Euthanasia - how does the idea of an afterlife impact on its morality or otherwise?
The idea of ending people's suffering if they are dying anyway by helping them on their way is a controversial one.
If you believe that euthanasia is bad on humanistic
grounds, on secular grounds that is either good or bad. If it is bad it is made
more bad by holding that God commands us to believe that it is wrong. That is at
least partly holding that religious belief is more important than giving people
their right to euthanasia if such a right exists. If it is wrong we don't need a
God to forbid it. If he forbids it, it is because he wants us to oppose it not
for our reasons but just because he says so. The more religious the objections
the more fake the compassion of the objector for the suffering of the world is.
Christianity is saturated with the thought that God has the right to tell you to
kill somebody or to wage war. Yet the Christians hypocritically reject the view
of some socialists that if you are in your right mind and wish to end your life
then that is your right. Christians reply that it is up to God who gives life to
take it away! This is not faith but hypocrisy! No wonder Christian warmongers
are not deterred by their faith and piety. If anything it’s a support to them as
they struggle with their conscience to unleash evil.
Euthanasia would seem to be lawful if you are sure the
person will survive death in some form of afterlife. The preciousness of life
and the need to guard life above all things does not prove that it is wrong for
this reason. Euthanasia is lawful as long as abuses are watched out for and the
person asks for it without being under pressure from friends and family. The
problem is that we are surer that we will live on if this body of ours does than
we are if we leave the body. We can’t sacrifice anybody to religious faith.
If life goes on after death the person who knows you have just prayed and
obtained God’s forgiveness is doing you a favour by killing you and sending you
to Heaven. It is impossible then to see how murder could be a sin. If God needed
you for some job and somebody killed you before you could do it then he is
almighty and can deal with the work himself. Death cannot be evil if God lets it
happen. Many feel that religion just slanders murderers for it cannot think of a
real reason that is compatible with its teaching why murder would be wrong.
The doctrine of Hell needs to be left out of any
discussion of euthanasia. That is to say, nobody should argue, "Forbid
euthanasia for the one who chooses it deserves to go to Hell forever." To even
bring the matter up violates the rule, "Do not have a faith or doctrine that
accuses people without proving its accusations true." And there is a rule that
faith should never insinuate or preach anything that a good humanist would
disagree with on ethical grounds.
The doctrine of everlasting Hell has led consistent Christians to refuse to take
morphine on their deathbeds which hastens their death on the grounds that it is
a mind-altering drug. God gives life for us to choose him or reject him and the
last moment of life is the most important moment of all. At that point ones
destiny, Heaven or an eternity in Hell is fixed. So one cannot be under the
influence of drugs as death approaches. One wants to have as normal a mind as
possible to spend the last few moments with God and offer them to God. The Roman
Catholic Church allows morphine to be given as long as the intention is to kill
pain and not the person. This is only a stunt to avoid a backlash that would
expose the Church for the dangerous entity it is.