Ok, I’ll 'fess up - I’m pretty new here, and to message boards in general. From what I’ve read, Dopers are (on the whole) very intelligent people with rational, well formed views who may, however, become passionate and perhaps even irrational about an issue they feel strongly about. Certainly, many Dopers are committed enough to do painstaking research before posting a lengthy, thoroughly justified and often strongly polemic discourse.
So my question is - what is it that you’d be willing to die for? It might be a cause, your religion, your kids, or chocolate cake.
I like to think I’d die to save another person, e.g. in a hostage situation:
“No, take me, that guy has his whole life ahead of him!”
But deep down I have a sneaking suspicion that if the chance arose, I might just keep my head down.
You get one life, and it is exclusively yours. Aren’t you obliged to live it?
Given the opportunity to think logically and clearly, I would give my life to save the life of a stranger who had kids to raise. Nobody depends on me.
Of course, if that type of situation came up, I don’t know what the chances are that I’d be thinking logically and clearly. Hopefully I’d be thinking clearly enough to make the right choice.
There is almost nothing I would die for. I’ve said this ever since I read it somewhere - you only have one life but you can pick up fifty causes on any street corner.
I could see myself suiciding in a war situation if I was captured and thought I might reveal information under torture that would jeapardize more lives. The list of things I am willing to fight and kill over (and thereby risk death) is basically my family and the Bill of Rights and for the later I might even be willing to risk the family depending on the seriousness of the situation.
I’d sacrifice my entire family tree without a second’s hesitation, if it was my only option to save myself. I’d wipe out every living being on the planet.
So? Such is your choice. I won’t join the Armed Forces exactly because of this - not any branch.
However one of the very few reasons I could see dying is defending my country. I don’t mean going into another country and attacking, that’s not defense. I mean when the enemy is literally at the gates and we have to fight or die.
You never really know how you react till the time comes. I was young but I always believed in the right to die with dignity and for people to “pull the plug.”
Then my mum had a heart attack and was on life support. She died anyway, but I can tell you there was no way in hell I’d ever have let anyone pull that plug.
And that feeling TOTALLY shocked me. If you had asked me 24 hours before I would’ve sworn up and down that I wouldn’t keep someone on life support who had no chance, but then when it happened to my mum, I did a 180
One thing I’ve learned in my 46 years is “it’s suprising what you can do when you have to.”