another dialouge
A patient, fresh out of surgery, is wheeled into the recovery room of a hospital. After getting him comfortable, the nurse begins going through a questionnaire.
NURSE: Any allergies?
PATIENT: None.
NURSE: Dietary restrictions like vegetarian or lactose intolerant?
PATIENT: Nope.
NURSE: Do you have an advanced directive?
PATIENT: I don’t know what that is.
NURSE: It’s a living will that says what your loved ones should do if you ever end up on life support. It gives them permission to remove feeding tubes or cut off life support.
PATIENT: Oh, no, I don’t need one.
NURSE: Haven’t you been watching the news? If you ever get trapped in a vegetative state, you’ll want your loved ones to know what your wishes are. Everyone should have one just in case.
PATIENT: It really won’t matter to me.
NURSE: How so?
PATIENT: You see, if I’m ever in such a condition, what happens to my body will be of no concern to me. I’ll be dead and living in my next life. Whatever my family needs to do to my body in order for them to cope with my death is fine, because it has no bearing on me.
NURSE: So all of this madness on the news, all of this fighting over one woman’s life, it’s all over nothing?
PATIENT: It’s not over nothing, but it’s not over her life either. She’s been dead for 15 years and has moved onto her next life.
NURSE: Well then what are they fighting for?
PATIENT: Faith.
NURSE: So this is a battle between the religious and secular America?
PATIENT: Yes, but the sides are not what they claim they are.
NURSE: How do you mean?
PATIENT: The people that march and picket and protest outside the hospital, they are not really fighting for life. If they were they’d be fighting a dozen causes. What they are really out there doing is protesting death.
NURSE: Protesting death?
PATIENT: They are incapable of coming to terms with the absolute concept of death. They fear it so profoundly that they have to actively deny it.
NURSE: I’ve noticed that. So many people today think that death is optional.
PATIENT: But, it’s not all death that they fight. They rally around these causes because the fights are easy.
NURSE: Easy?
PATIENT: So easy that they are meaningless.
NURSE: I don’t understand.
PATIENT: She’s already dead, remember? Whether her body lives or dies it doesn’t matter. They have chosen this fight because of that. Their fear of death runs so deep that they cannot face the reality of it. Instead they hide behind this false death and fight against that, challenging it’s application because, in their souls, they know that it is not really a life that is being lost, but a shell. In this way they never have to confront the grim truth of it.
NURSE: But what about the culture of life? Aren’t we trying to protect the innocent?
PATIENT: If they truly wanted to preserve some archetypical notion of “the innocent” they would be fighting hundreds of battles on dozens of fronts, yet these are the same people who rally behind wars and capital punishment and who ignore the suffering of millions around the world.
NURSE: But this has been their war cry. They’ve been rallying behind ‘life’ for decades. How can you question their motives?
PATIENT: This “culture of life” is just another hollow hymn from the atheist priests who want to destroy faith and spirituality in our country.
NURSE: I think you would be hard pressed to find an atheist among them.
PATIENT: They are all atheists, they just can’t know it.
NURSE: How do you mean?
PATIENT: Why do they fear death so? Why is this fight so important to them? Why must they retain the heartbeat within an empty shell devoid of its soul?
NURSE: I don’t know.
PATIENT: Because they cannot see any other option. These people, they talk about god and faith and scripture and paradise, but their actions betray their true thoughts. They are, in any rational definition of the world, material monists. Their fear of death stems from their inability to see the world beyond this world. They cannot accept that anything can exist outside of its physical body and so, incapable of faith in a higher power, they must fight these irrelevant and irreverent fights. Those that call themselves the faithful, are those most devoid of faith.
NURSE: But these are the religious leaders of our country. These are the ones who speak to god and guide our moral compasses.
PATIENT: And yet they do not and cannot. They lack the ability to commune with the gods and as such they must mock human dignity, reduce it to nothing more than an organic machine, built to survive.
NURSE: And if survival is our only purpose…
PATIENT: Than this extension of life must be just.
NURSE: But why? If the religious leaders of our country do not truly belive what they preach, why would they preach it? Why would the present a false faith?
PATIENT: They do not know that they are lying and they cannot know. The faith they present is an absolute faith. Because they cannot belive it, they must believe it. That is the nature of their faith. But it is, of course, redicoulous, because any one who watches the natural world with open eyes can see that things are not the way they are being told. And so blind indoctornation follows. “You must believe what I say or you will burn in hell forever! Do not question me, I know things that you do not!” If they shout loud enough they can beat sdown their challengers.
NURSE: But why don’t those who know the truth stand up against them.
PATIENT: The Tao te Ching teaches us that “Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know”. I am not a follower of the Tao, but because my faith is not absolute, I can recognize the truth within the faiths of others. Everyone must seak faith through their own paths, they cannot have it forced upon them by others. The truly great priests, of all creeds, are guides, not shreikers from the pulpits.
NURSE: And these shreikers from the pulpits, they are atheist?
PATIENT: They are atheists in that the god they worship is not one that they believe in. They speak to him and they speak of him, yet they have no faith in him. He is an empty god and their faith in him allows them to live out their mateialist lives, free from the constrainsts of spirituality.
NURSE: So you saying that the religeous right is secular America?
PATIENT: In a way, but not entirely. Most people who accept that world view are people of faith and spirituality, but the loudest are not. The loudest are cowards and liars at best, and moraly corrupt at worst. The loudest are the atheist preists, and they do not care about the soul.
NURSE: So why do we follow them?
PATIENT: Because their path is easy. Their morality is easy. They don’t need to think hard about deep philosophical issues. She needs to live because she is innocent. He can die because he’s guilty. They mean nothing because there’s an ocean between us.
NURSE: So we should let her die?
