Should ritual human sacrifices be permitted if subjects are willing adult volunteers?

[Silent3]

Since a lot of topics are being introduced as polls here these days, I figured I'd get in on the fun.

My response to the question is 2, "I suppose so, maybe with some additional restrictions". I'm under no illusion that our laws or the Constitution would ever be altered, or the current Constitution interpreted by the judicial system, to clearly permit such acts, so this is a pretty hypothetical stance, and not something I feel so strongly about that I'm going to launch a pro-human-sacrifice political movement. :)

Nor does my position mean I think it's a particularly good idea for religions to conduct such sacrifices (trying very hard not to think "Darwin Award" ;) ). My generally dim view of religion means that I think people performing these sacrifices or choosing to be the subjects thereof would probably be doing so for stupid, irrational reasons.

However, I do believe that real freedom means being free to do stupid and irrational things, as long as everyone involved consents, and people outside of the circle of consent are not directly harmed. While the mental health of an individual might have to be taken into question to determine the validity of someone's consent, I'm very leery of the kind of reasoning that defines willingness to participate in a given act as an automatic sign of mental incompetence. There are, after all, some people who define homosexuality as "sick", and reason therefore that willingness to participate in a homosexual act automatically negates the consent of the participants.

Ancillary questions:

At what point does a voluntary choice to participate in a highly risky, potentially deadly act become indistinguishable from volunteering to be a human sacrifice? A 10% chance of death? 50%? 90%? 99%?

Does hoping you'll survive rather than die make a material difference in whether an act should be allowed or not, considered suicide or not?

If you're not at risk yourself, but rather putting a voluntary subject at risk (e.g. you're the one throwing the knives in a knife-throwing act), at what point (presuming the subject fully understands how high the risks might be) should an act be allowed or not, considered homicide or not? Would a variation on Russian Roulette, where each participant points a gun being passed around at the head of the person to his right, rather than at his own head, be morally less acceptable than the standard version of the game?

Should the reason you're risking your life make a difference in what other people allow you to do with your own life? Should risking your life to save others from a fire, or by volunteering as a donor for a very risky organ transplant, rate higher in terms of legality than risking your life for fame and glory, or for some religious ritual? Since it's your own life, how much should the feelings of others about the "nobility" of your risk enter into what the law permits you to do, or permits others to do to you with your consent?

Are you more willing to accept people taking, or risking, their own lives when they are the sole actors in a deadly act than you are to accept death and risk of death of one person at the hands of another? (Consider Dr. Kevorkian, or the assistants who stand by to behead a person performing seppuku, or the person who tosses a voluntary virgin sacrifice into a volcano.) Can it be morally okay to want another person to kill you or greatly risk your life, but simultaneously immoral to do the killing or risking the volunteer desires?

[cosmik debris]

1. That's Natural Selection at its best! n/t

[Beregond2]

2. It already is permitted.

In fact, we subsidize it to the tune of billions of dollars. It's called war.

[Silent3]

3. In war, however...

...lots of involuntary subjects are injured or killed too, so in a way, it's even crazier to "permit" war than to permit voluntary human sacrifice.

Then again, although life seldom ever allows such distinctions to be clear and straight-forward, if there is a clear aggressor and a clear defender, not just permitting, but actively encouraging citizens of the defending nation to risk their own lives, and more so risk the lives of the aggressors, makes a certain amount of sense. I'm generally against war (and certainly the war in Iraq), but there are, in my opinion, naive extremes of pacifism that need to be avoided too.

[bdf]

4. Yes, it should be permitted

Anything else is religious persecution.

We can jail Satanists for desecrating another faith's church—property damage.

We can jail Satanists for persorming a ritual sacrifice on an unwilling victim—murder.

But suicide is legal (probably in Texas it's illegal but carries the death penalty).

Assisted suicide should be legal (with appropriate safeguards to prevent grannies being coerced into seeking it).

And so should ritual sacrifice of willing victims because it is merely assisted suicide with a bit of ceremony.

It also has the bonus of ridding the world of one of these no-brain idiots.

[ZombieHorde]

5. One problem would be protecting the mentally ill and children.

[Silent3]

6. I did mention both adulthood and mental competence...

...so can you be more specific about your concerns here?

