[TravHatesMe]

Bit of a tangent: I read the article to my wife and she mentioned that there is an episode of Grey's Anatomy where they wanted to perform a transplant of a pig's bowels but the Jewish (or Muslim?) lady refused. Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life.

[mizzao]

That was actually an inaccurate portrayal of Jewish law and Orthodox Jews "condemned the episode": https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/ask-the-expert-kosh...

[JimDabell]

I was once stuck in line in a Subway behind two Muslim men having an argument. One of them was insisting that he couldn’t have turkey ham because eating ham was against his faith, and the other one was trying to explain that ham was forbidden because it was pork and that turkey ham was fine because it wasn’t pork. His mate just kept repeating “it’s still ham though, innit?” There were halal signs up, that wasn’t the problem.

A television episode can be an inaccurate portrayal of religious law while still portraying what real religious people actually believe. Not every religious person is smart and well-informed about all the technicalities of their religion.

[spiralx]

Your comment gave me flashbacks to Chris Morris's satire Four Lions :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Lions

[AmericanChopper]

All of the “well actually” when it comes to religious laws misses the reality of the situation imo. Well educated religious scholars will debate religious laws and frequently fail to achieve consensus on much. Ordinary religious practitioners will simply adopt whichever interpretation they identify with. There are no truly correct interpretations of any religion, and for any religion there are as many different interpretations of what it means as there are people interpreting it. Even in Judaism, which is really quite homogeneous as far as most religions go.

[robocat]

“[The] prohibition against touching pigs applied only when Jews were on their way to Jerusalem to observe the three pilgrimage festivals”, “Even on the way to Jerusalem, Jews were only prohibited from touching the flesh, that is, the meat of a pig. According to halacha (Jewish law) the skin of an animal does not transmit impurities”.

“Beyond that, there’s a very important tenet of Judaism called pikuach nefesh, or, saving a life. [Most Jewish laws] can and in fact should be violated in order to save a person’s life”.

Quotes from link in sibling comment by mizzao.

[cperciva]

This used to come up in the context of insulin as well -- now it's all produced from genetically engineered microbes, but porcine insulin used to be widely used.

Both Jewish and Muslim scholars were very clear that if you need insulin and porcine is the only option, not only is it permitted to use it but it is required and failing to do so is a grave sin.

[gpu_explorer]

Kosher rules are against eating pig meat. You can have a pig heart valve or heart, especially to save a life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh

Not that everyone would do it.

[aoetalks]

> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr

10,000 Christians per year (excluding Congo's civil war, hence the article's title), it seems: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24864587

And Muslims in China don't fare particularly well, either: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Muslims#China_2

[selcuka]

> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life.

I guess according to a person of faith this becomes a choice between "afterlife" and "life".

[m3at]

For even more of a tangent, there is a South Park episode (S16E9) with a heart transplant from pig to human

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Bar_(South_Park)

[actually_a_dog]

Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions all the time on religious grounds. It might seem silly to you or me, but, to them, it would be sacrificing their eternal life for their limited life on Earth.

[stillicidious]

> Interesting how one might choose to their faith over their life.

The belief in the right to a predictably long life is a new idea barely a few centuries old at most. Not that I'm personally complaining, but the statement did make me think, the value of living longer for everyone is not self-evident (at least from where I am standing), and the presumption that it is seems in itself dogmatic.

Actually, I could suggest a few non-faith approaches to rationalize the benefit of early death

[webmaven]

> [T]he value of living longer for everyone is not self-evident (at least from where I am standing), and the presumption that it is seems in itself dogmatic.

A couple of different perspectives on the issue:

https://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html

https://youtu.be/iKC21wDarBo

[FpUser]

>"Actually, I could suggest a few non-faith approaches to rationalize the benefit of early death"

The best way to convince the others is to put your money where your mouth is.

[JetAlone]

I'd want to question why I'm doing it. For example do I have kids I need to stick around to support? Or am I just going to be discharged to mostly play video games, alone? Because I don't see a need to extend that life.

Then I'd want to think about what it symbolizes. Is it really so irrational to just let my body die when my God-given guts fail instead of depending on the hands of man to possibly convert my body into an abomination just to keep me alive here longer?

I read in a book about a monk refusing to get a pacemaker, saying "Imagine, God is calling me up to Heaven because it's my time, and this machine holds me down here on earth!" and while I may not be a monk, his decision seemed fairly wise to me. So I already have an example of a devout faithful man eschewing a life extending operation that involved no replacement of human with animal parts.

[mlyle]

Conversely, there's this well-worn pseudo-parable:

A fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help.

Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, “Jump in, I can save you.”

The stranded fellow shouted back, “No, it’s OK, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me.” So the rowboat went on.

Then a motorboat came by. “The fellow in the motorboat shouted, “Jump in, I can save you.”

