God's Plan

[Ani-man]

I sent this to a friend today in a longer email but thought I'd post this portion here.

 

 

 

...Just the other day I thought of a good topic to bring up, the one where people bring up "Gods plan" and interfering with this "plan" by certain acts or maybe even non-action. Think about this;

 

 

You take an all knowing all seeing creator of all things, your entire life and everything you do or will do would already be known to the creator before you were even born, so with that in mind one could take a really heated issue like abortion and one side will say it interferes with "Gods plan," however, it was already known well in advance that person "A" would cause action "B" resulting in the abortion act, so was THAT God's plan or was it the plan that person "C" would suddenly step in and stop it by offering $20,000 to adopt the baby instead?

 

Would God allow the baby to be killed just so person "A" could have a "free choice" in the matter?? Doesn't that seem like using the baby as a pawn or means to an end?

 

How about the case in the news of the 9 year old girl? certainly God knew this individual was going to abduct and kill her, so did he have a plan for her life but the individual stepped in and altered that? this suggests God not knowing all... or did he plan from the very start that the 9 year old would never make it past age 9 so that the individual now charged with murder could have his "free choice" and suffer consequences as a result? this suggests a thought out "plan" with predicted results. What if someone woke up in that house and caught the individual before he could abduct the girl, would that have been "the plan" or would it have been "interfering with Gods plan" that the girl be killed?

 

Certainly "the plan" was already thought out and whatever the outcome is in our eyes, it was already pre- destined to occur exactly as it did whether or not it seems like a random event or not.

 

What we think of as "free choice" to do something or not, may in fact have been already well considered out pre-planning, how could it not be?

 

if it wasn't, then this would mean the creator of all things does NOT know all and see all.

I'm thinking there really is NO "plan" and if there was, we would have no way to know if any certain actions or non actions were part of that plan or not and thus- interfering with it! It would then be presumptious of us to assume something we do is somehow "interfering" with some plan, to suggest we can or do suggests we have a lot more "power" than we think.

 

Thom

[Cynthia]

I think that there is middle ground... perhaps not a predestined plan, but the idea that God can see the world across time (from outside time) and therefore knows what will happen and can intervene (???) as He chooses with those who are open to Him without taking away free will and without planning for the horiffic.

[AletheiaRivers]

This is not a popular opinion, but I think it makes sense nonetheless.

 

God can make VERY informed guesses as to what someone will do or how something will play out, but God does not absolutely know the future because the future hasn't happened yet. The future doesn't EXIST.

 

I don't think God exists outside of "time" because I don't think "time" as an independent entity exists and so there is nothing to get outside of. Things that have happened have happened. Things that might happen, haven't happened yet. We exist NOW. It is always NOW.

 

I don't think we are foreordained or predestined to do anything. I think we have complete free will. I think "free will" is built into every atom in the universe because that is the way God wanted it and also because that is the way it has to be.

 

Free will gives humans the choice to do whatever they want and free will prevents God from interfering in our lives or it wouldn't be true free will.

 

As Cythia said, God can "work" with us without taking away free will (by being very, very, very subtle). God can "persuade" but not coerce.

Edited March 21, 2005 by AletheiaRivers

[Cynthia]

While I agree that time is not real..... I haven't figured out a way to see around it. Time as a concept is so very central to our view of the world, reality, causation, and interconnectedness. I don't think God has that limitation.

[cunninglily]

I studied for a number of years with The Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) which is a mystery school in a "hermetic christian" tradition.

 

This organization teaches that a personal free will apart from the "One Will" or the "Will of God" is an illusion...that basically we do NOTHING of ourselves and are only deluded into believing that we do. This belief is, of course, not exclusive to B.O.T.A. and can be found in the pagan belief in Fate or the Fates, which also excludes any personal will apart from the "Web of Fate".

 

The problem with this teaching is obvious: If we have no personal will apart from the One Will then how can we be held responsible for our actions? Where and in what does our accountability lie? The whole discussion centers around the matter of Choice. Do we choose our actions?

