6 ms·

I'm hesitant to answer for nikolay, but my guess is that he has indeed made such choices -- one of them being to live according to the doctrines prescribed by h

I'm hesitant to answer for nikolay, but my guess is that he has indeed made such choices -- one of them being to live according to the doctrines prescribed by his religion. Rigidly adhering to dogma is something that many people take pride in. When done consciously, it's not blind obedience; it's a sort of trust in the groundwork that has been laid by your ancestors. In other words, to simply "pick and choose" would denigrate the tradition that nikolay has decided to uphold. For some people, death is preferable to the dissolution of one's identity.

nikolay 11y ago
There's no such thing as a half-Christian - you either accept it all or none; there's no cherry-picking. A suicide of any form is a sin - among Catholics as well and in some other religions, too. People had been terminally ill in the past as well, but there's always a chance - even a minuscule one.
- lawlessone 11y ago
  "there's no cherry-picking" What about all the other different branches of Christianity then? Catholicism, anglicans? adventists etc Are they not Christian?
- tim333 11y ago
  >There's no such thing as a half-Christian There's a massive variation in belief and practices amongst people who call themselves Christian. And I don't recall Jesus saying that you shouldn't do euthanasia for terminal cancer. He was generally a caring guy. Most of the anti stuff comes from right wing nutters born long after Jesus's death who I'd be happy to disregard.
  - Brendinooo 11y ago
    >I don't recall Jesus saying that you shouldn't do euthanasia for terminal cancer Jesus didn't speak about how to reply to comments on Hacker News either, but that doesn't mean that Christians are given no insight on how he or she should conduct himself or herself here. >Most of the anti stuff comes from right wing nutters I do hope you will evaluate this opinion more critically. I mean, I'm pretty sure Aquinas was against euthanasia, and that would have been well in line with the Judeo-Christian views on the issue throughout history.
    - adaml_623 11y ago
      "Throughout history" is such a funny phase. Imagine if Christians are around in another 2000 years and look back and say, "Well in the early years, for a few thousand years, Christians thought this but gradually it changed to this". Their opinion of X might be a bit difficult. Actually I suspect that there were a few changes in the the first first centuries AD that make the 'averaging' of history quite an interesting topic.
    - emodendroket 11y ago
      Well, was he? That's a slightly complicated question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect
Maarten88 11y ago
I've seen orthodox religious people get into serious psychological problems after someone they loved died prematurely and unexpectedly. When you really believe that God has its hand in everything, death of a loved one is a hard thing to swallow: it must be some punishment or lesson, but why? Orthodox christian religion is i.m.o. not helpful at all when coping with death.
- Juliate 11y ago
  Most people grieve after someone dies. Some have a harder time than others. Being religious or not has hardly to do with it. Being Christian has nothing to do with either believing that God has its hand in everything that governs your one personal life, or that it will actively intervene in a perceptible way, either believing that death is a punishment or a lesson or easy stuff or anything of this sort. Although one may always add such opinions, or bigotry, to any kind of faith (be it Christian or not). I mean, you may believe in God, or not, that won't stop the world. That won't make life different than what it is: you live, you die, shit happens, for some reason, or just because of no reason particular to you. The core of being Christian is believing in the Credo (which is sort of crazy, indeed, and that's totally accepted) and following Jesus way (and even Brian's one - you know: always look at the bright side of life) and spirit. Which requires some sort of introspection, observation, patience, love, etc. Not to say it's easy either. Then you add what tradition (catholic, eastern, orthodox, protestant, or so many others) you're in, or you've chosen. What you believe is one thing. That should logically not prevent you from living and seeking. (Catholic writing here)
- wolfhumble 11y ago
  Christianity has never been about not suffering. Many early disciples had painful endings to their lives and went through many hardships. God was with them in their pain, not their ticket to a problem-free life, on their journey to heaven where "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more" [Revelation 21:4]. One women I know that was sick in cancer said it like this to a friend of mine: I have been with him [Jesus] too long to leave Him now.
  - 11y ago
tomp 11y ago
> In other words, to simply "pick and choose" would denigrate the tradition that nikolay has decided to uphold. I guess what I'm missing here, is how does one come to such a decision. After all, the "tradition" is just an arbitrary set of rules that was made up by someone sometime in the past. I mean, even the name "Eastern Orthodox Christian" reveals that it's a refinement of Christianity, which is itself a refinement of Judaism, which is itself probably a refinement of something else that just wasn't written down. And all refinements keep changing; e.g. Jews shouldn't use "fire" on Sabbath (originally, AFAIK), but they adapted that to modern times to include "electricity" as well. So my question (or failure to understand) is exactly this conscious choice - what makes one consciously decide that a set of rules made up by someone else, which may or may not still be relevant, is the best way to conduct one's life? I guess uprbringing has a lot to do with this - religious people rarely go window-shopping to see which religion is "the best" - but IMO the idea of growing up is that you make independent decisions about your life (which ideally includes learning from others - adopting other people's rules - and learning from experience - changing your rules), possibly contrary to what your parents though and taught you were the best choices. Edit: also, I would like to point out that I see the following as distinct choices that one can make more-or-less independently: belief (into the general framework your religion describes, e.g. how the world was created), obedience/following (of religious rules, e.g. Muslims shouldn't eat pork), and belonging to community (e.g. you might not eat pork just because you don't want to be excluded from the Jewish community).
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  There's no such thing as "faith" as separate to "knowing something is true". Many people who even call themselves religious miss that. If you really believe that the doctrines of your faith are God's prescriptions (and there are ways to make that as a logical inference of some basic axioms within the system of a religion), then it's not "arbitrary set of rules" - it's the set of rules God wants you to follow. That's how actual faith works. (Speaking from experience; I used to be a true believer.)
  - emodendroket 11y ago
    Well, do they "not understand it" or do they just have a different way of being religious?

