Guns As A " God-given Right"

[havok579257]

Okay. You believe that if someone fail to render aid, he may be thrown in a cage. What if he resists? What level of force do you believe is the limit? If he resists, would you say it's not worth it to take his life, or would you leave lethal force on the table? 

 

 

well considering lethal force would not be needed, why would that be on the table at all?  I believe if someone chooses to murder someone they should have force used to put them in a cage.  Do you not believe murders should be locked up?  Should their be any punishment for someone who murders someone else?

[Winchester]

well considering lethal force would not be needed, why would that be on the table at all?  I believe if someone chooses to murder someone they should have force used to put them in a cage.  Do you not believe murders should be locked up?  Should their be any punishment for someone who murders someone else?

It's not murder to fail to render aid.

 

If someone resists your attempt at force, you face a choice to break off the force or continue. At what point would you decide the attempt to exact punishment should cease? 

Edited April 18, 2014 by Winchester

[havok579257]

It's not murder to fail to render aid.

 

If someone resists your attempt at force, you face a choice to break off the force or continue. At what point would you decide the attempt to exact punishment should cease? 

 

 

this is where we differ.  i believe it is murder to fail to render care to a dying person, even if that care is just calling 911 as someone dies in front of you.  I believe everyone has a right to life and to fail to render care and instead sit and watch as someone dies is to passively take away that persons right to life and that person is somewhat responsible for the other persons death.

 

should their be a punishment for someone who murders someone else?  should force be used?

[Winchester]

this is where we differ.  i believe it is murder to fail to render care to a dying person, even if that care is just calling 911 as someone dies in front of you.  I believe everyone has a right to life and to fail to render care and instead sit and watch as someone dies is to passively take away that persons right to life and that person is somewhat responsible for the other persons death.

 

should their be a punishment for someone who murders someone else?  should force be used?

Since your version of murder doesn't match mine, I don't see the point in attempting to discuss this further.

[CrossCuT]

Hmm, I wonder if a higher authority could weigh in on this situation.

 

If someone was dying in front of me and I was perfectly able in body and mind to help them as well as there was no objection to their aid, would that be a sin? Similar to the idea of a sin of omission is still a sin.

I think that especially in this case, when someones life is on the line, it is a much more serious case to help. 

 

Besides, of all the things to argue about, this one is stupid. As a Catholic I dont find this situation in the least bit grey...Id help the person if I was able. Pretty simple.

[KnightofChrist]

There is a moral obligation to help some one in need, it would be a sin to allow someone to die without at least trying to give them aid. But would not be the sin of murder or killing the person if someone did not. There is a moral obligation to help someone who is dying, but that moral obligation to charity and mercy must be freely chosen. No one has rights over or to someone else because that is slavery.

[Nihil Obstat]

I agree that letting die can be sinful in the same way as killing, but it is not necessarily so. There is a fundamental difference, as shown by the double effect principle, for instance.
For that reason, any use of force against letting die, assuming such force is moral at least sometimes, will necessarily be under different conditions than using force against killing.

[Winchester]

Hmm, I wonder if a higher authority could weigh in on this situation.

 

If someone was dying in front of me and I was perfectly able in body and mind to help them as well as there was no objection to their aid, would that be a sin? Similar to the idea of a sin of omission is still a sin.

I think that especially in this case, when someones life is on the line, it is a much more serious case to help. 

 

Besides, of all the things to argue about, this one is stupid. As a Catholic I dont find this situation in the least bit grey...Id help the person if I was able. Pretty simple.

That's not in question. Read carefully.

[CrossCuT]

That's not in question. Read carefully.

 

What did you say?

[CrossCuT]

There is a moral obligation to help some one in need, it would be a sin to allow someone to die without at least trying to give them aid. But would not be the sin of murder or killing the person if someone did not. There is a moral obligation to help someone who is dying, but that moral obligation to charity and mercy must be freely chosen. No one has rights over or to someone else because that is slavery.