[ZombieHorde]

7. You caught me! I did not read your whole post. Wall of texts usually don't get read.

[Silent3]

8. At this moment, "Absolutely" and "Absolutely not" are running nearly neck-to-neck...

...in the poll, 8 to 7, but none of the "Absolutely not" crowd has chimed in with a comment.

Any spokesperson for "Absolutely not" care to explain why "Absolutely not"?

[knitter4democracy]

9. I'm against the death penalty in all its forms.

The problem with that sort of sacrifice is that there's no changing the mind later. We can try to say that someone is doing it of their own free will, but with religion involved, that becomes harder to determine.

[Silent3]

12. There's no changing your mind later about a lot of things...

...but is it the government's duty to play nanny and protect adults from their own bad decisions, irreversible or not? Is it even the proper role of government to decide what constitutes a "bad decision" when an exercise of personal freedom doesn't infringe on anyone else's ability to exercise an equal degree of freedom?

[knitter4democracy]

27. You're using the nanny state argument on basically murder?

Um, that makes no sense.

The state can involuntarily admit you to a hospital if you try to commit suicide (it's illegal here in Michigan to commit suicide or to try to commit suicide, oddly enough). Should we stop doing that, since it makes us a nanny state?

Maybe we should stop enforcing seat belt laws, too, since, hey, adults choosing not to wear those, even though their injury rate is higher and costs the state more, are just exercising their right to be stupid, right?

If a group of believers decide that they need to do human sacrifice, that's not exactly like committing suicide, even though that would be illegal here in Michigan just by itself. That's a group of your peers doing everything they can to convince you that you need to die for them--all for a religion. If you change your mind, do you really think they'll let you walk away? Wouldn't that really be murder, then? Isn't that illegal?

[Silent3]

45. The whole point is whether it should be considered murder or not

What's the difference between murder and other instances of humans killing humans which aren't called murder, other than whether society accepts and permits a particular instance or type of killing?

Um, that makes no sense.

Toss in your own weighted word "murder" which eliminates or denies the very distinction I'm getting at and that sort of lack of sense is bound to happen. :)

The state can involuntarily admit you to a hospital if you try to commit suicide (it's illegal here in Michigan to commit suicide or to try to commit suicide, oddly enough). Should we stop doing that, since it makes us a nanny state?

I'm okay with that to a degree, but I'd also say such interventions wouldn't always be justifiable. I've already agreed that some restrictions based on mental health might be reasonable, I'm just wary of circular definitions wherein someone else's desire to do a thing you want to prevent them from doing is automatically defined to be a sign of mental illness, which turns your own value system into the criteria for mental health.

If you change your mind, do you really think they'll let you walk away? Wouldn't that really be murder, then? Isn't that illegal?

Even if you didn't change your mind and went to your death willingly, every conscious moment of the way, at least under current US law and law almost everywhere else, the person who kills you, given permission by you or not, would probably be considered guilty of murder.

Of course, we don't consider all killings of human beings to be murder. Killing in self-defense, or possibly while defending others, isn't necessarily murder. An accidental killing could be deemed manslaughter, or deemed completely unavoidable and thus not criminal to any degree. Carrying out an execution as an agent of the government, or killing during the conduct of war (at least if you're fortunate enough to have your own people, and not the enemy, judging you), is not deemed murder. In fact, given that there are many exceptions that exempt killing from being considered murder, it actually seems a little strange to me that willingness of the subject to die isn't routinely among those exceptions.

[struggle4progress]

10. A nauseatingly stupid question

[Silent3]

11. Care to reason rather than just sneeringly condemn?

The question is designed to make people think about and express issues concerning the value of life and the value of freedom, where those two things sometimes conflict, and how they think such conflicts should be resolved.

Perhaps you think it's "stupid", however, to encourage people to go beyond gut-level emotional reactions, to go beyond an unquestioned internal "sense" of right and wrong, when they should rather stay safely inside unstated assumptions of morality which should not be spoken aloud, and happily impose their own sense of right and wrong on what other people can do without any restrictions based on mutually compatible levels of freedom?

Now here's a stupid question: Exactly how big is that bug up your ass?

[struggle4progress]

15. No: some questions deserve nothing more than sneering condemnation

Reason, though oft a good, hath its own limits yet that we at our own fault and peril would ignore: for it knows naught of love, too easily plays cruel, making, of him who follows it alone, a fool

[Silent3]

16. The same can be said of some arrogant posters...

...who are so smug about their own righteousness.