 

If we think about it, most of what we consider important about ourselves and our lives we did not consciously choose. Did you choose what you like or dislike or did these things "choose" you? Can you choose to like what you don't like or choose to dislike what you do like? The things that motivate or inspire or drive you were not chosen by you if you think about it. Did you choose to become a Christian or were you called? If you chose, as another example, to be interested in spiritual things then you can choose to not be interested in spiritual things. But can you choose to love what you don't love or choose to not love what you do?

 

We believe that we make choices everyday...but in choosing could you have chosen otherwise? We certainly believe that we could have chosen other than what we chose, but could we? If you choose to have a slice of chocolate cake you believe that you could have chosen otherwise, but in the act of *choosing* to have the cake you have already nullified the choice not to have the cake. You can't have your cake and not have it too.

 

The Bible states that "God made some vessels of honor and some vessels of dishonor" and where is the personal free will choice in that? And yet the Bible goes on to state, "Woe to you if you are a vessel of dishonor" (not a direct quote) and so we are still accountable for what we in effect did not choose. Mind-bending stuff.

 

Greater minds than mine have grappled with this subject and I certainly don't have it figured out. I am still asking the questions. But, in my own life I hold myself accountable for what I do or do not do, yet at the same time I do not believe that I can truly act outside the Will of God for my life. Even when I appear to act outside the Will of God I believe that I act according to His plans and purposes for my life, and thus never truly act contrary to His Will. This does not mean that I do not suffer the consequences of my actions, for clearly I do, only that my actions are a result of larger forces, and not simply the result of my own personal and free will apart from these forces.

 

...and if I don't choose to get off my butt and get ready for work, my employer may choose to find someone more reliable....hope to discuss this more with you guys later.

 

 

~lily

[Ani-man]

I studied for a number of years with The Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) which is a mystery school in a "hermetic christian" tradition.

 

This organization teaches that a personal free will apart from the "One Will" or the "Will of God" is an illusion...that basically we do NOTHING of ourselves and are only deluded into believing that we

The problem with this teaching is obvious: If we have no personal will apart from the One Will then how can we be held responsible for our actions? Where and in what does our accountability lie? The whole discussion centers around the matter of Choice. Do we choose our actions?

 

If we think about it, most of what we consider important about ourselves and our lives we did not consciously choose.  Did you choose what you like or dislike or did these things "choose" you? Can you choose to like what you don't like or choose to dislike what you do like? The things that motivate or inspire or drive you were not chosen by you if you think about it. Did you choose to become a Christian or were you called? If you chose, as another example, to be interested in spiritual things then you can choose to not be interested in spiritual things. But can you choose to love what you don't love or choose to not love what you do?

 

That's the thing. we have no positive way of knowing anything we do is or is not already pre-destinied to happen that way. In a way this reminds me of the Star Trek eposide- the pilot called "The cage" where aliens were creating illusions for the crew that were real, taken from their own memories and thoughts. At some point no one had any idea if what they were experiencing was real or just the illusion.

 

I can go back to my pre- teens and consider the different scenarios that would have happened had for example, my parents and I NOT moved to Florida, or had the business they opened there succeeded instead of failed- the failure of which resulted in moving to urban NYC. I can then examine all the different scenarios there that would have totally changed everything in a different course had minor changes been made that would have ultimately changed the course of "history" in my childhood.

 

Had the business succeeded in Florida had my dad's partner not pulled out for example, I might be living right now in Florida owning that business and have totally different interests than I do today.

Other events occurred in succession that resulted in my moving to the West coast, something as simple as a classified ad for a rental place is all that resulted in moving to the town I did. I can follow the paths or branches on the tree if you will and plainly see that if "A" didn't happen "B" wouldn't have happened as a result, I would have a different career, home, friends and everything else as a result.

 

Most things we have interests in started in childhood, I can trace back my interest in antiques, art and crafts and collecting things to before age 8, I can trace my interest to taking things apart, motors, machines putting them together again to before age 6, and in opera, classical music and congregational singing with organ to before the same age because I distinctly remember listening to it on the radio but didn't know what it was called.

