Bill's Comments

I found myself described in a book, not me literally, but certainly me:

Dalgliesh remembered a surgeon once telling him that Miles Kynaston had shown promise of beocming a brilliant diagnostician, but had given up general medicine for pathology at registrar level because he could no longer bear to watch human suffering. The surgeon sounded a note of amused condescension as though he were betraying a colleague's unforunate weakness, wryly observed, which a more prudent man would ahve detected before beginning his medical training, or at least would have come to terms with before his second year. I could, Dalgliesh thought, been true. Kynaston had fulfilled his promise, but how he applied his diagnostic skills to the unrepining dead, whose eyes couldn't implore him to offer hope, whose mouths could no longer cry out. Certainly he haed a taste for death. Nothing about it disconcerted him: its messiness, its smell, the most bizrre of its trappings. Unlike most doctors, he saw it not as the final enemy, but as a fascinating enigma, each cadaver, which he would gaze at with the same intent look as he must once have fixed on his living patients, a new piece of evidence which might, if rightly interpreted, bring him close to its central mystery.

The quote is from A Taste for Death, by P. D. James.

The quote does not describe me now, but was extremely accurate for me in my early twenties when I was in medical school. I left after two years, for the very reasons described above. If I had remained I would have been a Miles Kynaston.

I am currently commuting every week to North Carolina, and have just finished the production of two one-act plays for the church. The plays went very well, and I may have a bit more time after I've caught my breath, to blog again. But right now, I am mentally and emotionally drained. That does not make for good blogging.

So enjoy the people on my blog role. They all have something interesting to say.

I have just finished "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Release 2.0." This is an outstanding analysis of what is happening to the world due to the exploitation of technology. It also has an excellent analysis of much of the geopolitics of today's world.

Every once in a while the author's liberal political stance shows through in his evaluation of some of the priorities of our government and especially in his proposed solutions to the problems. That is minor compared to tremendous value in his exposition and analysis of events in the world. I did find it interesting that despite his espousal of government solutions to problems, all the examples of good things occurring were due to private companies' efforts despite government regulation. The only underlying value of government is the rule of law, which is a subtle subtext he does not deal with.

There is one last quick quote that struck me last night as I was finishing:

"The new system of diffusion -- the Internet -- is more likely to transmit irrationality than rationality," said political theorist Yaron Ezrahi, who specializes in the interaction between media and politcs. "Because irrationality is more emotionally loaded, it requires less knowledge, it explains more to more people, it goes down easier." That is why conspiracy theories are so rife in the Arab-Muslim world today -- and unfortunately are becoming so in many quarters of the Western world, for that matter. Conspiracy theories are like a drug that goes right into your bloodstream, enabling you to see "the Light." And the Internet is the needle. Young people used to have to take LSD to escape. Now they just go online. Now you don't shoot up, you download. You download the pricise point of view that speakes to all your own biases. And the flat world makes it all so much easier.

This book brought information to light that was not always welcome or comfortable, but important none the less. And truth to tell, to some degree we are all guilty of reinforcing our biases with the websites we visit. The key is, do we visit others as well?

I received a book for Christmas, "The World is Flat", by Thomas L. Friedman. It is a well-researched and well-written description of the last 20-30 years from a viewpoint of how technology is enabling people to succeed that never could before, especially in countries like India, Russia, and China. The first part of the book describes the technologies and their impact. The second part shows how the US is beginning to fall behind.

Here are some facts just to illustrate my point:

"The percentage of scientific papers written by Americans has fallen 10 percent since 1992."

"The percentage of American papers publishe in the top physics journal, Physical Review, has fallen from 61 percent to 29 percent since 1983."

"From 1980 to 2003, Japan's share of world industrial patents rose from 12 to 21 percent, and Tiawan's from 0 percent to 3 percent."

"...the U.S. share of patents had fallen from 60 percent to 52 percent since 1980."

In his chapter called The Quiet Crisis, he list some "Dirty Little Secrets".
1. The Numbers Gap--we are not creating enough engineers and scientists to replace those retiring
2. The Education Gap at the Top--We don't have our young people going into advanced science and engineering
3. The Ambition Gap--We emphasize fun rather than accomplishment
4. The Education Gap at the Bottom--our grade school students are not improving or are getting worse in basic skills
5. The Funding Gap--Billions in pork, but a decline in dollars for knowledge and research
6. The Infrastructure Gap--Our Broadband communications is falling compared to the rest of the world, and it is used to connect idea creators in many countries

Here are some quickie quotes:
"There is a saying in China that whatever you put in your head and your stomach, no one can take away from you."
"In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears--and that is our problem."
"...Intel's chips are made from just two things sand and brains (silicon comes from sand)--'and right now the brains are the problem...'"
"'As my wife likes to tell me,' said [the CEO of Intel], 'when you study history and look at every civilization that has grown up and died off, they all leave one remnant--a major sports coliseum at the heart of their capital.'"

