’ them to live is absurd. Moreover, why am I, or anyone else, obliged to actually kill them?”
No one is force to kill anyone, only the physician that agree with is patient will.
“Further, why am I obliged to approve a medical system in which doctors and nurses routinely and deliberately kill their patients?”
No one is asking your approval, They are asking the state and the court to recognize their rights. Your opinion or mine doesn’t change anything.
“Magna Carta was not the beginning of any such thing.”
Individual right and liberties is one of my best subject. It is very rare that I don’t predict correctly the outcome of trial about human rights. This means that I understand this subject very well and law in general.
So I ws really not surprise to see this while searching about Magna Carta:
http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/magna-carta-and-human-rights#sthash.M1qHmG2A.dpuf
“When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, it drew upon Magna Carta, as well as the Bill of Rights (1689) and others, for inspiration.”
http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/articles/modern-america-and-magna-carta
“The Romans and Greeks would have laughed in your face if you raised anything like human rights, or individual subjectivity or spontaneity.”
No there wasn’t any human rights in back then but individuality was very strong. The society were polytheist but not everyone believed in all the Gods and everyone was free to believe. they were also free to live as they wanted. Well at least the Roman citizen.
Sylvain,
I don’t really disregard your knowledge of law but disagree with some of your statements.
Re dispensing with Magna Carta:
I brought it up for a reason which I‘m not sure you grasped as you galloped off into the hills. My point about common law was a trivial side remark on my part.
When I refer to the law, to judge, to swearing by almighty God, I refer to what you and I and a five year old would agree is a law court. The Magna Carta reference was that God was mentioned, that it was the first written example and to note the fact that Canada and other western countries had the same origin, England. That was my point. However there is no such thing as an appeal to common law and I’m sticking to it. Through most of England’s early history there was fighting, so what? Kings and queens married from all over the continent of Europe and mostly for diplomacy.
’Tis Germany more recently and France historically that want us.
France and England have much in common but so does England and Denmark or Scandinavia.
It seems Magna Carta is used now for mischief and to win arguments! It has, however, had no executive power if I can put it that way, for hundreds of years.
Habeas corpus you can’t do someone without a body?
An oak tree starts with an acorn the seed no longer has a physiological function but historically it came first. There’s a posh word for this but I’m all out of those.
Legalisation of euthanasia so that some may chose it is naive given what happens now in palliative care,, regardless of moral position or legal contracts. So people who are innocent will find they are victim to the system that has altered to cynically only value life when it suits the notions of a few. It is the very real unintended consequences which rash lawmakers never consider.
Palliative care is soothing of symptoms. In case of cold or flu it aids sleep, reduces inflammation, temperature and therefore relieves pain. This is what palliative means. It is to ease suffering even though it will not result in a cure. If the cure was available it would be administered.
The difference in non terminal cases is that symptomatic relief is gaged based on a knowledge that the patient will continue to improve and function. Therefore prescribing morphine, for example, is not indicated precisely because the person is expected to recover without being saddled with an addiction. The reason that higher levels of morphine are prescribed is because the effective therapeutic dose increases not just because pain increases but because the liver breaks it down. One of my difficulties is that patients are not given morphine but are left to dehydrate i.e. die of thirst. This is not palliative or care.
About the structure of God: I’m not forcing any idea. I say that the Christian faith is the most historically successful, intellectually wise and spiritually compassionate. It has been a force for good in the world. Many atheists admit the same even if they don’t believe in God. I am not interested in reopening sectarian wounds.
You are right. People’s religion is their own business but the law we recognise developed in England which was Christian. That’s the important fact.
That was my point.
It doesn’t matter, you were saying that people can murder someone without realizing it which is obviously wrong, murder requires deliberate intent to kill an innocent.
Increasing the dosage of morphine in order to effectively ease pain even though this may foreseeably shorten the life of the patient doesn’t constitute euthanasia because the intent of the doctor is to ease pain, not kill the patient.
Yes, they are. Doctors that refuse to refer a patient to a doctor that is willing to kill the patient will be disciplined or removed from their posts. Nurses that refuse a doctor’s orders to participate or themselves perform the act will also be either disciplined or removed. More broadly, such a system implicates every involved, directly or indirectly.
We are citizens of these states. Rights impose obligations. There right to die asserts a right to have this desire satisfied. That requires the action of another and this appears as an obligation. That is why hospitals in Canada are now obliged to perform assisted suicides.
“When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, it drew upon Magna Carta, as well as the Bill of Rights (1689) and others, for inspiration.”
Did you notice the “for inspiration”. But guess where else the UDHR received ‘inspiration’ in terms of its form and substance, from Catholic philosophers like Maritain – http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maritain/ – and from natural law tradition more broadly, whose influence can be observed all over the Declaration.
No, individuality wasn’t strong at all in the sense we are familiar with the word. And, no, people were not “free to believe” because people were obliged to publicly pay homage to the gods of the city or Empire, and would be punished for failing to do so. Those were the grounds for Jewish and Christian persecution by the Romans. As for people being free to live as they wanted, no, people were required to live according to their station.
“A therapeutic does which is incompatible with life” is how it is expressed.
It is approached asDover states with the aim of alleviating symptoms.
Murder is classed as murder because it includes premeditated intent to kill.
If there is no intent manslaughter is then the crime.
Joy,
Yes, the Magna Carta mentionned God, and most people swear on the Bible when they testify in court and even when they take office. This is symbolic and does not prevent people from lying under oath.
Excerp from:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/magna-carta-muse-and-mentor/writ-of-habeas-corpus.html#obj077
“The writ of habeas corpus had its origins in British common law, predating Magna Carta.
Common law is much more important than you can imagine to our present judicial system.
Individual freedom is mischief?
For thousands of years individual had no recourse against the State impersonated by the King and his representatives as well as the Church which was a Suprastate.
There was arbitration by the King and his delegate in dispute between citizen which was the Common Law.
Emmanuel Todd an economist and anthropologist described the anthropologic diffierence between European, Canadian, American and Asiatic.
These differences develop themselves over hundreds of years. It took a war and a congressional amendement to abolish slavery, and yet a hundred years later the blacks were still segregated and treated as second class citizen. It took a law to abolish segregation and yet black are still not treated as equal.
The majority of people going through the process of euthanasia don’t actually go through with it. Some because the death occured faster than expected, others because they alternative are found. The process is thoughtfull and when a doctor try to cut orners he gets burn. The most important thing is that each person has dominion over what happen to their own body.
This is the biggest area of progress in human history. The notion that wach persons are free to be or do what they wants, as long as it doesn’t restrict the freedom of another person.
There are very little difference between Christianism, Islam (Muslim were in fact the first Christian untill they Roman Empire modified it beyond recognition), and Judaism. Within each religion there are different interpretation which lead to different religion. You have Protestant, Chatholic and Orthodox Christian, Sunni and Shiite Muslim, Orthodox and Hassidim Jews for few examples.
This is why there is seperation of State and Church. The State does not favor one interpretation over the other. It does not favor Christian over Hindus, Buddhist or atheist. Its decision are taken on an individual basis and the body is the base of the decision.
That people lie under oath is not really the point. I am not implying that court guarantees truth is discovered? It is the best that can be done to hope that people tell the truth but this is clearly why all evidence not just testimony is considered. The wigs, the dress, along with the structure of the room is a kind of theatre and it presses witnesses as they have a visual cue of the gravity of their situation. None of that is salient to the argument about the law representing a prescribed view of right and wrong.
On the function of law: There is one crime, one law (section of law) in particular disputed here, that is the proposed change in the law in Canada to allow,even subliminally push, euthanasia as it goes further, to insist that it is made available to all. The stench of ‘current unfairness’ ever present.
This is the way all such modern “rights” work. ‘rights’ are opinions enforced on the basis of assumed unfairness. If a nation is primarily of a certain faith, ‘rights’ are superfluous because people agree. This is the very definition of a country that is able to remain cohesive with regards to rule of law.
If law attempts to serve everybody’s peculiarity of opinion or want it serves nobody in general because this causes disagreement conflict and erodes respect for the law.
I don’t approve of obligating the provision of euthanasia Sylvain. I just disagree fundamentally.
At least we were able to agree on what happens in court!
“Yes, the Magna Carta mentioned God, and most people swear on the Bible “
That’s a result, if it’s true.
Sylvain:
The Byzantines modified Islam? Muslims were the first Christians even though Christians first appear in the first century AD and Muslims only appear in the seventh century AD?