nikolay 11y ago

There's no such thing as a half-Christian - you either accept it all or none; there's no cherry-picking. A suicide of any form is a sin - among Catholics as well and in some other religions, too. People had been terminally ill in the past as well, but there's always a chance - even a minuscule one.

lawlessone 11y ago
"there's no cherry-picking" What about all the other different branches of Christianity then? Catholicism, anglicans? adventists etc Are they not Christian?
tim333 11y ago
>There's no such thing as a half-Christian There's a massive variation in belief and practices amongst people who call themselves Christian. And I don't recall Jesus saying that you shouldn't do euthanasia for terminal cancer. He was generally a caring guy. Most of the anti stuff comes from right wing nutters born long after Jesus's death who I'd be happy to disregard.
- Brendinooo 11y ago
  >I don't recall Jesus saying that you shouldn't do euthanasia for terminal cancer Jesus didn't speak about how to reply to comments on Hacker News either, but that doesn't mean that Christians are given no insight on how he or she should conduct himself or herself here. >Most of the anti stuff comes from right wing nutters I do hope you will evaluate this opinion more critically. I mean, I'm pretty sure Aquinas was against euthanasia, and that would have been well in line with the Judeo-Christian views on the issue throughout history.
  - adaml_623 11y ago
    "Throughout history" is such a funny phase. Imagine if Christians are around in another 2000 years and look back and say, "Well in the early years, for a few thousand years, Christians thought this but gradually it changed to this". Their opinion of X might be a bit difficult. Actually I suspect that there were a few changes in the the first first centuries AD that make the 'averaging' of history quite an interesting topic.
  - emodendroket 11y ago
    Well, was he? That's a slightly complicated question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect

Maarten88 11y ago

I've seen orthodox religious people get into serious psychological problems after someone they loved died prematurely and unexpectedly. When you really believe that God has its hand in everything, death of a loved one is a hard thing to swallow: it must be some punishment or lesson, but why? Orthodox christian religion is i.m.o. not helpful at all when coping with death.

Juliate 11y ago
Most people grieve after someone dies. Some have a harder time than others. Being religious or not has hardly to do with it. Being Christian has nothing to do with either believing that God has its hand in everything that governs your one personal life, or that it will actively intervene in a perceptible way, either believing that death is a punishment or a lesson or easy stuff or anything of this sort. Although one may always add such opinions, or bigotry, to any kind of faith (be it Christian or not). I mean, you may believe in God, or not, that won't stop the world. That won't make life different than what it is: you live, you die, shit happens, for some reason, or just because of no reason particular to you. The core of being Christian is believing in the Credo (which is sort of crazy, indeed, and that's totally accepted) and following Jesus way (and even Brian's one - you know: always look at the bright side of life) and spirit. Which requires some sort of introspection, observation, patience, love, etc. Not to say it's easy either. Then you add what tradition (catholic, eastern, orthodox, protestant, or so many others) you're in, or you've chosen. What you believe is one thing. That should logically not prevent you from living and seeking. (Catholic writing here)
wolfhumble 11y ago
Christianity has never been about not suffering. Many early disciples had painful endings to their lives and went through many hardships. God was with them in their pain, not their ticket to a problem-free life, on their journey to heaven where "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more" [Revelation 21:4]. One women I know that was sick in cancer said it like this to a friend of mine: I have been with him [Jesus] too long to leave Him now.
- 11y ago

tomp 11y ago

> In other words, to simply "pick and choose" would denigrate the tradition that nikolay has decided to uphold. I guess what I'm missing here, is how does one come to such a decision. After all, the "tradition" is just an arbitrary set of rules that was made up by someone sometime in the past. I mean, even the name "Eastern Orthodox Christian" reveals that it's a refinement of Christianity, which is itself a refinement of Judaism, which is itself probably a refinement of something else that just wasn't written down. And all refinements keep changing; e.g. Jews shouldn't use "fire" on Sabbath (originally, AFAIK), but they adapted that to modern times to include "electricity" as well. So my question (or failure to understand) is exactly this conscious choice - what makes one consciously decide that a set of rules made up by someone else, which may or may not still be relevant, is the best way to conduct one's life? I guess uprbringing has a lot to do with this - religious people rarely go window-shopping to see which religion is "the best" - but IMO the idea of growing up is that you make independent decisions about your life (which ideally includes learning from others - adopting other people's rules - and learning from experience - changing your rules), possibly contrary to what your parents though and taught you were the best choices. Edit: also, I would like to point out that I see the following as distinct choices that one can make more-or-less independently: belief (into the general framework your religion describes, e.g. how the world was created), obedience/following (of religious rules, e.g. Muslims shouldn't eat pork), and belonging to community (e.g. you might not eat pork just because you don't want to be excluded from the Jewish community).

TeMPOraL 11y ago
There's no such thing as "faith" as separate to "knowing something is true". Many people who even call themselves religious miss that. If you really believe that the doctrines of your faith are God's prescriptions (and there are ways to make that as a logical inference of some basic axioms within the system of a religion), then it's not "arbitrary set of rules" - it's the set of rules God wants you to follow. That's how actual faith works. (Speaking from experience; I used to be a true believer.)
- emodendroket 11y ago
  Well, do they "not understand it" or do they just have a different way of being religious?