To this the stranded man said, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the motorboat went on.

Then a helicopter came by and the pilot shouted down, “Grab this rope and I will lift you to safety.”

To this the stranded man again replied, “No thanks, I’m praying to God and he is going to save me. I have faith.” So the helicopter reluctantly flew away.

Soon the water rose above the rooftop and the man drowned. He went to Heaven. He finally got his chance to discuss this whole situation with God, at which point he exclaimed, “I had faith in you but you didn’t save me, you let me drown. I don’t understand why!”

To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat and a motorboat and a helicopter, what more did you expect?”

[JetAlone]

I've heard this one, yes. From my experience of learning about the God that I pray to, I highly doubt He's sending me commenters asking me one liners about seat belts and dialysis to convince me that the monk I admire was wrong, and that I should change my mindset to become more like the atheists I'm surrounded by.

Rowboats, helicopters etc. in a flood, prima facia, seem to be more in character as a deliverance from a natural disaster. My interpretation of that parable is that this man has a vainglorious hope to be saved via an undeniable miracle of mystical, luminous teleportation so he can point to it and go "Look, see! I was right all along".

[mlyle]

> Rowboats, helicopters etc. in a flood, prima facia, seem to be more in character as a deliverance from a natural disaster.

Sure. But how we define "abomination" comes down to what we're used to.

Is taking a cheap statin that will improve your length of life subverting God's will?

If we're saying something is resource intensive and you don't give much back to the world in comparison to the resources used to prolong your life, that's an economic / purely utilitarian argument.

[JetAlone]

>how we define "abomination" comes down to what we're used to.

If a person believes scripture is only a cultural document and not divine revelation then that would be the definition of abomination. I have to personally disagree with that assessment.

>Is taking a cheap statin that will improve your length of life subverting God's will?

It could be, depending on what it means in the bigger picture. I believe we know very little of God's will in any given moment because of how fallen we are. We benefit from being humble and willing to submit to it, using our provided minds well but never allowing them to be the final authority.

>that's an economic / purely utilitarian argument

I place economics and utilitarianism as a subordinate agent to the higher principles. A utilitarian framework is one of many that can help me see a stronger meaning in letting someone else have the resources, and accepting death if it appears to be the due time for it anyways.

[mlyle]

> > how we define "abomination" comes down to what we're used to.

> If a person believes scripture is only a cultural document and not divine revelation then that would be the definition of abomination. I have to personally disagree with that assessment.

That's not what I claimed. But to claim something is "abomination" based on your own personal recoil from it isn't very useful as a moral framework.

> and accepting death if it appears to be the due time for it anyways.

What's the "due time", though? Biblical figures lived for hundreds of years, supposedly. And it takes extraordinary efforts to have as low of an infant mortality rate as we do.

Surely the heroics in the NICU are how we move the time of death from what would happen on its own the most, and some of the more expensive medical care given. Hey, many of those babies will never repay to society the resources they consume.

What you seem to be saying is that it comes down to some mix between a reflexive judgment and cold utilitarianism.

[wruza]

I've heard this one, but then and now, what did God expect, if He didn't send any event to the man which would make him think that 1,2,3 was the salvation. He knows everything in advance, doesn't He?

[mlyle]

I think the message is that one should use one's own agency, and not expect a hand-delivered message from God on what to do in each circumstance, in addition to whatever opportunity at deliverance one receives.

Or, viewed another way... If an obvious opportunity at reasonable safety is there, what gives one the right to demand that God show up to perform a dramatic miracle?

[derekp7]

Do you feel the same way about other life saving technologies such as seat belts and motorcycle helmets? What about hitting the anti lock breaks when a semi pulls out in front of you? The same philosophy can be applied to other life saving / extending measures such as adjustments to diet, or taking high blood pressure medicine.

[JetAlone]

No. None of those safety implements you describe are things that alter the structure of my body, they are applied to augment the safety of existing pieces of external technology. So if they symbolize something negative, it would have to be along the lines of "constraining worldly authority" which could be argued to be a natural precaution, or an overprotective tyrannical overreach, but the nature of it is not the same as the operation. I do not share this materialist/gnostic mindset which tends to make a person consider matter to be essentially all the same in meaning, with a dead universe acted upon at a libertine perogative through a window of the human mind.

Everything has become for me a layered network of symbolic meaning. The diet is about resisting gluttonous impulses and building up my body via natural means towards an ideal intended by the Creator. High blood pressure medicine may be an enactment of an archetype of a good doctor, or not, depending on how the medicine itself interacts with this network of meanings.