You really don’t know what you are talking about. This is one of the problems with attempts at autodidacticism; it leads to the appearance of knowledge where there is none.
**UPDATE**
“Court allows doctor-assisted death for Toronto man”
Well that didn’t take long.
Dover,
“The Byzantines modified Islam? Muslims were the first Christians even though Christians first appear in the first century AD and Muslims only appear in the seventh century AD?”
Christianisim spread from Jerusalem in early A.D. toward the North into Asia Minor where Pliny the Younger communicated to Trajan their numerous presence. It also spread through North Africa and until it gains ground toward Rome.
As Pontifex Maximus, Constantine became the head of the Church (above the pope) in 323 A.D. when he declared Christianism legal in throughout the Roman Empire. In doing so it also modified the principle of Christianism to the point that Christian around Jerusalem, and Asia Minor did not recognize their religion anymore and slowly distanced themselves from it, until the advent of Islam in the 500s A.D. The people that became Muslim were in fact the first Christians.
What I learned by myself is English.
Joy,
Are you from the USA, the UK, Canada or Australia?
“I don’t approve of obligating the provision of euthanasia Sylvain. I just disagree fundamentally.”
This is your right and I respect it and no one should force you to get euthanized. The fact that we are arguing doesn’t mean I disrespect your position.
Your position and opinion doesn’t affect me as long as my state respect my wishes.
“This is the way all such modern ‘rights’ work. ‘Rights’ are opinions enforced on the basis of assumed unfairness. ”
Oh boy this is so wrong.
Human Rights are there to protect all individuals against either the masses of the population or the state. No one gains more right than others under it . That they name certain categories of people doesn’t limit these rights to these categories.
In the UN Chart of Human rights they put the categories that Nazis concentrated their effort on exterminating. They exterminated by race, religions, political affiliation, handicaps and gays. Gays did not make it on the Charts because not all countries could agree to have them listed, even though they were also the target of Nazi.
Human rights protect your person as much as anyone else’s. A law that is collective is discriminatory to those who are not part of that collective. There are 2 examples that I know of. Collective bargaining and indigenous treaty.
This is where individuality becomes important in that the law protect your individuality not a group. The individual is free to choose what happens to his persona up t a few exceptions. It is on the basis of human rights that euthanasia came to be.
The state is secular, and each individual as its own sets of beliefs or religion. The state cannot favor one religion above the other. The Court always looks at which individual is the most impacted.
This is why bakers that refuse to render service to gay people on religious basis lose since there is no difference between baking a cake for an heterosexual marriage or gay one. The cake is not a message unless the form is specific or that it contains a specific message. A Baker doesn’t have to produce or keep in stock gay figurines set.
This is why a Christian-T-shirt company gain their case and did not have to produce t-shirt for a gay pride parade, because there was a message on the t-shirt which the owner disagree with.
By ‘Christianisim’ you mean Christianity. But, yes.
Firstly, no, Constantine did not become head of the Church when he issued the Edict of Milan that ended the persecution of Christians. Secondly, who are these Christians in Asia Minor, North Africa, and the Levant that slowly distanced themselves from Christianity? Are you referring obliquely to the Arian heresy? That began a quarter of a century before Constantine became emperor and forty years before he issued the Edict of Milan. Thirdly, Islam began in the Arabian desert among a population largely populated by polytheists and Jews, and given the reception that the latter gave Mohammed, we can say the first Muslims were former polytheists. Lastly, the Christians of the Levant and North Africa either remained Christian under sufferance (i.e. Coptic Christians, Maronite Christians), or converted. Asia Minor remained Christian until the Seljuk Turk invasion three centuries later, and retained significant Christian communities into the 20th century.
In the cases involving that have appeared in the news involving bakers and florists they never refused to render service to gay people, how could they, the complainants were long-standing customers, what they refused was participation in a gay wedding. What is the difference, well, imagine a member of the KKK walking into a Harlem bakery, one this member regularly attended, asking the owner to bake cakes for a White Power convention. Would you say the baker is obliged to render service to a White Power convention? I certainly don’t think he had such an obligation.
Dover,
Firstly, learn your history. Even Christian scholars agree with me.
As Pontifex Maximus, Constantine was the head of all religion. In the hierarchy, he was above the pope. The emperor kept the title of Pontifex Maximus until Gratian.
“Theodosius and his western counterpart Gratian, recognized Christianity as the official religion of the Empire in 380 AD. Gratian too, likely at the partial behest of Theodosius refused the title of Pontifex Maximus (head priest) and it was bestowed instead on the Catholic Pope in Rome.”
http://www.unrv.com/culture/christianity.php
For more than 50 years the Catholic Church was under the control of the emperor who morphed it into the political institution that they needed to control their population
Constantine was the one directed and controled the Council of Nicea in 325.
‘Having consolidated his hold on the Empire, Constantine promoted unity in every way possible. He recognized that a schism in the Christian church would be just one more destabilizing factor in his empire, and he moved to solve the problem.4 While he had encouragement from men like Hosius, bishop of Cordova, and Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine was the one who officially called for the council.”
http://www.equip.org/article/what-really-happened-at-nicea/
That Constantine did not really about what the bishop decided, hecared that a consensus was attained.
“Secondly, who are these Christians in Asia Minor, North Africa, and the Levant that slowly distanced themselves from Christianity?”
They were the Christian converted to Christianity by the disciple of Jesus following is death. They were the Christian that were persecuted in North Africa by Diocletian around 300 A.D.
These people did not distant themselves from Christianity. They did not join the Roman Catholic heresy that was adopting position that they did not believe in (for example that Christ was the son of God, and few other things that I don’t remember by heart).
Christianty and its beliefs spread eastward too. By the 500s though they did not called themselves Christian their beliefs were very close to the practice of Christianity in the first centuries A.D. in the Middle East, Asia Minor and North Africa. Almost the entire Quran is taken from the Torat and the Bible. It is just reference differently.
People in the Middle east converted to Islam because the conversion was easy.
“… the complainants were long-standing customers, what they refused was participation in a gay wedding”
One of the Baker’s in question had no problem to bake cake for people who couple who were getting married several time, They made a cake for a marriage between dog. Their religious belief seems only to apply to gay wedding.
Baking a cake does not a person a participant to a wedding.
The difference is when a photographer is on site to take picture or a caterer who provide hosting services. A gay wedding is not a sin. The sin is the act of having sexual relation.
“Would you say the baker is obliged to render service to a White Power convention?”
If the request is only for a cake without anything written on it yes the black baker would have to bake the cake (not sure if I dare eat it for fear he pissed in it)
If the reques is for a cake that looks like a black man being hanged then he would be justified to refuse.
If the message is written the baker has to bake the cake but can refuse to write the message.
You won’t obligate euthanasia. It’s a start.
‘obligating the provision’
Was the operative part.
In England proper wedding cakes don’t have writing on them. They are works of fine art.
When we leave the USSEU. Human rights laws will not be missed, finito, Finis, all done, all gone, all finished.
Sylvain:
No, they don’t Sylvain.
Again, no, he was not. No Christian thought of Constantine or latter emperors as ecclesiastically above the pope. As usual, your simplistic reading fails to recognize the profligate usage of the title, that had, by the third century, well before Constantine, essentially become meaningless.
Everything that followed your first assertion I placed in bold does not actually substantiate the assertion. He did not morph the Church into a political institution to control the population and/or call a for a church council in order to achieve this but to attend to increasing fractiousness in the general population because of the Arian heresy.
The second bold assertion is simply untrue as well. Constantine neither directed or controlled the Council of Nicaea. He remained largely aloof of the debate and of the statement that emerged, which was the product of the debates between the bishops, like Athanasius.
Umm, Athanasius of Alexandria, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyprian of Carthage, to name but of few of the Church Fathers of Asia Minor, North Africa and the Levant, were all Trinitarians, so the idea that the two or more centuries of Christians converted since the disciples until Constantine actually did not believe that Christ was the son of God is just preposterous. As an alternative to websites, maybe you can try a scholarly though accessible book like Robert Louis Wilkin’s The First Thousand Years.
Wow, what a poor argument.
Since remarriage is not prohibited in certain protestant denominations, so what? I’ve never heard of this “‘marriage’ between dog” but its obviously a joke either way unless your suggesting that we take the “‘marriage’ between dog” as seriously as gay ‘marriage’.
