#12139 Is It Suicide or Sacrifice? When Giving Your Life for Others Means Certain Death - Jimmy Akin

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Catholic Answers Live

Episode #12139: Is It Suicide or Sacrifice? When Giving Your Life for Others Means Certain Death - Jimmy Akin
Aired: April 4, 2025
Host: Cy Kellett
Guest: Jimmy Akin (Senior Apologist, Catholic Answers)

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Overview

This lively episode of Catholic Answers Live features a “Weird Questions with Jimmy Akin” format. The show explores unique, offbeat, and sometimes deeply philosophical questions on Catholic teaching, morality, the afterlife, and the intersection of faith and odd scenarios. This episode’s centerpiece is the moral distinction between suicide and self-sacrifice—especially in situations where giving one’s life for others seems almost certain to result in death. Along with this complex issue, Jimmy Akin fields delightfully odd questions, ranging from killer whales’ dietary preferences to the theology of vampire priests and Santa Claus’s eternal destiny.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Can Killing Everyone Force Jesus’ Second Coming?

[02:08]

• Question: If someone killed everyone to force Jesus to return, would Jesus come, and would the person be good if the motive was to save everyone?
  • Jimmy’s Analysis: According to Christian thought, Jesus' return is depicted when humanity is still alive, so if only one person remained, Jesus would still come during that person's life.
  • Killing innocents is an intrinsically evil act, regardless of motive. "You can't kill an innocent person. That's intrinsically evil." ([03:40] - Jimmy Akin)
  • Even with good intentions, the act is objectively evil; any subjective innocence would depend on knowledge and intent.
  • Notably, by being the last human left (after killing all others), one risks becoming the "final villain," paralleling the Antichrist theme.
  • Quote: "If you've killed everyone else on earth, so it's just you left... Who does that make you?" ([04:57] - Jimmy Akin)

2. Are Heaven and Hell Customized to Individuals?

[05:17]

• Jimmy’s Explanation: Scripture teaches that judgment and reward (or punishment) are individually apportioned according to one’s deeds.
  • Different people receive different rewards in heaven or punishments in hell, such as in the parable of the talents.
  • Quote: "He will render to everyone according to their works." ([05:19] - Jimmy Akin)

3. Is Sacrificing Your Life for God the Same as Suicide?

[07:00]

• Subtopics: Martyrdom, deliberate self-sacrifice, and moral responsibility:
  • Suicide—directly killing oneself—is never morally permissible.
  • If someone sacrifices their own life by an act foreseeing death (e.g., a soldier jumping on a grenade) but not intending death per se, it is not suicide.
  • Martyrdom, where someone is killed for their faith, is a praiseworthy form of sacrifice—not suicide.
  • Moral culpability for suicide may be mitigated by lack of full knowledge or deliberate intent, but the act remains objectively wrong.
  • Quote: "You cannot ever directly kill yourself. That is what suicide is. It is never permissible, either as an end or a means..." ([07:06] - Jimmy Akin)
  • Practical analogy: “Throwing yourself on a grenade to save others… even though you will die, you are not willing your own death; if you survived, that would be great... That also would not be suicide and would be morally praiseworthy.” ([10:25] - Jimmy Akin)

4. Killer Whales and a Taste for Human Flesh

[15:26]

• Jimmy’s Explanation:
  • Killer whales (orcas) are apex predators but have no documented cases of attacking or eating humans.
  • It is hypothetically possible, but killer whales seem intelligent enough to generally avoid humans.
  • Humorous note: “Maybe we’re just not delicious to them.” ([17:33] - Cy Kellett)
  • Quote: “They understand the FAFO principle. In other words, don't mess with humans.” ([16:15] - Jimmy Akin)

5. Will Our Personalities Be Changed in Heaven?

[18:28]

• Jimmy’s Theological Speculation:
  • Emotional coping mechanisms shaped by earthly circumstances (like a "tough persona" in stressful jobs) may fade.
  • Scriptural indications are that we will retain unique personalities, talents, and interests, but perfected in love.
  • Quote: “We’ll be upgraded, but not fundamentally changed… I do expect we will be perfected in love.” ([20:26], [21:41] - Jimmy Akin)

