Is any belief worth dying for?

[chromium]

Death is so...final

yeah i kinda wanted to just reply that no, nothing is worth dying for because at that point, nothing is worth living for

 

[blarg]

I realize military personnel are willing to die for their country, but this question applies to abstract ideas excluding national duty. So do you think that there are any beliefs worth dying for?

The reason I ask this question is because I recall in school learning revolutionary quotes like "give me liberty or give me death." The concept is introduced and taught to while very young. I once accepted the willingness to die for a cause as noble, but now, I can think of instances where people have died for a cause that is unfathomable.

The two biggest examples I can think of is Ava Braun and others in Hitler's bunker and the Jonestown Massacre. In both cases, the people thought their actions were heroic and saw themselves as martyrs. Ava was convinced she would be remembered as an important figure and national hero one day. She took measures before he death to ensure all the videos she made of Hitler at the berghof were put together for a Hollywood movie. The Goebbel's killed their children and themselves because they couldn't bear their children growing up without national socialism. That is serious dedication.

Jim Jones told his flock that they were "born out of their time." He preached the world would change and they would go down in history for their "revolutionary deaths" because it was a just cause... "we are killing ourselves in protest of an inhumane world," he was recorded as saying.

These situations have caused me question if any abstract idea is worth dying for or if any idea is worth pledging your life to.

if you feel a cause is important enough then i guess so but id rather not die

 

[Northern Light]

No not really. I find that as I get older I'm less and less attached to the beliefs I used to have when I was younger. If some psycho dictator was threatening to kill me and my family if we didn't renounce a certain belief, I'd probably renounce it.

I mean... sitting here in cozy comfort and being an armchair philosopher about it is one thing, but faced with real life or death? When I read the stories of holocaust survivors from Phnom Penh or the WWII internment camps, people did a lot worse to survive. Fight or flight is really powerful.

In the most dire of circumstances, you have no name, no story, no history, no identity. You are just pure action. When faced with death you'd be surprised what is no longer relevant, that you thought was important. Death is honest like that.

 

[legalimmigrant]

I agree with Dr. King here: “A man who does not have something for which he is willing to die is not fit to live.”
(Martin Luther King Jr).

Are you quoting that King - a communist-sympathizing womanizer and plagiarist, who beat up a white hooker in his motel room on the day he got shot?

You mean this one?

 

[legalimmigrant]

The true enemy of any nation is its naive, low-information, obedient citizens who trust their government.

The only people who are even worse than that are the naive, low-information, obedient citizens who trust their government and are willing to die for the bulls*** their government feeds them.

The problem is that when they are told that their government lies always, they react as if they were told there is no Santa when they were 4.

As they say, the good ones die first. Darwin at work.

 

[legalimmigrant]

No not really. I find that as I get older I'm less and less attached to the beliefs I used to have when I was younger. If some psycho dictator was threatening to kill me and my family if we didn't renounce a certain belief, I'd probably renounce it.

I mean... sitting here in cozy comfort and being an armchair philosopher about it is one thing, but faced with real life or death? When I read the stories of holocaust survivors from Phnom Penh or the WWII internment camps, people did a lot worse to survive. Fight or flight is really powerful.

In the most dire of circumstances, you have no name, no story, no history, no identity. You are just pure action. When faced with death you'd be surprised what is no longer relevant, that you thought was important. Death is honest like that.

Words of wisdom.

I would go a step further. When torture is imminent, American POW's should be under strict orders to talk and talk until the enemy gets a headache, unable to tell which is blather and which is true. They should be ordered to condemn whatever war they are in if this is what their captors demand.

The propaganda value of such pronouncements would be zero if everybody knew the rules behind such conduct. As Trump implied, there is little value in dead heroes.

 

[nota bene]

Are you quoting that King - a communist-sympathizing womanizer and plagiarist, who beat up a white hooker in his motel room on the day he got shot?

You mean this one?

The very one. Do you have a point here?

 

[Ntharotep]

Living, in and of itself, is not so much more valuable than quality of life.
Defending my family and their freedoms is worth my life. Beyond that, it really depends on the circumstances.

 

[Lethargic Aptitude]

I realize military personnel are willing to die for their country, but this question applies to abstract ideas excluding national duty. So do you think that there are any beliefs worth dying for?

The reason I ask this question is because I recall in school learning revolutionary quotes like "give me liberty or give me death." The concept is introduced and taught to while very young. I once accepted the willingness to die for a cause as noble, but now, I can think of instances where people have died for a cause that is unfathomable.

The two biggest examples I can think of is Ava Braun and others in Hitler's bunker and the Jonestown Massacre. In both cases, the people thought their actions were heroic and saw themselves as martyrs. Ava was convinced she would be remembered as an important figure and national hero one day. She took measures before he death to ensure all the videos she made of Hitler at the berghof were put together for a Hollywood movie. The Goebbel's killed their children and themselves because they couldn't bear their children growing up without national socialism. That is serious dedication.

Jim Jones told his flock that they were "born out of their time." He preached the world would change and they would go down in history for their "revolutionary deaths" because it was a just cause... "we are killing ourselves in protest of an inhumane world," he was recorded as saying.