If the sin is ‘the sexual relation’ than so is the wedding/ marriage because ‘sexual relations’ are implied by marriage. That has always been assumed in the case of marriage.
Joy,
“When we leave the USSEU. Human rights laws will not be missed, finito, Finis, all done, all gone, all finished.”
Then your government will be free to put you in prison for no reason, no free speech, no more religious freedom. Human Rights law protects you as much as they protect any other individual.
It’s kind of sad that you don’t realize their importance in protecting your own freedom.
As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
Dover,
You really have no understanding of how Christianity got formed and who Constantine was, how he perceived himself as God. Under his rule the pope was a puppet at his mercy.
That there was still a priest or enclave of people calling themselves Christians doesn’t remove the fact that other Christian quit the faith because they did not recognize themselves in it.
By 380, when Gratian gave away its Pontifex Maximus title Christians who did not follow the church, as well as those who had other beliefs. A century later Islam started to spread with beliefs strangely similar to that of the first Cristian in the Middle East.
“If the sin is ‘the sexual relation’ then so is the wedding/marriage because ‘sexual relations’ are implied by marriage. That has always been assumed in the case of marriage.”
Sex is assumed to happen between a married couple. It doesn’t happen during the wedding of in front of everybody at the ceremony. Even if it was the photographer would not be the one doing the penetration and or receiving it. And this is what is sanctioned.
Sylvain,
I’m not even slightly afraid. It’s the waiting I can’t stand.
A legal system so hefty and hamstrung , being essentially all about Germany can be re-engineered.
It’s not what you add, it’s what you take away.
We have great enough minds to do it.
If we don’t break out, it will shatter under it’s own lumbering weight. It’s just a matter of which happens first.
Canada will follow suit in the fullness of time.
**UPDATE 2**
“Toronto man granted doctor-assisted death has died”
…not long at all. RIP
Joy,
Here are a few example where huan rights law are shown to protect individual right. This is from a report that was ordered in Québec.
These are religious judment from this report:
This one is probaly the best example:
9. The expulsion of two ambulance attendants from a café in the
Jewish General Hospital
• On February 17, 2005, two ambulance attendants were
asked to leave the Café de l’Atrium at the Jewish General
Hospital, where they were about to eat their lunch. They
could not consume the meals that they had prepared
since they had not bought them in the café and the area
where they were sitting was deemed to be kosher.
• In late February 2005, the two ambulance attendants
filed a complaint with the Commission des droits de la
personne et des droits de la jeunesse.
1. Religious holidays
• On December 17, 1985, the Supreme Court handed
down its decision in Ontario Human Rights Commission
and O’Malley v. Simpsons-Sears Ltd. Theresa O’Malley,
a Seventh-day Adventist, should not have been
terminated by her employer because she refused to work
Friday evening and Saturday morning to observe the
Sabbath.
• On February 10, 1993, the Québec Human Rights
Tribunal handed down a decision in Smart c. T. Eaton
Ltée confirming that a Catholic employee of the Eaton
store could refuse to work on Sunday.
• On June 23, 1994, the Supreme Court handed down a
decision in Commission scolaire régionale de Chambly v.
Bergevin: the Court ordered the school board to
reimburse three Jewish teachers for the day of leave that
they took to celebrate Yom Kippur.
• On June 21, 2001, the Superior Court granted the
Orthodox Jewish plaintiffs the right to erect an erub in
Outremont. The city decided not to appeal the decision
In September 1994, a Québec student who had
converted to Islam* was expelled from the École Louis-
Riel because the wearing of a headscarf contravened
the dress code, which prohibited all head coverings. In
February 1995, the Commission des droits de la
personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ) handed
down an opinion that approved the wearing of the
headscarf in public schools.
A synagogue in Outremont
• In July 1999, Outremont residents won their case before
the Superior Court of Québec, which ordered the closing
of a synagogue on rue Lajoie. The synagogue opened in
1988 and contravened municipal zoning by-laws.
An exception to exempt a Sikh motorcyclist from wearing
a helmet
• On March 6, 2008, the Ontario Court of Justice refused
to grant a Sikh motorcyclist an exemption from wearing
a helmet while riding his motorcycle and thus respect his
religious convictions that oblige him to wear a turban.
Supported by the Ontario Human Rights Commission,
Baljinder Badesha was contesting a ticket he received
in September 2005 while riding his motorcycle without
a helmet.
Do you have any reputable scholarship that Constantine perceived himself as God? That the Pope was a puppet at his mercy? That the bishops deferred to him at Nicaea? I gave you a reference, all you have done is bluff and bluster.
Which Christians? Where?
What does this even mean? Islam appeared in the seventh century in Arabia. There are over two hundred years between its appearance and the date above. There are vigorous Christian communities all over the Mediterranean and Western Europe. Again, the beliefs of the first Christians was Trinitarian; they believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Word made flesh, hardly similar at all to Islam.Do you have any reputable evidence that this was not the case in the first three hundred years? I don’t think so.
We know it doesn’t happen at the wedding, but we know what follows from the wedding. The photographer doesn’t need to be involved in the act to be implicated in it. If the wedding was of brother and sister, the photographer would be, again, entitled to decline participating in the wedding given that s/he would rightly believe that participation in such a ceremony that solemnized such a relationship, immoral.
And please, don’t try and bluff and bluster your way through this again. Actually provide the appropriate material that substantiates your wild assertions.
Dover,
I studied my history of the Middle Ages,, Christianity and the crusade from a devout Catholic born and raised in Italy. Prof Pietro Boglioni was a highly respected scholar and one the most popular teacher at the Université de Montreal. I’ve have also studied the history of Roman and Greeks “religions” with another teacher.
http://www.nouvelles.umontreal.ca/campus/in-memoriam/20110502-le-professeur-pietro-boglioni-nous-a-quittes.html
That does not include other classes I took like history of antiquity, Roman history and reading Thomas Hodgkin and Gibbons, Cesar’s book and “the twelves Cesar” by Suetonius.
Overall, I spent over 200 hours in class studying this period, without including the reading.
How about you?
For Constantine as God you can look at his images before and after 325 A.D. The contrast is very interesting.
This book about Constantine dontain mention that support my claim:
The Roman Revolution of Constantine (the link is mark as spam by the blog)
The same goes for this scholarly article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4204790?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents
“Which Christians? Where?”
North Africa, Asia Minor, Middle East.
Islam appeared in the 6th century, around 570. At that time the Byznatine empire was still holding Jesusalem, hence the Christian presence and the easy conversion after the city fell. In those time changes were not instantaneous they took time.
The council of Nicea was organize to unify the beliefs. Not all the Bichop agreed agreed with the council. Two dissented, I would guess they were from the Middle East and were expatriated outside the ByzantineEmpire.
The Arian Heresy fit very well with Islam beliefs. Arius was and considered himself Christian. Arius was from Alexandria too. Christianity appeared in the Middle East before appearring in the anywhere else. Those who became Muslim where Christian, before being Muslim.
Those who commits the act are those who commit the sin. The act will happen with or without a wedding or a marriage. So the marriage which is very rarely religious, and mostly civil i.e. not before God cannot be an excuse for bigotry.
http://americamagazine.org/issue/575/article/real-story-council-nicea
Bluff and bluster.
Does any of this show the Christians thought of Constantine as God or even as a god? No.
And yet you can’t point to a single one that held beliefs similar to the Muslims even though I pointed out bishops from Carthage, Jerusalem, Smyrna, Alexandria, and Antioch that were orthodox, Trinitarian, Christians.
No, Mohammed was born in 570, Islam appears in the early seventh century.
Yes, yes, I know why the Council was organised and that some bishops didn’t agree but I think you will find that most of those that attended the first council in Nicaea were from Asia Minor, the Levant and North Africa. People like Athanasius of Alexandria (then but a deacon), St. Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, Macarius of Jerusalem, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Eusebius of Caesarea, all opponents of Arianism and defenders of the Trinity.
Yes, I’m intrigued by the view that Islam is a Christian heresy of sorts, a view Hilaire Belloc put forward. But you’ve put forward a view that the first Muslims in Arabia were Christian and that many Christians in the Middle East converted easily to Islam because Christianity as practiced in the Near East and North Africa between the first and fourth century was very similar to Islam. Were is the evidence for that wild claim? You haven’t provided any and I’ve pointed to any number of Church Fathers that shows the opposite.
No, no, whether the act happens with or without the wedding/ marriage is neither nor there. The point is that being obligated to attend or participate in a ceremony that solemnizes or celebrates a relationship that involves such acts is unconscionable. It would be like asking an opponent of the death penalty to participate in an execution by providing a noose.