[struggle4progress]

20. My sneer cannot possibly be as arrogant as your suggestion that human sacrifice is acceptable

[Silent3]

22. My suggestion doesn't show your arrogance...

...because I'm willing to put my reasoning up for discussion and debate, to put my cards on the table. You, however, seem to think you're so completely right you needn't stoop to having to explain yourself.

[uberllama42]

39. Your hypocrisy is spectacular.

What do you call Christ's Crucifixion if not human sacrifice?

As is your bigotry. It's impossible for you to consider that the religion of the mud people might be correct. Think for just a second how absurd your declaration of disgust would be if the gods did actually demand blood. Your inability to consider any religious position other than your own is quite comical.

[struggle4progress]

48. I certainly regard Roman crucifixion as a form of human sacrifice, just as I regard

the lynching in the US (with its long ugly history) as human sacrifice: I similarly regard the death squads of Argentina's dirty war or the "ethnic cleansing" during the eruption of Balkan tribalism in the 1990s or the murders committed in Abu Ghraib

I am, in fact, even willing to consider those barbarities as sacrifices associated with certain little-recognized religions: Roman imperialism, fascist anti-communism, Serbian nationalism, American exceptionalism, and so on

I have no idea what you mean by accusing me of bigotry against the "mud people," whatever that might mean, I guess I should assume you are merely indulging your prediliction for name-calling: eventually, with practice, you could actually become good at that, I suppose, though, of course, the final cost to you will that you failed to practice and become good at something more profitable

[Random_Australian]

26. Eh, the question of whether or not someone should be able to kill themselves is non-trivial,

so extending the discussion to "under what circumstances?" is also basically non-trivial.

Right?

You could just say, "no, I believe that sacrifice should be outlawed as it is now, because it allows to put on public displays of valuing religion above human life, an abhorrent concept" for example.

[struggle4progress]

34. The value of a question is determined by the use one could make of the answer

You propose to defend the question in the OP, by regarding it as a generalization of your ownquestion Should someone be allowed to kill him/herself?, apparently believing that generalization is always useful, even it it is merely generalization for the sake of generalization

But your vague and passive question Should someone be allowed to kill him/herself? cannot (as posed) lead to any useful answers: it is therefore unreasonable to expect generalization to improve it

[Random_Australian]

51. Hmmmm, I'm not following.

For instance, because one can choose the form of the response, you could take the question as a kick-off for a discussion on the topic. Of course, one shouldn't generalise simply to generalise, but neither should one limit oneself to the exact question asked. Especially on a discussion board! I mean, the questions usually aren't 100% aligned with what the OP was talking about, so yak for a while.

Well, that's what I do. I quite like the discussion that I have going in this thread, even though my latest response was so rushed as to not clearly make any point much at all.

[Occam Bandage]

13. A person willing to commit suicide for a ritual is unlikely to be found mentally

well enough to give consent. You can claim you don't like that, but I prefer a society in which schizophrenics and the mentally incompetent are not allowed to be bullied or confused into signing over their houses for free.

[cosmik debris]

14. I'm reminded of snake handlers

sane or not? (rhetorical question)

[Silent3]

18. Which brings us to some of my ancillary questions...

...about high risk of death vs. certain death, which no one has decided to address yet.

[Occam Bandage]

23. Our legal system does not anywhere precisely quantify the value of a human life.

Due to this regrettable error, discussion of what degrees of risk ought be "permitted" is impossible.

[beam me up scottie]

19. Excellent point!

Religious freedom and all that...

[knitter4democracy]

28. My first college roomie was a snake handler.

Her family went to a small church up in the hollow where they did that on occasion. She didn't admit it to me for a long time, but we had quite an interesting conversation when we did. All kinds of interesting archetypal facets to that faith.

[Silent3]

17. In many cases, I'd probably agree with that assessment.

Then again, I think a lot of religious thinking, even when it's not so self-destructive, isn't quite sane either. One good reason to support religious freedom, however, is having open enough a mind to allow that maybe, just maybe, what seems crazy or absolutely morally wrong to oneself shouldn't necessarily constitute an absolute standard others must be held to by force of law.

