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To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (71543)	1/18/1999 10:14:00 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

OT -- Conscience doth make martyrs of us all. Conscience is by its nature personal and private. I have searched the literature for empirical studies of formation of conscientious attitudes, and found virtually nothing. I conclude that discussions of our own and others beliefs' about conscience is purely introspective and subjective. Many people (martyr personality) place their conscience at the apex of their heirarchies of value. Sir Thomas More went to the block because even his great creative legal and philosophical mind couldn't solve the conundrum of loyalty to king or religion. A young boy went to his death in Carthage because he could not compromise his duty to serve the Emperor and what he believed his duty to abstain from war. Many a virgin is said to have accepted death rather than submit to rape. My closest friend resisted rape despite deep love for the young rapist and has spent 50 years unloved, alone, puzzling why his life has been so miserable. After studying 8,000 years of history I've come to see the conscience as a malignant growth that threatens the happiness of every one of us. Why cannot I choose by reason and experience what is right or wrong for me? If our only lover is of the same sex, how dare we believe that homosexual love is wrong! If our unborne fetus is unloved and unneeded by any one, how dare we believe that abortion is always wrong! If our mother in her 80's is unconscious, higher centers of the brain destroyed by a massive stroke, unmoving, ventilated, and can never hope to see her great granddaughter more, who would stay my hand on the respirator switch? Cannot some noble physician step forward and replace my hand from the switch with hers and save me the agony of killing her who bore me in blood, and pain, and poverty, and love and suffering. Why cannot we accept what we cannot change? Why don't we have the will to end hunger, hate, homelessness, poverty, ignorance, despair, madness and loneliness for all our brothers, sisters, parents, children everywhere? Why not?