“Bluff and bluster.”
My guess is that you are the autodidact.
“Does any of this show the Christians thought of Constantine as God or even as a god? No.”
Actually, yes. If youhad took the time to read the link I provided you would have seen that:
“The idea of the divine origin of te sovereign’s power was gradually built-up around the original naïve concept of god-emperor. The Christian Byzantine empire accepted this conception, for nothing could appear more natural to Christians than to sii in the Christian emperor a sovereign appointed by God’s will.
“The Christian sujects of the Emperor Constantine firmly believed that he had been called to rule by the Christian God, and he hemself ordered an effigy to be struck on a gold medallion representing the hand of God placing the imperial crown on his head…”
My claim that Constantine saw himself as a God and that he was at he head of the Church are now verified. He was never a pope but he was above the pope.
“People like Athanasius of Alexandria (then but a deacon), St. Alexander of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, Macarius of Jerusalem, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Eusebius of Caesarea, all opponents of Arianism and defenders of the Trinity.”
Yes, and it means very little in a divided system of belief that was christianity in the middle east at that time. There were almost as much as many version of what it meant to be a Christian than the number of people praticing it. There was no unity in the system of Christian beliefs.
Also the proponent of the trinity were hunted down by Constantine son in the East. It lead several centuries later to the Schism between the East and the West.
“Were is the evidence for that wild claim? You haven’t provided any and I’ve pointed to any number of Church Fathers that shows the opposite.
There were many variation of the belief in Christ. Not all Christian followed the official Church. These were the Christians that converted to Islam, and these were the first Christian.
“No, no, whether the act happens with or without the wedding/ marriage is neither nor there.”
This why you people lose in court. You have no notion of what individual liberties means.
Sylvain, Old testament New Testament, Quran. How does this inform your argument about individual liberty? It doesn’t. Chronology of christianity and who did what isn’t the point. The point is that christianity exists and did so in the country that informed Canadian law, you agreed.
To Canada’s recent legal history: What a muddle of contradiction and weak argument has been allowed to be written into regulation.
The law was embellished with a layer of things called rights, masquerading as freedoms; misguided and unwise, having unintended consequences for the society of the country the legal system was set up to serve. Once the fabric of the society is so fragmented it can no longer pretend to serve everybody.
The arrangement becomes like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Like a kind of positive feedback which by nature is unstable. I know you’re in love with the idea of the little man getting his own back but Harm to an individual does not extend to ‘as part of or on behalf of’ a given group of the downtrodden or unfortunate. That is something that must be left to good manners and common courtesy or matters of taste.
For a country to exist for a time peacefully and together there has to be some common thread of world view thinking backed up by a framework of how harmony and discord might be handled which also must be generally backed by the overwhelming majority, i.e. respect for rule of law. Once those world views diverge to a point where society breaks down it is clear indication that encroachment by the framework is no longer protecting everybody. “fairness” has gone too far and worse, society of the country has just formed new boundaries within countries.
Your examples are precisely the reason that law is no longer supporting freedom but controlling actions of individuals and groups. Not for the reason of serious criminal misconduct but in case someone’s bias or prejudice caused hurt. Little minor scrapes, Such things are all part of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune of which men (and women) must learn to take on the chin, or rise above and ignore. Life isn’t fair and it’s no good trying to make the law to pretend that it is. It does more damage only to prove that life isn’t fair.
It’s a bit rich to use examples about dress code and religious holiday to back an argument for euthanasia which is a matter of taking life:- Always a criminal law debate, for that is what has been changed, criminal law, to allow euthanasia.
Sorry, Sylvain, but you are a perfect illustration of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Not at all. What you quoted only provides a possible ground for the idea of the idea that a sovereign rules “by the will of God”, not that the sovereign was God or a god, or that he was head of the Church and thus ‘above the Pope’. You simply extrapolated those assertions out of thin air. And we know he was not “above the Pope” because no bishops, etc. ever deferred to the sovereign on matters concerning the Magisterium, ever.
LOL. The Church Fathers mean nothing? You really don’t care about the truth, do you? We have Christian representatives of communities, for example, from Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, Carthage, Hippo, Jerusalem, Lyon, Nicomedia, Rome, and Smyrna, agreeing on the fundamental beliefs of all Christians and you’re telling me it doesn’t matter and that irrespective of this unity of belief there was ‘no unity’. Again, uou simply have no respect or concern for the truth.
Simply repeating an error cannot magic it into a correct statement.
I certainly do. You, however, do not. Obligating persons to perform acts they consider unconscionable is not an instance of individual liberty, but the opposite.
Sorry but when the Pope and Christians are okay that a picture of of Christ placing a crown on the head of Constantine, they pretty much accept that he is their leader. The Christian might not see him as God but Constantine does, so he didn’t accept a Church that was not subservient to his rule. By the way, Jesus was against idolatry who do you think changed that?
“…agreeing on the fundamental beliefs of all Christians and you’re telling me it doesn’t matter and that irrespective of this unity of belief there was ‘no unity’.”
You realize that if there was unity as you claim there would have been no need of having a Council to unify the beliefs. There would not have been anArian Heresy. There would not have been a schism in 1054 between the East and the West. There wouldn’t been 3 Popes at the same time at some point. There would not have been the Restoration movement of Luther. The vast majority of Christian operated independently like Jewish communities.
The first Christian were found in Jerusalem and Palestine, in 30 A.D. and composed a good portion of the population of those region by 325. The majority of these Christians converted to Islam when jerusalem fell to the Muslim around 630 A.D. But Christian to the East of Jerusalem had already started to convert to Islam.
This is a map of the spread of Christianity:
http://www.slideshare.net/Presentationsat24point0/map-spread-of-christianity-15899393
“Obligating persons to perform acts they consider unconscionable is not an instance of individual liberty, but the opposite.”
Sorry but to bake a cake or prepare flowers is not such an act. And no doctor are forced to euthanize anyone.
Joy,
The example of the ambulance crew:
The Jewish hospital had no right to reove from the cafeteria, a public placs, 2 individual that were eating their home cook meal because they were not cosher.
These individuals were not Jewish and were not giving or selling food they were eating it. In removing them the Hospital did not respect their freedom of religion and was condemn to pay $10,000 to the individuals.
The erub wire is a fishing line that is placed about 20 foot in the air. No one see it from the ground and it does not effect the life of anyone living near its proximity. It means nothing to Christians but it is very important to the Jewish community. Since no one suffered from having the erub the judge sided with the Jewish comunity.
How is personal freedom not respected when ones freedom to not be forced to work on Sabbath or Sunday for a Catholic?
Euthanasia is just as much a right for someone that your right to be wrong about what you believe.
Sylvain, you’re equivocating in respect of the word ‘leader’. Christians, pre-Constantine accepted the secular ruler as their secular leader but they neither accepted the secular leader before or after Constantine as their ecclesiastical leader also and that is abundantly clear.
Corrected:
Sylvain, you’re equivocating in respect of the word ‘leader’. Christians, pre-Constantine accepted the secular ruler as their secular leader but they neither accepted the secular leader before or after Constantine as their ecclesiastical leader also and that is abundantly clear.
I never said there was complete unity in the early Church. I pointed to Christian communities from all over the Mediterranean and Western Europe that agreed on matters fundamental to Christianity. The Arian heresy involved a ‘separating off’ this group that emerged in the early furth century and which draws no support from the Apostles or the Church Fathers. As to this idea that Christian communities operated independently, well of course, the did to some extent because they were often hundreds if not thousands of miles from each other, and yet they were in constant communication with each other, through letters, or they traveled to and from these communities and worshiped together, and, by the second century, they came to accept that authority in matters relating to Christianity, locally, lay in what was come to be known as the bishop, and as a whole Christian community, with the Bishop of Rome.
Yes, yes, but you haven’t shown that the Christian communities of the Levant in the first, second and third century ever denied the divinity of Christ.
Yes, it is; to force someone to participate in an act that they consider unconscionable is, indeed, the opposite of freedom.
Oh, and they will be “forced”; the Canadian legislation makes it so. If a doctor declines to refer a patient to another doctor they know is happy to kill patients they will be disciplined and possibly have their license revoked; same is true for nurses who decline to follow a doctor’s order to euthanize a patient.
Dover,
First point seems controversial only to you, while it is really not. Those that believed in Christ divinity were hunted down by Constantine son. The conception of Jesus Christ is a main reason of the schism of 1054.