 

So to a degree we have choices on many things but I think it's more the direction of them than creating them, for example- the interest in antiques and old things is pretty broad, the interest is there in early childhood, but it's not till later that the person decides they prefer to seriously be collecting stamps instead of coins, or fine wedgewood china instead of Rembandt paintings. It also depends on the person's opportunities and exposures, obviously someone born with no dad, mom on welfare, living in a trailer park is not likely to get into collecting Ming Dynasty pottery, but their interest might be channeled into readily available postage stamps or baseball cards, someone born into a family like Bill Gates on the other hand would have the opportunity and the means to buy Ming Dynasty pieces, but both person's collecting interest or obsession started at the same root.

 

As far as being held accountable for actions, I don't know, aside from maybe murder having a penalty I think the whole concept is frivolous and capricious, I mean here we are, one planet in the vast universe that has as many stars in the visible sky as grains of sand on the beach, where there could be thousands of "earths" out there with living beings on them, out of the whole of everything and on this planet are we really so self absorbed to believe we are so important and that everything we do is, that if I pocket that 5 cents change I was overpaid instead of returning it that anyone is really going to care?? Or that some day I'm going to be "punished" for it??

 

Everything on earth passes away, none of it can be taken when you die, not money, gold, your car, clothes, almost all of this stuff is just vanity, meaningless and temporary, money is the root of all evil as they say too, so would a God even REALLY care about any of this garbage like someone stole your umbrella at the office or swiped your SNickers bar from your drawer and ate it? I would have a difficult time imagining your umbrella or a snickers bar is worth someone's life or eternal soul or whatever condemned to torture forever.

[cunninglily]

As far as being held accountable for actions, I don't know, aside from maybe murder having a penalty I think the whole concept is frivolous and capricious, I mean here we are, one planet in the vast universe that has as many stars in the visible sky as grains of sand on the beach, where there could be thousands of "earths" out there with  living beings on them, out of the whole of everything and on this planet are we really so self absorbed to believe we are so important and that everything we do is,  that if I pocket that 5 cents change I was overpaid instead of returning it that anyone is really going to care?? Or that some day I'm going to be "punished" for it??

 

Everything on earth passes away, none of it can be taken when you die, not money, gold, your car, clothes, almost all of this stuff is just vanity, meaningless and temporary, money is the root of all evil as they say too, so would a God even REALLY care about any of this garbage like someone stole your umbrella at the office or swiped your SNickers bar from your drawer and ate it? I would have a difficult time imagining your umbrella or a snickers bar is worth someone's life or  eternal soul or whatever condemned to torture forever.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

But this is not the only way to think about "accountability". We should use guilt wisely and sparingly, understanding that what we do and say and think and feel DOES matter, that these things DO affect the world around us...even if it seems a very small world indeed. Everything that you do affects everything around you...this is not hard to see....it is hard to assume responsibility for it and only Love can show us how.

 

I don't know where you might have gotten the understanding that stealing a snickers bar would condemn you to eternal torture because I know no one that believes this. This is a distortion of Christian teaching that doesn't even make good horse sense.

 

It is not a matter of the snicker bar, it is a matter of the heart. What or Who oppresses you that you must steal? THAT is the tyranny. Why not just ask for the snickers bar if you are hungry? It is only pride that makes us think that we are alone in this world; cut off from our fellows, left to the mercy of the Powers that Be without assistance. The truth is that we are all in this together and so we are "accountable" for our part in co-creating the world we envision together. Understanding this can fill us with a sense of purpose, the same sense of purpose Jesus knew, and so the joy of the Lord can be our strength...because, yeah, sometimes it does feel that all the good we can do is nothing more than a drop of lemon in a polluted ocean; you just don't get lemonade that way. But we have a promise and a hope that endures and helps us to endure....besides, there is a lot of good in this sweet ole world already.

