8 ms·

Bit of a tangent: I read the article to my wife and she mentioned that there is an episode of Grey's Anatomy where they wanted to perform a transplant of a pig'

Bit of a tangent: I read the article to my wife and she mentioned that there is an episode of Grey's Anatomy where they wanted to perform a transplant of a pig's bowels but the Jewish (or Muslim?) lady refused. Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life.

mizzao 5y ago
That was actually an inaccurate portrayal of Jewish law and Orthodox Jews "condemned the episode": https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ask-the-expert-kosher-pig/ https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ask-the-expert-kosh...
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  All of the “well actually” when it comes to religious laws misses the reality of the situation imo. Well educated religious scholars will debate religious laws and frequently fail to achieve consensus on much. Ordinary religious practitioners will simply adopt whichever interpretation they identify with. There are no truly correct interpretations of any religion, and for any religion there are as many different interpretations of what it means as there are people interpreting it. Even in Judaism, which is really quite homogeneous as far as most religions go.
- JimDabell 5y ago
  I was once stuck in line in a Subway behind two Muslim men having an argument. One of them was insisting that he couldn’t have turkey ham because eating ham was against his faith, and the other one was trying to explain that ham was forbidden because it was pork and that turkey ham was fine because it wasn’t pork. His mate just kept repeating “it’s still ham though, innit?” There were halal signs up, that wasn’t the problem. A television episode can be an inaccurate portrayal of religious law while still portraying what real religious people actually believe. Not every religious person is smart and well-informed about all the technicalities of their religion.
  - spiralx 5y ago
    Your comment gave me flashbacks to Chris Morris's satire Four Lions :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Lions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Lions
gpu_explorer 5y ago
Kosher rules are against eating pig meat. You can have a pig heart valve or heart, especially to save a life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh Not that everyone would do it.
stillicidious 5y ago
> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life. The belief in the right to a predictably long life is a new idea barely a few centuries old at most. Not that I'm personally complaining, but the statement did make me think, the value of living longer for everyone is not self-evident (at least from where I am standing), and the presumption that it is seems in itself dogmatic. Actually, I could suggest a few non-faith approaches to rationalize the benefit of early death
- webmaven 5y ago
  > [T]he value of living longer for everyone is not self-evident (at least from where I am standing), and the presumption that it is seems in itself dogmatic. A couple of different perspectives on the issue: https://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html https://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html https://youtu.be/iKC21wDarBo https://youtu.be/iKC21wDarBo
- FpUser 5y ago
  >"Actually, I could suggest a few non-faith approaches to rationalize the benefit of early death" The best way to convince the others is to put your money where your mouth is.
robocat 5y ago
“[The] prohibition against touching pigs applied only when Jews were on their way to Jerusalem to observe the three pilgrimage festivals”, “Even on the way to Jerusalem, Jews were only prohibited from touching the flesh, that is, the meat of a pig. According to halacha (Jewish law) the skin of an animal does not transmit impurities”. “Beyond that, there’s a very important tenet of Judaism called pikuach nefesh, or, saving a life. [Most Jewish laws] can and in fact should be violated in order to save a person’s life”. Quotes from link in sibling comment by mizzao.
- cperciva 5y ago
  This used to come up in the context of insulin as well -- now it's all produced from genetically engineered microbes, but porcine insulin used to be widely used. Both Jewish and Muslim scholars were very clear that if you need insulin and porcine is the only option, not only is it permitted to use it but it is required and failing to do so is a grave sin.
selcuka 5y ago
> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life. I guess according to a person of faith this becomes a choice between "afterlife" and "life".
Blikkentrekker 5y ago
On the axiom that betraying such faith leads to æternal damnation in the afterlife, it seems a strategic choice to me. It would perhaps only be strange that a man might hold such an axion, not that he acts in accordance with it.
- LadyCailin 5y ago
  I think it’s also that. The fact that someone would hold to such a dumb belief even in the face of death is strange. The (usual) human instinct is to survive, and I would argue it’s strange to not.
- cipheredStones 5y ago
  Few (if any) Jews believe in eternal damnation. Generally speaking, Judaism places very little emphasis on the afterlife, and there's no widely-held doctrine about it. To the extent there's a shared belief at all, it's that everybody goes to a place called Sheol, without differentiation by merit.
  - hackinthebochs 5y ago
    That's so strange that Christianity and Judaism can have such divergent views on the afterlife. I guess it never occurred to me (as a former Christian) that Christian views on the afterlife are totally derived from the new testament.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      There's a good case to be made that modern evangelical views on the afterlife aren't even based on the NT. Annihilationism (cessation of existence, "the second death", "fear him who can destroy body and soul", etc) is much closer to what's in the NT than the widely-accepted Infernalism (eternal torture in hell). That's how it reads to me, anyway, after decades of reading the Bible.
    - kaba0 5y ago
      Isn’t that mostly a middle ages creation? The whole Dante’s Inferno and related imaginary is not based on canon as far as I know. Jesus was much more practical in my view and placed much more emphasis on helping others through real means.
actually_a_dog 5y ago
Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions all the time on religious grounds. It might seem silly to you or me, but, to them, it would be sacrificing their eternal life for their limited life on Earth.
JetAlone 5y ago
I'd want to question why I'm doing it. For example do I have kids I need to stick around to support? Or am I just going to be discharged to mostly play video games, alone? Because I don't see a need to extend that life. Then I'd want to think about what it symbolizes. Is it really so irrational to just let my body die when my God-given guts fail instead of depending on the hands of man to possibly convert my body into an abomination just to keep me alive here longer? I read in a book about a monk refusing to get a pacemaker, saying "Imagine, God is calling me up to Heaven because it's my time, and this machine holds me down here on earth!" and while I may not be a monk, his decision seemed fairly wise to me. So I already have an example of a devout faithful man eschewing a life extending operation that involved no replacement of human with animal parts.
- derekp7 5y ago
  Do you feel the same way about other life saving technologies such as seat belts and motorcycle helmets? What about hitting the anti lock breaks when a semi pulls out in front of you? The same philosophy can be applied to other life saving / extending measures such as adjustments to diet, or taking high blood pressure medicine.
  - JetAlone 5y ago
    No. None of those safety implements you describe are things that alter the structure of my body, they are applied to augment the safety of existing pieces of external technology. So if they symbolize something negative, it would have to be along the lines of "constraining worldly authority" which could be argued to be a natural precaution, or an overprotective tyrannical overreach, but the nature of it is not the same as the operation. I do not share this materialist/gnostic mindset which tends to make a person consider matter to be essentially all the same in meaning, with a dead universe acted upon at a libertine perogative through a window of the human mind. Everything has become for me a layered network of symbolic meaning. The diet is about resisting gluttonous impulses and building up my body via natural means towards an ideal intended by the Creator. High blood pressure medicine may be an enactment of an archetype of a good doctor, or not, depending on how the medicine itself interacts with this network of meanings.
m3at 5y ago
For even more of a tangent, there is a South Park episode (S16E9) with a heart transplant from pig to human https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Bar_(South_Park) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Bar_(South_Park)
theplumber 5y ago
To me it looks like some kind of natural selection. I wonder what would these folks do if a deadly pandemic would hit us and the only cure would be to use some pork "formula" injection.
aoetalks 5y ago
> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr 10,000 Christians per year (excluding Congo's civil war, hence the article's title), it seems: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24864587 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24864587 And Muslims in China don't fare particularly well, either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims#China_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims#China_2
steve76 5y ago
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mizzao 5y ago

