Would the Saints Kill Sick People During a Zombie Apocalypse?

 

Recently on The Walking Dead, Carol killed a couple of people because they were sick, and might spread their illness and/or turn into zombies when nobody was looking. And lots of Walking Dead fans said Carol did the right thing.

That made me thoughtful. As a Christian I'm called to be a saint. What would the saints do during a zombie apocalypse? I just can't picture Saint Paul or Saint Maximilian Kolbe or Saint Therese the Little Flower killing sick people because they might become zombies.

A saint would quarantine the sick people in zombie-proof cells and then most likely volunteer to be the one stationed in the quarantine area to care for the sick.

Honestly, I don't think I'd volunteer for the get-sick-and-die zombie apocalypse duty. I mean, I admire Saint Maximilian Kolbe, how when he was in the Nazi death camp and a man was about to be killed Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to die in his place. But I know I wouldn't have the courage to do that myself.

Moral issues like this need to be thought through logically. If we establish the principle that one may preventatively kill a sick person to stop them from spreading a disease or becoming a zombie, that sets a precedent. Many people in the zombie apocalypse may suffer sicknesses and even if medical doctors are around--- NOT a given--- there are no operating labs to confirm a diagnosis, so one cannot tell which sicknesses may be fatal ones.

And any person, regardless of age or apparent state of health, might die suddenly and become a zombie. So--- if some member of a survivors group kills another, it's fairly easy to make a claim of necessity--- the dead person seemed unwell. He might have endangered us all. How can anyone prove it one way or another? And chaos would reign and groups fall apart.

No, the whole Thou-shalt-not-kill thing is still a good rule. In a zombie apocalypse, you can't go it alone. You will need people with skills you don't possess. You will need people to watch your back. You will need to be able to trust them, and how can you if you knew they would casually kill you if it might conceivably make themselves a bit safer.  

How would YOU handle the issue of people sick with a contagious disease during a zombie apocalypse? Would you kill them? Abandon them? What if you had no handy place in which to quarantine them and no one to care for them that was not needed to care for vulnerable people?

 

This post is my post for the Indie Life blog hop. And the message the above post has for the indie writer is I guess on the importance of thinking things in your story through in a logical fashion.

If you are writing a zombie apocalypse tale, for example, you may have a vague notion as you put your characters through their paces that in a zombie apocalypse everything is different and the old rules don't apply.

Question that. What are the old rules? Why, in each instance, might they not apply? And what will be the extended consequence of their not applying? It actually doesn't matter what your precise answers are to these story questions--- so long as you have thought these things through and it makes sense, not just to you but to the average intelligent reader.

Because a well-thought-out story is a story that people will remember.

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http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Are Nuns Allowed to Drop Pianos on Zombies?

One of the many serious questions raised by the movie 'Zombieland'. Are nuns--- and women religious in general--- allowed to drop pianos on zombies?

 Now, the Sister Cynthia Knickerbocker depicted in the clip is clearly not a nun--- a cloistered woman religious--- because she's out of uniform. A cloistered nun has to remain within the enclosure unless she has her superior's permission to leave. Though not intended for zombie protection, I'd imagine those enclosures are pretty zombie-proof. So for the cloistered nun the issue would be this: would she have any zombies to kill within the convent?

 The kind of religious sisters that teach in schools or nurse in hospitals, and who these days often don't wear habits, are perfectly free to leave the convent grounds. But are they allowed to kill zombies once they get there? Catholics, in and out of convents, are required to respect human life from conception until natural death. Zombies have already been through their natural death, that's true. But Lazarus in the Bible died, was in the tomb awhile, and Jesus raised him. I don't think it would have been OK for some one to kill Lazarus based on the fact that he was already dead once.

The question is whether the apparent life of the zombie is human life. If it is not--- if the soul of the person has fully departed and the corpse is just walking around, animated by a virus, an alien entity, an evil spirit, or whatever, killing--- or re-killing--- is justified. Zombies are just a pest, like plague rats, that we can kill for the safety of others.

 The problem is, how do you prove the soul has left? How do you know that the zombified person isn't just suffering from brain damage which left him violent? And how does that research get done in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? Without that proof, Catholics, whether or not they are consecrated religious, can't just kill zombies because they are zombies. Each zombie kill has to be, individually, a self-defense situation. Of course, with zombies, most situations quickly degenerate into legit self-defense situations. But piano-dropping? That's premeditated, that's trapping a Z before you are sure he's out to kill you. Sister Cynthia Knickerbocker's probably gonna have to say three Hail Marys or something.