Posted on 05/23/2006 8:42:02 AM PDT by Paddlefish
Mark Inglis, an amputee who conquered Mount Everest on artificial legs last week, yesterday defended his party's decision to carry on to the summit despite coming across a dying climber. As his team climbed through the "death zone," the area above 26,000 feet where the body begins to shut down, they passed David Sharp, 34, a stricken British climber who later died. His body remained on the mountain.
Mr. Inglis, 47, a New Zealander, said: "At 28,000 feet it's hard to stay alive yourself. He was in a very poor condition, near death. We talked about [what to do for him] for quite a lot at the time and it was a very hard decision. "About 40 people passed him that day, and no one else helped him apart from our expedition. Our Sherpas (guides) gave him oxygen. He wasn't a member of our expedition, he was a member of another, far less professional one." Mr. Sharp was among eight persons who have died on Everest this year, including another member of his group, a Brazilian. Dewa Sherpa, a manager at Asian Trekking, the Katmandu company that outfitted Mr. Sharp before his climb, said he had not taken enough oxygen and had no Sherpa guide.
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The company charges $6,000 to provide services as far as base camp -- far less than the $35,000 or more cost of guided trips to the summit. Other mountaineers have criticized the commercialism of climbing the 29,035-foot peak, with guides charging huge sums to climbers with minimal experience.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
One key to understanding real calvinism, as opposed to a pop culture understanding of calvinism, is that they do believe in free will. The believe that the human being will naturally choose according to his depraved nature.
Therefore, there is no possibility that a man will willingly choose God, but he will instead choose against God. By this, he reveals the utter sinfulness of his own heart.
All of it, to include the lawsuit, is part of the script.
That means it's all under control.
If Hurricane Katrina is part of the script, then castigating Mayor Nagin for not using the buses available to him does say something about the will he possesses to do what is right.
He always could have done it....he had the free will to do it.
Jesus had the free will NOT to go to the cross. "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done."
Who would have thought that an Everest thread would end on this subject?
(must have been God's will. lol)
What world, or reality, or dimension would this "free will" occupy (under this model)? I have been told with a straight face "no such thing as free will." Because that would then mean something which God would have to react to rather than initiate. Which would lessen God's sovereignty or so the theology goes. Is reacting to a creature's choice a possibility that is even available to God? Does God have the power to constrain His own sovereignty? The mind boggles.
Lofty topics have a way of doing that.
Free will is defined as doing what is desired. They do what they desire which is ALWAYS sinful.
God never reacts because God wrote the script. Your typing your paragraph was part of the script, but it is also exactly what you desired to do.
But then you have to back away one more level and say that God caused the desire or the choice or whatever you want to call it. It's no more free than the motion of a puppet to which I hold the strings.
I am familiar with the argument.
You wrote "The dead man has no special moral advantage or standing over his comrades," as if that is relevant.
Your analogy is straight out of a cheap dime novel, and also irrelevant.
The man's moral standing has no bearing on one's duty to act, and his participation in a game of chance and excitement do not negate the duty others have to him.
If you're going to take that approach, at least use the gold standard - Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven: "we all got it coming."
and scene
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Human beings also depend on the pressure of the atmosphere for breathing. Atmospheric pressure is a expressed in millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), or (in the older units used by the Space Shuttle Program) in pounds per square inch (PSI). This represents the amount of force (pounds) acting over a given area (square inch). At sea level, the atmosphere presses in with a force of 14.7 pounds on every square inch of surface. This is enough force to raise a column of mercury up to a height of 760 mm. This atmospheric pressure helps us to inhale and exhale and also makes it possible to keep certain gases dissolved within the bloodstream. If air pressure becomes too low, some gases can come out of solution, and body fluids could even begin to boil at normal body temperatures. The correct mixture of gases in the atmosphere and the pressure of the atmosphere must both be maintained in order for us to breathe.
On Earth, air is a mixture of nitrogen (79%), oxygen (20%), carbon dioxide (about 0.04%), and trace amounts of other gases at a pressure of 760 mm Hg. This gives a partial pressure of oxygen of about 152 mm Hg (20% of 760) (3.06 PSI). On Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions, the atmospheric pressure in U.S. space vehicles decreased from 14.7 PSI to 5 PSI during liftoff, then maintained 5 PSI of pure oxygen for the duration of the flight. Since the percentage of oxygen was 100%, the partial pressure of oxygen was 5 PSI -- more than what is needed for human survival. On the Space Shuttle, the crew compartment life support system normally maintains the atmosphere at 14.7 PSI, with 79% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. The life support system in the Space Shuttle spacesuits maintains 4.3 PSI of pure oxygen. If air pressure is reduced too rapidly, several physiologic problems can result, including "the bends."
Mr. Hillery does have access to the appropriate relevant facts. He should have given them and made sure the journalist listed them. From what I have seen and read, the outfitters up there operate no differently than Mr Hillery is claiming. At least one died recently while tending to one of his downed clients. Mr. Hillery used part of that story to denigrate the operation.