6. Indestructibility of the Resurrected Body

[22:08]

• Scriptural and Theological View:
  • Natural bodies are corruptible; resurrected bodies will be supported by divine grace, no longer subject to decay or entropy.
  • They could be invulnerable (like Superman), or protected by angels (cf. Psalm 91), e.g., “if you fall off a cliff, angels will catch you.”
  • Quote: "Our bodies are going to be supported by grace, and so we won't die over time." ([24:01] - Jimmy Akin)

7. Sci-Fi Scenarios: Kamikaze Pilots and Moral Theology

[29:51]

• Return of the Jedi/Star Trek Analogies:
  • Deliberate actions resulting in one’s death (e.g., ramming a ship to save others) are not suicide if death is a foreseen but unintended side effect.
  • Morally justified if the goal is proportional (saving many/inflicting strategic damage in war).
  • Quote: “Your death is not the goal… it’s just a side effect.” ([30:05] - Jimmy Akin)
  • Pop culture aside: Even riding a nuclear bomb down ("Slim Pickens style") can fit this principle if the intent is not direct self-destruction.

8. Paranormal Perception in Mental Illness

[33:29]

• Analysis of Psych Ward Anomalies:
  • Claims of seeing angels/demons could stem from mental illness, psychic ability (if such exists), or genuine spiritual encounters.
  • Validity is bolstered if patients know verifiable information they could not have naturally.
  • Both mental illness and paranormal perceptions could influence each other.
  • Quote: “If they have accurate… information that they have not learned through any normal means… that is evidence that something paranormal is happening.” ([33:55] - Jimmy Akin)

9. Vampire Priests—Fit for Ministry?

[38:22]

• Moral and Liturgical Considerations:
  • Being a vampire in itself wouldn’t require a priest to retire unless it impedes his duties or causes scandal.
  • If the condition prevents the priest from consuming the Eucharist (necessitated in both species for priests), that would require retirement.
  • If he manages his condition and it’s not public, he could theoretically continue ministry.
  • Quote: “If he is kind of the vampiric equivalent of an obligate carnivore who must eat and only eat blood, then he would have to retire.” ([40:35] - Jimmy Akin)

10. Would Santa Claus Go to Heaven?

[41:36]

• Based on Popular Accounts:
  • Santa expresses Christian faith and does good works (gift-giving in Jesus’ honor).
  • Thus, he would fulfill the requirements for heaven.
  • Quote: “If he were to die in that state… then he would go to heaven.” ([42:06] - Jimmy Akin)

11. Science, Genetics, and Weirdness: Woolly Mammoths and Dwarfism

[43:59] & [45:00]

• Jimmy updates on genetic experiments, such as gene-splicing to create "woolly mice."
• Explains island dwarfism in mammoths and humans; even gives historical timeframes.

12. The Rick Astley Paradox

[48:53]

• The “paradox” of Rick Astley not being able to give you the movie "Up" without letting you down is solved by recognizing a play on words ("give up" as in relationship vs. gifting the movie).
• Quote: "He could give you a copy of the movie Up. He just wouldn’t break off a romantic relationship with you." ([49:42] - Jimmy Akin)

13. Cannibalism: Is It Always Immoral?

[51:10]

• Cannibalism is not intrinsically evil and can be justified (e.g., survival situations).
• However, making "human tacos" for fun is disrespectful to human remains and morally disordered.
• Quote: “It’s not that cannibalism is intrinsically evil. It can be justified in extreme circumstances... but making human tacos to have a party with your friends, that’s not going to cut it for me.” ([52:36] - Jimmy Akin)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Antichrist Paradox:
  “If you've killed everyone else on earth, so it's just you left... Who does that make you?” ([04:58] - Jimmy Akin)

• On Heaven’s Rewards:
  “He will render to everyone according to their works.” ([05:19] - Jimmy Akin)

• On Non-Suicidal Self-Sacrifice:
  “What you’re doing is moving your body into a position where you foresee that you will die, but you're not willing your own death.” ([10:25] - Jimmy Akin)

• On Killer Whales and the FAFO Principle:
  “They understand the FAFO principle. In other words, don't mess with humans.” ([16:15] - Jimmy Akin)

