#it

One of the main arguments that I make is that although almost everyone accepts that it is morally wrong to inflict “unnecessary” suffering and death on animals, 99% of the suffering and death that we inflict on animals can be justified only by our pleasure, amusement, or convenience. For example, the best justification that we have for killing the billions of nonhumans that we eat every year is that we enjoy the taste of animal flesh and animal products. This is not an acceptable justification if we take seriously, as we purport to, that it is wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering or death on animals, and it illustrates the confused thinking that I characterize as our “moral schizophrenia” when it comes to nonhumans. A follow-up question that I often get is: “What about vivisection? Surely that use of animals is not merely for our pleasure, is it?” Vivisection, Part One: The “Necessity” of Vivisection | Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach http://bit.ly/ol179F ↗

— Gary L. Francione

#ethical #health #justification #moral #personhood

But you have to understand, mental illness is like cholesterol. There is is good kind and the bad. Without the good kind- less flavor to life. Van Gogh, Beethoven, Edgar Allen Poe, Sylvia Plath, Pink Floyd (the early Piper at the Gates of Dawn line up), scientific breakthroughs, spiritual revolution, utopian visions, zany nationalism that kills millions- wait, that’s the bad kind. Tim Dorsey (Hurricane Punch) ↗

— Tim Dorsey

#humor #serge #serial-killer #witty #humor

In my return to church, I had learned the hard way to avoid assumptions about other people's faith. For one thing, people kept surprising me. If I listened carefully to them, my conjectures about what they thought usually turned out to be wrong. For another thing, I was insecure enough about my own faith, such as it was, to resent other people telling me what they thought I believed and why they thought I believed it. So I tried to hear what my friends say about joining their loved ones after death without assuming I knew exactly what they meant. ↗

— Margaret D. McGee

#faith #heaven #death

A selection of quotes from The Night of Harrison Monk’s Death (Jane Hetherington's Adventures in Detection: 1) "Is this one of the more unusual cases of safe-breaking you've been asked to investigate, Mrs Hetherington?" "Remember your private detective wants to be able to sleep soundly at night and in their own bed, not one supplied as her Majesty's pleasure." "It seems to be an open and shut case doesn't it? But it's not you know? How do you know if anything is what it seems?" "But where is Cheung kin?" "When I first set eyes on your father, he was spying on a man from between two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica." "I don't think I need say more." "On the contrary, if you want me to have any idea what you're talking about, I think you do." "Why don't you report it to the police?" "Because I stole it in the first place didn't I?" "It's something of a mystery, I admit." "Vanished into thin air!" "You sound so sensible Mrs Hetherington. Please help us get to the bottom of this." Ah, thought Jane – the old story. "No body was found?" "Shall I put the kettle on?" "Only if you fill it with whiskey." "The course of true love didn't run smoothly for me either, you know." "Life has its tragedies for sure." "… What do I want? I want money that's what I want. I want money." She was even more horrified by the words she heard next. Callum MacCallum knew what it was like to be an outsider. ↗

— Nina Jon

#crime #female-private-detective #mystery #suspense #whodunnit

I had lied to myself from the very beginning, deceived myself into believing that I was being fanciful and overly imaginative. Surely such monstrosities only existed in nightmares? Yet I had lived through a nightmare these past months, and that was no dream at all.        I was still fighting against the awful truth, not wanting to give in, searching my mind for a logical explanation—but there was none. And the most horrible realization of all was that I had known, somewhere deep inside, ever since the day I first set eyes on Vladec Salei.        Plague carrier.        Living death.        Drainer of life.        The phrasing did not matter. No euphemism could strike fear into the hearts of men the way that single word could.        Vampire.         And for me, the uninitiated, that single word meant death. ↗

— Melika Dannese Lux

#blood-drinkers #corcitura #drainer-of-life #eric-bradburry #fear

...it does not matter if we are forgotten; what matters is the effect we have on those around us and those who come after us. What matters is how our own lives affect the larger, perpetual community of the living. ↗

— Lynn Schooler

#community #death #death

Nikt nie kaze ci isc dalej - powiedzial Wirus. - Mozna siedziec i czekac na smierc. Mozna przez cale zycie siedziec i czekac na smierc. To tez jest godne, jest honorowe, moze byc przyjemne, jesli ktos potrafi czerpac z tego przyjemnosc. Nikt nigdy nie powiedzial, ze tylko jak sie idzie naprzod, to dopelnia sie los czlowieka. Mozna korzystac z chwili, mozna sobie popijac winko czy wodke. Mozna tak siedziec. Mozna tak siedziec az do smierci... i nikt nie ma prawa zarzucic komukolwiek, ze robi zle, ze to nie tak, ze powinno sie robic inaczej.To nie jest niczyja sprawa. Mozna siedziec na trotuarze i czekac... Wszystko w porzadku. Wszystko w najlepszym porzadku. Robisz dobrze, robisz jak chcesz, robisz, co chcesz. Bo nie ma idealnej recepty na zycie. Kazda recepta dobra. Kazdy moze robic, co chce i nie bedzie zadnych pretensji. Kazdy jednak... kazdy moze tez wstac i ruszyc dalej. Mozna siedziec i czekac, co przyniesie los, mozna tez pojsc za najblizszy rog i zobaczyc, czy tam jest cos ciekawego. Kazdy moze ruszyc dalej i w tym wypadku rowniez nikt nie moze miec zadnych pretensji... ↗

— Andrzej Ziemiański

#ciekawość #death #inspirational #life #los

As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next. ↗

— Ibn Warraq

#criticism-of-the-koran #death #destructive-cult #houris #islam

They seemed so united that I loved them as one person." Lee wrote of his son and daughter-in-law on his daughter-in-law's death. ↗

— Robert E. Lee

#marriage #unity #death

But its exclusive character and irreconcileable hostility to the religious cults and ceremonies with which the whole social life of the city-state and the empire were inseparably connected at every turn, brought the Christians into inevitable conflict with the government and with public opinion. To the man in the street, the Christian was an anti-social atheist who would take no part in the public feasts and the games, which played such a large part in city life. To the authorities he was a passive rebel, who would neither take his share of municipal offices nor pay loyal homage to the Emperor. Hence the rise of persecution, and the driving of the Christians into an underground existence, as a proscribed sect. The Church grew under the shadow of the executioner's rods and axes, and every Christian lived in the peril of physical torture and death. The thought of martyrdom coloured the whole outlook of early Christianity. But it was not only a fear, it was also an ideal and a hope. For the martyr was the complete Christian, he was the champion and hero of the new society and its conflict with the old, and even the Christians who failed in the moment of the trial - the lapsi - looked on the martyrs as their saviours and protectors ↗

— Christopher Henry Dawson

#martyrdom #roman-empire #death