 

I concur that I believe it is a moral obligation. Although Im not certain on its severity of sin. Id probably have to ask a priest or someone who would know better than I. I feel that it would be pretty grave if someones life was lost by inaction without a good reason.

[NotreDame]

is it wrong for any person to passively kill someone else?  Is it wrong for a doctor to refuse care to someone and instead sit there and watch the person die?

 

Yes it is. I think I have already said that it was and I never implied differently.   I'm saying there is a difference between one person having a moral obligation to do a thing and another having a natural right to that thing.  This is not a subtlety or a nuance. 

[Winchester]

What did you say?

Scroll back. If you can't figure this out, maybe the debate table isn't the place for you. 

[God the Father]

But the doctor does have an obligation to save a person's life to the best of his abilities, and whether he does it or not is irrelevant.

 

So the doctor, pursuant to the quality of his training, has an obligation to save lives to the best of his ability. We know people are dying around the world of easily preventable ailments....what proximity do these people need to be to the doctor for his obligation to kick in? What degree of certainty-of-non-payment excuses the doctor from investing every hour of his own short life to getting them well? What is the punishment for a medical professional who takes the day off instead of rescuing the downtrodden?

 

It seems like the best option for anybody in this kind of obligatory situation is to avoid gaining any kind of medical expertise, particularly when that expertise costs millions to gain (for reasons that are pretty shady, I'll give you). Although I suppose people also have a [i]right[/i] to the knowledge of others in certain critical fields of study; inversely, people with knowledge of how to treat life-threatening ailments are [i]obligated[/i] to share their knowledge with anyone interested in listening, with no regard to compensation, as long as those listeners are conscious of the [i]obligation[/i] they now have to circle the globe on a pro-bono hunt for disease.

 

This disregards the fact that many of these ailments require medicines for proper treatment. I suppose people have a right to medicine, no matter the cost, scarcity of ingredients, or difficulty of production, and those with the ability to mix those ingredients have an obligation to do so with no limit to time or cash invested. Meanwhile the procurers of these ingredients from the natural world also have the obligation to work tirelessly towards their harvest, lest the obligated pharmacists are unable to provide medicine to the obligated doctors, trained by the obligated professors in order that our rights are not infringed.

 

Maybe our actual rights would be less jeopardized every day if they were not conflated with "rights" like the above.

[RC Patriot]

I can't believe I've been away for so long that THIS topic sprung up! I'll read all 18 pages soon, but here's food for thought.

Aristotle:
...the hand is as good as a talon, or a claw, or a horn... or any other weapon or tool; it can be all of these, because it can seize and hold them all. And Nature has admirably contrived the shape of the hand so as to fit with this arrangement.

Cicero:
There exists a law, unwritten, inborn in our hears... by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself... by natural intuition... any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.

Thomas More, "Utopia":
Nevertheless, men and women [of the Utopia] alike assiduously exercise themselves in military training on fixed days lest they should be unfit for war when the need requires.

Thomas Hobbes:
For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished.

John Locke:
Men always knew that where force and injury was offered, they might be defenders of themselves...

...and thus it is, that every man, in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from every body, and also to secure men from the attempts of a criminal.

So, as a question of whether owning guns is  a "God-given right," I agree with these that Natural Law permits us to own and use the best arms we can have in order to defend ourselves or others.

[Era Might]

I don't see what guns, or any kind of weapon, have to do with God, assuming there is one. Humans shape their tools, and then are shaped by them. A piece of metal spraying bullets at another human being says a whole lot about man's deranged existence...I don't see God in a machine gun, as if it were a reflection of some divine order. God is a useful concept to approve and limit man's wild imagination. Man creates lots of tools...machine guns, condoms, vending machines. Is a vending machine a reflection of divine order? Or just a reflection of a mass society where people want things easily, on-demand, with paper money, etc. I guess it makes people feel better to put the name of God behind these kinds of things, but I don't think invoking God ever really makes us more critically aware of our the world we create. It just makes us feel better about what we believe and how we live.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Era Might