• On Personality in Heaven:
  “We'll be upgraded, but not fundamentally changed in terms of our native abilities...they will all be perfected in love.” ([21:41] - Jimmy Akin)

• On Invulnerable Resurrection:
  "Our bodies are going to be supported by grace, and so we won't die over time." ([24:01] - Jimmy Akin)

• On Kamikaze Pilots and Morality:
  “Your death is not the goal and it's not a means to something else. It's just a side effect.” ([30:05] - Jimmy Akin)

• On Cannibal Taco Parties:
  “That’s not going to cut it for me.” ([52:36] - Jimmy Akin)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Question | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:08 | Killing everyone to force Jesus’ Second Coming: would it work, is it moral? | | 05:17 | Are heaven and hell customized to you and your life? | | 07:00 | If you sacrifice your life for God, is it suicide? | | 15:26 | Could a killer whale get a taste for human flesh? | | 18:28 | Will personalities, temperaments, & dispositions change in heaven? | | 22:08 | How could resurrected bodies survive falls or destruction in eternal life? | | 29:51 | Kamikaze/self-sacrifice in sci-fi scenarios: moral implications | | 33:29 | Psych ward patients, spiritual sensitivity, and mental illness | | 38:22 | Would a vampire priest need to retire? | | 41:36 | Would Santa Claus go to heaven? | | 43:59 | Woolly mammoths, genetics, and island dwarfism—science sidebar | | 48:53 | The Rick Astley paradox (“give you up” and “let you down”) | | 51:10 | Is cannibalism always immoral? (Amputated leg taco party) |

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Tone and Delivery

The episode is both theologically rigorous and lightly humorous, with Jimmy Akin providing thorough, sometimes speculative, answers while keeping a friendly and engaging rapport with Cy Kellett and the audience. Playful banter and pop-culture references abound, stemming from the show’s “weird questions” premise.

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For Further Listening

The episode continues into a second hour of weird questions, and fans are encouraged to submit their own odd, challenging, or curiosity-driven queries for future discussions. Jimmy Akin’s related podcast “Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World” is also recommended for fans of mysteries at the intersection of faith, reason, and the inexplicable.

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Transcript

[A]

Buying or selling your home. Real Estate for Life can connect you with a pro life real estate agent. When Real Estate for Life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic Answers. Learn more at realestateforlife.org hello and welcome to CATHOLIC Answers Live. Darren surprised me. I forgot that we have special music when we do Weird Questions with Jimmy Akin. And there's the special music. And it is Weird Questions with Jimmy Akin this hour and next on CATHOLIC Answers Live. So I won't be giving out the number because we gather up the weird questions. Actually, Jimmy gathers up the weird questions. Some of them come to us here at the radio address and I just send them on to Jimmy and he puts together the weird questions and you can get them to Jimmy. You know, he's got a lot of ways to get in touch with him, including our email address here. Radioatholic Jimmy Akin, of course, senior apologist here at Catholic Answers and very well known now as the podcaster behind Jimmy Akin's mysterious world. He loves to tackle mysteries and oddities and interesting things. And that's, I think, how we ended up having these special episodes. Weird Questions with Jimmy Akin. Welcome, Jimmy Akin.

[B]

Hello, Syke Ellet. How you doing?

[A]

I am doing really well. I'm looking forward because it's weird questions. I got to look forward a little bit. So I'm looking forward to these questions. We're going to have some fun today.

[B]

Yeah, indeed.

[A]

When you go out and do personal, you're out giving a talk somewhere or something. Do people approach you with weird questions? Has that now become a thing?

[B]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Always happy to answer.

[A]

And I imagine you get suggestions, too. You should do an episode on.

[B]

Oh, yeah. In fact, I had to weed out a bunch of questions that people had submitted for this show that were just, are you going to do an episode on this weird topic? And it's like, well, yes, but that's not. Looking for a little more substance in a weird question.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So again, I won't be giving out the number. And if I do, don't call because it just means I made a mistake. And a whole bunch here. And we start out with Mrs. Schall, seventh graders at St. Anthony School in Tigard, Oregon. And they have three questions for you, the seventh graders and Mrs. Schall, thank you for assembling. Very fine weird questions for Jimmy. All right, here's the first one. If someone were to kill everyone on earth to force Jesus second coming, would Jesus come if the person did it to save everyone so they could all go to heaven, would this make them a good or bad person?