[theplumber]

>> things that alter the structure of my body

Lol...the structure of your body is "contaminated"/changed all the time. You are living in an continuously changing ecosystem. The clothes you've been wearing all this time changed your body structure. You are pretty much a byproduct/result of the ecosystem. I'm sorry to disappoint you but your faith is a "change" as well given by people around you. The key(word )that you've been looking for is "delusional". Find its meaning and it will set you free the way the creator intended

[JetAlone]

Come now, do you think the gut flora that naturally interacts with my body, etc. and lives and dies (death being explainable as a consequence of the fall anyways) is on the same order of meaning to me as the changes enacted by God-image bearing man? It's not comparable to me.

The change brought about in my faith is a divine change given by the Divine Persons from outside this temporal universe who love me! Yes! A salvific change! To those who cannot see this light, it understandably does look like a delusion, and I don't blame them for seeing it that way, that's part of their own personal life.

[theplumber]

My advice stands: The key(word )that you're looking for is "delusional". Find its meaning and it will set you free the way the creator intended.

[greedo]

I have had Lasik eye surgery to alter defects in my vision. So that might be an abomination? I also had a colostomy after fighting cancer, so my stoma might be an abomination? That about the knee surgery that repaired a torn meniscus?

[JimDabell]

> Imagine, God is calling me up to Heaven because it's my time, and this machine holds me down here on earth!

This logic only seems to work if you believe the pacemaker is more powerful than your god’s will.

[JetAlone]

God's will is not so forceful as to supernaturally reach into the world and kill someone clinging to life, even if by evil means. If it were, and He reached down and destroyed the device every single time, you'd be likely to rebel all the more, calling Him a tyrant! No, this monk was truly no fool, he must have been a wise, simple old man who lived his life humbly doing his best to love those around him.

[JimDabell]

What do you mean by “not so forceful”?

If you mean that it is literally too weak to accomplish this, then this doesn’t fit typical conceptions of deities.

If you mean that it’s more of a preference than something he is insisting upon, then if a person chooses to extend their lifespan it isn’t going against your god’s will.

Is there another meaning I’m missing?

[mlyle]

Eh, this is a pretty fundamental piece of theology. There doesn't seem to be a God that is meddling in everyday choices and outcomes. At least, really bad things seem to be happening that one hopes aren't God's will.

So, pretty much everyone who thinks about this and has a faith has to come up with some compromise. E.g. that there is a deity that has permitted humans free will to make their own decisions and that various bad things happen as a result of that free will / those choices.

[JetAlone]

I think it's on my end. I think I failed to make a crucial distinction between "will" and "allow" here. God does allow us to do things that go against His will. He is not too weak, but chooses not to use all His power to force us to do stuff in our lives because He wants a relationship. He has a preference which, while it may not always be easy to see, is borne out of love and is ultimately better for us than what we might insist upon.

[tired_medicine]

If you developed end-stage renal disease requiring hemodialysis, are you planning on dying, or are you okay with extending your life by ~10 years with dialysis?

[JetAlone]

Do I have people who really need me to stick around and support them in some important way? How old/aged am I already? What is my priest advising I do? How much does it cost, can that money do something more meaningful in the lives of others?

I'm not simply anti-medicine for the sake of being anti-medicine. Rather, medicine is itself a powerful tool that needs to fit into the teleology of my worldview. One that I could misuse if I am not considerate of what its use does and why I'm using it.

[Blikkentrekker]

On the axiom that betraying such faith leads to æternal damnation in the afterlife, it seems a strategic choice to me.

It would perhaps only be strange that a man might hold such an axion, not that he acts in accordance with it.

[cipheredStones]

Few (if any) Jews believe in eternal damnation. Generally speaking, Judaism places very little emphasis on the afterlife, and there's no widely-held doctrine about it. To the extent there's a shared belief at all, it's that everybody goes to a place called Sheol, without differentiation by merit.

[hackinthebochs]

That's so strange that Christianity and Judaism can have such divergent views on the afterlife. I guess it never occurred to me (as a former Christian) that Christian views on the afterlife are totally derived from the new testament.

[NateEag]

There's a good case to be made that modern evangelical views on the afterlife aren't even based on the NT.

Annihilationism (cessation of existence, "the second death", "fear him who can destroy body and soul", etc) is much closer to what's in the NT than the widely-accepted Infernalism (eternal torture in hell).

That's how it reads to me, anyway, after decades of reading the Bible.

[kaba0]

Isn’t that mostly a middle ages creation? The whole Dante’s Inferno and related imaginary is not based on canon as far as I know.

Jesus was much more practical in my view and placed much more emphasis on helping others through real means.

[LadyCailin]

I think it’s also that. The fact that someone would hold to such a dumb belief even in the face of death is strange. The (usual) human instinct is to survive, and I would argue it’s strange to not.

[theplumber]

To me it looks like some kind of natural selection. I wonder what would these folks do if a deadly pandemic would hit us and the only cure would be to use some pork "formula" injection.