| The Christian and Death [message #13181 is a reply to message #13179] |
Sat, 29 February 2020 18:51   |
 Mark L
Messages: 861
Registered: October 2006
Location: Canada |
Senior Member |
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The Christian and Death
Problems concerning terminal illness
Question: Should the patient be told the true nature and seriousness of his condition?
The medical authorities say no. Many people pass away in a coma never realizing how serious it is. They insist it is their right alone to inform the patient not Christians , the families or especially the ministers.
Clinical Philosophy.
The seminaries teach clinical philosophy. You are told as a xian minister you will obey the medical authorities. As a minister before you say anything there are facts you should know
- what is the diagnosis
- what has the doctor told the patient
- should he even be told anything
- if he is told anything it should be on a clinical basis only. Not scriptural or biblical. In other words tell them only what the doctor said to say.
They rationalize it all this way. The diagnosis that the patient is dying while of high probability is not absolute certainty. They say the process of illness shows that such a diagnosis has to be assimilated by the patient. What they mean is they don't want you to rush in and say it. It is called the knowledge process in terminal cases.
The knowledge process
- He must accept the knowledge of his illness
- the knowledge of its seriousness he can be told he is seriously sick but never that he is dying
- knowledge concerning the length of their life.
- then told they are facing death
It is often an experiment to see how long they can live. There is quite often no moment of death. They are not aware of it because of the drugs.
A human being has the right to die with dignity. There is no valid reason to sustain life where death will occur soon anyway. Medical science sees death as a personal enemy to be opposed at all costs.
Question: Where does medical science get the idea it has the right to perpetuate mere physical life without regard to the life being lived. The medical authorities should consider the patients wishes as well as the families. The medical authorities have a contempt for other opinions. The doctor needs to b e informed of the xian patients set of values and that is Phil. 1/21. Medical science is guilty of usurping divine prerogatives and robbing the human being of his choice to die a natural death. They are trying to postpone it at least temporarily. The issue is not about saving a life but in maintaining a vegetable state.
You can read
"Meanderings on Scripture by Mark
https://mlederman.substack.com/
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| Re: The Christian and Death [message #13182 is a reply to message #13181] |
Sat, 29 February 2020 19:32 |
Mark L
Messages: 861
Registered: October 2006
Location: Canada |
Senior Member |
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Mercy Killing or Euthanasia
This only has reference to terminal illness. The ethical question is: Is it justified? The answer is no. An individual has the right to die with dignity. Mercy killing is a violation of the commandment "thou shalt not kill" 1Sam. 31/1-5, 11Sam.1/1-16
Jobs wife said to cure God and die. Job treated that as foolishness. Only God has the right to terminate life. That is also why we shouldn't try to sustain it. The alternative to terminal illness is divine healing. So why not tell the person immediately they are dying. The clinical answer is some never hear you. They hear what they want to hear. It may work against any hope of recovery. They say some will just give up and die. As opposed to telling the truth what the seminaries teach is to answer the patients question with a question. What did the doctor tell you.
Biblical Philosophy
The answer for a xian is the patient should be told yes you are dying. If lost he gets a chance to be saved . If he is saved he can get ready to die. As a xian you should be led by the HS on how to tell someone they are dying. Its not necessary to run over the hospital authorities. Ask leading questions to get them concerned about spiritual things. Under the xian philosophy there are alternatives that doctors don't have. Praying for healing for eg. If someone is lost it gives them a chance to be saved. According to the word no deception is permissible.
Question: How long are doctors morally obligated to try to sustain life in a terminal case?
1. Clinical attitude
- The Hippocratic oath requires them to preserve life wherever possible. They take that to mean they have to sustain it. The question is does God give them the right to sustain life by artificial means. The answer is of course not.
- The personal basis for the clinical basis is pride. To a doctor death is personal defeat
2. Christian biblical ethical attitude
doctors by refusing patients the right to die are usurping divine prerogatives as only God has the right to say when a person will die.
Scriptural attitude toward death
The tragic nature of death should never minimized or misrepresented. The bible confronts us with the reality and certainty of death. Rom. 5/12 Death comes because of sin.