[B]

Okay, so if someone were to kill everyone on earth to force Jesus second coming, would he come? The. The Bible depicts Jesus as coming when humanity is still alive. So if every someone had killed everybody else so there was only one person still alive? Yes, Jesus would come within that person's lifetime. At least that's the way it would seem to me. When it comes to the. This second part of the first question. If the person did it to save everyone so that they could all go to heaven, would this make them a good or bad person? Well, I'm not sure that it would have the effect of causing everyone to go to heaven, but let's suppose there was some way to engineer that, and then this person killed everyone so that could happen. It would not make them a good person because the other people that they killed, broadly speaking, would be innocents. They would be, you know, not aggressive towards others. And you can't kill an innocent person. That's intrinsically evil. So the act of killing everybody else on earth would be intrinsically evil. And that would make the person objectively a bad person. However, if they did it for a subjectively good reason, they might not be held accountable by God for it if they thought they were doing a good thing, even though it really wasn't a good thing, because they didn't have bad intentions. However, there's another complicating factor here, which is one of the things that is very well supported. It's even alluded to in the New Testament. But one of the things that's very well supported in Christian thought regarding the second coming of Jesus is that one of the things he's going to do when he comes back is kill the final villain of world history, who's often called the Antichrist. And so if you've killed everyone else on earth, so it's just you left.

[A]

Uh oh.

[B]

Who does that make you?

[A]

Uh oh, I hadn't thought of that. Mrs. Schall, seventh graders, I hope that tackles that question for you. Thank you for the question. Here's the second one from the seventh graders. Are heaven and hell customized for you and how you lived?

[B]

Yes, they are. And this is something that's taught in the New Testament. We're told in general terms several times that when Christ returns, he will render to everyone according to their works. So the more good you did, the more reward you're going to get. The more bad you did, the. The more punishment you're going to receive. So it's established there in general Terms, the focus in the New Testament is mostly on the good side of things. And so we have several parables of Jesus, for example, that emphasize the different levels of reward that people receive. Like the parable of the talents, where the king is going to a foreign country and he entrusts one servant with a certain amount of talents according to his capacity, a talent being a measure of money back in the day. So he gives one guy 10 talents, he gives another guy 5 talents, he gives another guy 1 talent according to their ability. And then as they are, as they prosper, they get different levels of reward. So we have more teaching devoted to the positive side of things, but based on the principle that you're going to be rendered unto according to what you did. The more we can infer, the more bad you did, the worse it's going to be for you. All right.

[A]

Ms. Schall's seventh graders, two down, one to go. Thank you for the three questions. They also wanted to know, if you sacrifice your life for God, do you go to hell for committing suicide?

[B]

Well, it depends on how you sacrifice your life. You cannot ever directly kill yourself. That is what suicide is. It is never permissible, either as an end or a means, so that if you were fully responsible when you sacrificed yourself by committing suicide, you would go to hell by. But if you're doing it because you think you need to in order to serve God, then that's at least a good motive. And so even though, once again, the action is objectively bad, you might not be held fully accountable for it. So you might end up going to heaven anyway, but it still was a bad action. But if you did it thinking it was a good action, God would take that into account. On the other hand, most people don't commit suicide in order to sacrifice their life for God. Normally they do something else. It's pop. For example, they might be martyred where you confess your Christian faith and someone else kills you. And that's commonly taken as a way of sacrificing your life for God. You were willing to give it up, but you didn't kill yourself. Someone else killed you. And in that case, that's a positively praiseworthy thing. Now, martyrdom is an unfortunate reality, but it is something that Christians have confronted since the beginning of Christian history. And the New Testament indicates that it's a praiseworthy thing to do. If you stick with your faith and someone kills you despite your Christian faith, then God will reward you. So that's a praiseworthy act. You'll end up going to heaven. There's also. And in that case, it's not suicide because you're not killing yourself. There's also another variation that can happen where you. You may. It's kind of like martyrdom, but it's not quite the same. You can take action that you foresee will lead to your death in order to serve God, but you're not directly killing yourself. Again, an example of this might be, let's say you're a soldier in a foxhole in wartime and someone throws a grenade in the foxhole. And when the grenade goes off, if you don't do anything, it's going to kill everybody in the foxhole, including in you and all of your comrades. And so what you may do is say to yourself, well, God doesn't want me to let all these people die, so I'm going to throw myself on top of the grenade and that way my body will absorb the force when the grenade goes off. And even though I will still die, all of my comrades will be saved. Now, in this case, you're not killing yourself. It's not like you take a knife and slit your throat. You're not directly killing yourself. What you're doing is moving your body into a position where you foresee that you will die, but you're not willing your own death. You're not willing it as an end, meaning it's not a goal. You're not. Your goal is not to die here. If by some chance you absorb the force of the grenade and still live, that's great. So you're not trying to kill yourself. That's not your goal. It's also not a means to get to another goal. It's a effect. So you could sacrifice your life to serve God in this way, even though it's not directly martyrdom, you know, no one's killing you because you're a Christian. They're killing you and trying to kill your comrades because you're on an opposite side in a war. But it would be a situation where you are sacrificing your life for God. But in the sense that you are doing something to save others that you foresee will kill your will likely end up in your death even though you're not trying to kill yourself. That also would not be suicide and it would be morally praiseworthy in this circumstance.

