Culture and religion. Are they really different?

[Baruch]

some common and identifiable point of reference

... we are both human, both men, both N American, both early 21st century, both White (mostly). We have lots of common and identifiable points of reference.

As far as dialog goes, along with association, I have a pretty deep but disorganized memory. I can reach out and back pretty far .... both in terms of recent conversation, but also in terms of general knowledge. That I can't help. And no, it isn't being a mystagogue. It is being at least superficially wholistic. On the other hand, if one has no stream to one's consciousness, if each moment is independent of what comes before and after (and yes, I think the future impact the present and past) ... that is a pathological mental state ... schizoid. I simply avoid being excessively schizoid about my epistemology.

If I have made some short references, that make no sense, that is because I am not explaining my quips ... I will try to do better.

Shalom

[Kurt]

[quote="evangelicalhumanist"] As I used to be fond of saying (in business, where I was a leader of necessary change), "the only people who really like change are wet babies."

As you have mentioned to me before, EH, even change for the good is stressfull, which I think is why even wet babies often bridle at the prospect of having their diapers changed. By the time you notice it and get around to doing something about it, they've gotten used to being wet because they have more important things on their agendas than mere physical comfort. When you're trying to master the world around you, who has time to deal with a wet diaper?

Kurt

[evangelicalhumanist]

When you're trying to master the world around you, who has time to deal with a wet diaper?

Kurt

I wonder if I'll feel that way when I'm in my dotage, and possibly back in a wet diaper?

[Baruch]

Infants are masters of the universe ... they don't have to know or do much, and everything comes to them It is the time between the two infancies, that you are without power.

Shalom

[evangelicalhumanist]

Oh, good. That means I can look forward to my second infancy.

[Baruch]

Only if you love babies. Otherwise it is a problem. Can you be a happy baby, good neighbor?

Shalom

[Kurt]

This is a serious discussion. I would like to have the option of ending my life in a medically-assisted, pain-reduced way before I'm in diapers. I want Canada to follow the Dutch example. It makes sense on so many levels.
The first level is the most important; there are too many people on this planet. The sooner some of us die, the better off the planet will be for human habitation.
The second level, for me, is the fact that while there's' huge money to be made in the medical industry by catering to the complaints and longevity ambitions of people over fifty-five who happen to have accumulated some money, this won't be true ten years from now. It may even not be true three years from now.
After all, how will the insurance companies make their money when people can't afford health insurance?
The third level is: How long do people need to live in order to feel they have lived a good life?
It's disheartening to me that all the suicide/homicide bombers are young people who have been manipulated, and/or coerced into that behaviour by people older than themselves who see their own value to "the cause" as being too precious to warrant such sacrifice. Bullshit.

Kurt

[Baruch]

Now that is a serious set of points to make. I happen to support a traditional, rather than a progressive point of view, but then y'all shouldn't be surprised. I think your tone, Kurt, was more aggressive than you intended.

1. I agree there are too many people. The Biblical mandate to cover and master the Earth has been accomplished already, even if one accepts that particular mandate. It is a positive option to limit one's childbearing to one child, or to not have any natural children at all. I regard that as the woman's own choice. It is also a positive option to adopt a child, regardless of how many you already have, provided you don't go overboard with it (Nothing in excess).

I know people who are religious "full quiver" believers ... that it is important to have as many children as possible, because you want to build your own tribe of believers (even religious subsect), so that thru tribal growth your own culture/religion will become more dominant as an overall percentage. Their's is a modern version of a very ancient tribal mandate, which is the actual basis of the Biblical one (which is to maximize the number of young men for warfare). This is the view I believe of most Latin Americans, Chinese, Indians and Arabs ... who in some ways have never fully modernized like the West. The "full quiver" believers I know simply are a statistical outlier to most of the Western people I know ... best to simply not give them a tax deduction for extra children.

And fewer people means not just better for human habitation, though that is a valid humanist point of view, but also for the rest of the biosphere. We need to make not only a smaller quantitative footprint, but a smaller qualitative one ... both of which require the abandonment of consumer capitalism, even though that will lead to temporary unemployment. That would imply elite socialism as the correct course Democratically the right thing is to limit one's own family, don't give tax subsidies to other people's excess children, and voluntarily stop being such a consumer, but be a saver ... before the demographics and economy forces it on one. Voluntary is better than forced. And the choice in favor of limits (Club of Rome) is best done thru education.

2. There is a lot of money to be made off of seniors. Both legitimately and predatorally, because in the current time they do have a lot of money and not much time left. One way is to engage in heroic, very expensive, and risky operations on seniors, that could be more legitimately done for younger people, if they had the money or insurance. AMA rules encourage this. If one can afford to buy health insurance on one's own, I see no reason why one shouldn't be able to. But perhaps it is not right to provide free health insurance to seniors ... so stop Medicare in the US, and transfer that expenditure to free health insurance for juniors ... something that Obama seems to be attempting to do, with false claims of Medicare savings being used to fund his plan. I believe that the savings won't be found (government often uses this will-o-the-wisp), it will simply be a mandated cut. In Canada, are you willing to cut off universal health care to people over 70? I don't see either as politically plausible in the US or Canada.