The Christian Church is filled with pagan symbol. December 25 comes from the cult of Mithra.
“Yes, it is; to force someone to participate in an act that they consider unconscionable is, indeed, the opposite of freedom.”
This is where you get it wrong. Someone that sells legally a gun to another person who use that guns is not responsible for what that person did with the guns. If they were no one would accept to sell a gun for fear of what the buyer would do with it.
To bake a cake is the same thing. The person who bakes the cake has nothing to do with what the cake is used for. When a business sells a product, they cannot refuse to sell the product to anyone who can legally by that product as long as it is paid for. This is the basis of capitalism that everyone can aquire property as long as it is paid for.
This simply doesn’t make sense.
Now you’re throwing in irrelevant and misleading assertions in order to distract us from your past errors.
They are not making a specific cake or floral arrangement for sale to the general public, they are making a bespoke cake or floral arrangement, that is, to order, for this event. That is why they did, in former, happily sell cakes or floral arrangements to gays and only refused to make a bespoke cake or floral arrangement for a gay ‘wedding’. I’m not sure why you don’t recognize and acknowledge the difference?
On the first point we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Made to order cake are not different than other cake, since a cake is not a message. The baker would have causes to refuse the order if the customer asked for the cake to be in the form of two men having sex. But any ordinary cake that comes from option included in the catalog cannot be refused.
They could disagree to put written massage as well as the Azukar bakery did in Colorado. The bakery accepted to bake a cake in the form of a bible but refuse to write the message, a leviathan verses. They did offer to give the icing for the costumer to write it himself though.
Sylvain you want to talk about civil law all day long.
To make killing a person legal, change to criminal law is required.
You see all I have is to say “that’s a crime!”
That has as much effect on the criminally minded as any other statement of the obvious.
To a law abiding person who has little sense of value for life (once that life’s considered rubbish) ‘s is just a change, a tweak, to make things more convenient.
For someone who doesn’t need the law to prevent them from taking a life it is outrageous, sad and many other more descriptive words.
For people who are of faith in God, which used to be most of us, it’s a hellish prospect.
Without the last two options making the majority of society, any change in the law is possible.
You think this is a good thing, I got that.
You have not as yet admitted to recognise that you understand what is being argued. You bend over backwards for the most peculiar ideology and yet this simple logic is not understood by you. Imagine if you had to explain the opposing view to someone else, could you do it?
Joy,
The simple logic is individual freedom.
People have different beliefs. I believe in God. But Not the evil and jealous one from the bible.
For me death is the rupture of the link between our spirit which is perfect, immaterial and infinite and the material body which is mortal as long as I didn’t achieve God’s plan which is the unification under God of the material and spiritual self.
Jesus achieved what he was teaching which is what the resurrection showed. Is link with its spiritual self was so perfect that even if his body was killed, he was able to heal it back to life. This is done through our level of consciousness of ourselves and our surrounding.
Only the action, thought and emotion that I do affect my relationship with God. Nothing you can do will affect how God sees me and nothing I do can affect how God perceives you.
I know that my level of consciousness is higher because it is very rare that I get angry about others. Many people tell me that they feel better by just being around me or talking to me. My philosophy is well appreciated by people that surrounds me and I adapt to almost anyone.
And one of the thing that people appreciate the most about me is that they don’t judged. I do judge some people on this blog because these people have no respect for others feelings, freedom and liberty.
My explanation are also usually understood even by religious people of different faith.
What I explain is my position. Everyone has the right to disagree with, but no one can force me to adopt their positions.
The changes to the law is to say that it is not murder when the patient consent or ask for his killing.
Sylvain, you are ignoring the simple fact that the cake or floral arrangement is being made to order for a specific event that the baker or florist claim they cannot in good conscience be a part. The respective homosexual couple are not simply coming into the store and buying what they find on display; they are asking this or that person to contribute to that specific event. I would have thought respecting the freedom and integrity of the baker/ florist meant accepting this and moving on to another baker/ florist that had no disagreement in good conscience.
Dover,
I’m not ignoring it, I just say that there is no difference.
The baker is ready to bake cake A for an heterosexual wedding.
The baker refuse to bake an identical for gay wedding.
The baker get sued and loses in courts for not respecting the couple right.
To claim that one participate in a wedding by baking a cake or preparing flowers is to use a very loose definition of the word participate.
I’m not ignoring it, I just say that there is no difference.
The baker is ready to bake cake A for an heterosexual wedding.
The baker refuse to bake an identical for gay wedding.
The dispute is not over the cake, but about participating in an event that the baker cannot in good conscience. In other words, it is about asking the baker to do something to which s/he has a moral objection. Why not simply respect that?
That is just begging the question. What ‘right’ does the couple have in asking someone, here a baker, do something the baker cannot do in good conscience?
No, it isn’t. If a couple visits a bakery and informs them they are getting married and they would like the baker to bake a specific cake for the wedding they are clearly participating in the wedding. What evidence is there of this? An initial meeting. A number of consultations with the couple with respect to the design of the cake well before the wedding. The couple inspecting the cake once made and asking for this or that possible amendment. The baker delivering the cake to the wedding on the day. The bakery’s name being associated with the wedding to guests on the day, etc. – or beforehand – as it is one of the centerpieces of any wedding. All of this, meetings, consultations, attendance at the wedding, association of name, shows a substantial amount of participation. In other words, not a’loose’ definition of participation at all.
Corrected:
The dispute is not over the cake, but about participating in an event that the baker cannot in good conscience. In other words, it is about asking the baker to do something to which s/he has a moral objection. Why not simply respect that?
That is just begging the question. What ‘right’ does the couple have in asking someone, here a baker, do something the baker cannot do in good conscience?
No, it isn’t. If a couple visits a bakery and informs them they are getting married and they would like the baker to bake a specific cake for the wedding they are clearly participating in the wedding. What evidence is there of this? An initial meeting. A number of consultations with the couple with respect to the design of the cake well before the wedding. The couple inspecting the cake once made and asking for this or that possible amendment. The baker delivering the cake to the wedding on the day. The bakery’s name being associated with the wedding to guests on the day, etc. – or beforehand – as it is one of the centerpieces of any wedding. All of this, meetings, consultations, attendance at the wedding, association of name, shows a substantial amount of participation. In other words, not a’loose’ definition of participation at all.
Dover.
This is one of the fondamental understanding of capitalism: (the link is only for the generic quote, the link doesn’t purport to our actual doesn’t actualy apply to our discussion).
“The right to acquire, enjoy, and dispose of property is declared in the constitutions of several states to be one of the inalienable rights of man…”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/137/86
This inalianable right of a person to acquire property is what is at stakes in such cases.
The place of business has an obligation to let an individual the right to acquire a product as long as the product is sold legally and paid for.
Now in this case there are two persons which have different religious beliefs. Now how can we legally determine which of these two persons rigths suffers the most.
The baker claims that it is unconscionable for him to participate in a gay wedding ceremony. But the baker is a place of business that has an obligation to sell its product to anyone who buy it legally and pay for his services.
The customer has a different religious belief. For him a gay wedding is not a sin or immoral.
So you have a place of business owned by an individual and an individual who want to buy a product from that place of business.
The judge examine the two claims.
1) It is evident that the customer’s right to acquire property is being denied to him.
2) The baker and place of business are not asked to do something that he usually find unconsionable. He is not ask to make a particular shape of a cake that is offensive or he is not asked to write a message that is counter to his value. But the baker claim that his freedom of religion is more important than the religious freedom and right to acquire of the customer because the baker does not approve of the intended use of the cake.
In the face of it the judges have determined accross the different cases before them that a cake is not a message, as in this case:
“The Colorado Court of Appeals rejected the argument by lawyers for the cake shop owner who argued that forcing him to create and sell a cake to a gay couple planning a wedding celebration violated his First Amendment rights.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/08/13/christian-baker-cant-turn-down-gay-couple-colorado-court-rules/
First amendment description from Cornell law:
“The First Amendment guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. It forbids Congress from both promoting one religion over others and also restricting an individual’s religious practices. It guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. It also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble peaceably and to petition their government.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment
You might not agree with the judges but they are usually consistent in their ruling.
The religious claim for denial of service often imply that god is a simple minded idiot (i.e. that god would be angry because he baked a cake).
Also claiming that you cannot bake a cake for a gay wedding is admitting that gay wedding are legitimate. If they aren’t legitimate then there are no reason to refuse.