Since you can take anything at all you don't want people to do, then claim that the very desire to do that thing constitutes mental illness, you can all too conveniently limit the freedom of others to your own personal standards while claiming the supposed moral authority of protecting the conveniently-defined "mentally ill" from themselves.

[Occam Bandage]

21. Nobody would have to claim the desire per se constitutes illness.

A person willing to commit suicide for a cult is very unlikely to be found mentally well, even if the examining psychiatrists are not told that the person is considering a ritual suicide. Our personal beliefs on this action, or on religious thinking in general, are entirely beside the point.

[Silent3]

32. Some forms of mental illness are pretty clear...

...and even have biochemical signatures that can be detected without relying on more subjective judgments about a person's behavior. I'm fairly comfortable with saying a schizophrenic with paranoid delusions is not competent to make decisions about his own well-being, and yes, you don't need to know such an individual is planning his own death to detect the symptoms of that disorder.

On the other hand, to use homosexuality as an example again, differences in brain structure have been found that distinguish gay men from straight men. There's also strong correlation between birth order and male homosexuality, related to effects of the maternal immune system on fetal development -- the more males a woman gives birth to, the stronger her immune response against male children she later carries. Third and fourth sons turn out to be demonstrably more likely to be gay than first or second sons. (Yes, gay first sons, I know you exist too -- we're talking about statistical distribution here, not absolutes of prediction.)

If one were looking for an excuse to treat male homosexuality as some sort of disorder, one might attribute it to prenatal "damage", and then claim that due to this so-called "damage" such men are not "competent" to make decisions about their own sex lives.

The point is that even when you might have fairly objective measures available for a person's mental state or behavioral tendencies, there's a lot of room for subjectivity, and room to apply personal prejudices, in deciding whether or not what you can measure constitutes a problem of some sort, and what should be done, if anything, to "remedy" the supposed problem.

But let's get back to this assumption: "A person willing to commit suicide for a cult is very unlikely to be found mentally well"

Consider the Jonestown mass suicide (to which we owe popular references to "drinking the kool-aid"). There were elements of coercion, and certainly the children who died there either had no choice and weren't old enough to consent (issues of age and consent require some probing too, a tangent I'll skip for now), but I don't think it would be reasonable to assume that every person who joined Jim Jones group had a clearly diagnosable mental illness. Of course, his group wasn't promoted as a suicide cult when people joined, but somehow a large number of people were willing to die when that's what their leader and the group around them wanted them to do.

If all it takes sometimes is a charismatic leader and peer pressure to get some people to take their lives, I don't think it's a safe bet to assume that only mental illness can lead one to want to give up one's life. The Heaven's Gate cult convinced themselves death was a way to escape this planet and go on to a better life -- not an incredibly different belief than many religious conceptions of an afterlife, with the main difference being that the Heaven's Gate member simply didn't attach a moral stigma to hurrying their escape from this life, as any religion must do (at least with a large proportion of members of reproductive age) in order to survive over time.

I consider these events tragic, and Jonestown went well beyond deaths limited to willing adults. But I still don't see where anyone else's place to interfere with what willing adults do with their lives, except perhaps in cases where we can see clear departures from reality (like hallucination) which go beyond the allowances we make for non-suicidal religious believers in taking faith over evidence, for abandoning reason for unchecked emotion.

Can I prove the souls of members of Heaven's Gate didn't board a spaceship hiding behind Hale-Bopp? Was their belief really any more irrational than some Christians believing in an eternal afterlife in a Heaven with streets of gold and walls of jasper?

[Evoman]

24. Permitted? They should be mandatory.

Maybe if bleeding hearts didn't stop our sacrifices, we wouldn't even HAVE global warming. The gods would be appeased and the weather perfect. I mean...look at the Aztecs...they didn't have any global warming. You want to know why? SACRIFICES.

And use the virgins....if we're gonna keep women around, we should keep the ones that know their way around the volcano, if you catch my drift.

[Random_Australian]

25. No. I think that it would be affect society in a profoundly negative way.

Or to be more specific, I think that any fair law that allowed any sacrifice would also have to allow rituals that are basically a threat to the ideal of keeping going that keeps society functioning well.

