Ignoring safety warnings a sin?

[newbie9]

On amusement park rides where there are warnings and law citations to not ride the ride if you have x or y health condition, but you ride anyway would that be a sin? Obviously if you got hurt or worse than this disclaimer makes it your fault not the company’s, but would there be sin in riding anyway? I’m not including pregnancy in this category as I would say that is a special “health condition” different than all others.

Also, on a related note, what about putting your hands up on roller coasters despite them saying to keep your hands in at all times? On each ride there are typically a good number of people putting their hands up as it just becomes part of the ride experience. The “everyone does it” mentality obviously is not a good moral grounds for anything, but I would say this is far from an moral absolute (like if someone says everyone is living together before being married does not remotely make it ok) so it may factor in.

 

[odile53]

I don’t know if activities such as you describe are necessarily sinful, but if you like, look through the book of Sirach. Just last night I noticed this–“he who loves danger will perish by it.” Not exactly saying that riding these apparatuses is sinful (I don’t think it is,) but acting in a foolhardy manner on them is ill-advised. That’s why they call failing to take normal safety precautions foolhardiness. Also, recall that one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prudence—that is reasonable consideration and intelligent weighing of circumstances, including risk, and exercising sound judgment.

Just a couple of thoughts here.

 

[PerfectTiming]

Ignoring safety warning is definitely stupid. They are there for a reason.
As to the sinful aspect, it could be. As Saint Paul said, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. [1 Corinthians 6]. With that in mind, how is it okay to do things that are dangerous and damaging to that temple?

 

[Woman1987]

Keep in mind that you should do everything to protect your life since God gave it to you. However I think an unhealthy lifestyle with a lot of cigarettes, alcohol and unhealthy food are even a greater risk for your life than the things you mentioned.

 

[newbie9]

Missing from my first post is a clarification of having the warnings about not riding if you have x and y health condition and you actually have some form of those health conditions and ride anyway (again excluding pregnancy which changes things in my mind).

I would agree that acting in a foolish manner on these rides is ill-advised both for your safety and the safety of others. I’m just trying to figure out whether riding the rides with conditions you are warned not to ride with would be sinful and/or seriously sinful. I’m not sure about the hands in the air portion, but feel much less inclined to call that sinful.

I just can’t tell if my scrupulosity is kicking in here and I’m looking for some way to twist this into a sinful situation when it isn’t (an unfortunate tendency of mine) or if it might actually be sinful and, if sinful, possibly seriously so.

 

[Tabone]

I for one, would be curious to know what sort of risk we’re dealing with here. I suppose at some level of death - to go to the extreme say a one in six, russian roulette - then you would undoubtably have some explaining to do. In such a case, a complete disregard for your own safety would not be acceptable. Cue arguements against suicide and false pride(of people thinking they’ll be the one to live.)

On the other hand, I’ve never heard it said that base jumping, climbing mount everest or skydiving was immoral. Even though all three have fairly high levels of risk.

If you know the comparitive risk, and if you consider that risk to be small, then go for it. If you know the risk is significant, i.e. much greater than usual, you might need to question someone brighter than I am about where that reaches sinful. It’s possible it’s just a CYA policy of the fairgrounds. If you don’t really know the risk, I’d advise you look into that further.