Debate Table

[Princess 35]

Oooooh where's the paper I wrote on this for my Ethics in Healthcare class...

[TheUnknown 39]

Send it to me via e-mail (TheUnknown285@yahoo.comm) (extra letters to prevent bots). I would be interested to read it.

[Princess 35]

I was gonna post it on here but it doesn't look like I have it anymore, I wrote it in the fall of 2001 and have changed my OS since then. I"ll look more though

[TheUnknown 39]

Okay.

[CorSec 5]

Hmm...It's fine....as long as the patient is under no mental inhibitions. Drugs that might affect though-process, a mental disability, or in any state where it can be assumed they are not coherent enough to make the choice.

[Alexander 0]

So... vegtables can't have euthanasia? To me that's where I think it's most needed.

[Tsl 7]

Those who are in a veggitative state need their family to make the desicion for them. By the way, most people don't realize this, but having a living will is worthless in some ways. If you're on a vent and braindead and all that, but your well meaning father demands you be kept alive against the wishes stated in your will, you *will* be kept alive.

Sucks, huh? That's why we've all gotta talk sense into our families now, before it's too late!

As for my views on such things... Well, I get to deal with this on a daily basis, pretty much. The kids I work with, many of them, won't live many years. We get kids on ventilators, kids with little to no brain activity and extremely poor quality of life. We get parents giving up on kids who would probably make it with technological assistance and good care, and we get families who refuse to let their child die, even though there is nothing left but an empty shell.

I used to think it would be easier to decide who should be taken off life support and who should keep going. In some cases, I find it obvious. In others....it's not so obvious.

We have a little boy right now that's been with us in the hospital for 6 or 7 months now. Little nearly 2 year old boy with down syndrome, a bad heart and really bad lungs. His family is worthless...never visit, complain and kick up a fuss everytime they *do* visit, but they never hold him or play with him. This child has gone from being ventilated, to being on oxygen back to being on a vent and trached, back to bi-pap (pressure support only, it doesn't breathe for you) back to being vented on a special type of vent and now finally back to the bi-pap. This kid is with it mentally. He plays, he smiles, he used to babble and coo (can't now because he's trached), but pretty much the next time he gets sick, he will be put back on the vent, be paralyzed and sedated so he can be ventilated, and in all likely hood, he will die.

Right now, he is a DNR. It would be so hard for me not to work to save him should he arrest. We've all had him around for months and we all love him to death, but on the other hand, I'd hate to see him on the vent again, his life being prolonged artificially so he can linger in the hospital another 6 months with little family interaction and no hope for ever going home.

[Ender 8]

Tsl, I can understand that. In both of my experiences with my tumor, I've been in the pediatrics ward. When I finally got to the point where I could walk around the ward, I eventually didnt even turn my head in the direction of an open door. I just couldnt stand to see those 2-10 year old kids in such horrible conditions. It really breaks your heart.

My mother was their with me the entire time I was in the hospital, except for when she went to take a shower or something like that. Even then, a very dear friend of ours would come and sit with me. I was lucky. Most of the other kids didnt have their parents with them.

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

those little kids with illnesses like that truly are special people. my heart goes out to them. i can't stand to see any living thing suffer, but with children it's particularly difficult. and i strongly believe they are in the arms of God.

[Alexander 0]

Well if you believe their in God's hands, then you have to believe that God created them the way He did... to suffer and die painfully. So yeah, he better welcome them with open arms. That's for another debate though.

[TheUnknown 39]

New topic: the religious nature of Christmas and schools:

lol no offense to anyone here if I offend them but....

I also dislike how some people of religions who do not celebrate christmas complain that the schools are practicing religion by having a christmas tree deocrations or anything of that sort up. They make it worse by claiming that the schools trying to cram a religion down their throat

As an Atheist/Agnostic myself, I don't have a problem with trees, greenery, lights, etc. I find them to be of pagan origin and to symbolize the preservation of life throughout the winter. I do have a problem with mangers and stars.

I think of christmas more as a celebration of the christian religion to which many of my family and ancestors believe in. its learning about a culture to me ... although I would have prefered to have seen in schools a presentation of more than one religious practice, instead of rounding us up in the cafigymatorium and having us sing about a baby jesus aroung a manger scene. That's pretty rough on a 5 year old atheist. To me I felt more forced into christianity from school than from even my uber-religious grandmother.

It's kind of a bummer for those that do celebrate Christmas that we can't though. I understand that atheists don't wanna see mangers all over, but come on.

I didn't mean to say I have a problem against people celebrating christmas ... I hope that wasn't my tone cause I don't mean it at all. I was just always bothered as a little child that I felt beleiving in the premise of christmas was forced on us with no other alternatives ... in school. I celebrate it, as an atheist, as a holiday of my heritage,

Edited December 6, 2004 by TheUnknown

[TheUnknown 39]

TSL, when has anyone ever told you you couldn't celebrate Christmas? What you said sounds like the people who after the courts have ruled against administration-organized school prayer and Bible reading and the reference to a deity in the Pledge of Allegiance (which is a ludicrous thing even without it). Whenever those things happen, said people rant and rave about how they can't pray in school or read the Bible or can't recite the Pledge of Allegiance. No one, save for possibly the most intolerant or the most misguided, has EVER said that. Those of us who object to the organized prayer, the mangers, etc. just don't want OUR government favoring one religion or religious group over another.