Actually, that said, I think euthenasia (with very careful proceedings) is ok, and that people who are terminally ill should be able to choose a manner of dying that they find personally non-objectionable, so anyone wanting to say, recreate a famous Monty Python ritual death involving lots of topless women should be able to, by law, if euthenasia was allowed.

[Silent3]

36. The question then becomes...

...how much should individual choices be dictated by someone else's goals for the general "character" of society?

I do accept the principle that individuals have obligations to society which can reasonably be imposed upon them, without individual consent, like taxation, or a military draft when absolutely needed (very much UNLIKE the Iraq War) for the society's defense. Without these kinds of obligations, society falls apart, and what you get is not greater freedom, but someone taking advantage of a power vacuum to impose their own authority, which might provide even less freedom that a society that imposes some minimal, reasonable obligations to insure it's own survival.

I'm more of a Democrat than I am a Libertarian because, when it comes to taxation, I believe there's a reasonable argument to be made about the social and public contributions to private wealth that makes a certain amount of redistribution of wealth completely fair, as well as a case to be made for a small check against the dangerous concentration of power that often comes with lopsided distribution of wealth.

Beyond such limitations and imposed obligations, however, what more can be reasonably demanded of an individual against the will of that individual? Some religious groups seem to truly believe that God punishes entire societies for any general lack of "morality" (as defined by their own religion, of course), thus they see their own well-being (safety from earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, plagues, etc.) as dependent on general compliance with their own personal religious codes of conduct.

I certainly don't feel I owe the slightest change in how I live to such people to allay their fears that I'm bringing the Wrath of God down upon us all by not living as they tell me I should live.

If that's how I feel about refusing to placate the demands of religious people and their vision of how society as a whole should operate, can I be consistent yet turn around and try to use the force of law to shape society to be more in line with my own ideals?

I can imagine many awful consequences of a society that allows voluntary self-sacrifice. By what right, however, do I limit the freedom of others in order to promote a general character of society that I'd prefer to foster? Should majority rule dictate to individuals how they must contribute to a majority-desired general character of society?

[Random_Australian]

50. Ah, my line of approach would be to set standards, as general as possible.

That is, without specific cases or laws in mind. For instance, if I was writing a constitution, I would preferentially put things in like "the purpose of the parliament is to create a stable society in which many are content, and those who are discontent are both few in number and randomly distributed in society" rather than, say "the purpose of parliament is to hold society to the standard of (xyz)"

And so on. I'd prefer to adhere to general principles, then vote for a government that upheld those (reasonalby-ish) in other words.

Then, I can both allow others freedom and be held by the same principles.

Well, that is the ultra condensed version, but the take home message is that the generality of things is important.

[moggie]

29. Interesting question

My gut feeling is "absolutely not", but I'm not sure whether I can articulate why, which is why I haven't voted. Let's think aloud...

Should a person be allowed to commit suicide? Absolutely. A decent society should do its best to minimise this, such as providing free psychiatric care as part of a socialised medical system, but if someone is suffering so much that they can see no other way out, suicide should be their right. The thought of a failed suicide being prosecuted is abominable.

Assisted suicide is more problematic, because of the obvious dangers of condoning killing. I'm guardedly in favour of it, but only by medical professionals and with suitable safeguards against abuse - and I could be persuaded otherwise.

Suicide as ritual, though, feels very different. I can think of three reasons immediately:

1. Suicide should never be coerced, but the ritual aspect in your scenario constitutes a form of coercion, since it implies to the potential participants that choosing to die in this way is a good thing. They're encouraged to submit.

2. Real death should never be used as a form of entertainment. Even if this ritual takes place in private, with only the two necessary parties present, its existence will presumably be known to others (hence the "willing adult volunteers") and will spice their lives. Contrast this with medical assisted suicide: no sane person would regard this as entertainment, and if a broadcaster sought to televise such a suicide, I think most people would be morally troubled.

3. The role of the killer is problematic. In the case of the doctor in an assisted suicide, the task is just a special case of their normal caring role. But the killer in a ritual sacrifice appears to be using the victim's death for their own ends: fame, respect, gaining heaven points from their god etc. Using people in this way isn't acceptable.

I'll have to give your ancillary questions more thought.