[A]

Mrs. Schall and your seventh graders at St. Anthony School, thank you so much for the questions. That does it for our first segment. So we gotta take a very quick break and we'll be back with more weird questions for Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers Live Hang on. Catholic Answers Live will return in a moment.

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[A]

Welcome back to Catholic Answers. One of the things I like about when we do weird questions with Jimmy Akin is the great variety of questions we get. And that's what you get at Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World too. He'll take on just about any mystery, secular, faith type mysteries, all of it. Jimmy what's dropping today on Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World?

[B]

Today's episode is about the Fouke Monster. Fouke, Arkansas is a Now I'm in Fayetteville in northwest Arkansas, but one of the highways that runs through Fayetteville is Highway 71. And if you get on Highway 71 and drive south at the far end of Arkansas on the same side of the state in southwest Arkansas, you run into the town of Fouke. So it's on the same road as Fayetteville, but other end of the state. And the Fouke monster is a Bigfoot like creature that has been reported in the vicinity of Falk. It was also the Subject of the 1970 docudrama the Legend of Boggy Creek. And so I decided to devote an episode to the Fouke Monster and it's actually reported to have physically attacked a human. And this case is quite well documented. The human ended up being taken to the hospital in nearby Texarkana. It was in the newspapers. We have a lot of contemporary accounts. The police were involved. And so we're gonna look at the Fouke monster and consider what could have been behind that encounter in the 1970s.

[A]

All right, check it out at Mysterious FM or wherever you get your podcasts or go to Jimmy's YouTube page, the Jimmy Akin YouTube page. This next question comes from Edgar the producer. I like that. Reminds me of Cedric the Entertainer. Cedric the Entertainer is the first person I knew that had a name like that.

[B]

Not Mr. Bialystok, the producer.

[A]

Oh, no, Mr. Bialy. No, that's right. I wonder if this guy is a fan of that, though. But no, I almost sang a song that I shouldn't sing on the air. Springtime for a certain.

[B]

For a certain someone in Germany Winter for Poland and France.

[A]

All right, Edgar the producer wanted to know this. Could a killer whale get a taste for human flesh?

[B]

Okay, so killer whales are apex predators in the ocean. And they, unlike some whales that only eat like tiny marine organisms like krill and stuff like that, killer whales can attack and eat and hunt larger animals. There are five different types of killer whales, and the diet they eat varies by the type of killer whale. There's like one of them, we don't really know too much about its diet, but we understand the other four types diets pretty well. And they can even eat larger creatures like elephant seals, which can get quite large, which is why they're called elephant seals in part. They also can can kill and eat moose. So, like, if a moose is standing in the ocean, killer whales can take it down and eat it. However, there are no known cases of killer whales hunting or attacking humans and eating them. That's something that has not been documented. Now, that may in part be because killer whales are smart enough that they understand the FAFO principle. In other words, don't mess with humans. We've even seen a whale, I forget if it was killer whale, but we've seen an adult whale, a juvenile whale was vectoring in to attack a human. We've seen an adult whale, like, knock it out of the way to stop the attack on the human. So there are members of the whale different, at least broadly speaking, of the whale community, that understand you don't want to mess with humans. But since Edgar doesn't ask about what has happened, but what could happen, could a killer whale get a taste for human flesh? They are predators. They do eat meat. And hypothetically, I can't rule it out, that a killer whale might try human meat and get a taste for it, and then on the pfaffo principle, that whale would quickly die.

