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> The religion is notably fascinated with martyrdom Martyrdom and suicide are nothing alike. To a Christian at least. About the same time I read a solemn flip
by spindritf 13y ago
> The religion is notably fascinated with martyrdom
Martyrdom and suicide are nothing alike. To a Christian at least.
About the same time I read a solemn flippancy by some free thinker: he said that a suicide was only the same as a martyr. The open fallacy of this helped to clear the question. Obviously a suicide is the opposite of a martyr. A martyr is a man who cares so much for something outside him, that he forgets his own personal life. A suicide is a man who cares so little for anything outside him, that he wants to see the last of everything. One wants something to begin: the other wants everything to end. In other words, the martyr is noble, exactly because (however he renounces the world or execrates all humanity) he confesses this ultimate link with life; he sets his heart outside himself: he dies that something may live. The suicide is ignoble because he has not this link with being: he is a mere destroyer; spiritually, he destroys the universe. And then I remembered the stake and the cross-roads, and the queer fact that Christianity had shown this weird harshness to the suicide. For Christianity had shown a wild encouragement of the martyr. Historic Christianity was accused, not entirely without reason, of carrying martyrdom and asceticism to a point, desolate and pessimistic. The early Christian martyrs talked of death with a horrible happiness. They blasphemed the beautiful duties of the body: they smelt the grave afar off like a field of flowers. All this has seemed to many the very poetry of pessimism. Yet there is the stake at the crossroads to show what Christianity thought of the pessimist.
http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/orthodoxy/ch5.html http://www.leaderu.com/cyber/books/orthodoxy/ch5.html
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoI never said they are. It was to illustrate Christianity's generally positive outlook on suffering as a trial.
- gordaco 13y agoOne of the most prominent examples can be found in Mother Teresa of Calcuta, who had some disturbing ideas about suffering. To the point of denying painkillers to terminal patients.
- gdwatson 13y agoHas this ever been conclusively documented? I've seen accusations by some and denials by those close to her, but never any proof of the claim.
- primroot 13y agoThis book may be a good start http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Missionary_Position
- gohrt 13y agoRight. Auto-euthanasia is martyrdom to let the living (family/friends/community) start living their lives again instead of waiting for the ill to die.
- waps 13y agoThis is one concern that can't reasonably be considered. A person should first and foremost be in control of their own life. Only when that is absolutely impossible for an prolonged indeterminite time (ie. not for an hour, not when he's drunk off his/her ass for a week, not even if for some reason someone would be unconscious for a year), then we can talk about letting someone else decide. What the family or community or friends think of the matter, they can get fucked. They're only asked to provide an answer to the question of whether that person would have chosen suicide, no-one would never ask them to make an actual decision.
- Schwolop 13y agoCall it "Doctor-assisted martyrdom" then. I'll be a martyr for the cause of not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on something pointless.