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I've sort of known Frem for a while myself (mostly through reading, but sometimes in discussions) and this is why I am having a very hard time reconciling this response of his with the things he says that I usually agree with.


It's not that I can't rationally follow what he suggests in the other thread, at all. But it still fails to compute how this is at all applicable in reality, where compassion should surely take over. It jars my image of Frem quite severely to imagine this, and not in a good way.

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Originally posted by Bytemite:
It's certainly a strange conflict, but you have to remember one thing. Frem himself was once hit by a car (or something) and very nearly died in a hospital, and had to fight for his life when his doctors were prepared to give up on him.

I suspect Frem has a very deep awareness of when someone may be too far gone to help, simply through experience, that may coincide with actual medical care not being able to help them. Perhaps he also doesn't intervene when a death could fall under the category of "natural causes."

Under these conditions, there's nothing too disturbing about his beliefs, or even too much conflict over what he does.

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Originally posted by AgentRouka:

I still find it disturbing under those conditions.

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More importantly, though, those are not the conditions. He phrased it along the lines of "if I am the only thing standing between a person and their death". That's not the same as "if they are beyond help anyway". That's an entirely different thing altogether.

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And what are "natural causes", really? Is not drowning a natural cause of death? Dying from battle injury would be a natural cause of death as opposed to what, being impaled by art?

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...my religious beliefs very specifically forbid exactly this type of intervention except in very specific circumstances (and yes, I'll bend that a bit sometimes, only human, yanno) - but the long and short of it is that I am not *permitted* to intervene any time my sole action may prevent the termination of a life that would have otherwise ended at that time.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
You forget; Catholics can get absolved on their deathbeds. This doesn't change things for the fear of most followers of religions, but it's rationalization for others.

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I didn't know reincarnation was ever part of Christian religion; thank you for educating me! Buddhism of course does believe in it--it's a complex theory and I haven't decided where I stand on it yet, but I definitely reject the idea of heaven and hell! That's power, fear and control, to me.

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I'm not sure your explanation solves the quandry we have over Frem's philosophy, as he stated it. And I have to disagree about the Western mind. I'm born and bred California, yet I feel the way I do because I believe it's RIGHT, and has nothing to do with heaven and hell. I suspect that might be true for others, from what they've written.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Eventually, if you love addicts, you find yourself in the place where you let them go, withhold your aid from them, watch them destroy themselves because it's really the kindest thing you can do for everyone involved. Ultimately, on a psycho-spiritual level, the addict needs to take this thing as far as she wills, and either choose life or choose death on her own terms.

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There is no light without the shadow, and so too, do the trappings of the mothers represent this, from the Valkryies bloody spear, to Morrigaines crows and even Kalis famed necklace, the trappings of death and destruction are always with us to remind us that the clock is ever ticking, that the future we wish to buy must be purchased now, if at all, and punishment delayed, is punishment denied, and yet the true sin is for men to cast upon the gods responsibility for their own failure to act, to neglect the world that is their own, eyes fixated on the heavens while they trod their own children in the dust unseeing and uncaring, their own wicknedness unknown to them in their ignorance because they will not see, and when shown, will not acknowledge and what then for them but the swing of the reapers blade and the world better by just that much - a gift to them to lessen their sin and prevent its spread to the innocent and unwitting, unwanted and yet cast down onto them all the same, to where they would blindly repeat it in spited fury at a world where no hope for them exists.

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