I am surprised that this “ask the…” hasn’t come up yet.
I am a pacifist when it comes to the deliberate harming of other sentient creatures, to the point of getting a little queasy when I see a dead squirrel by the side of the road. In my entire life I do not recall hitting anyone, in anger or even in self-defense.
Do you believe in self-defense?
Admirable, IMHO. 
To expand upon Shagnasty’s question, do you think that your pacifism extends to not (physically) defending yourself, should the situation arise?
Believe in? I don’t know-by “self defense” do you mean blocking someone from hitting me, or do you mean hitting them back? Are you referring to shooting at someone who is shooting at me?
I would block, but not strike back. Shooting at people is totally out of the question.
See post #4.
Even if it’s your own child?
I don’t normally play ‘what if’, but if you’re backed into a corner with no escape, simply ‘blocking blows’ isn’t going to stop the attack.
At some point I would think that self preservation would have to overcome any aversion to ‘striking back’.
Let’s consider a situation like that in my latest silly slacker superhero thread.
Say you came to Memphis and we were hanging out in Orpheum Park. I walk off to leer at a cute dog-walker and while I’m gone you get mugged. The mugger decides you haven’t enough cash to satisfy his meth habit and declares his intention to kill you. Are you okay with me noticing the situation and attacking the mugger from behind in your defense, risking killing him?
“You’d shoot a man in the back, Garack?”
“Of course I would, Constable Odo. It’s the safest way, isn’t it?”
People almost laugh at me sometimes when I’m upset for a squirrel dead on the side of the road…but I just want to live in a world where creatures of that sort can live.
I don’t understand how some people don’t understand that. Life is precious. Why snuff it out unless you absolutely have to?
Except spiders. They get no pass from me.
Sorry-I’m not wired that way. I actually got an “F” on an assignment in Creative Writing when then teacher asked us to write a paper on who we would shot if we had to choose between wife and child(and choosing neither would result in all of us dying.) I wrote that I wouldn’t choose either one, and the teacher called me a liar.
Been there, didn’t do that. Never in my life felt the instinct to do that.
You have asked an essential question here.
I don’t think I am a pacifist because of any superior morality. I enjoy watching football(Australian and sissy), and I’ve actually paid to see a boxing match. Maybe it’s hardwired into my psyche-the urge to hit just never pops up.
What if the attacker actually stabbed you in the chest and that after you forced him off of you and knocked him off his feet the knife was laying between you and him, then what would you do?
Throw the knife as far as I can and try to get help.
Ok, but never having an urge to hit doesn’t make you a pacifist any more than not wanting an abortion makes you pro-life. Do you believe that war is ever justified? What about using the police to stop a school shooter?
Good answer, that's basically what I did and it worked out better than getting into a fight with my attacker which would have muddied the legal situation.
Well, the fact that you’re still among the living attests that the attack ceased. Care to expound upon the incident?
I am a total pacifist as far as any of my own actions or thoughts are concerned. When it comes to external issues I am of the mind that deadly violence should be the last resort because, as an atheist, I think that life is a one-shot deal.
I get that you have no interest in using violence to save your life (and I presume the lives of others) against a deadly threat. Do you believe that this principle has a larger bearing on the world?
For example, if someone kills a really bad person in a clear-cut state of self-defense, my thoughts would include: “Man, I feel really bad for the person who had to take another person’s life. That’s a hard thing to do. But he really had no choice, and in the end, the world has the same number of good people, and one less bad person.” In my view, the loss of life is okay because good people are worth having around, and we have more than enough bad people.
What’s your reaction to my thought process?
Plus, another question: do you believe other “good” people should adopt your moral code, knowing that bad people will not?
Yelled for help. Help arrived. Three assholes ran off.