Are we more deserving if we are dying tomorrow?

I think ultimately it's not that we are more deserving, but a need to make up for a lack of something.

Like I said, I can have something I want later, but a dying person might not live that long.
 
zbrewha863 said:
...the founding fathers thought that these rights were so important that the government could not infringe upon them.
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Great, they are enshrined in our national heritage... Does that make it right? Where is the line?


zbrewha863 said:
The granting last wishes, in a general sense, I think does have to do with some sort of quasi-religious or spiritual belief in honoring the dead, coupled with most people's inability to actually come to terms with their own eventual death.
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Bolded -> my point, indeed.
 
Enmos said:
Ok. I thought you implied that dying at nine years old isn't fair.
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No problem. Dying of natural causes, disease, or misadventure is niether fair nor unfair as I see such things. That's not to say it isn't unfortunate, its just that no one is taking advantage of her.
 
Randwolf said:
Totally understandable, from the viewpoint of the soon to be deceased. We all seek "comfort" and familiarity, but the question is to society as a whole. Why do we feel that a dying request has more merit than the wishes of a healthy person? Are they more deserving? Did they somehow "earn" this extra attention by virtue of their imminent death? Or is it simply an attempt on the part of the living to assuage guilt, real or imagined? Do not confuse my questions for "a lack of empathy", I too feel the attraction for satiating a terminal patient's last desires. I am simply curious as to why we as a species feel this way. Where is the evolutionary advantage here?




Why would you expect anything different? As you pointed out earlier, the child in question was raised in an environment that, for right or wrong, reveres marriage. Why do you find it odd that she would want to emulate behavior that the adults in her life (and society in general) have portrayed as desirable?



Come now Tiassa, no one stated that it was bending any laws. Bending any rules? Of course it is. Do you contend that marriage of children nine years of age is commonplace? Or commonly accepted by society in the US in this day and age? This event is clearly "bending" the norm...




Yes, it is comparable, at least in some fashion. I think an integral part of the whole arrangement was an effort to a "pretense". "Oh, let's let the children partake in a ritual we would never let them act in (under other circumstances) so that the poor darlings can get a taste of that which they will never experience." Please...




You have restated my question much more eloquently than I. However, it is still the question. In fact it goes even deeper. Why does this concept exist at all? What evolutionary advantage does it convey?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reverence

Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin reverentia, from reverent-, reverens respectful, reverent
Date: 14th century

1: honor or respect felt or shown : deference ; especially : profound adoring awed respect
2: a gesture of respect (as a bow)
3: the state of being revered
4: one held in reverence —used as a title for a clergyman

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reverence
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Come out and play, Tiassa....
 
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