Sinners need to be confronted with:
- the certainty of death
- judgment following death
- he had better be prepared
Genuine xians who have been taught know where their loved one is. Even though death is tragic the tragedy is overcome by the resurrection. 1Thess. 4/13-18 You don't have to happy to see them go but you can be happy to know where they are.
Phil.1/21-24, 11Cor. 5/8
You can read
"Meanderings on Scripture by Mark
https://mlederman.substack.com/
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| The biblical View of the Funeral [message #13185 is a reply to message #13182] |
Sat, 07 March 2020 20:13 |
Mark L
Messages: 861
Registered: October 2006
Location: Canada |
Senior Member |
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The biblical View of the Funeral
Why study this? Today funerals are mostly motivated by commercialism and are full of unscriptural and pagan practices. These unscriptural ideas and practices are difficult to eradicate because at time of death most people are too overwrought to do anything but follow along.
The process of Grief This usually process lasts about 3-6 mon.
1. The initial emotional shock at the news of the death
2. A period of emotional insensitivity. Usually lasts through the funeral with the person not really relating to anything and only the words getting through.
3. The struggle with the reality of death
4. The flood of emotion and grief. This ought to be allowed to be expressed at this time. If it doesn't end there they probably need deliverance.
5. The transitional period where on starts to get over the grief and look at other things in life.
6. They select memories usually of a pleasant time.
7. The acceptance of the loss and a return to a normal life pattern.
Determinants as to how people go through Grief.
1. Culture. People from different counties process grief differently
2. Manner of death.
-You would not minister to someone who lost a 90 yr old mother the same way to a couple who lost a 9 mon. old baby.
- A suicide death has a twofold process of grief. The death of the person and the way he died.
3. The relationship to the dead person. How close a relative were they.
Atypical or unusual grief process
1. Anticipatory Grief. The death was expected with person already having grieved before it occurred. Often they are over the real grief before the person dies.
2. Delayed Grief .
- responsibility falls on one person to take of the funeral so they don't grieve until later
- afraid to show grief as it would show a lack of christian faith.
- some think it is not masculine to grieve
- It not acceptable for certain classes to show emotion. Eg upper classes. The result here is usually deep depression.
3. Prolonged Grief. 3-6 mon. is normal.
4. Distorted grief reaction. A person who does ot accept the death and does things to keep the memory alive. Regular pilgrimages to the cemetery special pictures with alight over it and talks to it. Etc.
Symptoms of Distortion
- over-activity- keeping busy to keep from thinking.
- taking on the characteristics or symptons of the person that died (maybe demonic)
- marked change in attitude toward relatives
- hostility toward a certain person (doctor/pastor etc)
- withdrawal from society
- dispossession getting rid of everything to punish them self. Eg trying to join the loved one not wanting to kill them self so they make their own life miserable.
- addiction to drugs alcohol etc.
- deep depression
- calling up the dead at seances
Ethical problems in connection with American funerals
1. Cultural conventionality. People because of custom are expected to do certain things in certain situations. Eg dress the same, act a certain way. People are not allowed to be themselves and are subject to criticism if they step out of the mould
2. Unrealistic and unscriptural concepts of death
- trying to cover over the reality of death by embalming cosmetics flowers silk lined caskets etc.
- new vocabulary. Never mention death or dead but departed. Coffin is a casket, hearse is a coach,undertaker is a funeral director, funeral is a service of memory
3. Commercialism and Exhibitionism resulting in:
- commercial minded profit seeking undertakers.
- desire of social approval by lavish display
- guilt feelings or cover up for lack of feelings when they were alive
Early xians regarded embalming and showing of the dead as pagan. Laws don't require embalming. Funeral directors argue that displaying the dead is a comfort given the survivors when they see the life like remains. It gives them a final memory picture that helps them emotionally and psychologically.
Is Cremation christian?
The bible shows it is unscriptural as the biblical method was always burial in a tomb or in the ground. Gen. 3/19, Deut 34/5-8. Gen. 23 (Sarah) John 11 (Lazarus) It was also the method of Jesus burial. The method of xian baptism is based on the method of xian burial. Rom.6 In both Judaism and Christianity respect was maintained for the body as belonging to the Lord. 1Cor.6/9-20, Rom. 12/1, Rom. 6/13 god is interested in the body.