[A]

Yes. Right. So maybe we're just not. We're just not delicious to them. Maybe they're like.

[B]

Or they're smart enough to not want to eat us, regardless of how delicious we would be.

[A]

Thank you, Edgar, very much for that question. Let's go. Dan is next. I wonder if that's his real name or he just chose that as his Internet name. Dan. I worked as a firefighter EMT for a while, and people prided themselves about having a stiff upper lip and a tough, cynical personality. I got to thinking some people are more docile, and some seem to pride themselves in having a rough edge. When we are perfected in heaven, will we all have the same disposition or temperament and just different talents and interests, or will our different dispositions remain?

[B]

Well, I guess the first thing I'd say is some of what you experience, Dan, and I have no reason to challenge that. That's your real name. I don't know why Cy did, but, you know, different strokes. The. Some of what you saw is undoubtedly a mechanism that people working in this field would use to deal with the stress in the field, because firefighters and EMTs have to function in very dramatic circumstances. And kind of tamping down your emotions and putting on a, you know, tough, cynical, stiff upper lip, you know, stoic kind of Persona is a way to do that, to control the emotions so that they don't. They. They don't overwhelm you when you're in a dramatic situation. And it's also important for people working in this field to show that to others who are working in the field, because if someone did show a lot of emotion in this situation, their co workers would wonder, how reliable is this person? Can they really handle this? Or are they going to fold at some point because they're too emotional? So both to help themselves deal with the situations they encounter and to instill confidence in their co workers that, you can, trust me, I've got this under control. It's natural that they would put on this kind of Persona. Having said that, I would thus expect that some of that Persona would go away in the afterlife when we're not going to be dealing with such situations. And so I would expect part of it to just vanish because people are no longer in that kind of situation. When it comes to the broader question of will we have different Personas, I think that there are two things to be said. The first one is that now, scripture doesn't answer this question directly, so this involves an element of speculation. But it seems to me that what we're given from Scripture indicates that we're going to be upgraded but not fundamentally changed in terms of our native abilities and talents and aptitudes, and that includes our personality. So we'll be upgraded, but we're not going to be made all identical. And as evidence, I would point to the passages I mentioned earlier where we're told that, you know, we're going to receive according to what we did in life. We're going to be rewarded according to what we did. And that means there are going to continue to be differences between us. We're going to have different rewards, and presumably that's going to be related to the differences in our personalities and what we chose to do. So I would not expect us to all have the same personality. What I do expect, this is the second point, is that we will be perfected in love. We're going to be completely loving individuals. And so my theological speculation here is that we will have different personalities, but they will all be perfected in love.

[A]

All right, Dan, if that is your name, thanks very much for Darren's cracking up at me. Thank you, Darren. Somebody appreciates my foolishness, this one. Yeah, we got time. Shane wants to know this. Shane says this. How will a body not be destroyed when living on earth forever? For example, if you fall off a cliff or get crushed.

[B]