[TechBear_Seattle]

30. Define "willing volunteer"

Consider: The Muslim raised to the belief that there was no higher good than to die for Allah, and that dying in the context of protecting Islam from its perceived enemies would guarantee his entry into Paradise. Could such a person ever be considered a willing volunteer?

[Meshuga]

31. That's a good question to bring up

Because can we say that it is realistic for a psychologically healthy person (who hasn't been conditioned to wish to be sacrificed) to volunteer for the ritual?

I don't know my position since I haven't given much thought but I would initially lean towards not allowing it.

[Silent3]

33. My problem with suicide bombers...

...is that they kill others besides themselves.

While it's my opinion that the thinking of suicide bombers is delusional, however, I don't think it's particularly more delusional than a lot of religious belief, which is also often attributable to upbringing and peer pressure, propped up more by a supportive social structure than reason or evidence.

If I say people shouldn't ever kill themselves, or let others kill them, based on their beliefs, what I'm saying is this: I accept your freedom to live as you like and do as you like, so long as you don't do anything that seems so extreme to me it makes me uncomfortable.

But that's not what I want to say. I prefer: I accept your freedom to live as you like and do as you like, so long as you don't do anything that harms me without my consent, or that limits my equal degree of freedom.

[regularguy]

37. People are going to kill themselves if they want to.

I just don't want the society at large to condone it in any way, much less participate.

[Silent3]

40. I understand that emotional response...

...but what I'm looking for is a consistent rationale for limiting an individual's choice to die, in a time and manner of the individuals's choosing (including with the assistance of others), more than a gut reaction of disgust and a general concern for what allowing such things might "do to society", unless, of course, you can also provide a good rationale for an individual's obligation to the "character of society" that's specific enough to limit voluntary sacrifice of one's life without opening the door to a general majoritarian imposition of prevailing societal prejudices and religious doctrines on individual freedom.

[regularguy]

42. I hear ya.

I don't think I have a "consistent rationale for limiting an individual's choice to die". It still offends my (subjective, of course) morality to feel like I/we could somehow bring suicide into the mainstream of possible life choices, and even help out.
I'm envisioning some sort of Emergency Hot line:
"Press <1> if you would like us to try to talk you out of commiting suicide. Press <2> if you would like help committing suicide..." :P

[Meshuga]

43. One could say that the individual who chooses to die in such way...

...has been conditioned to make such decision. So, in a way, there is a victim who is "trained" not to care about his/her own life so he/she can fulfill the sacrificial ceremony. Should that be a factor?

Assisted suicide for someone who is suffering is one thing. Training someone not to mind being the "sacrificial lamb" (for the lack of a better term) of a religious ritual is another.

[Silent3]

47. That kind of training seems a bad thing to me...

...but to some people even helping someone die to escape suffering (which I approve of) is wrong. Such people believe we have an obligation to suffer "if that's what God intends for us", or simply claim to value life so highly that they feel justified in making others suffer through that which they do not wish to suffer, simply to maintain lives which are apparently valued more for quantity than quality.

Training someone not to mind being the "sacrificial lamb" (for the lack of a better term) of a religious ritual is another.

Except for the degree of the consequence, how is "training" someone like this different from all other religious (or nationalistic or political or cultural) indoctrination?

I sometimes suspect that there is, even among many "believers", an unspoken, perhaps not even consciously acknowledged, understanding that much of religious dogma and doctrine really is bullshit. While we're saying we accept, and even support, the teaching of all sorts of religious irrationality, we're also saying "It's okay to go along with the bullshit as long as you know when to stop and don't take it too far."

[Meshuga]

49. The people who believe that a terminal patient has an obligation to suffer...

...are imposing their beliefs and making the person who is suffering carry the burden.

Except for the degree of the consequence, how is "training" someone like this different from all other religious (or nationalistic or political or cultural) indoctrination?

No different, expect, as you said, for the degree of the consequence. We are a product of our environment. But my point is, if this person is being indoctrinated then wouldn't he/she be considered a victim for being driven to punish him/herself with the worse possible consequence? This person is getting short changed just for being raised in the wrong environment.

That's a hypothetical but we have real life scenarios like a Jehovah's Witness refusing to receive blood transfusion and Christian Scientists who refuse treatment. What is an ER doctor whose duty is to save the lives of these people supposed to do? I don't even know the side of the law in these cases.

