thank you for responding. I am guessing that we are at an impasse at this point because we seem to be arguing separate things. You say it is hard to have a normal attitude toward people coming from dark and evil places. You are correct. But we are not talking about PEOPLE (for lack of ability to underscore) coming from dark and evil places. We are talking about the underlying concepts that those people have integrated into their development. If society puts value on materialism, the people who grow up that way and make their decisions based on that belief are not evil, but the concept at it’s spiritual core is evil and emanates from that.
If the concept is foriegn to you, you will not choose it. Hashem is the one who brings these concepts into the world. Why are the choices what they are? You are thinking about the cognitive side to all of this, but I am talking about the the spark of reality that puts the choices on the table.
In the above examples it would look like this: A nurse denies a pint of blood to an old dying man because it would be wasteful. This nurse, many years ago, would have been regretful and pained to make such a decision. The believing Jew that I was referencing will make that decision because the medical ethics book says so but will be believing full well that if Hashem wants that man to live, he will live without it. That is SEPARATE from the ethical decision, that is the core belief driving the attitude. This nurses and doctors now are NOT pained by these choices because they believe them to be right. What has changed? Has money really altered the value of life as you say? Or has it just changed the need for the different decisions? You are confusing DOING what is CORRECT, and the ultimate right and wrong that allows people to make choices. Why don’t we just shoot them thru the head? Becuase that is not even an option in our day. When the day comes that it will be (figuratively) it will become “right”. It may be “right” in the medical world, but it is not “right” in Torah. And only Gd can allow that shift. It didn’t happen because of science. The situation of over crowding came from science, the way we have chosen to deal with it did not.
I am sorry I cannot explain myself better because I would honestly love to hear what you think of that which I was trying to say as opposed to that which you hear.
I cannot leave without one parting thing, tho, that I am actually shocked to have heard you say. You say noone is killing anyone? Absolutely false. Nobody argues that people ar being killed, the arguement is on whether or not it is justified.