It is sobering reading. I strongly recommend it.

....and I'm sorry I am right.

Suicide
Classically, based on Roman Catholic theology, suicide is the one sin God would not forgive. From my reading of it, this is because suicide is self-murder and the murdered is no longer around to express remorse and ask forgiveness. This is based on what I consider a flawed model, that the priest is necessary for forgiveness. In other words, one must go to confession to be forgiven. Let me state right now, that I don't buy into that idea, so either bear with me or go somewhere else.

The question to be considered is: are there suicides that are forgivable? Deriving from that one can ask: If there are suicides that are forgivable, then what distinquishes them from those that aren't? Or, how fine a line can we draw between forgiveness in spite of suicide, and condemnation because of suicide?

In order to make the problem tractable, I want to sort out suicides into groups. The first group is those in totally intractable physical pain. Pain that is not amenable to modern analgesics, at least in legal doses. The second group is those who have reached a point of total despair, due to health issues or other life issues. The third group are the clinically depressed. The fourth group are the self-centered angry and attention-getters.

Let's start with the intractable physical pain group. The logic is "Thou shalt not kill" and if one kills oneself, it is sinful. But this is a very absolute proscription. It requires that a person in agony beyond any normal comprehension [it does exist, I've been there, bk] with no hope of alleviation must continue to suffer until they die without outside intervention. To take this position and blame God for it is to make God a partner to torture. This is totally incompatible with a benevolent God. However, if God cannot or will not violate the laws of nature to relieve this suffering which must grate against the omnibenevolent side of His nature, then He becomes by default a party to torture. In such a conflict, brought on by the very nature of the omnipotent God, the choice to end one's life voluntarily seems hardly to be a sin, but rather the resolution of a difficult problem. By my reasoning, suicide under such circumstances is not a sin.

Now let's turn to a group that is not so clear cut: those who have reached a point of total despair, due to health issues or other life issues. Starting with the health issues, these are easier to sort out, if one has a permanently debilitating disease or condition, is one allowed to take one's life? Not necessarily. Despite the grim future, if there is the opportunity to provide wisdom, insight, productive work, or other value, then it would be a sin to deprive oneself and the rest of the world of this value. If one is reduced to total futility, and even the mind cannot produce any value or communicate any value, then BY CHOICE, it would not be sinful to take ones life. Note however, this is not a pass for Dr. Kevorkian. The individual must make the decision and carry it out. By all standards I hold valuable, Dr. Kevorkian ends up a murderer. Suicide is a personal responsibility--it cannot have assistance. I realize there is an inherent conflict here--a person in such a state may not be able to engineer their suicide. Regardless, and here is one of the places I draw a line, no one else can commit the act. They might make the means available, but they cannot actually assist in the act of death.

The life issues subgroup would appear to me to never be justified in suicide. There are some amazing stories of people surviving the most horrible of lives, e.g., Ellie Weisel (sp?). It is pure self-pity and indulgence to think that life cannot go on because of ....... I've been there too. The worst single event is loosing a child and my wife and I continued. Even if it is more than one child or one's entire immediate family or one's fortune, this is not justification for suicide. One still has value and opportunity. It may not be what was previously offered, but it does exist. In reading this over, I am struck that there is a life issue class that is difficult to deal with--causing accidental death. I have known people who have done this, and coping with it is harder in my mind than with the death of a loved one. this is one case I will leave undecided. I thought of a third life issue that rarely applies in todays permissive, relativistic society--the total loss of one's personal honor and integrity. Regardless of how it happens, there comes a moment of sanity when one looks at the carnage and wonders how, if at all, they can ever recover their self-respect. Under such circumstances, it has the flavor of reparation or ultimate penance--a desire never to have it be possible again. There is a most profound remorse associated with it. It is the stuff of great tragedies. Such a situation strikes me as not sinful but an attempt to act with the greatest of rectitude.

