dying for a cause

I'm not sure that you need spirituality to put your life on the line, I mean there must be, for example, people in the armed forces that believe they are fighting for a greater cause but who aren't spiritual. I suppose I could be wrong there though. It's an interesting question all the same IMO.

Others have explained they would do something similar for non spiritual reasons.

PLAYBOY: Would it be against the principles of Objectivism for anyone to sacrifice himself by stepping in front of a bullet to protect another person?

RAND: No. It depends on the circumstances. I would step in the way of a bullet if it were aimed at my husband. It is not self-sacrifice to die protecting that which you value: If the value is great enough, you do not care to exist without it. This applies to any alleged sacrifice for those one loves.

http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html

Well there is a lot to be said for being a martyr to a cause (1916 Rebels, Che Guevara, that Vietnamese Budhist who burned himself up) as it does unite people behind a single messianic figure and can give inspiration through the heroic influence.

However, one would be hard pressed to find people who's belief is that strong without the added infection of religion. Consider the natives who fought their oppressing governments (I think it was in Africa but I cant remember exactly) who had been given "darwa" by the local medicine man which they believed made them invincible. They strung the withc doctor up with they were slaughtered and forced to retreat for giving them "bad darwa". It was their belief that "darwa" should work that had them charging machine guns, they died because they had a stupid belief (and no body armour) and in a lot of cases it is this dedication to religious superstition that is getting people killed (See: South African AIDS policy and presidential opinion for more examples)

karen3212 wrote: »

Hi,
I was watching some nonviolence videos on youtube from UCBerkeley. Anyway, I could be wrong, but the professor was hinting that one needs a kind of spirituality to walk in front of a gun and be willing to die to improve the circumstances under which we live.

It occurred to me that if one were 100% sure of one's faith, laying down one's life would become something one should do with very little provocation. People should really be prepared to lay down their lives for, say, the prevention of abortion. Clearly this isn't the case.

For an atheist, it's simply a trade-off. You are definitely going to die at some point, and you may or may not feel you have achieved anything with your life. If you can do so by dying, that may be an acceptable outcome, particularly if you feel that (a) you might just survive to benefit from the improvement, and (b) you wouldn't be happy to live with the alternative anyway.

Aside from anything else, if you have children, you are going to be laying down a good deal of your life to improve theirs anyway.

cordially,
Scofflaw

PDN wrote: »

Martin Luther King himself, of course, believed that such nonviolence required people to be continually pepped up with sermons referring to God and sprinkled liberally with quotes from the Bible.

For those who prefer atheist-speak I will translate that paragraph:

MLK, whose middle name celebrated a notorious anti-Semite, believed that such nonviolence required uneducated, decision impaired people to be subjected to rhetoric about a petty genocidal deity, backed up with reference to a bronze age book of fairy tales.

How am I doing at the lingo? Have I been hanging around here long enough to pass as an undercover agent disguised as an atheist?

Wonderful display of the "respect" you hammer on about.

Fact is that MLK, REGARDLESS of his religious inclinations, believed in the concept of passive resistance as a political tool (something he picked up from Ghandi by the way). I doubt that whether he was religious or not that he would have viewed violent struggle to be the best avenue for change.

As it turned out, for the situation he was in, it was the right call. For others however, this may not be the case.

I just alluded to my beliefs on this matter in the 'death of religion' thread however:

I believe that religious faith makes it far easier to die for a cause. I don't think it's impossible to do so without faith but if you have a confirmed belief that you'll both have an afterlife and a better place in that afterlife for your sacrifice it has to be easier to end your life for whatever cause you believe in.