FHSTheFlash The Flash Volume 46, Issue 2 December 2005 | Page 5

5

December 2005

Who gets to choose who lives and who dies

By Andrew Kauffman ‘08
Flash Reporter
Recently, to me was posed
a question. It was silly question, but one promising a
good answer. Who should
play god? That was the question. Before we may analyze,
if we should, however, we
must first analyze what god
is. Let’s define god as an almighty being. In that case, no
one should play god. However, a supreme being in all
likelihood probably does not
exist and probably never
will, hence, making a distinction is necessary. We cannot play god because we do
not know what a god’s powers specifically are if one
even exists; however, we can
consider the hypothetical
properties that a god may

have, such as the power to
create–to give life and, more
importantly, to destroy: to
kill, as I assume that that is
what this question pertains
to, life being so precious and
all. I make this distinction to
remove the moral (moral, as
in fear of god’s hypothetical
wrath) implications that the
concept of god gives rise to.
Anyway, enough clarifications. Playing god is, due to
the aforementioned facts, not
that serious of an issue. If we
take away the fanciful label
that is “playing god,” then
we are left with what is really being addressed: who
gets to decide who lives and
who dies? The answer is
simple. The people with
power get to “play god,” and
in a democracy the constituents tell the people with
power who lives and who
dies. So that is who “plays
god,” but should they be
playing god? Well, someone
has to! Since we don’t know
for sure if there is a god or
not, we need the people with
power to play as god to fill
in the void. Someone has to
decide who must die, by
what means, and when, and
for what reason. I realize that
sounds very harsh, cold, and

heartless, but it is a fact of
life that people die (and die
they must) everyday, and not
just from ripe old age, warm
in a bed with family by their
side, no sir. They die in very
unfortunate ways, but so is
life, and so is the universe.
Basically, the tried and true
saying says it all completely:
“You can’t make an omelet
unless you break a few
eggs.” You may think to
yourself, “well that’s just a
silly saying and he’s a silly
fool for saying it.” But the
fact remains that you can’t
make an omelet without
breaking a few eggs. The
next logical question (questions, questions!) is, however, what kind of omelet are
we making? Or, in more
simple terms, why must
people die?
Well, the answer to that is
fairly simple. People must
die so other people can live.
We can’t save everyone, can
we? Right now there are millions dying of famine or disease or war or all three all
over the world, and they will
die. It is natural to die. But
we human beings persist,
and try to make everyone
keep living. We wonder who
gets to decide who dies, but

really, who gets to decide
who lives? Too many people
are alive, in my humble opinion. Why is it that we are the
most abundant large animal
species on earth? Natural selection has ceased for us, as
has evolution because everyone in our society is allowed
to breed and everyone survives and eventually we, collectively, as planet, will
drown in ourselves. Please
understand that I am not implying that we allow everyone to die and provide no
protection for one another
(after all, who will watch all
those reality TV shows if
everyone starts dying of the
flu left and right?). I am
merely saying that we should
become realistic in our
plight.
But, excuse me