 

~lily

[Cynthia]

Ani-man - I think the idea is not a quid quo pro exchange of soul for snickers (well maybe on a good PMS day ), but the idea which you discuss earlier. Some choices (perhaps influenced or predestined???) are important - ie moving to FL, moving to NY, interests, business failing and they set your range of choices. I think that stealing the nickel or candy changes your set of choices... perhaps in a way we will never perceive... but yet....

 

This goes, in my bizarro mind, along well with the ideas of teach only love (Jeep) and co-creating the world (lily), and ideas of a universal sum total of love and pain which we each individually add to or subtract from.

 

Whether it's (in my extremely limited understanding) string theory, chaos theory, or religion, it seems clear that the evidence is in. We are all connected. All. People, planet, life. Like it or not.

[Ani-man]

What about those protesting the Shiavo case?

 

Some of the quotes in the are just off the wall, people saying "Save Terris life" she didn't have a life unless one calls laying immobile in a hospital bed 24/7 for 15 years a "life", she basically died 15 years ago.

NOW that she died, some of the protestors were quoted saying comments such as

 

"she now has a new body, new life, is smiling and with God"

 

Well if that's the case they how can these same peopl ejustify trying all they could to force keeping her here in hell on earth as a vegetable 100% dependent on nurses for everything, including changing her diapers and wiping her arse???

 

 

All the prayers and the like that people were doing in front of the media looks to me like they were not answered, how do these people explain that?

 

"Gods will" and "God works in mysterious ways"

 

I find those catch-all answers a bit too convienient and dismissive.

 

Personally I think her husband did the right thing, but the methodology shows the greater issue- letting the woman starve for 13 days rather than just giving her an OD of morphine and letting her just fall asleep and never wake up.

[BrotherRog]

As I see it, here are some of the good things (blessings?), that may come from the Schiavo family/national media orgy fiasco:

 

1. More citizens (and families) are now thinking about hospice care, living wills, and their intentions and preferences for their last days.

 

2. More citizens/families are now aware of, and talking about, the danger of bulimia and other eating disorders (the cause of Terri's condition).

 

3. More citizens/families are realizing the limits of politics and appealing to the

Government to address personal human affairs. They are also increasing in their awareness of civics - and of the propensity for politicians to grandstand and exploit things for political gain.

 

4. And, with Jesse Jackson entering the fray, this has (ironically) presented an olive branch that seems to help repair the great divide between liberals and conservatives in this polarized nation.

 

---

All, told, while a tragic life, a rather productive death if you ask me. : )

[des]

Well at the risk of starting more heat than light:

One thing I have never heard the "Right to Lifers" suggest is that Terry was actually in a persistent vegetative state. No, no she was actually trying to speak; she was understanding everything, she was really "in there" some where; she suffered while dying; etc. I actually heard her described as "healthy". Interesting concept of health, imo. They were able to trot out some doctors who actually would take their side (not sure if these doctors ever really examined Terry or just saw the video.) Anyway, no one of the group that I ever heard ever suggested the dx might have been correct. And all seemed to be in gross denial of the state that she was in (if anything only the most minimal of consciousness). Pretending that she was "disabled" in any of the ways one usually uses that word vs "unconscious".

 

This leads me to the question: would they *ever* consider that such a dx could be correct in an awake person? Would anything change if they actually believed such a thing, or do their beliefs hinge on the idea that such a person would always be aware or that they could never tell such a thing. Would these people always ignore any scientific evidence, regardless of how convincing? (For example, what would they think of a child with acephalus-- no cephalus at all, that is if such a child lived?) Why do they get more upset over the feeding tubes, than respirators. Why not say, "you would be smothering the person"? I think they are imagining a conscious person experiencing starvation. (I actually see that view on the other side, for example when you suggest Ani-Man that she is starving for days, as though she was suffering. I understand even aware cancer patients that won't eat at the end of their lives do not suffer pain.)

 

OTOH, many people (myself included) on the other side, would take scientific evidence into account. What do her brain scans look like? What would that mean? *If* I thought there was convincing evidence of some type of higher brain activity I would not be "for" pulling the machine-- just because there is more of a line to draw (and let's not kid ourselves this is a machine).This is not a nasal-gastric tube in a conscious person. I would have more respect for a position that says, it doesn't matter "if" she actually was in such a state, we'd still be against it. I don't agree with it, but I would have more respect for that position. (I think some Catholics might think that, but I never heard it articulated.)

