Arguments in Favor of Euthanasia: 1. Personhood – The argument is simple: someone in an irreversible coma is no longer a person but only a biological organism. The distinction is often made between a person’s biological life, or physical existence, and one’s biographical life, or the aspects of one’s life that make it meaningful. One’s biographical life is the sum total of one's goals, desires, dreams, plans, accomplishments and relationships. Medical science has made it possible to retain one’s biological life after having lost one’s biographical life. Thus the individual exists only as a body, having lost the essence of what it is that makes him/her a person. Hence it is not murder to terminate what remains of one’s mere biological existence. 2. Quality of Life – In cases of unrelenting and unrelievable suffering where there is no reasonable hope of improvement, life ceases to be worth living. In such cases, an individual or his/her family ought to be free to say “enough is enough” and put an end to such incessant misery. No one should be compelled to live a life that they no longer regard as life worth living. 3. Mercy – We extend mercy to animals when we put them out of their misery. Why should we be less merciful to humans? 4. Utilitarian concerns – Most people cannot afford to underwrite the expense of keeping a terminally ill or comatose person alive. To do so places an unfair burden on other members of the family. Why should tax dollars and precious hospital space and technology be expended to perpetuate the life of someone who will never function in society again when there are other, potentially productive people, who cannot receive proper care?
Sam Storms

Forums

Forum Navigation
You need to log in to create posts and topics.

Are the Scriptures Inspired?

Forum Archives
4,143 Posts
#1 · January 27, 2004, 12:32 pm

Posted by: ba <ba@...>

Forthright Magazine
http://www.forthright.net
Straight to the Cross

COLUMN: Scriptures Speak

Are the Scriptures Inspired?
by Jimmy Jividen

Some who claim to follow Christ are questioning
that the Scriptures are an absolute, objective
standard for faith and practice. They seek, under
the guise of intellectual freedom, cultural
conformity, and political expediency, to
intimidate those who regard the Scriptures as a
religious standard.

These questioners often use the correct religious
terms, but they define the terms to fit what they
want to believe. It is hypocritical to hide one’s
own doubts under the cover of language. Truth does
not fear the light.

When these doubters say they believe the
Scriptures are inspired, they may mean something
different from what a Bible believer regards as
inspiration.

They may believe the Bible is inspired in the
sense a poet is inspired to write a poem. It is
true, as they say, that the Scriptures contain
great spiritual literary compositions; but, so
also do the Gita and the Koran.

These doubters may believe that the Scriptures are
inspired for the time in which they were written,
but are not relevant today. The Scriptures, they
believe, are so shackled by cultural traditions
that they are not applicable today.

These doubters may believe the Scriptures are
inspired only if one perceives them to be so. They
would suggest that a passage might be inspired to
you, but not to another, and that inspiration is
in the reader rather than in the text.

Unbelief comes in different forms. The above
points are all popular forms of unbelief that can
be found in most churches today. The fundamental
religious issues confronting our times are not
over doctrine, politics, and practice, but whether
or not the Scriptures are the guide for faith and
practice. We are in a battle for the Bible.

To call into question the inspiration of the
Scriptures is to also call in question the
Divinity of Christ, since only through Scripture
can one know about Jesus Christ.

Thanks to The Voice of Truth International, Vol
12, p. 35.

----
Read this article online, tell us what you think,
see who's commenting, click here:
forthright.antville.org/stories/668917/
----

You can help us get the word out. Here's how:
forthright.antville.org/stories/340415/

Click for thumbs down.0Click for thumbs up.0