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Sylvain, I’m a little taken aback that you should quote the above but then fail to also include what immediately follows:
So this so-called ‘inalienable right’ is and can be qualified by law. So we can have laws that allow a baker or florist to decline participating in actions they cannot participate in in good conscience.
Firstly, the customers so-called ‘right to acquire property’ is not being denied, they can simply visit another bakery or florist. Secondly, they are being asked to participate in an activity they cannot do so in good conscience. How do we know? The baker and florist say so and provide reasonable grounds explaining as much. BTW, offensive messages are not the only marks of participation; you seem to be obsessed with them nevertheless.
Begging the question. If I simply quoted to you Vacco v. Quill and Washington v. Glucksberg saying the Supreme Court has ruled that no one in the US has a ‘right’ to die you wouldn’t argue, and neither would I, that that is an end to a argument about whether or not they should or naturally did enjoy such a right.
It means no such thing. What is prohibited is participation in activities that are immoral or that approve of immorality. It isn’t baking the cake per se that is immoral but baking a cake for a gay ‘wedding’ that is immoral. It isn’t attending a wedding per se that is immoral but attending a gay ‘wedding’ that is immoral. This isn’t difficult to understand, even by fair- though simple-minded idiots.
I notice, also, that you completely ignored the substantial definition of participation I provided in my last comment and the evidence we could look for, i.e. meetings, consultations, attendance, etc. Funny how you did that.
How is it admitting they are legitimate? Is declining a proposal to participate in a robbery evidence of the legitimacy of robbery? No it isn’t. You are simply being illogical.
“Sylvain, I’m a little taken aback that you should quote the above but then fail to also include what immediately follows:”
Yes, things like individual cannot aquire uranium. You cannot buy illicit drugs. Alcohol and tobacco product cannot be sold to a minor. Notice that it applies to all minor and all major people can legally by these product (tobacco and alcohol).
Notice that I mentionned:
“But the baker is a place of business that has an obligation to sell its product to anyone who buy it LEGALLY and pay for his services.”
No you can’t because those laws do not respect the first amendment in the US or the Canadian Charter in Canada. These governments are secular and they cannot favor one religion above the other.
There is very little legal objection that applies to cake.
No you can’t because those laws do not respect the first amendment in the US or the Canadian Charter in Canada. These governments are secular and they cannot favor one religion above the other.
No you can’t because those laws do not respect the first amendment in the US or the Canadian Charter in Canada. These governments are secular and they cannot favor one religion above the other.
I’m talking mainly US and Canada who both have human rights included in their constitution. I have no idea if Australia as any law concerning human rights, so maybe it is possible for Australian to discriminate against other.
“… the Supreme Court has ruled that no one in the US has a ‘right’ to die you wouldn’t argue, and neither would I, that that is an end to a argument about whether or not they should or naturally did enjoy such a right.”
This is in the USA where euthanasia is illegal. In Canada, the Supreme Court ruled differently based on the Canadian Charter.
But yes a later supreme court can rule differently like in the of Brown v Board reversing segragation.
“It isn’t baking the cake per se that is immoral but baking a cake for a gay ‘wedding’ that is immoral.”
Can you point to which verses in the Bible that make such claim.
“1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Baker have no problem baking cakes for adulteres, idolaters (all Catholics are), to drunkards. The part about homsesuality is a recent bad translation that refered to sodomy, which also include anal heterosexuals. If baker were trully faithful they would not make a lot of cake. They would not bake for second wedding of divorced people, etc. Their faith is very selective about how its application.
“James 4:12 ESV
There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”
Who are they to judge the other, because this is a judgment and application of a sentence.
In fact all the verses found here are very restrictive as to who is commiting the immoral act. The sinner are those who commit the act, no one else.
https://www.openbible.info/topics/homosexuality
Synonyms are not same as the word used. They have similar meaning but they all have distinction. If it wasn’t there are a lot of word are useless.
Participate definition is according to Antidote:
“to do or be in (an event) with other people — to participate in a soccer game ? to participate actively in class”
According to Webster:
“to be involved with others in doing something : to take part in an activity or event with others”
By the definition, the only thing taking part to the wedding is the cake. Not the work that went into the cake. The baker has no obligation to advertize his work for that event and they can always put a disclaimer that “his service does not constitute an endorsment of gay marriage” as mentionned in the news article.
God is omnipotent. He knows why you do and why you don’t do something. He knows the true reason why someone refuses to bake a cake.
By the way, a baker that would refuse to bake a cake to anyone who can be found in the verses above could have causes.
But for that he could not sale cake to Catholic because they are idolator, those who get married more than once unless the first spouse was dead, that they don’t have anal sex is harder to verify.
Focus, Sylvain, focus. Asking if there is any verse in the Bible to the effect that, ““It isn’t baking the cake per se that is immoral but baking a cake for a gay ‘wedding’ that is immoral” is irrelevant as I am making a moral argument that applies to any person, whether religious or not, being coerced to participate/ cooperate in activities they regard as immoral. It’s clear, in this instance, that orthodox Christians regard marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, so to forcibly require them to participate/ cooperate in what they regard as evil, here, a relationship between persons of the same sex, is wrong.
Again, focus, focus! They have no problem selling cakes to homosexuals. What they may have a problem with is selling cakes that participate/ cooperate in adultery, drunkenness, homosexuality, and the like. You obviously still don’t understand the difference, do you?
Bizarre? The cake cannot take part because it is an object, but the persons that are involved in preparing for the event, i.e. bakers, florists, performers, and the like, certainly are “taking part” in the event. Again, that you deny this is just bizarre.
Correction: What they may have a problem with is participating/ cooperating in adultery, drunkenness, homosexuality, and the like, here, by being asked to make a specific cake for a gay ‘wedding’.
“…is irrelevant as I am making a moral argument that applies to any person, whether religious or not, being coerced to participate/ cooperate in activities they regard as immoral.”
My request is legitimate since the Bible is the basis of the faith. The Bible is very specific that it is the act itself that is reprehensible and the people doing the act. There are no sexual relation at a wedding ceremony. A marriage is not immoral. So there is no reason to claim participation to an immoral activity.
If these person were actually serious about their religious belief it would help them. The problem is that they aren’t’
How do we know, well because of this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/masterpiece-cakeshop-gay-dog-experiment-_n_3392013.html
You obviously still don’t understand the difference, do you?
Yet judges in Canada, the USA and Europe agree with my understanding and not yours.
What I find really strange lately is the number of people, including the host of this blog, claiming that Obama is a dictator, while being weak, but at the same being in awe of Putin who is a true tyrant to his people because he is hard on gays. With the conservative movement the US looks ever more like Iran than other developed countries.
-They are the only develop country with the death penalty.
-Only develop country where employer are not obligated to provide vacation pay for their employee.
-No paid leave for parents.
The list goes on where the US are the only develop country with living condition similar to that of dictatorship.
Sylvain, How does the following not affect the first part of the quote?
‘but this declaration is not held to preclude the legislature of any state from passing laws respecting the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of property.’
You are describing process or how the argument plays out as if it isn’t obvious . The point is about the premise of rights. It’s as if you think if you say it enough times someone will agree and finally see what they’ve been missing all along. Like someone trying to make a person like to eat worms.
“You might not agree with the judges but they are usually consistent in their ruling.”
If an ideal is written into law, judges have a job to do and make a ruling. Judges don’t necessarily agree with the law.
“There is very little legal objection that applies to cake. “
Sylvain, really.
“The simple logic is individual freedom.”
No the point is that once you declare someone has a legal right the law must then accommodate that right and make judgements as people bring those rights to bare in the court. So if rights become contradictory and conflicting they become nonsense. Obviously the law cannot be on everybody’s side.
So such matters should be left alone if real harm is not done.
Do you see that by keeping things simple:
1. People don’t have the option of going to litigation and so shrug off these slights and perceived insults which makes them stronger.?
2. The superfluous solicitors are not funded?
3. People don’t exacerbate a dispute that otherwise would not be acrimonious without the ‘help’ of the solicitors pointing out more reasons for complainants to feel resentment.
4. Public anger isn’t fed in step with the cases as the legal machine churns out more outrage.
5. The media is starved of material to push their pet subject and trigger hate when they require a certain response.
6. It limits public sophistication and cynicism towards litigation.
goto 1.
“People have different beliefs. I believe in God. But Not the evil and jealous one from the bible.”