 

Anyway, I feel tremendously sad for both sides. As some news guy said last night, here are two sides that might never come together, when they should be grieving together.

 

BroR, I hope you are right that something good comes out of this. You see people one side some idea that there will be petitions to "protect" the lives of people in such states, perhaps on a federal level. But there are others that are quite upset re: the federal government stepping in (another irony if you ask me). It does have me thinking about putting such things in writing. I heard Jesse Jackson's statements and they sounded very concillatory. However, I think a lot of people write him off as an opportunist.

 

 

--des

[Ani-man]

Brother, you are right there, though you KNOW how people are, they forget things fast, in a month few will even remember the woman's name, it's all been ushered out the door with the latest news on the Pope.

 

Des, good post, we agree a lot there. I have SEEN Terri's CAT scan, they were posted at one point on the CBSnews site compared to a normal brain CAT scan side by side.

Her scan showed a large black area in the center of the brain, the text said this was spinal fluid which had replaced the damaged brain tissue. Compared to a normal scan there was no comparison, it was crystal clear and like looking at a month old Halloween pumpkin that had been sitting shrivelling up on your porch v/s one just bought at the store, there was no way she was ever going to recover.

 

Did you notice that the only photos that seemed to be published of Terri were all from 2001 or earlier, and some taken from video back then? why is that one has to ask. I think she looked far worse so they used the old photos for the "right to life/anti abortion" political cause because in 2001 she didn't look too bad.

 

A week into this thing the parents suddenly claimed Terri spoke to them a week earlier, when the judge asked their attorney why he didn't say something back then he claimed he was "too busy", a ground breaking case shattering event supposedly occurs and he was too "busy"?? Thankfully the judge saw that claim for what it was- a false delaying tactic that backfired.

 

 

The whole case was a sickening display of obvious politics and the Randall Terry crowd latched onto this with both horns and refused to let go. The amazing thing is these same people threatened Michael- and one even threatened to shoot the entire family- truly a stunning display of hypocracy and lunacy and one which I simply can't imagine how someone like that feels justified with such sentiments or actions.

[des]

>Des, good post, we agree a lot there. I have SEEN Terri's CAT scan, they were posted at one point on the CBSnews site compared to a normal brain CAT scan side by side.

Her scan showed a large black area in the center of the brain, the text said this was spinal fluid which had replaced the damaged brain tissue.

 

Yes, I was aware of this. My point is that on the other side (meaning yours and mine say).

We are likely to take in scientific evidence and be able to use it to help form an opinion. What I see on the other side is the complete refusal to use any of that kind of data. They are "sure" that the autopsies will come in we will know that she had lots of intact brain left.

They find some doctor (with an agenda) and that doctor says, x many cases are misdxed. They know she was responding, that her involuntary noises were attempts at speech.There are a bunch of disabled people who are thinking, due to all the discussion that this is a severely brain damaged women, a disabled person. There is no similarity to cases I heard her compared with, where someone was dxed as in a PVS. Turns out if might have been for a month or something, the person is paraplegic, they go to rehab. They think Terri needed rehab. They compare her case to people who have had falls or accidents rather than hypoxia.

 

As I said, I'd have more respect for someone who honestly felt that she was really in the PVS state but that doesn't matter. I don't agree with it, because I think all they were doing was extending death, but I still respect it.

 

>Did you notice that the only photos that seemed to be published of Terri were all from 2001 or earlier, and some taken from video back then?

 

No I wasn't aware of that. Makes sense though.

 

 

>The whole case was a sickening display of obvious politics and the Randall Terry crowd latched onto this with both horns and refused to let go. The amazing thing is these same people threatened Michael- and one even threatened to shoot the entire family-

 

Well they are like the lunatics who kill abortion doctors. Yep, right to life. But I realize this is a tiny minority of people who have feelings about these issues.