3. Most people in the non-West, have never had a good life, and never will. So I assume you are addressing only Western seniors. I have no good answer for assisted suicide ... other than the traditional religious one. There are many complications, including criminal exploitation, associated with assisted suicide. It is bad enough that some corporations are taking out secret life insurance policies on their own employees, with no future benefit for the employee's family, and then working their people to death ... getting the beneficiaries of wills involved in assisted suicide, has no legal upside. As far as knowing one's own limits regarding quality of life, it seems seniors are already deciding that for themselves. Or are you proposing involuntary euthanasia for those unable to make their own decisions? I would hope not.

4. I am glad that you see some suicide bombers as manipulated victims ... I think many are ... though I think some are simply overly ideological. Never the less, I have greater compassion for their victims.

Shalom

[evangelicalhumanist]

There is a lot of money to be made off of seniors. Both legitimately and predatorally, because in the current time they do have a lot of money and not much time left.

Funny you should say that, as I was actually just listening to one of my favourite singers (Canadian, from some time ago though still living, so you won’t know her). Ann Mortifee has a line in one of her songs that says, “The young they want more money, the old – they want more time.”

One way is to engage in heroic, very expensive, and risky operations on seniors, that could be more legitimately done for younger people, if they had the money or insurance. AMA rules encourage this. If one can afford to buy health insurance on one's own, I see no reason why one shouldn't be able to. But perhaps it is not right to provide free health insurance to seniors ... so stop Medicare in the US, and transfer that expenditure to free health insurance for juniors ... something that Obama seems to be attempting to do, with false claims of Medicare savings being used to fund his plan. I believe that the savings won't be found (government often uses this will-o-the-wisp), it will simply be a mandated cut. In Canada, are you willing to cut off universal health care to people over 70? I don't see either as politically plausible in the US or Canada.

These are spectacularly difficult questions to answer, and I see no clear way through the quagmire. I had my spine surgery at 59. And yet, I can attest that it has changed my life. I now exercise daily, which I couldn’t before. I’ve lost 75 pounds, my blood pressure has reduced to text-book normal, and I have little or no additional need of medical care. If I continue at this rate, I could well come to the end of my life at considerably less cost to the system than if I had not had my surgery!

Here in Canada, the general rule is to leave all such decisions to the individual and their physician, and this seems to work reasonably well. I have a friend who has a problem in some ways similar to my back problem. She managed to inveigle a referral to my neurosurgeon (who is one of Toronto’s best) and between them, they decided that it would be inappropriate to operate on her, and that there are other, less expensive and less intrusive therapies. The costs and risks were not worth the potential outcomes. My surgeon and I had the same discussion, but we both agreed (he more than me!) that the potential outcome far outweighed the cost and risk. And that is just how it turned out, to my everlasting joy.

I’ll give you another example – an elderly woman I know whose surgeon refused to do a hip replacement on the basis that she never walked anywhere when she could, so why would she be so anxious to now. She, of course, had the option to seek another physician, but on reflection, decided he was right! Which seems to mean that the system works tolerably well.

I have no good answer for assisted suicide ... other than the traditional religious one.

Nobody has a “good answer for assisted suicide” – except their own answer, when an answer is needed. I cannot see myself wishing to kill myself, and so of course I can’t see wanting anybody to help me do so. But that’s now. What might I decide if I had ALS and knew how that was going to turn out? I don’t know – but I do know that if, when the right time came and I could make a very clear request on my own for that sort of assistance, I would make that request in hopes of it being granted.

As for the rest, I have a written “Living Will,” that has been discussed fully with my partner, and it is something that he understands and agrees to. It says essentially that if I am ever in a state in which I cannot speak for myself, and if two physicians assert that it is probable that I never will again, then Joseph is to request (or my Living Will requests in my own name and over my own signature), not that I be assisted to die, but that I be kept as comfortable as possible consistent with also not helping me to live on with artificial support.

[Baruch]

EH - I am glad your surgery went so well, it is hard to tell when expensive intervention is called for or not. And I think you have made reasonable provision for your later years in regards to Living Will etc. Not all are so well prepared. I am not, yet. My own father took his own life, and my mother has the potential to do so. So my assistance ... if requested ... is a very live question for me. If euthanasia was legally available, I think a disinterested panel of doctors and shrinks would be required ... a sick individual is not necessarily in sufficient possession of their marbles, to make that particular decision. That is a much more questionable action to take, than your Living Will.

Shalom