I sometimes suspect that there is, even among many "believers", an unspoken, perhaps not even consciously acknowledged, understanding that much of religious dogma and doctrine really is bullshit. While we're saying we accept, and even support, the teaching of all sorts of religious irrationality, we're also saying "It's okay to go along with the bullshit as long as you know when to stop and don't take it too far."

I believe people who claim to "question" consciously acknowledged that it could all be bullshit. I think that, in the liberal religious circles, adherence to religion comes from upbringing and identification with the philosophy of a specific religion/sect. And I believe that most of these believers are somewhat aware that their religion is only a guide or a system that works for them as opposed to believing that their religion is the true nature of things. These people use their irrationality to help with coping with problems or whatever other human need. I can't speak for people but that is my perception.

But I think there is a difference between the group of believer I just wrote about and the ones who let irrationality take over to the point that they believe there is a real universal war for souls out there so they have to do their part, no matter the cost, to help God in this saga. Including shoving their beliefs down everybody's throats.

[HamdenRice]

35. This question has been answered by surgeons, mixed martial artists and the extreme fetish community

Or I should say that the questions posed by these activities have caused courts and legislatures to establish rules that govern the answer to your question.

The field you are talking about is called "intentional torts" -- or more precisely, the defense to a cause of action under intentional tort.

Tort is simply the area of non-criminal law that concerns what to do when one person injures another -- accidents, especially, but also civil actions for battery (ie intentionally injuring someone, ie intentional tort).

The question is: what happens when one person gives another person permission to injure him.

We often think of medicine as purely a healing art. But think about surgery: you give the surgeon permission to cut you with a knife in a way that on the street would be a felony.

Boxers, mixed martial artists and other fight sports also involve people giving each other permission to engage in battery.

The same is true of the sadism/masochism community.

Notice that in order to avoid criminal prosecution, activities like boxing and surgery are heavily regulated and licensed. S/m is in the twilight area of regulation, but I believe a German court prosecuted a man for participation in an extreme s/m ritual that involved the pre-planned death of the victim.

No where can you give another person permission to kill you. So society has answered that, no you cannot give a person permission to ritually sacrifice you.

[Silent3]

38. I'm not so sure about that.

No where can you give another person permission to kill you. So society has answered that, no you cannot give a person permission to ritually sacrifice you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide#Legality">Assisted suicide is legal under some circumstances, in the state of Oregon, and in some countries such as Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland. That may not be ritual sacrifice, as mentioned in the second sentence above, but it is giving another person permission to kill you, which you deny is allowed in the first sentence.

If we consider societies throughout the world and over the course of time, obviously there is no single answer that all societies reach. Take the act of seppuku, which I mentioned before. The person committing this form of ritual suicide often fails to fatally injure themselves (I imagine it's pretty damned hard to effectively slit your own belly open under your own power), and would often persist for some time even after self-inflicting eventually fatal self-injury. The person assigned as "second" is really the one doing the killing a lot of the time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku#Seppuku_in_modern_Japan">This article left me a little uncertain, but I get the impression that even in modern Japan, while seppuku is now fairly rare, being the "second" for someone who chooses to perform seppuku does not leave you open to charges of homicide.

[HamdenRice]

44. Notice that assisted suicide is highly regulated

Here's a clause from the Wiki article you cite: it applies to a "terminally ill adult makes a request of his or her physician ..."

My point was that institutionalized exceptions to intentional torts (surgery, boxing) tend to be thrown into a licensing and regulatory regime. This seems to be the case with assisted suicide.

It seems unlikely that if someone volunteered to be ritually killed, his killer would be able to avail himself of that regulatory system; nor would a religion that believed in ritual suicide be likely to get the legislative approval for licensed killings.

[Silent3]

46. I don't disagree with you with the state of current law.

My point is whether those laws, at least theoretically, should be changed, and whether or not there is a sound philosophical basis deeper than, "Ick, no way! That's sick! That's wrong!", in which personal freedom is respected yet by which personal choices on how and when to ends one's one life wouldn't be honored.

[SidneyCarton]

41. Only if the willing participants are Republicans...

n/t

[jody]

52. We already accept that by allowing people to volunteer to serve in our military and die in Iraq. n/t

[smoogatz]

53. Only if we plan to eat them afterwards.

Otherwise it seems very wasteful.