Those who successfully commit self-murder [suicide] are not typically charged and jailed for obvious reasons. Formal charges and jail time are not the criteria by which one determines whether or not something is illegal, "even in a country as socially backwards as the United States."
Actually, self-murder and self-rape [masturbation] cannot really be compared in the manner you may hope. Consider the definitions of the basic crimes on which the self-afflicted versions are based.
I agree that "slavery is categorically immoral," although it is debatable how long it has been "outlawed" and in what forms it currently exists. However, it does not logically follow that "people own their own lives." The proposition that slavery is evil can only address the question of whether or not one human being may or can "own" another. It says nothing concerning whether or not a given human being "owns" his own life.
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Self-rape? That would be what? Masturbating when you didn't want to?
The self-rape comment aside (yeah, it is dumb) I think he makes a pretty reasonable argument. He doesn't really go into why suicide is criminal, but he does explain why outlawing slavery does not necessarily grant full self-ownership.
I agree with NKF, this guy isn't really a fundy, he just uses some really strange and dumb arguments to promote his case.
Well NotMe, I would take a page from classic liberals and say you own your own body, but I would qualify that as you and you alone own your body but you do not have all possible rights of property that come along with ownership.
"NKF: you can't give over control of your body? Tell that to the people that are now renting out space on their bodies for adventisements."
Self rape must be all about power!
Is suicide actually immoral? Obviously, if you do it in a dangerous way, and put people at risk, it's immoral. If you have a family who will be upset at your death, I'd say it's immoral. But can you really say that all suicides are immoral in principle? Who is it a crime against? If no one will be affected by your death and you knowingly choose to die, I don't see who the victim is.
"I happen to agree one does not own one's own life - if one did, one could sell it."
Papabear beat me to it. If being employed is not immoral, then I fail to see how total and utter self-ownership, suicide etc. are immoral, as long as it doesn't involve things like suicide bombing.
You can't rape the willing, and suicide is amoral not immoral, if you do not subscribe to a belief system which denigrates such behavior. Morality is defined only by the culture which witnesses the behavior.
Hah, but I married myself, so it cannot be (self-)rape, can it!?
Also, if I take cash out of my wallet, is that self-theft?
ETA: Even better, if I put money into my wallet, would that be considered a donation? And could I deduct it from my taxes?
This is likely a bodily autonomy denial argument, but other than the sexual implications, then who's the "natural owner"? The spaghetti monster? The parents so that some may deny their right of independent thought and personality, or enact other kinds of abuses? The church, for the same purposes? Then if slavery is argued as only being a technical legal question, to put aside the ethical implications, this also sounds like an ownership transfer normalization argument... In the case of euthanasia, if the owner is the spaghetti monster, what about its supposed power but inability to help, causing the person to eagerly be waiting for death to come? From all sides, it's a problematic statement. A type of mind virus to entertain unreason and prevent critical thinking.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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