Parents horrified after priest used teen's funeral to condemn suicide

[Potoooooooo]

They taught me that humans shouldn't start wars.

Well, that’s just straight up cowardice. While we can, of course, hide behind the Kilgons and have them take the blame for starting shit, it’s not polite interplanetary relations to do so.

Maybe God could exterminate all the Klingons with a giant flood. That would teach them!

 

[Rhea]

If I were dying from some painful terminal disease, and you refused me even access to the means to end my life without pain, then, you would be again either a coward or unthinking/unfeeling or merely enraptured by some dogma handed down by robed men. And yes, you would be acting contemptibly.

I don't actually disagree with your viewpoint on euthanasia here. It is a decision I had to partially make for someone once, to my regret. But I also understood why not everyone in the family was okay with our choice, and do not think it is unreasonable or surprising that there are variations of opinion on this.

Indeed it is not surprising that there are different viewpoints on a choice for oneself. That is reasonable and right. What is contemptible is the part about having beliefs that others must hew to one's beliefs, even when they have sound reasons to think otherwise. That's the part that is contemptible, and that's what is being reacted to in your post. That you found it reasonable for a religion to force others to obey it with no objective reason.

Shouting insults around and accusing people of either murder or torture (depending on your positioning) is not the most productive way to respond to a situation where two people disagree on the beginning or end of a meaningful life. There is no objective measure of either viewpoint, only a plethora of social and religious perspectives that have had centuries to take root.

No one is shouting here, FTR.
And what is productive is the story telling part to help people put themselves briefly into the shoes of others. To help them understand that what to one person is "respecting life" is, to another person completely unnecessary pain and anguish. For those with these diseases, they would beg to differ and suggest that they really do think it is productive and necessary for those opposing their rights to understand that it is physical torture that is being prolonged.

I think you are trying to ascribe to me a general principle of moral relativism, which I do not in fact subscribe to (nor do most anthropologists btw). Whereas I see it as uniquely important to understand here because culture has such a dominant role in creating differing definitions of "murder". There's just no pragmatic point, in such a crowded field of opinion, of insisting on moral absolutism. What does it be gain us to pretend that an obviously arbitrary marker is the ONLY logical/moral/acceptable guidepost? This is an arena where mature, honest and earnest conversation is needed. Would be, even if everyone agreed on the parameters. And you can't have that if you aren't prepared on some level to respect the autonomy and validity of all perspectives that are going to be brought to the table.

The perspective that caused this reaction was your acceptance of a position as "reasonable" that would prohibit others from holding an opposing belief. J842P said it straight out, "if you ban all euthanasia for everyone, it is contemptible." That's the argument. Not whether it is contemptible for some believer to insist that they themselves want to eke out every possible second of life no matter the pain or suffering - that was not the argument. I, and I assume J842P, are fine with people choosing to endure the torture of a disease if they have their reasons to. What I am NOT fine with, is those people telling me I have to suffer painfully for a stupid goat-herder fairy tale that I know they just made up. THAT is contemptible.