 

I think it is a pretty sad case. I am inclined to agree with Ani-man here that people will move on to new topics. The pope is front and center now. We are a one story nation.

 

 

--des

[Cynthia]

Agreed Ani and Des

 

That said, even if (I saw the MRI too... very little intact brain tissue) they did an autopsy, and decided that she could understand and was trying to communicate... IF you believe in the general christian worldview... WHY would you choose a nursing home over death??? Why are fundamentalist christians so afraid of death??? This sounds like a rant, but it is a soul-felt question. If they are so very sure - of God, the bible, God's plan, etc.... WHY is death bad? I am not sure (intellectually) of anything... my views change with experience and information... but being part of God, heaven, however you slice it.... wow - awesome.

[Ani-man]

Hi Des, glad you did have a chance to see the CAT scan, they seemd to have gone away or are buried down deep on the CBS site.

As you point out, scientifi data v/s dogma and wishful thinking, the brain is "it" the control center if you will, the hard drive on your computer, damage it enough and you have "unplugged" it save for some basic survival function from deep within the stem where it controls the body processes.

Without a healthy brain the body is like a computer with the keyboard disconnected.

 

In the videos of Terri, you could see her hands are contracted at an extreme angle inward, that's not a good sign either.

I agree, the doctor with an agenda, and those trying to make Terri out to be a "disabled woman" or "handicapped" like a viable someone with a mild stroke, in a wheel chair or a blind person who can be retrained and rehabilitated- not so because the center of the brain in the CAT scan is GONE, not just damaged, it's, gone- as in replaced by spinal fluid.

 

As far as involuntary noises etc, I will mention an event that happened to a dog of mine 7 years ago, his kidneys and liver failed due to old age and he went downhill overnight, I took him to my vet to be euthanized and normally they just fall asleep rapidly and are gone.

 

I'm since told this happens rarely, but every once in a while it does, as the drug was injected he started to fall asleep but then suddenly started wailing, barking, screaming, and struggling but his eyes were shut and he was semi conscious. It was the most horrible experiance and one which still affects me terribly, but I'm told it was not pain or anything like that.

His body was shutting down but the brain didn't know it. He couldn't have had any pain as the drug is an anaesthetic overdose, but it certainly seemed like real pain and communication going on when in fact his heart was likely already stopped by that point as it occurs in seconds.

 

I believe it was talk show host Gene Burns on KGO AM 810 in San Francisco last night who mentioned he was in a coma years ago and going into septic shock, in the coma for 11 days, organs starting to fail, but they brought him back, there's an example of a coma state but the patient recovered with no after effects.

 

Yes, the extreme, militant anti abortion crowd is hypocritical, Randall Terry lost everything in a bankruptcy when he was sued in court, the guy and others like him have the one track mind of a mentall ill or psychotic person with an extreme obsession, they lay seige to people's homes, threaten people with death, some even have killed doctors. In their frenzy they are ignoring the bigger picture of the sheer idiocy of what they are doing.

 

Look now at the news, Terri has all but vanished off the CBS news site, now the front page story, videos, live video feed of the outside the Vatican and all the rest are about "the Pope" and his last hours.

I don't want to sound callous, but what makes THIS guy so special? he is only a man in a job

position, like the foreman of a plastics factory or Chrysler, 84 year old people die all the time, they don't make this kind of a splash!

It was getting to the point where every time he sneezed or farted we get front page news about his medical problems.

Of course we still hear about FORMER as in has beens who are no long in charge- President's medical problem, Reagans colon polyps, Clinton's heart surgery, the senior Bush's sunburn- you name it. It becomes tabloid news.

 

Cynthia, they did the autopsy but last night I heard them say results won't be known for several WEEKS, as far as I am aware today no results of any kind have been released to the media

 

IF you believe in the general christian worldview... WHY would you choose a nursing home over death??? Why are fundamentalist christians so afraid of death?

