The Objectivism Online Meta-Blog

I do not in any way condone suicide, I find it to be a form of evasion which only a weak mind would resort to. However, it is absolutely moral for an individual to dictate the terms of their own existence, including what state of mind they wish to live in. If this does not include "vegetable", then one should be able to provide contingencies in their will for euthenasia.

An inconsistency (only one of many) arises in Christian doctrine. How can it be that a code of ethics deems life on Earth as fundamentally immoral, yet escape to paradise equally immoral? I am not sure of what the pope's answer would be, but my answer is: profit motive.

Though there may very well be some fringe religion being practiced in some primitive corner of the globe which praises Earthly existence, all of the major religions that affected the history of the world are fundamentally anti-life. Some are more open about it than others (such as Islam). However, despite the fact that they pine for the after-life, they manage to find some way to keep their followers around. This is because their belief systems are based on one idea, which I assure you is VERY "materialistic". That idea is mind control.

In the spirit of Ellsworth Toohey in Ayn Rand's epic, The Fountainhead, all of the major religions show no honest desire for the salvation of their followers. Their top priority has always been dictating the terms of peoples' existences. Salvation is merely the carrot dangled in front of a worshipper's nose.

The church wasn't thinking about salvation when they ordered each of the four Holy Crusades which resulted in the deaths of over nine million people. The church wasn't thinking about salvation when they ordered inquisitions of the gnostics and other christian cults. The church wasn't thinking about salvation when they branded Martin Luther a heretic upon his demand that the Bible be translated to German and printed for circulation amongst the masses. And the church is not thinking about salvation now, with their demand that doctors do everything possible to make sure that people stay here on Earth as long as possible, no matter what the costs.

At first, the idea behind the con game of the Catholic church was pretty straightforward. A select group of religious officials used scare tactics on the masses in order to extract tithes from them which would allow the officials to live confortably. Frightening the masses with damnation for this, that, and the other thing, ensured that the tithes would keep flowing. As evidence, it is well known that the Vatican was once the largest landowner in the world, as well as one of the wealthiest organizations throughout the middle ages, and a trend-setter that even the most powerful kings and feudal lords would not dispute.

Over the course of history, people got smarter, and less suceptible to the threat of divine force by the church. So, the profit motive of the church faded into the background, gradually replaced with the idea of goodwill at the forefront of their motivation. This of course was and still is a facade for their original method: mind control.

Its little wonder why the Catholic church condemns birth control and encourages Catholics to raise large families. The more Catholics there are walking the Earth, the greater the power of the church. Anything that reduces their numbers would be detrimental to their influence as a world ethic-setting machine. They fall right in line with the nuances of any gang mentality: strength in numbers.

Today, Catholics are still one of the most influential religious groups walking the planet. However, they have been forced over the ages to compromise many of their old hard-line ethics in order to maintain unity in a changing world. Still, such edicts as the one in question are still serving the interests of their traditional goal, which is mass subservience to their authority. No one was ever deified for telling people that they had a mind and a life that was worth something. No one ever gained power by declaring individual rights. There have only been two forces in history that ever succeeded in uniting and motivating great numbers of people. They are the common bond of liberty, and the common bond of hatred for life. The former was only ever implemented by the founders of the American constitution.

So we can chalk the pope's latest declaration up as another Christian inconsisteny. Ordering doctors to maintain lives not worth maintaining, as a requirement for walking God's ethical line, is inconsistent with any ideas for salvation. It is merely another way of ensuring the mindless adherence of masses to the Catholic dogma, which ultimately results in a few religious officials getting paid.

Hold it right there, Pope, isn't the profit motive supposed to be a materialistic sin???