Hypothetical Dilemma: 7 Billion People will die if you don't shoot the baby in the head and eat its Bodily-Remains

[dje101]

Interesting thread.

Didn’t read through all of the posts. Just wondering, did anyone pose as as a solution that we simply introduce the aliens to Chuck Norris?

Just throwing that out there…

 

[Shredderbeam]

I would vote for, since it seems that the baby would die either way. At least by killing it ourselves, we could avoid 7 billion deaths.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

+JMJ+

They can be very helpful because they are worst case scenarios.

Now let me give you something much more realistic in the same vein: You are a priest in a atheistic government-occupied country, and you were rounded up with some of your parishioners by one of the army officers who has a mean streak a mile wide and an axe to grind against Christianity, especially Catholic Christianity. He then tells you to choose who will die (aside from yourself) or all of your parishioners will die. What you will do?

Now this scenario may be familiar…because it came from the movie The Exorcist: The Beginning. And it is in the same vein, but I think it could actually happen. Here is that particular scene in Youtube (WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC AND TRAUMATIC SCENES): God is not here today, priest.

Hey! I have seen that film. The priest is raw. He blows those poor people away.

All I will say is that the fear of death or persecution is one of the main causes of selfish actions; but it can also create a saint when somebody chooses to overcome those fears.

I suppose, what you will choose will depend on what you believe about the world in which you live.

If there is no life after death or if you don’t have faith in it, and life is what you value the most, then what rational reason does one have for not shooting the baby and eating its bodily remains? As gruesome as it may seem, given the principle of survival people will naturally choose that which promotes the greatest possibility of survival; they will choose that which saves the most lives. In such a world the only true good is the pragmatic good. That which brings pleasure and continuity to ones physical being. There is no rational or pragmatic reason to think that there is any good or meaning in the fact of everybody dying and ceasing to exist forever. In the relative context of survival, the death of everybody would be irrational; the death of the child would be the most rational course of events, since there is no rational basis for sacrificing 7 billion people.

If I didn’t have faith in God, and life was the most important thing to me, then because I am compelled to survive for fear of death I would shoot the baby in the head and eat its bodily remains in hope of a reprieve from our new masters.

Pagans did the same thing; they sacrificed many young virgins for a reprieve from the Gods, because of fear of what they would do. They did it for the survival of their race.

The aliens are just another set of potential Gods.

The true test is whether or not you have faith that there is more to life than simply surviving; and whether or not you value that faith more than your life in the here and now.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I would vote for, since it seems that the baby would die either way. At least by killing it ourselves, we could avoid 7 billion deaths.

In terms of eating the babies bodily remains, what spices would you use for flavour?

Do you have your meat medium rare?

 

[Shredderbeam]

In terms of eating the babies bodily remains, what spices would you use for flavour?

Do you have your meat medium rare?

I’d actually try to choke it down without tasting it, if I had to be the one to personally eat it.

I don’t normally eat meat, but I’d probably burn it to a crisp…a bit morbid.