 

Bingo, this is the big question! why would these same people WANT and go to this length of obsession to keep Terri HERE laying helpless in her bed the next 30 years unable to speak, move, communicate, read, go for a walk, eat real food etc etc, compared to eternity 30 years is nothing. Either these people are just deluding themselves this is about Terri when it's really in fact about politics and abortion (randall Terry's involvement and the throngs of his protestors seizing the streets in front of the hospice show this) or maybe these people are not sure and don't really believe they will go to a "heaven" after death, if they did they would celebrate every time someone dies!

In fact they DO celebrate death I think in India, where it's seen not as a loss but a move and growth UPWARD in stages.

[des]

The pictures are still on multiple blogspots.

 

Anyway from what I could tell the family is basing everything on the idea that she might have been in what is called a Minimally conscious state. I read last night about this. Sounds pretty awful but it isn't as severe as PVS. Basically the person has some awareness and consciousness, that may be erratic and somewhat inconsistent. However, they are capable of yes/no responses (raise your eyes for yes, for instance); following some directions (lift your arm); etc. whereas in PVS the person is only able to do something on a brain stem level (track objects, perhaps; some noises; etc. The key difference is emotional and sensory, for example in MSC they can feel pain.The PVS patient might make movements that could be interpreted as any of the above. For example, they could maybe happen to glance at a person (or the direction of a person), happen to do something in response to a command. But these responses are not repeated. MCS people have a better prognosis. (Though that is after a few months, not 15+ years.)

 

There are many problems to Terri having had MCS. The most of which is just how inconsistent responses were. And the fact that the only doctors to think that this was a realistic dx were those on the right wing. One of them did "research" on 2 people indicating that MCS have more responses than was generally known. One fo the doctors said he had a profound sense of someone's presense in the room, which sounds more like a spiritual sense vs a medical dx.

 

 

But MCS was not known about during Terri's early dx. However, the doctor who dxed her has still been in contact with her (though not for long visits). He said catagorically, that there was no reason to doubt his dx. He was asked this repeatedly, do you know for sure? Yes, in Terri's case. Anyway it is not considered ethical to discontinue feeding a partly aware person for obvious reasons.

 

The Shindlers have even insisted that she was more aware than MCS, for example that she laughed and that she was "curious and aware". No one who described an MCS person would describe them as curious and aware. (I have worked with profoundly handicapped young children, and mostly they weren't curious or aware either. And they were not MCS, but disabled to the point of behaving at the level of infants.) Nor does it describe the woman we saw in the tapes, that the Shindlers themselves edited. One woman described her husband in this state, as not knowing if he is with her or not. Always questioning it. It seems to me they were clinging to this as there have been a few (extremely extremely uncommon) cases where someone has been in a MCS state for as many years as Terri was PVS, and come out of it. So I think it was on this basis that they clung to it. Of some miraculous cure, not that she would be like that for another 30+ years which is more likely.

 

I think even Michael was acting in an "as if" manner. During PVS, you wouldn't describe the person as still really "wanting" anything. Whatever they might "have wanted" wouldnt' really matter anymore. So to say, Terri wouldn't have wanted this, even if true, doesn't describe what she wanted in her PVS state. I really don't understand why he didn't pass her back to the parents, with a statement that very strongly he didn't feel this is what she "would have wanted". By holding on, he showed denial of the actual facts. Many people say they would "not want" to be in Terri's state.I certainly agree, but if you actually got to it, you would no longer have those kinds of feelings. I also think that there may have been such anomosity from both families at this point that any reasonable communication had broken down.

(I also don't think she "would have wanted" her inlaws to hate each other either!)

 

So I really think that what was going on was denial and wishful thinking vs an actual analysis of the situation. Being in a brand new body, with God, would appear to be better than what Terri was experiencing, but I feel they were not at all able to look at it objectively like that.

 

BTW, I have heard of these noises that animals may make when euthanized. I have been warned of it the time I had to have it done. Some vets will have the person leave the room right as the animal dies for that reason.

 

Whoever said they have done the autopsy is lying btw (I'm saying your sources Cynthia, not you!!!).

 

 

--des