[Tsl 7]

I never said anything about prayer in school. I just think it's sad that people are against even having the secular parts of Christmas in schools. Some of the best childhood school memories I have are the little elementary school holiday parties and Christmas shows and all that.

Is it really that offensive to have to look at an evergreen tree with glass bulbs hanging off it and listening to kids sing songs about a fat man that has a strange affinity for elves and reindeer?

Edited December 6, 2004 by Tsl

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

i love having a Christmas tree and other decorations at school. for me it eases the monotany of having to be there all day. but i do think (and most schools do this, i think) that the school should have a minorah (sp?) and other decorations for holidays that other religions celebrate.

[Andy 60]

Technically the tree isn't a religious symbol of Christmas. And I regard Christmas as not all that religious anymore. Like Hallowe'en, except more people celebrate it. The only people who really care about the religiousness of Christmas, or Hallowe'en, is the people that belong to and truely believe in the faith that those celebrations are from. So, in short, I think the issue of not celebrating Christmas in schools is rediculous.

I recently thought about htis a lot, and decided that Christmas, to me, was nothing religious.

[Alexander 0]

Christmas has become commercial now; not religious. People that say, "You can't use the word Christmas, it has religious connotations!" Are just kidding themselves. I guarantee if you ask those people what they're doing at a store in December they'll say, "Christmas Shopping!"

[TheUnknown 39]

that the school should have a minorah (sp?) and other decorations for holidays that other religions celebrate.

What would they put up for Atheists? I picture of all the symbols with a giant "X" through it? :p

[Alexander 0]

[GI_Admiral 2]

:lol:

I think that Christmas has become commercialized as well that it has lost all of its religious meaning (even though it didn't have a lot....Christ wasn't born in Dec).

I also agree trees, sleighs, snowman, red hats, fat men who love elves and reindeer aren't religious at all. St Nick wasn't a fat red man....who went down chimenys....that is the only religious connection to those.

What WOULD be would religious are things like baby jesus in the shed and whatnot...

[CorSec 5]

Tough issue.

As far as I can tell, my High School avoids the whole mess. Last day before holidays is....teh Holiday assembly, and thats about the only reference to the holidays in general that you're gonna get.

[Mickey 1]

I agree, my high school kept christmas stuff to a minimum. All we had was a tree and candy canes, and bothe were used for good causes. But in high school kids aren't as impressionable as they are in grade school. Yet in grade school, I knew all about the lore of christmas and had no idea what rhamadan sp? or even chanaukah were. And all I learned about christmas was from school, since I'd never been to a church in my life. I think that if people look at some of it in the right light, i.e. the mentioning and moderate decorations of christmas in school, as a representation of the heritage of many americans ... but how bout some other sides.

I did go to grade school in Montana, so I'm sure it was much more christian based than other schools. I guess in seventh grade I never once felt uncomfortable about having religion forced on me, I went to a large school near the Twin Cities.

On a seperate note, I had a teacher in like 1st grade or so that had a prayer each day before class, it was purely judao-christian, so now interpretation leeway there. That did not make me comfortable.

[Tsl 7]

How can you expect everyone to celebrate Rhamadon and such too? I'm not real in to this all or nothing attitude. I would have nothing against a Jewish or Muslim child in the class giving a presentation and bringing in cupcakes for it or something. That would be cool and educational. If the schools took out a day for every holiday out there, school would be year-round and still never accomplish anything. Plus, believe it or not, most kids in America don't celebrate Rhamadon. The do the Christmas thang.... If you can't stand being in this society with all us crazy Christmas-lovers.......go to one you can tolerate...maybe.

And not to sound really awful, because this is going to sound bad, lol, but if you really don't want your atheist children exposed to Christmas, I suggest homeschooling them...and, like....keeping them in a box or something until they're in their 30's and no longer very open to new experiences

In any case, why do we have to deprive the majority of Christmas celebrating kiddies (which include Christians, athiests, agnostics, and yes...Muslims, Hindus and Jews, many of whom celebrate only the secular aspects of it) for the sake of the few Bah Humbugs out there who want any indications of things that may have once been near or tainted by religiion to be cast off and burried.

And on that separate note, your 1st grade teacher did a no-no. 6-year-olds are too....young and malleable to stand up to an authority figure and refuse to pray.

[CorSec 5]

Actually. Grade four. I remember having a teacher who made us pray. Once in a while....hmm...in the morning. Never questioned. Never cared. *shrug*

[GI_Admiral 2]

TSL, America was founded on being a "melting pot" you can't just say "If you dont like it, leave" ....also, public schools are just that....public....if the parents can't teach their children ((for example, working 2 jobs or not a college education or what not)) then they either have no school/public school/private school. No school is usually a no-no if they want to follow the "American Dream" of making it rich. Private school usually costs a lot of money..., which leaves them with public schools....

[Tsl 7]

If the US is a melting pot, then they need to get with the melting and get involved in the culture of secular Christmas

My point stands. Why punish the many because of the intolerance of the few?

Edited December 7, 2004 by Tsl