PATIENT: Again, that choice has already been made. The descion that’s left is whether or not to switch of this organic machine which once contained her soul.
NURSE: Any allergies?
PATIENT: None.
NURSE: Dietary restrictions like vegetarian or lactose intolerant?
PATIENT: Nope.
NURSE: Do you have an advanced directive?
PATIENT: I don’t know what that is.
NURSE: It’s a living will that says what your loved ones should do if you ever end up on life support. It gives them permission to remove feeding tubes or cut off life support.
PATIENT: Oh, no, I don’t need one.
NURSE: Haven’t you been watching the news? If you ever get trapped in a vegetative state, you’ll want your loved ones to know what your wishes are. Everyone should have one just in case.
PATIENT: It really won’t matter to me.
NURSE: How so?
PATIENT: You see, if I’m ever in such a condition, what happens to my body will be of no concern to me. I’ll be dead and living in my next life. Whatever my family needs to do to my body in order for them to cope with my death is fine, because it has no bearing on me.
NURSE: So all of this madness on the news, all of this fighting over one woman’s life, it’s all over nothing?
PATIENT: It’s not over nothing, but it’s not over her life either. She’s been dead for 15 years and has moved onto her next life.
NURSE: Well then what are they fighting for?
PATIENT: Faith.
NURSE: So this is a battle between the religious and secular America?
PATIENT: Yes, but the sides are not what they claim they are.
NURSE: How do you mean?
PATIENT: The people that march and picket and protest outside the hospital, they are not really fighting for life. If they were they’d be fighting a dozen causes. What they are really out there doing is protesting death.
NURSE: Protesting death?
PATIENT: They are incapable of coming to terms with the absolute concept of death. They fear it so profoundly that they have to actively deny it.
NURSE: I’ve noticed that. So many people today think that death is optional.
PATIENT: But, it’s not all death that they fight. They rally around these causes because the fights are easy.
NURSE: Easy?
PATIENT: So easy that they are meaningless.
NURSE: I don’t understand.
PATIENT: She’s already dead, remember? Whether her body lives or dies it doesn’t matter. They have chosen this fight because of that. Their fear of death runs so deep that they cannot face the reality of it. Instead they hide behind this false death and fight against that, challenging it’s application because, in their souls, they know that it is not really a life that is being lost, but a shell. In this way they never have to confront the grim truth of it.
NURSE: But what about the culture of life? Aren’t we trying to protect the innocent?
PATIENT: If they truly wanted to preserve some archetypical notion of “the innocent” they would be fighting hundreds of battles on dozens of fronts, yet these are the same people who rally behind wars and capital punishment and who ignore the suffering of millions around the world.
NURSE: But this has been their war cry. They’ve been rallying behind ‘life’ for decades. How can you question their motives?
PATIENT: This “culture of life” is just another hollow hymn from the atheist priests who want to destroy faith and spirituality in our country.
NURSE: I think you would be hard pressed to find an atheist among them.
PATIENT: They are all atheists, they just can’t know it.
NURSE: How do you mean?
PATIENT: Why do they fear death so? Why is this fight so important to them? Why must they retain the heartbeat within an empty shell devoid of its soul?
NURSE: I don’t know.
PATIENT: Because they cannot see any other option. These people, they talk about god and faith and scripture and paradise, but their actions betray their true thoughts. They are, in any rational definition of the world, material monists. Their fear of death stems from their inability to see the world beyond this world. They cannot accept that anything can exist outside of its physical body and so, incapable of faith in a higher power, they must fight these irrelevant and irreverent fights. Those that call themselves the faithful, are those most devoid of faith.
NURSE: But these are the religious leaders of our country. These are the ones who speak to god and guide our moral compasses.
PATIENT: And yet they do not and cannot. They lack the ability to commune with the gods and as such they must mock human dignity, reduce it to nothing more than an organic machine, built to survive.
NURSE: And if survival is our only purpose…
PATIENT: Than this extension of life must be just.
NURSE: But why? If the religious leaders of our country do not truly belive what they preach, why would they preach it? Why would the present a false faith?
PATIENT: They do not know that they are lying and they cannot know. The faith they present is an absolute faith. Because they cannot belive it, they must believe it. That is the nature of their faith. But it is, of course, redicoulous, because any one who watches the natural world with open eyes can see that things are not the way they are being told. And so blind indoctornation follows. “You must believe what I say or you will burn in hell forever! Do not question me, I know things that you do not!” If they shout loud enough they can beat sdown their challengers.
NURSE: But why don’t those who know the truth stand up against them.
PATIENT: The Tao te Ching teaches us that “Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know”. I am not a follower of the Tao, but because my faith is not absolute, I can recognize the truth within the faiths of others. Everyone must seak faith through their own paths, they cannot have it forced upon them by others. The truly great priests, of all creeds, are guides, not shreikers from the pulpits.
NURSE: And these shreikers from the pulpits, they are atheist?
PATIENT: They are atheists in that the god they worship is not one that they believe in. They speak to him and they speak of him, yet they have no faith in him. He is an empty god and their faith in him allows them to live out their mateialist lives, free from the constrainsts of spirituality.
NURSE: So you saying that the religeous right is secular America?
PATIENT: In a way, but not entirely. Most people who accept that world view are people of faith and spirituality, but the loudest are not. The loudest are cowards and liars at best, and moraly corrupt at worst. The loudest are the atheist preists, and they do not care about the soul.
NURSE: So why do we follow them?
PATIENT: Because their path is easy. Their morality is easy. They don’t need to think hard about deep philosophical issues. She needs to live because she is innocent. He can die because he’s guilty. They mean nothing because there’s an ocean between us.
NURSE: So we should let her die?
PATIENT: Again, that choice has already been made. The descion that’s left is whether or not to switch of this organic machine which once contained her soul.