The modern Jewish attitude
A body should be cleansed by washing and dressed in a white homemade shroud and placed in a plain wooden casket. The casket is not to retard the natural decomposition of the body. No public viewiing of the body. No embalming or cosmetics as they are regarded as mutilation of the body. Cremation is regarded as the ultimate total desecration by the Jews. They quote Gen.3/19
To embalm and use cosmetics is denial of death. The bible says dust to dust. Cremation is a heathen custom that came out of ancient Rome and modern India. Ashes are usually place in an urn and sometimes brought home and place on a shelf and possibly looke at as an alter. In Israel even the creation of ones enemies was a crime. It is evidence of Gods judgment on transgressors. Josh. 7/15,25 The purpose was to totally wipe out their memory from the earth. Generally capital punishment in Israel was by stoning. It is symbolic of eternal fire in Hell. All through history cremation has been used by the world as an expression of total contempt for Christ and Christians by the world.
What is the scriptural attitude toward the dead body?
At death the body has served its divinely intended purpose. That of housing the personality of the individual. The corpse is not the person but just the shell to be used in this life. Nevertheless because the remains are the outward visible sign of the personality the remains are to be treated with respect and destroyed by cremation or embalming. Although death is the ultimate divine curse for sin it cannot be beautified or minimized. The dead should be disposed of with quiet respectability.
You can read
"Meanderings on Scripture by Mark
https://mlederman.substack.com/
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| The Problem of Suicide [message #13186 is a reply to message #13185] |
Sat, 07 March 2020 20:14 |
Mark L
Messages: 861
Registered: October 2006
Location: Canada |
Senior Member |
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The Problem of Suicide
Before 1700 it was called self-murder.
1. It is the destruction of ones own life for personal reasons
2. An individual takes his own life because it is the traditional manner in which the culture he lives in demands it. Eg Japanese
3. Souti in India. The wife throws herself on her husbands funeral prior. She does this to break karma and return in her next life as a man.
There is a close connection between suicide and suicidal behavior. Auto racing,tight ripe walking mountain climbing stunt flying alcohol and drug addiction. These people aren't intentionally trying to kill themselves but the high death rate indicates they expect to die that way. Suicide or suicide threats have been described as a cry for help by psychologists. Bro. Freeman thinks is a more a cry for attention than a cry for help. Many more try to do it than actually succeed. It is the 11th cause of death in America. Nevada has the highest rate. Mississippi and South Carolina have the lowest rate probably because they are agricultural states.
Causes for suicide? loneliness, bankruptcy emotional depression, self punishment for sin, revenge,broken marriages, incurable disease,pain,complexities of life, fear
The bible says nothing about what happens to a suicide but God is perfectly just and righteous in all he does. He will do what is right and just in light of eternity. When we get on the other side we will understand what God id was perfectly right and just.
Can God forgive a suicide? Don't know. We just have to leave it in Gods hands. Both Saul and Judas were suicides but both were reprobates.
Highest rates of Suicides
- older persons
- males
- white rather than coloured
- single or divorced
- urban rather than rural
- upper social classes
- protestants
- during periods of economic difficulty
- peacetime not wartime
- more women than men attempt it
- more men succeed at it
- many doctors commit suicide
A spirit of suicide can just lie dormant until the right situation comes along and then manifest. Itself. Psychiatrists have a high rate because they pick up spirits from their patients. Executives businessmen.
Italy has the lowest rate in the world. They are more content. Father runs the family They have low delinquency divorce suicide rates. Israel has the 2nd lowest rate as suicide was always an abomination to a Jew. Quotes and statistics are deceiving as many suicides are reported as accidents and many try and don't succeed.
In Ex. 20 the 2nd commandment says thou shalt not kill. The two in the bible who did it did it out of remorse as they were out of fellowship with God. Trials don't justify suicide eg Job.
A christian believer wouldn't do it because
1. a life is a sacred trust in the scriptures. We are not to treat it lightly.
2. The biblical view that the believers body is the temple of the HS. 1Cor. 6
3. Our body doesn't belong to us. It was bought by God Rom. 12/1
Suicide is a cop out and inexcusable for xian
You can read
"Meanderings on Scripture by Mark
https://mlederman.substack.com/
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