No one I’ve ever heard of believes that God is evil. Some say Jealous I don’t. Does it say that in the bible? I would like to know the chapter and verse, I have a feeling it does say this somewhere.
“For me death is the rupture of the link between our spirit which is perfect, immaterial and infinite and the material body which is mortal as long as I didn’t achieve God’s plan which is the unification under God of the material and spiritual self.”
I didn’t quite understand I think you mean that God keeps you mortal and not ruptured as long as you to do his work?
“The changes to the law is to say that it is not murder when the patient consent or ask for his killing.”
What about how this changes the attitudes of people to the value of life? You spoke of freedom of the individual but have not answered how a health provider is supposed to consider themselves free when authority insists that they make provision for people to be killed. There is a contradiction in who is free and where the freedom lies.
Nobody argues case of murder than someone doesn’t have the freedom to murder without the consequences because there is a clear victim and criminal. Justice is clear and everybody agrees, even, sometimes, the murderer!
Earth to Sylvain, a marriage between persons of the same sex is immoral for orthodox Christians, so please stop talking nonsense.
So, like the dummies at the Huff Post, Sylvain treats a ‘dog marriage’, an obvious farce, as seriously as gay ‘marriage’. What an own goal. LOL.
Joy
“Sylvain, how does the following not affect the first part of the quote?”
The same way that in the US the inalienable right to life doesn’t prevent the death penalty, and the inalienable freedom doesn’t prevent jail.
So yes the judges recognize certain situation where the right to acquire can redefine by law for the state, like in the case of nuclear products or eminent domain.
“No, the point is that once you declare someone has a legal right the law must then accommodate that right and make judgments as people bring those rights to bear in the court.”
When the UN declaration of human rights lists these:
“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. .”
The list doesn’t give more right to anyone. They just protect everyone from the government and the malicious intent of some of its citizen.
The Court is the arbiter of law. In the US, Canada and many European countries, the government decided to adopt laws that provide similar list to protect all its citizens and not only those that have a certain religion, race, sex, etc.
So yes at the moment the government recognize that all its citizens are equal before the law more situation will arise that will need arbitration.
I guess that you would prefer to go back in time when women had about as much more right than the women in Saudi Arabia and couldn’t sign contracts in any form, even for rent. Yes, the law was simple back then, people could do anything to women back then. There were even doctors claiming that it was impossible to rape a woman because they were too strong and could say no.
“So such matters should be left alone if real harm is not done.”
And who decide if the harm is real or not. Two of my friends killed themselves in high school because of bullying, and they were not even gay. Their crime was that they were awkward and didn’t fit with what other people wanted them to be. Bullying has consequences and LGBT have one of the highest suicide rates. If not the highest.
If being a LGBT is a choice, then why would anyone make the choice of being marginalized, harassed, bullied and pushed out of society leading to one of the highest suicide rates. Surely being against euthanasia you would like to help reduce the number of suicides instead of marginalizing people.
You realize that the people that get outraged, by gay marriage and other LGBT ruling, are really angry that they cannot mock, bully or marginalize them anymore.
“Does it say that in the bible? I somewhere. would like to know the chapter and verse, I have a feeling it does say this”
When your read Genesis and Exodus you are not left with a great opinion of that god. Only eat flat bread, no pork, etc. This is not the one I believe in.
“Exodus 20:1–26 ESV
And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, …”
Sorry but the real God doesn’t condone slavery. This is an evil god, or false belief.
“Exodus 21:1–36
“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,” …”
“I didn’t quite understand I think you mean that God keeps you mortal and not ruptured as long as you to do his work?”
More that you stop being mortal when you attain the level of enlightenment that Jesus did. We are not different than Jesus.
It is actually the first time I notice this:
“John 6:60–64 ESV
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all . The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)”
There is a contradiction in who is free and where the freedom lies.
The doctor is not forced to agree and act on the patient request. He just has to refer to another doctor.
“as seriously as gay ‘marriage’”
If you consider gay marriage as serious than you agree that they are legitimate.
No, no, it does not follow that if one considers X serious, that X is legitimate. That would be like saying: Sylvain considers genocide serious, therefore Sylvain considers genocide legitimate. That is simply illogical since considering something serious and considering something legitimate are two independent judgments.
Yes, he must; he is obliged to refer the patient to a doctor that he knows will kill the patient. Not just any doctor.
Dover,
You understand legitimate as being legal which it is not my meaning. I use legitimate as something that is true, real, something that exist.
For usual religious people a marriage is between a man and a woman. For these people a marriage between 2 men or 2 women should not/ cannot be real. Or like the dog wedding they are a joke.
If the baker refuses to bake a cake claiming to participate, he is in fact legitimizing that these marriage are actually real and that they have a religious value, something that the state doesn’t even request the Church to acknowledge (churches or its servant are not required to celebrate marriage, unless they are working for the state).
Sylvain, the baker may believe that a gay ‘marriage’ and a ‘dog marriage’ are equally absurd but realize, nevertheless, that in the case of the former and not the latter, that the customer is not actually joking and quite serious. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to engage in high farce in the latter and decline participation in the former.
Intent is unseen, occurring internally prior to deliberate wrongdoing. To prevent it authorities would have to play God and mind read or spy on the population for evidence of intent with respect to hurt feelings.
This is not the duty of the law.
There is a custodial sentence for harassment. School children rely on parents and teachers.
“And who decide if the harm is real or not?” The police and then the Crown Prosecution Service who take on a case if they expect to conviction is possible.
Suicide is a profound thing to come to terms with at a young age but of course this is not a reason to hold society to account for something ahead of time that may be immaterial. It really doesn’t make sense to claim that forcing the hand of society in every minute particular of daily life will have positive outcomes for the minority or majority. There can be no convincing evidence for this and careful thought would seem to suggest that the opposite is true.
“Surely being against euthanasia you would like to help reduce the number of suicides / instead of marginalising people.” This is s a bad sales pitch. The two are completely separate.
“the people that get outraged, by gay marriage… are really angry that they cannot mock, bully or marginalize them anymore.” What a sweeping generalisation. The only consolation is that so very few are even enforcing the issue that it makes one wonder who really wanted the law passed? One or two upstarts? Maybe something more machiavellian.
How dare citizens insist on the church changing for them? If in fact they ever did? They already have the choice of a civil partnership. It is bizarre to me that someone who has ever been to church would insist that they marry someone of the same sex under in church and with it’s blessing. The vicar or priest they will know doesn’t believe in the marriage. It is to ask the entire congregation and the vicar to lie. It makes the marriage illegitimate, it makes a mockery of the church.
A pantomime! The numbers in Britain are a fraction of a percent. So it begs the question why did it even happen?
The bible verse you quote is familiar with respect to idols. This means though shall have no other God but me. That is what this means. In biblical times, and in some parts of the world, India, for example, idols and statues are worshiped as Gods. Nowhere in the Christian faith does this occur. Worship is a very specific word.
On slavery.: See William Wilberforce.
The New Testament by definition, informs Christianity.
“The doctor is not forced to agree and act on the patient request. He just has to refer to another doctor.”
Sylvain I rest my case.
Joy,
You are against the state but yet you are for the state.
“How dare citizens insist on the church changing for them? If in fact they ever did? They already have the choice of a civil partnership.”
When gay marriage was legalized in Canada and more recently in the USA, it has always been the civil marriage. No Church is being forced to perform gay weddings. So no Church as anything to change in their beliefs.
In the US and Canada, the government cannot make law in favor or against a religion. When the government says that marriage is between a man and a woman they are favoring a religion above another. Not all Christian church believe that gay marriage is a sin or morally wrong. By its ruling Scotus recognize that individual rights were violated by the State who favored one religion above another.
Catholics and most Christian congregations still consider marriage as between a man and a woman and don’t perform gay wedding. This is their right. But what right do these people have to tell the people who are not part of their Church that they cannot get married?
“The bible verse you quote is familiar with respect to idols. This means though shall have no other God but me.”
There are many Christians Church that have neither idols or iconography of Christ or God. The Catholic Church is feeled with them.
Jesus wanted us to recognize that we were not different from him. We are all able to do everything he did. But instead people chose that it was easier to let him do the work and continu living as they were than to do the work themselves.
When you reach a level of enlightment and consciousness high enough, you realize that nothing other people do affect your relationship god. The sin of others doesn’t make you a sinner.
Younger I used to get angry/upset most of the time. When I realized that I often did the exact same thing they did, I started changing my ways. Now I’m almost never angry and my level of stress is very low.