That was actually an inaccurate portrayal of Jewish law and Orthodox Jews "condemned the episode": https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ask-the-expert-kosher-pig/ https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ask-the-expert-kosh...

AmericanChopper 5y ago
All of the “well actually” when it comes to religious laws misses the reality of the situation imo. Well educated religious scholars will debate religious laws and frequently fail to achieve consensus on much. Ordinary religious practitioners will simply adopt whichever interpretation they identify with. There are no truly correct interpretations of any religion, and for any religion there are as many different interpretations of what it means as there are people interpreting it. Even in Judaism, which is really quite homogeneous as far as most religions go.
JimDabell 5y ago
I was once stuck in line in a Subway behind two Muslim men having an argument. One of them was insisting that he couldn’t have turkey ham because eating ham was against his faith, and the other one was trying to explain that ham was forbidden because it was pork and that turkey ham was fine because it wasn’t pork. His mate just kept repeating “it’s still ham though, innit?” There were halal signs up, that wasn’t the problem. A television episode can be an inaccurate portrayal of religious law while still portraying what real religious people actually believe. Not every religious person is smart and well-informed about all the technicalities of their religion.
- spiralx 5y ago
  Your comment gave me flashbacks to Chris Morris's satire Four Lions :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Lions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Lions

gpu_explorer 5y ago

Kosher rules are against eating pig meat. You can have a pig heart valve or heart, especially to save a life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh Not that everyone would do it.

stillicidious 5y ago

> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life. The belief in the right to a predictably long life is a new idea barely a few centuries old at most. Not that I'm personally complaining, but the statement did make me think, the value of living longer for everyone is not self-evident (at least from where I am standing), and the presumption that it is seems in itself dogmatic. Actually, I could suggest a few non-faith approaches to rationalize the benefit of early death

webmaven 5y ago
> [T]he value of living longer for everyone is not self-evident (at least from where I am standing), and the presumption that it is seems in itself dogmatic. A couple of different perspectives on the issue: https://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html https://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html https://youtu.be/iKC21wDarBo https://youtu.be/iKC21wDarBo
FpUser 5y ago
>"Actually, I could suggest a few non-faith approaches to rationalize the benefit of early death" The best way to convince the others is to put your money where your mouth is.

