Title: BBC - Ethics - Euthanasia: Religion and euthanasia
Headings: Religion and euthanasia
Religion and euthanasia
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Religion and euthanasia
Religions and death
Religious views on euthanasia:
Religions and euthanasia
God has forbidden it
Human life is sacred
Human life is special
Eastern religions
Freedom from mortal life
Non-harm - the principle of ahimsa
The sanctity of life

Content: Euthanasia clearly conflicts with the second of these, and it interferes with the first. Freedom from mortal life
Hinduism and Buddhism see mortal life as part of a continuing cycle in which we are born, live, die, and are reborn over and over again
the ultimate aim of each being is to get free of this cycle, and so be completely liberated from the material world
during each cycle of life and death human beings make progress towards their ultimate liberation
how they live and how they die play a vital part in deciding what their next life will be, and so in shaping their journey to liberation
shortening life interferes with the working out of the laws that govern this process (the laws of karma), and so interferes with a human being's journey to liberation
Warning: this 'explanation' is very over-simplified; there's much more to these religious ideas than is written here. Non-harm - the principle of ahimsa
Hinduism and Buddhism regard all life (not just human life) as involved in the process above
therefore they say that we should try to avoid harming living things
this rules out killing people, even if they want to die
The sanctity of life
Religious people often refer to the sanctity of life, or say that human life is sacred. They usually mean something like this: God gives people life, so only God has the right to take it away. You can look at that sentence in several ways. Here are three: God gave us our lives
we owe our lives to God
God is the final authority over our lives
we must not interfere in the ending of our lives
God is intimately involved in our lives
God was intimately involved in our births
God will be intimately involved in our deaths
it would be wrong to try and shut God out of our dying
we should not interfere in the way God has chosen for our lives to end
God gave us our lives
we are only stewards of our bodies, and are responsible to God for them
we must use our bodies as God intended us to
we must allow our lives (our stewardship) to end at the time and in the way God wants
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