Dover,
You are grasping at straws. If gay marriage is illigitimate then there is no reason to refuse to bake the cake.
Joy,
About the Bible and your claim that the New Testament inform Christian.
Christians who refuse to render services for gay weddings refer to Levicitus. And or Deuteronomy.
Concerning euthanasia refer to the verse from John quoted above.
Not at all. You simply are not making any sense on this matter, or you are being duplicitous; that is, you want to argue that in fact gay marriage is legitimate and taken seriously by the couple seeking to ‘marry’, but so far as the baker is concerned, s/he believes gay ‘marriage’ to be false and fraudulent and therefore that s/he could have no legitimate reason to decline participation. But this, of course, is wrong, because what the couple believe is important and the baker is perfectly free to decline participating in an event that is taken seriously, not only by the couple, but also by some in the broader community, and thus avoid lending plausibility to what is, in fact, false and fraudulent.
No, no, they refer to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, principally: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, and said, ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH ‘.
You seem unable to make an argument that is not viciously tendentious.
Dover,
“But this, of course, is wrong, because what the couple believe is important and the baker is perfectly free to decline participating in an event that is taken seriously, not only by the couple, but also by some in the broader community, and thus avoid lending plausibility to what is, in fact, false and fraudulent.”
Yet, I don’t know of any court that consider that a baker is participanting to a wedding and you have still provided no explanation as to why the courts don’t buy your argument that they are participating in a wedding
If a wedding between dog is illegitimate and a joke to a baker and that he decides to bake the cake; then the same apply to a gay wedding which cannot be legitimate according to these people faith, and to the definition given by Mark and Matthew. There are no sexual act in a wedding. Nothing at a wedding celebration can be deemed immoral.
Luke 6:27
““But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Those who refuse to sale product for gay wedding have a very selective reading of the Bible and seems to disregard what Jesus said. Actually they do very little of what he said and embrace the old testament, which has nothing to do with Christ.
No, s/he doesn’t, as I explained above.
There doesn’t need to be a sexual act at a wedding for such a ‘wedding’ to be immoral.
Dover,
“No, s/he doesn’t, as I explained above.”
Then why does the court in the US doesn’t buy your argument. The vast majority of judges in the US are devout Christian. If your argument was valid they would agree, but they don’t.
”There doesn’t need to be a sexual act at a wedding for such a ‘wedding’ to be immoral.”
According to the bible a marriage between adulterer is just as immoral, yet no baker refuse to bake cakes for serial wedders.
If the baker actually refused to bake cakes for both adulterers and gays he could probably win his case.
What is immoral is the act of anal sex (sodomy) which can also happen between a men and a woman. This is from Levicitus.
The vast majority of sodomite were heterosexual men and women who wanted to have sex without the risk of getting pregnant. The fixation on homosexuality is very recent in history.
Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus says that it is immoral to do business with people.
Complete nonsense. Christ referred to marriage as a relationship that joins a man and a woman as “one flesh”; that is impossible for relations between the same sex. The commandment to love one’s neighbor – or even one’s enemy – is a commandment to seek their good. This involves dealing with them fairly as human beings in our daily encounters, but it doesn’t require us to affirm their actions when they are objectively wrong; in fact, to do so would offend the commandment to love them.
Well, most judges did accept such arguments until very recently, and there is presently a case before the Supreme Court on this issue, so it remains a live question legally, but that is beside the point.
How do we know bakers have not refused to bake cakes for remarriages? And, anyway, as pointed out repeatedly, protestant denominations generally accept remarriages so they, it seems, can participate in good conscience in such ceremonies. As for Catholic or Orthodox Christians, that surely is a matter for each of them individually.
So is gay ‘marriage’ because marriage involves sexual relations and celebrating a wedding/ condoning a marriage involves the celebrating and condoning what marriage involves. BTW, sodomy doesn’t just involve anal sex.
LOL. So Jesus would have us do business with prostitutes and assassins? You really go too far, Sylvain.
“The commandment to love one’s neighbor – or even one’s enemy – is a commandment to seek their good.”
The whole thing Jesus wanted us to learn is that we are not limited by the material world, your body is only there to interact with the material world. Our body dies because we sever the link that exist with our spirit. There are no reason for us dying other than not fullfilling our true purpose.
How do you think Jesus was able to replicate the bread and wine other than by seeing the ideal of God, having a perfect thought and materializing his thought.
So no the commandment is not to do god for your neibhor. A better reading is to realize that when you reach a level of consciousness and enlightenment as high as Jesus. Nothing other people do can affect you, including killing you. A higher level of cousiousness means that you are able to control your vibration and modify how the world is affecting you.
The biggest amelioration I saw in my life is with my driving. I used to get angry whe driving, but very rarely anymore. I rarely ever catch a red light, bad traffic and almost never get into any argument with other drivers.
I still commit some mistake like get to emotionally involved in some discussion I have here for example. I do appreciate our conversation since it did help me clarify some of my understanding.
” in fact, to do so would offend the commandment to love them.”
One of my student once told me that is uncle was often arguing with some sikh or other religious group he didn’t like. They kept bothering him until the day he decided he had enough and stopped arguing. In a matter of a few weeks he stopped seeing them.
” most judges did accept such arguments until very recently”
Do you have any ruling example that differs?
“there is presently a case before the Supreme Court on this issue”
Yes the colorado bakery I linked to. If they take it, which I’m not sure they will agree (the argument have not been given yet). They can always reject after the argument. The rulling will end 5-3 or 6-2 against the bakery depending on Justice Roberts. Alito and Thomas will be the dissenting.
Just saw a very interesting about which I will right tommorow.
No, I’m talking about the Little Sisters of the Poor case where the same principle applies.
Dover,
This is Sister Simone Campbell,
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/22/opinions/obamacare-religious-freedom-opinion-campbell/
“All they have to do is sign a form saying they object. This notifies the government of their religious objections to providing coverage of contraception. From there, those employers play no role in the provision of the contraceptive coverage. The government coordinates with the insurance company to ensure that women working for the religious objector have the same access to contraception as everyone else.”
Another link about the recent argument:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/supreme-court-obamacare-contraceptive-mandate/
I actually read the modification to the law following the Hobby Lobby case and the rule that the sister’s have to follow.
It is found here:
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/HHS-rules-for-non-profits-8-22-14.pdf
One of the requirement is filling a form saying that you object to covering contraceptives does not make you complicit. This is close b ii
(ii) The eligible organization provides either a copy of the self-certification to each third party administrator or a notice to the Secretary of Health and Human Services that it is an eligible organization and of its religious objection to coverage of all or a subset of contraceptive services.
The close b i, could be struck down or modify so that the government provide a third party :
“(i) The eligible organization or its plan contracts with one or more third party
administrators.”
Looking at the argument mentionin the CNN article the ruling will be 5-3 or 6-2 depending on Roberts.
When Roberts say that:
“He said that the groups don’t object to the fact that people who work for them will have contraceptive services provided, they only object to having to provide the coverage themselves.”
The group seems to object to their employee having coverage. If they weren’t, the exception in the law already answer their objection.
Sorry, Sylvain, but that is incoherent.
Dover
This is the article I found which shows a clear misunderstanding of individual rights.
http://shoebat.com/2014/12/12/christian-man-asks-thirteen-gay-bakeries-bake-pro-traditional-marriage-cake-denied-service-watch-shocking-video/
“Support Gay Marriage” is one Christian bakery was sued for refusing to put that slogan on a cake for an event to support the gay agenda.”
If they were sued for that the bakery won, because there is an actual message in it.
“So Shoebat. com decided to call some 13 prominent pro-gay bakers in a row. Each one denied us the right to have ‘Gay Marriage Is Wrong’ on a cake and even used deviant insults and obscenities against us. One Baker even said all sorts of profanities against Christians and ended the conversation by saying that she will make me a cookie with a large phallus on it.”
If shoebat.com had sued these bakeries, the result would have depended upon the willingness to provide a cake without the slogan. If they were willing then shoebat was done. If not then they would have a case for the cake but not for the message.
This is an example where gays suing a business loss. So it is not true that all decision favors the gays.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/28/christian-t-shirt-company-doesnt-have-to-print-gay-pride-festival-shirts-court-says/
“Sorry, Sylvain, but that is incoherent”
Then you have no understanding of what law is and how it works.
Anyhow remember my prediction for June or July when the verdict is rendered.