These situations have caused me question if any abstract idea is worth dying for or if any idea is worth pledging your life to.

Some people would die for a certain belief that seems lame to you. It would be subjective at best.

 

[legalimmigrant]

The very one. Do you have a point here?

Since his was quoted here, yes.

After all these years, I am still amazed how this country got duped into elevating a person of no morals, communist affiliations, and disgusting behavior into the status of the single greatest American of all time. So much that every village and town with more than two traffic lights has a street named after him, as that he is the only American with his own federal holiday. All for delivering one 17-minute speech, which nobody wants to take too seriously for fear of being called racist.

Unbelievable.

 

[legalimmigrant]

Some people would die for a certain belief that seems lame to you. It would be subjective at best.

Some people die because they believe they can fly.

Lame to me.

 

[nota bene]

Since his was quoted here, yes.

After all these years, I am still amazed how this country got duped into elevating a person of no morals, communist affiliations, and disgusting behavior into the status of the single greatest American of all time. So much that every village and town with more than two traffic lights has a street named after him, as that he is the only American with his own federal holiday. All for delivering one 17-minute speech, which nobody wants to take too seriously for fear of being called racist.

Unbelievable.

I don't give a rat's ass. I quoted him because I think what he said is true--if you have nothing worth dying for, you have nothing worth living for and aren't much of a person. You don't have to admire or respect someone to acknowledge maybe once in his life, he said something you recognized as truth.

Sorry if your personal feelings about Dr. King prevent you from acknowledging this. Your loss. Truly.

 

[Lethargic Aptitude]

Some people die because they believe they can fly.

Lame to me.

Lame from your point of view (and mine). But to the believer they flew (right before they died).

Subjective.

 

[legalimmigrant]

I don't give a rat's ass. I quoted him because I think what he said is true--if you have nothing worth dying for, you have nothing worth living for and aren't much of a person. You don't have to admire or respect someone to acknowledge maybe once in his life, he said something you recognized as truth.

Sorry if your personal feelings about Dr. King prevent you from acknowledging this. Your loss. Truly.

That quote from MLK is a self evident pablum. Each and every person has something worth dying for from birth - defending his or her life.

Profound.

 

[nota bene]

You're right; irrespective of the source, the statement is a point to ponder. Unless, of course, you're too engrossed in "shooting the messenger."

 

[RetiredNSmilin]

NOTHING is worth dying for.

A dead person cannot contribute anything to the noble goal they died for, other than yet another name.

You have to LIVE for your goal, nurture it to fruition, then enjoy its benefits for yourself and your future generations.

Dying just makes you dead.

 

[RetiredNSmilin]

I think more than a few would think of this as 'justice'.

...and exactly why no one really cared that the Russians kept Nazi POWs for decades after WW2. Making them rebuild what they tore up.

There was a story in SAGA magazine of a Nazi sergeant who escaped a gulag and made it back in 1955....in the process screwing over a Russian lady who helped him along the way.

 

[RetiredNSmilin]

Alright, now you've really piqued my interest! :thumbs:

I'm into biographies of interesting people.

And I always especially take interest in flawed individuals or those in tragic circumstance.

In that case you would very much enjoy researching BASS REEVES, a black lawman in 1880's Oklahoma when it was the Indian Territory.
It is believed he was the real life story behind the Lone Ranger.

He went out by himself, but on Indian land he had to have an Indian with him at all times.
He was black, so instead of a black man they chose a black mask.
He also wore many disguises (masks) to get the bad guy.
He never lost a gun fight.
He always got the bad guy.

If you want to read about the real LONE RANGER, look up Bass Reeves.

Then when the Indian Territory became a state, he was banned from being a marshal because he was black.

 

[Excon]

Is any belief worth dying for?

The answer to that resides with the person who holds the belief. No one else.

 

[Sweden]

NOTHING is worth dying for.

A dead person cannot contribute anything to the noble goal they died for, other than yet another name.

You have to LIVE for your goal, nurture it to fruition, then enjoy its benefits for yourself and your future generations.

Dying just makes you dead.

Maybe no 'belief' is worth dying for but somethings are. I don't suppose I am the only one who would die to save the lives of my grandchildren, for example.

 

[DashingAmerican]

I would go the other direction than a lot of people in this post. I think I would die for almost all of my beliefs. If you wouldn't, why are they your beliefs?

That being said, lets go with the gun to my head approach:

If someone had a gun to my head and told me:

I couldn't be a Libertarian, that I had to vote Democrat or Republican, I'd be dead.

I had to publicly say I don't believe in aliens, I'd say it.

I had to convert to a religion I don't believe in, I'd die.


It really just depends on the type of belief it is.

 

[RetiredNSmilin]

Maybe no 'belief' is worth dying for but somethings are. I don't suppose I am the only one who would die to save the lives of my grandchildren, for example.

Sweden, I am positive we are on the same page, and are only differentiating semantics. Dying for..., and risking death for..., I see as two different things. I do not see how my death would benefit anyone. Dead, I can do no one any more good, or do bad guys any more bad.

The bards through the ages have written and sung about "dying in your arms", or my wife's favorite expression..." It is to die for...", but I just don't see it.

I am just saying my dead body is of no use to anyone, except the worms, fish, or scavengers.