A Rumination on Euthanasia and Faith

“The whole conception of “Sin” is one which I find very puzzling, doubtless owing to my sinful nature. If “Sin” consisted in causing needless suffering, I could understand; but on the contrary, sin often consists in avoiding needless suffering. Some years ago, in the English House of Lords, a bill was introduced to legalize euthanasia in cases of painful and incurable disease. The patient’s consent was to be necessary, as well as several medical certificates. To me, in my simplicity, it would seem natural to require the patient’s consent, but the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the English official expert on Sin, explained the erroneousness of such a view. The patient’s consent turns euthanasia into suicide, and suicide is sin. Their Lordships listened to the voice of authority, and rejected the bill. Consequently, to please the Archbishop—and his God, if he reports truly—victims of cancer still have to endure months of wholly useless agony, unless their doctors or nurses are sufficiently humane to risk a charge of murder. I find difficulty in the conception of a God who gets pleasure from contemplating such tortures; and if there were a God capable of such wanton cruelty, I should certainly not think Him worthy of worship. But that only proves how sunk I am in moral depravity.”
― Bertrand Russell, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish: A Hilarious Catalogue of Organized and Individual Stupidity

 

The above quote resonates so deeply.

The entire idea that there is a Being who wants us to continue to suffer, to endure endless treatments for diseases that in effect destroy our immune systems and cause the death of not only the “bad” cells but the “healthy” ones as well is a particularly vicious type of cruelty. It is inflicted upon us by a society that believes that somehow if we continue living, we can continue to “glorify God” because somehow this Omnipotent Being needs our continual praise for letting us live.

I sometimes feel that the Cathars – an heretical sect that opposed Catholicism in the 11th century – were right; that we are bound to exist here, enslaved spiritually by the devil, not a benevolent “God” (for lack of a better term).

Science is not trying to prove that such a being exists. They are trying to understand the nature of consciousness as a pervasive force that exists throughout the multiverse. It is inexplicable and undefinable, it cannot be named for that will limit it. It is like the idea of infinity, the mind cannot conceive of it and constantly tries to define it, to capture it as a concept when it cannot be.

The mystic is believed work with this energy; the mystic can harness it. It is said that our thoughts are creative mechanisms whereby we can change or alter reality.

In such a vein then, I would venture to say that if this were so, then the thought of “god” or “Jesus” or any “angel” existed as a concept, the idea was propagated by the originator of the thought, it became a belief and thence a dogma. It becomes a thing when millions share the same thought or belief, but the essence of it is still just a belief, an idea.

It may be an erroneous idea.

People’s “thoughts and prayers” to this benign being can perhaps change the course of history, like Aleister Crowley purportedly did to turn the Battle of Britain by performing an occult ritual. The “energy” is neutral; it can be used for good or bad. It seems to depend solely on the strength of your belief and your ability to sustain the thought form you create.

My own journey has brought me to substitute one type of belief for another, evolving (if one may call it so) from Christianity which I stopped believing in at the age of seven, to Buddhism and New Age ideas. Science has always held a fascination for me, but I often thought that even there exists a dogmatic belief in the infallibility of the scientific method which has since been challenged by quantum physics…yet another idea.

Now I grapple with the very experiences I have had as a meditator, as a psychic and my conception of The All that Is.

Is meditation just another form of self-induced hypnosis?

How valid and measurable are my experiences?

When I “see” Jesus with a client is it because it is a thought form generated by the person’s own beliefs?

Does any of this mean anything at all?

Perhaps. But I have no answers, I only have questions.

Ultimately kindness is our saving grace.

And that is all we can hope for.

And euthanasia is a kindness; an end to needless suffering that no “loving God” would inflict on any of us, regardless of what we believe in.