Question about Sacraficing ppl to have other ppl

[Catholig]

I was taking an online quiz that had a lot of questions such as “would you cancel 10 life saving operations if it would save 1,000 (other) people’s lives”. Or would you let “a” die to save b,c, and d. My first thought was “no”, but…what if it was one person to save a million? What if killing 1 person would save 1,000,000 people from starving to death. Would that be moral?

Catholig

 

[StCsDavid]

If you were to offer to sacrifice yourself so that 1,000,000 could live, that would be an act of love. But to take a life, even if it saves 1,000,000, is still an immoral act. Murder is always evil regardless of circumstance or intent.

 

[LilyM]

I was taking an online quiz that had a lot of questions such as “would you cancel 10 life saving operations if it would save 1,000 (other) people’s lives”. Or would you let “a” die to save b,c, and d. My first thought was “no”, but…what if it was one person to save a million? What if killing 1 person would save 1,000,000 people from starving to death. Would that be moral?

Catholig

We aren’t allowed to do any evil so that good may come out of it. When we do, we deny or call into question God’s power, and His desire, to bring good out of even the most impossible-seeming situation. We fail both to trust Him and to submit ourselves to His will.

If Christ could raise Lazarus from the dead, then why not even a million Lazaruses? And if He doesn’t, then you’d best be believing it’s because He has better plans for them than you could make.

 

[Contarini]

John Henry Newman said:

the Catholic Church holds it better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.

That’s a bit strong for many of us. I wonder if Newman was right about the “venial” part. But I think one of the great moral dangers of our time is “consequentialism” (the idea that an action is good or bad depending on its consequences, so that one can do evil so that good will come, and an act that might be traditionally seen as intrinsically good is evil if it causes suffering).

Edwin

 

[larry85704]

Life and death is sort of absolute. But consider this.

You have a child who is “bad”. You have 2 other children that are “good”. How much time do you spend fixing this “bad” child, at the expense of doing things you should be doing with your good children? People might think that there is time to fix the “bad” one and still do the things you are supposed to do with the “good” ones. Such thought is nonsense.

What you are doing, in fixing the “bad” one, is depriving the “good” ones. So, you are saying that the “good” guys get hurt because of the actions of the “bad” ones. Hurting the “good” people to “help” the “bad” people is wrong.

Why spend $500,000 to fix the liver of a lifelong drunk and, in doing so, raise insurance rates for thousands? What about the probable truth that the old drunk will die soon anyway?

We, as a society, and a Church, need to think about what we are doing. In general I would say that saving one life, and the cost of hurting even one other person, or depriving them of something they are entitled to, is immoral in all cases.