The operator (Hall, I think)was advised to return to camp, because the man was too far gone. They sent some help, but it arrived too late. In the mean time Hall was supposed to head back, which he never did. That was Hall's wife back at camp. Mr. Hillery indicated that for Hall to return is somehow bad. He indicated that Hall should have stayed there and died with the client.
In this case, Sharp chose to go it alone. He took the minimal services required by the Red Chinese. That means he had some locals carry his bags up. He didn't have an outfitting op to look after him. Mr. Sharp went up alone. After having looked into this some more, it appears Sharp never made it down and spent the night near the Summit. He froze and not having enough Ox to burn fuel, He froze real good.
It looks like he was discovered by other folks, from other outfitters the next day. They were clients, not pros. Each team that went by consisted of folks from all over the world. Inglis's team was the only one to stop to assess the man's condition. They concluded, that he was too far gone and they could not get him down to do anything about it. I believe them. I can't say they were correct, but I can say they made a fair, honest assessment, that they could do nothing to save the man.
These guys that go with outfitters do so for the same reason that Hillary did. They have a big staff to provide services. Had Mr. Sharp paid for their services, the outfitter would have provided. It's not the job of the other clients, or outfitters up there to provide for folks that show up alone.
Now if Mr Hillery was up there outfitting, He would have been in the same predicament the Inglis's group was. They would have found out around the same time the Inglis group did, but probably later. So Hillery goes up. All he can do is drag the body back to camp, or die in the attempt to bring him down.
As far as the clients go, they do not go there to risk their lives bringing back falks that are too far gone. They can do that if they want, but there's no moral obligation to do so.
That depends entirely on whether anything can exist without God. If it cannot, then free is what God says it is.
Just because you always choose chocolate shakes over vanilla shakes doesn't mean that you aren't free to choose vanilla.
Just because a natural man always chooses anti-God doesn't mean that he isn't free to choose pro-God.
ALIVE was an example of a proper moral decision, IMO.
Cannibalism is anathema to us, but when it is needed to survive, and it requires no killing or harm by the survivors, it has to be utilized.
He went up alone. He went up with the cheapest outfitter. It looks to me like he never came back down from near the summit, after summiting the day before the Inglis group found him. I think he was frozen. Does that sound about right to you?
Since you're here, you might as well read through my posts and correct my explanations of calvinist doctrine. (If they're wrong, then give me only few lashes....I was actually trying to fairly represent the theology in an adequate way. :>)
That's pretty good, x. You've been paying attention...just as God wills. 8~)
No one believes in Predestination at the start. Everyone wants to think they are autonomous and free of constraint. (Much like those 40 climbers believed themselves to be free to pass by the dying man along the roadside.)
But God reveals Himself to be exactly who He says He is -- one who knows the end from the beginning because He created the end from the beginning.
Man lives in two dimensions - the physical and the spiritual. The spiritual is more real, even though it seldom feels that way. Because we are of the physical world, we are most comfortable there. And in that comfort we act according to our natures, which since Adam's fall have been indelibly marked by sin and error. That's just the way it is.
Part of our human nature is to believe we are independent creatures who can act independently of God's will. In reality, we are always a beat behind God's will, enacting rather than reacting. God is not a petulant Simon Cowell, sometimes getting what he wants and other times peevish and thwarted. God is Creator of all things and gets exactly what He wants.
But that belief is ridiculed for two reasons -- 1) we've all been mesmerized into believing "free will" is a "gift from God," as some have goofily maintained around here. Some gift. Give me God's will anytime.
And 2) the powers of this world encourage us to believe in "free will" so that we can compliantly hand over our "free will" to them and continue to serve men and not God.
As we said once before, life is like riding a bicycle on board a train. We think we're in charge when it's really the conductor who's leading us.
Christians should be bolstered by the merciful fact that God is confidently leading them. No king but Christ. But this is surely a seditious stand which the powers of this world want to obliterate.
I like what Calvin said about the inevitability of reforming the church. It speaks to the heart of Predestination -- we believe in God's will and we believe we must act boldly in accordance with that will. The same people who call that an arrogant and contradictory statement are the same people who tell you God creates and then steps back.
"...the restoration of the church is the work of God, and no more depends on the hopes and opinions of men, than the resurrection of the dead, or any other miracle of that description. Here, therefore, we are not to wait for facility of action, either from the will of men, or the temper of the times, but must rush forward through the midst of despair. It is the will of our Master that his gospel be preached. Let us obey his command, and follow whithersoever he calls. What the success will be it is not ours to inquire. Our only duty is to wish for what is best, and beseech it of the Lord in prayer; to strive with all zeal, solicitude, and diligence, to bring about the desired result, and, at the same time, to submit with patience to whatever that result may be." -- John Calvin
Strive with all zeal and submit with all confidence.
Sadly, the 40 climbers showed what they were striving for.
Death is not so awful that we should rationalize the unthinkable. Even for my children's sake, I would prefer we face God in the next moment than commit such an act.
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