Do you agree with this quote "Killing one man is like killing all of humanity"?

Totally disagree.

Is it like? I suppose it is like, in that there is some similarity.

Is it the same? No.

Why? Scale.

Argument for : Jesus Christ Superstar, Donny Osmond.
Argument against : Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden.

@CaptainHarley
@Jeruba
@ucme

The original quote is something along the lines of

”“if any one slew a person … it would be as if he slew the whole humanity: and if any one saved a person, it would be as if he saved the whole humanity”

It is an Arabic quote from the Quran (Holy book of the Muslims).

I completely agree with the quote. The quote explains the value of human life.

“As if.” Analogy or metaphor? Probably analogy.

Lovely words. What a pity the entire religion is now held hostage to those who are power mad and want the entire “whole humanity” either under Islam or dead.

I had heard: The killing of man is the destruction of one’s humanity.. (anotheronymous)

Yes, I disagree. If the one I killed was a major douche bag, then I think I did humanity a favour.

Nope, not even figuratively. It’s simply one person. although it doesn’t mean they’re insignificant.

Nope.
Apples and oranges luv.

There is a particular sense in which this is true. I’m no Quranic scholar, but this particular facet of spiritual understanding is echoed in other traditions as well. There’s this exchange from the Zen tradition, for instance, that aims at the same principle:

In T’ang era China there was a hunter named Shigong who was out hunting deer one day. He crossed paths with a Zen monk named Ma Tzu and asked him if he had seen any deer.
Ma Tzu asked, “Who are you?”
“A hunter,” he replied.
“Do you know how to shoot?” Ma Tzu asked.
“Of course I do,” answered the hunter.
“How many can you hit with one arrow?” asked Ma Tzu.
“One arrow can only shoot down one deer,” said Shigong.
“In that case, you really don’t know how to shoot,” Ma Tzu said.
The hunter then asked Ma Tzu, “Do you know how to shoot?”
Ma Tzu replied, “Of course I do.”
“How many can you kill with one arrow?” the hunter asked.
“I can kill all of them with a single arrow,” answered Ma Tzu.
At this, Shigong said, “The beasts have life as you do: why should you shoot down a whole flock?”
Ma Tzu said, “Since you know this so well, why don’t you shoot yourself?”

The point is that our sense of separateness, of individuality, is only one way of seeing reality. It’s a valid and necessary way, but not the whole truth. Many different religious traditions have tried to open people’s eyes to another way of seeing in which there is no such separation. From that perspective, each being is all of the others (which is really the same as saying that there are no “others”).

Both of these perspectives have a measure of truth, and neither by itself captures the entirety of the truth.

@chewhorse @thorninmud @CaptainHarley

I remembered this quote as “Death of one man is the death of all humanity”. (Death being ~ murder)

I did not know about the origin of this quote earlier. A preliminary search about the quote revealed that it was either from the Quran or mentioned in the Quran roughly translating to “if any one slew a person … it would be as if he slew the whole humanity: and if any one saved a person, it would be as if he saved the whole humanity”

@Ayesha @Blackberry @everephebe

I am no scholar and therefore can’t say I completely know the quote’s meaning, but I know the quote is trying to say something along the lines of the following:

The quote is regarding the value of human life. It is saying that the act of killing one person is so grave that it is like killing all of humanity. Similarly, saving a life is honor-some and big it is like saving all of humanity. It also says that the significance of a life of an individual is no less significant that the life of a group. It also means that if you kill a single person…you have lost your humanity (committed a despicable crime). I agree with the quote with the idea that yes each individual life is worth THAT much. The quote is emphasizing the idea that each individual member of the group is just as important as the whole group.

What can I say that @thorninmud didn’t already say better?

@thorninmud So in a statement is it saying “Killing another being is killing yourself”?

Edit- I don’t think I understand but would like to know what you were saying.

@thorninmud
@marinelife

Yea, so what does lack of separation & there being no others mean? and does how it contrast the quote I quoted.

Please explain.
I can be a slow one.

@raven860 Yeah, it makes sense, but it doesn’t seem realistic because people are killed and saved everyday and life goes on. It would seem more applicable in a small society, not a planet with billions of people.

@raven860 It is about the interconnectedness of all people and things and the world around us.

Sometimes people have to die for humanity to be better. So that’s me disagreeing.

And remember John Donne’s tolling bell.

@raven860 “So in a statement is it saying “Killing another being is killing yourself”?

Yes, but to understand this requires a radically unconventional understanding of what “yourself” is. The conventional view of self is that of a distinct being which exists independently of other beings. But this other view is pointing to an understanding of self that doesn’t see boundaries between one “self” and another. In this view all beings are so interwoven and interdependent that what affects one affects all. It’s all one great self.

Clearly, from the perspective of this “great self”, destroying one being doesn’t destroy this great self, just as the death of one cell in the body doesn’t destroy the body. Beings naturally die all the time anyway, yet the great self lives on. Dying is a part of the life of the great self, not the opposite of its life.

But “killing” takes on a broader meaning in this context. In a way, you kill the great self whenever you think or act in a way that ignores the unity of beings. The ultimate way of ignoring this unity is to intentionally destroy another being out of anger or greed. To do this requires a fundamental blindness to the underlying unity of you and that being. Every such act reaffirms the sense of a separate self and consequently numbs the sensibilities to the unity of beings. That unity—that great self—becomes less and less a living reality for someone who is stuck in the perspective of separation.

@raven860, from the point of view of the killer, perhaps: you can’t be more of a murderer after killing 100 than you are after killing one. Murder is murder, and the blood of one on your hands is in some sense the blood of all.

Which does not mean that once you have killed, you may as well go on killing because it no longer matters.

From the point of view of the potential victims, I’d say it makes a difference.