robocat 5y ago

“[The] prohibition against touching pigs applied only when Jews were on their way to Jerusalem to observe the three pilgrimage festivals”, “Even on the way to Jerusalem, Jews were only prohibited from touching the flesh, that is, the meat of a pig. According to halacha (Jewish law) the skin of an animal does not transmit impurities”. “Beyond that, there’s a very important tenet of Judaism called pikuach nefesh, or, saving a life. [Most Jewish laws] can and in fact should be violated in order to save a person’s life”. Quotes from link in sibling comment by mizzao.

cperciva 5y ago
This used to come up in the context of insulin as well -- now it's all produced from genetically engineered microbes, but porcine insulin used to be widely used. Both Jewish and Muslim scholars were very clear that if you need insulin and porcine is the only option, not only is it permitted to use it but it is required and failing to do so is a grave sin.

selcuka 5y ago

> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life. I guess according to a person of faith this becomes a choice between "afterlife" and "life".

Blikkentrekker 5y ago

On the axiom that betraying such faith leads to æternal damnation in the afterlife, it seems a strategic choice to me. It would perhaps only be strange that a man might hold such an axion, not that he acts in accordance with it.

LadyCailin 5y ago
I think it’s also that. The fact that someone would hold to such a dumb belief even in the face of death is strange. The (usual) human instinct is to survive, and I would argue it’s strange to not.
cipheredStones 5y ago
Few (if any) Jews believe in eternal damnation. Generally speaking, Judaism places very little emphasis on the afterlife, and there's no widely-held doctrine about it. To the extent there's a shared belief at all, it's that everybody goes to a place called Sheol, without differentiation by merit.
- hackinthebochs 5y ago
  That's so strange that Christianity and Judaism can have such divergent views on the afterlife. I guess it never occurred to me (as a former Christian) that Christian views on the afterlife are totally derived from the new testament.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    There's a good case to be made that modern evangelical views on the afterlife aren't even based on the NT. Annihilationism (cessation of existence, "the second death", "fear him who can destroy body and soul", etc) is much closer to what's in the NT than the widely-accepted Infernalism (eternal torture in hell). That's how it reads to me, anyway, after decades of reading the Bible.
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Isn’t that mostly a middle ages creation? The whole Dante’s Inferno and related imaginary is not based on canon as far as I know. Jesus was much more practical in my view and placed much more emphasis on helping others through real means.

actually_a_dog 5y ago

Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions all the time on religious grounds. It might seem silly to you or me, but, to them, it would be sacrificing their eternal life for their limited life on Earth.

JetAlone 5y ago

I'd want to question why I'm doing it. For example do I have kids I need to stick around to support? Or am I just going to be discharged to mostly play video games, alone? Because I don't see a need to extend that life. Then I'd want to think about what it symbolizes. Is it really so irrational to just let my body die when my God-given guts fail instead of depending on the hands of man to possibly convert my body into an abomination just to keep me alive here longer? I read in a book about a monk refusing to get a pacemaker, saying "Imagine, God is calling me up to Heaven because it's my time, and this machine holds me down here on earth!" and while I may not be a monk, his decision seemed fairly wise to me. So I already have an example of a devout faithful man eschewing a life extending operation that involved no replacement of human with animal parts.

derekp7 5y ago
Do you feel the same way about other life saving technologies such as seat belts and motorcycle helmets? What about hitting the anti lock breaks when a semi pulls out in front of you? The same philosophy can be applied to other life saving / extending measures such as adjustments to diet, or taking high blood pressure medicine.
- JetAlone 5y ago
  No. None of those safety implements you describe are things that alter the structure of my body, they are applied to augment the safety of existing pieces of external technology. So if they symbolize something negative, it would have to be along the lines of "constraining worldly authority" which could be argued to be a natural precaution, or an overprotective tyrannical overreach, but the nature of it is not the same as the operation. I do not share this materialist/gnostic mindset which tends to make a person consider matter to be essentially all the same in meaning, with a dead universe acted upon at a libertine perogative through a window of the human mind. Everything has become for me a layered network of symbolic meaning. The diet is about resisting gluttonous impulses and building up my body via natural means towards an ideal intended by the Creator. High blood pressure medicine may be an enactment of an archetype of a good doctor, or not, depending on how the medicine itself interacts with this network of meanings.

m3at 5y ago

For even more of a tangent, there is a South Park episode (S16E9) with a heart transplant from pig to human https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Bar_(South_Park) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Bar_(South_Park)

theplumber 5y ago

To me it looks like some kind of natural selection. I wonder what would these folks do if a deadly pandemic would hit us and the only cure would be to use some pork "formula" injection.

aoetalks 5y ago

> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr 10,000 Christians per year (excluding Congo's civil war, hence the article's title), it seems: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24864587 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24864587 And Muslims in China don't fare particularly well, either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims#China_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims#China_2

steve76 5y ago

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