I’m presbyterian. I like presbyterian churches, and I like the plain aesthetics. The idea of dying praying in a presbyterian church is just weird. An aesthetically pleasing presbyterian way to die would be to die of heart attack at age 97 while reading a bible alone in my study, having adequately provided for my children.
There’s a sub genre of homoerotic art depicting Saint Sebastian naked, tied to a pillar and shot with arrows (Mishima really dug it), and Robert Longo’s collapsing yuppies could have been gunshot victims, but pretty young things with abstract expressionist blood splatter head wounds is virgin territory.
Heck, I am religious and I’d much rather die this way!
Of course, we would be decently married and all.
Have your home, office and vehicle consecrated, and wear a pizo-electric prayer wheel. Problem solved.
Speaking of incoherent, this rebuttal seems to say, “It’s good to be murdered in a church because Ronald Reagan something something.”
What is it you’re getting at? That it would be better if Ronald Reagan had been murdered in a church instead of dying old and weak? That Reagan’s anti-drug policies are so bad for black people that it’s better for them to be murdered in a church than die old and weak like him? That you feel Reagan ruined the country so badly that you’d be ashamed to have a death like his, and you’d rather be murdered in a church so that your death can be different from his?
I feel like there is some kind of argument being made here that I’m expected to respond to, but I honestly cannot figure out what that argument is supposed to be. I just know the general tone of it is that it’s a positive thing to be murdered in a church, and that the idea of anyone arguing that still sickens me.
How about being killed by a Presbyterian Church?
Maybe relatively speaking? When compared to being drawn, quartered, hanged and burned, a dignified execution-style gunshot is less un-aesthetic.
How about if it’s done by the Ballet Russe, on a fog-filled stage with elaborate chiarascuro backgrounds, to the accompaniment of Prokofiev’s Dance of the Montagues and Capulets?
I am not referring to that part of it. It’s awful.
I’m referring to a kind of moral patina, dying in church vs. dying as Ronald Reagan discriminating against minorities.
No, I totally disagree. But it turns out to be an oddly good way to die IMHO.
No, the Quentin Tarantino aspect is not at all what I am getting at. There is a moral quality, even if some parts of it turn out to be phony on closer examination.
So what if Reagan had gotten shot while praying in a church?
Um…
I just want to die peacefully. Preferably at home asleep like my grandfather did.
You have no idea what moral means, do you?
The etymological meaning would be “customary”. Nothing customary about dying in church. I guess you could consider it “customary” to die in church while being martyred by some assholes, but places with that kind of customs don’t tend to keep them for long.
The non-etymological meanings, per m-w:
1
a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ethical <moral judgments>
b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior <a moral poem>
c : conforming to a standard of right behavior
d : sanctioned by or operative on one’s conscience or ethical judgment <a moral obligation>
e : capable of right and wrong action <a moral agent>
2
: probable though not proved : virtual <a moral certainty>
3
: perceptual or psychological rather than tangible or practical in nature or effect <a moral victory> <moral support>
You think that being murdered in a church is… right behavior? Ethical? Probable but not proven? Psychological?
Dammit man, you don’t have to buy a dictionary, but please learn to use one!
Relax. I started with ‘aesthetic’. What kind? Not Tarantino, but a moral appearance. A lot of the public considers churchgoing to be ‘right behavior’. If the last thing you ever do is visit church, some will speculate that maybe you were trying to make some kind of positive difference with yourself. If, by contrast, you arrange for the incarceration of millions of minorities, you’re an awful person. Does it make sense when I make these distinctions so obvious?
No.
Thanks for your support. Hopefully things won’t move this quickly in my personal case. We tend to imagine death as something that visits us in the 80-100 year old range, or at least I do. But maybe that isn’t how it plays out, maybe something random is going to take you out unfairly. If that’s the case, this kind of death seems preferable to most.
Which part don’t you get?
“When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.” - Will Rogers
Really Will Rogers? I thought it was much more recent. It seems to “edgy” for Rogers. His humor was folksy and gentle, and not usually that biting.
ETA The Telegraph attributes it to Bob Monkhouse.
No, this doesn’t make any sense. Aesthetics and morality have nothing to do with each other. Trying to connect them doesn’t change that.
I think what you’re trying to say is that for a religious person, the act of dying in a holy place is a good thing. Is that it?
The problem is that, closer to God or not (we can debate whether location actually has any bearing on one’s relationship to the Divine separately), the manner of death was profane. It was immoral. It was the opposite of what you’re proposing. If you had stopped at saying “at least they’re with their maker”, someone might have agreed with you. Not me, btw.
I am protected by my number 14-St. Joseph-the-somewhat-divine-on-the-hill ballistic missile