Our third group are the clinically depressed. These are people whose minds have gone into a spiral downward, and everything is seen as one more oppression or failure. Not everyone in this position is as lucky as I have been, to have a hope or concern to cling to. When one is in this position, all that is perceived is total despair and no opportunity to change. Often there is no one important enough to delay action for, or to consider prior to acting. For someone at this point, life is a zero. There is no way to continue without endless pain or conflict. I am working hard to create sympathy for this person, because he/she is totally unable to step outside of themselves to see any other opportunities. At this point, having a choice is far more theoretical than actual. Persons in this place are not in their right minds, and it makes more sense to hold them responsible as one would hold responsible a person of diminished capacity rather than one of normal mind. This is one that God would have to sort out--were they crazy enough not to be responsible? God only knows. But for us, it is not ours to judge. We should offer them the full death rites as if it were an usual death by natural causes.

The last group is composed of self-centered, self-pitying, angry people and attention-getters. The latter category ends up killing themselves by mistake--they stage a suicide as an attention-getting bid and it goes further than planned. To me this is a slam-dunk--it is a sin. God may forgive them but their motives from the start were tainted with the goal of manipulation. But what about the first category, the angry, self-centered people who kill themselves because they did not get their way. Some high school suicides are to the point here. Any case of suicide as "I'll show you, I'll kill myself" fits the mold here. This is a despicable and definitely sinful form of suicide. It takes the very thing of value in the other person, love and concern for another, and turns it against them to cause horrible pain.

In summary, I argue that there are some instances of suicide that are not sinful, there are a few that are debatable, and there are those that are definitely sinful. The non-sinful group includes those in intractable pain, those in total despair with no hope of relief, and those whose self-judgment consider death as the only acceptable punishment. The debatable group are those with life-issues other than terminal health. All the rest, which is most suicides are sinful by my reasoning.

Judas Iscariot
The discussion on suicide above grew out of some thinking I was doing concerning Judas Iscariot. It started with a bureaucratic change in security procedures at a client. One comment was that there aught to be a special place in Hell for such persons. My companion had never thought of Hell has having special places, and so I mentioned Dante's Inferno, and the bottom where Judas and the Devil were frozen in ice and biting each other's necks. My companion then said that Judas' betrayal of Jesus was necessary for him to become the Savior.

I have thought about this for a while, and it strikes me that there is some very faulty reasoning on the part of Paul, who is the main proponent in the Bible of the death of Jesus on the cross relieving us of the burden of punishment for our sins. The argument as it applies to Judas goes like this:
1. We are saved by Jesus death on the cross.
2. For that to happen Jesus had to die.
3. For Jesus to die, he had to be tried and condemned.
4. For him to be tried, he had to be turned over to the authorities.
5. Someone had to turn him over to the authorities.
6. Judas had the role of betraying Jesus.
7. Judas' betrayal is essential to our salvation.
8. Judas is a hero not a villain, because he is necessary to our salvation.

To me, it smacks of Pooh saying that the reason there are bees is because they make honey and the reason there is honey is so I can eat it.

Paul created a strong emotional image by combining the sacrifice of the first-born with the scape-goat. He then took that is the purpose of Jesus on earth. My reading of the gospels was that Jesus was less concerned with heavenly reward than with right living on earth. It is only after his death that much of what is ascribed to him has come to be. It is just like interpreting Isaiah to foretell the coming of Jesus, when actually he was foretelling the coming of another David.

The argument above assumes predestination. Judas by that argument was predestined to betray Jesus. But if that is so, how can he be punished for it? He could do no other. If we remove the predestination and teleology from the story of Jesus, we have what is still a powerful, but no longer supernatural, story of a great teacher who ran afoul of the establishment. The estatablishment found a way to frame him to the authorities so that he would be killed, and they would not have to do it. Judas acted on the baser side of his nature, and then in remorse over what he did, killed himself. Here was the link with the above discussion on suicide. In Judas case, it was an attempt to redeem his honor by paying what he saw as a just price for the life he betrayed.

But was Jesus death on the cross necessary for our salvation, or was it the full example of what it means to be true to oneself and ones values? I never understood the fairy tales that had whipping boys and girls in them. It was forbidden to strike a prince or princess so if a whipping/spanking were required, a commoner received the punishment instead. I never understood how someone else taking my punishment would make me a better person. By the same token, I fail to see that Jesus' death was for my sins. Actually it was BECAUSE of not FOR my sins, my being a human collective my.

If that is the case, then Judas becomes more understandable. He became subject to his baser instincts, threw in with the Sanhedrin, and then realized the enormity of what he had done and killed himself in remorse. This also gets rid of the problems of predestination and how Judas could be a sinner if he was necessary to the salvation plan.