Okay, so one of the principles that Aquinas articulates, and I agree with him here, is that any natural body is corruptible and will corrupt over time unless it's supported by grace. So even though he didn't have the language of modern science, what Aquinas articulated there was essentially the law of entropy, that, you know, disorder and chaos and diffuse energy that all increases over time. At least it never shrinks. And so a regular body, like a regular human body, will decay and break down over time. It will corrupt. That's why we die in the first place. And if all God did was put us back together and leave us in the same kind of body we have now, well, it would all just happen all over again. You know, it'd be like having a clone of yourself, but that clone would have a natural lifespan and it would. It would decay and degenerate over time and you'd be out of a body again. Now, God could keep doing that, but he could give you an infinite series of renewals of your body, kind of like Doctor who. But that is not what scripture leads us to expect. Instead, what scripture leads us to expect is that when God brings us back in the resurrection, he's going to upgrade our bodies and they will no longer have the kind of limits that they do now. So they're not going to be vulnerable to the kinds of forces, including falling off a cliff, that our bodies are vulnerable to right now. And this is similar to how Jesus's body in his resurrection had abilities that he didn't previously display, like, for example, apportionment, which is where an object suddenly appears and it looks like Jesus. For example, when the doors were locked around the disciples, Jesus apported into their presence, and so he was displaying abilities that he didn't display in his earthly life. Now, the basis of those abilities is grace. And you recall I said in articulating Aquinas that any natural body will corrupt, and unless it's supported by grace. So that's the real key in the resurrection. Our bodies are going to be supported by grace, and so we won't die over time. We won't be subject to entropy, at least in the way we are right now, where it's capable of killing us over time. You could then wonder about, well, how will that grace work? One possibility is that we're gonna be like Superman, that we're gonna be invulnerable, so that it'll be a superpower. And so no physical force, even if you were like at the center of an atom bomb explosion, no physical force could kill you. There are other possibilities, though. You mentioned falling off a cliff, and that immediately for me brought to mind Psalm 91, where in Psalm 91, verses 11 and 12, it says that God will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They the angels will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. So maybe we're gonna be invulnerable like Superman, or maybe God's gonna put angels at our disposal. So if you do fall off a cliff, they'll catch ya.

[A]

Shane, what a wonderful question. A perfect question for Weird Questions with Jimmy Akin. And there are lots more to come. Jimmy Akin is our guest. We'll continue with Weird Questions right after this on Calvin Answers Live. We hope that one of the things that we communicate here at Catholic Answers Live is that our Catholic faith allows us to be fully serious about all the problems we encounter in the church and in the world. But it also lets us have light hearts and maybe even mix in a bit of fun. And that is exactly what our good friend Joe Heschmeyer does in his popular podcast, Shameless Potpourri. You should check it [e-mail] Joe's got a deep grasp of the faith, morals, the teachings of the church, all that. But he's also got a witty conversational style. He entertains and informs, but you will leave equipped to better answer the most common challenges, misconceptions and questions about the Catholic faith. He's got insightful guests he does on air debates, and he takes a close look into all the things that you want to know about as a Catholic living today. You'll walk away knowledgeable and filled with joy. Look for Joe on his YouTube channel. Check him [e-mail] or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like what you hear, become a patron.

[B]

Our Lord needs articulate defenders of the truth to spread the joy of the Catholic faith. Catholic Answers monthly giving club society 3:15 helps you fulfill the call in first Peter 3:15 to always be prepared to make a defense for the hope that is in you. For as little as $10 a month, you'll help Catholics grow in faith, bring lapsed Catholics home and lead non Catholics to the truth. Go to Casociety315.com and join today.

[A]

Each Catholic is obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed. Well, we're here to help join special guests Chris Stefanik, Dr. David Anders, father Jeff Kirby and all your favorite Catholic ANSWERS apologists this 9-25-28th in beautiful San Diego for the Catholic Answers Conference. Our theme Go make Disciples. Enjoy four days of faith fun and fellowship. Use promo code early to save $50 when you register today at CatholicAnswersConference. Weird questions with Jimmy Akin this hour. I am Cy Kellett, your host. There's the Weird Questions theme song, and we've got a whole bunch of them that come to Jimmy in a variety of ways, including coming to us here in the radio studio. We just send them on to Jimmy when we get them. And you can. There's lots of ways to get in touch with Jimmy via the Internet, so use one of those if you'd like to get your weird question answered on one of these episodes. Let's see, where am I right now? I'm going to oh Gregory Fontana 499 wants to know can you please comment on the moral implications of the following In Return of the Jedi, an A Wing pilot gets shot down and plows his ship into the bridge of the Executor. Can a space pilot do this if death is a near certainty, become a Kamikaze or in 2009's Star Trek movie, Captain Kirk's father stays behind and navigates the Kelvin on a collision course with the Romulan vessel to protect escaping shuttles he Sacrifices himself in the ship to save his son. Can the captain of a ship stay behind to again be a kamikaze? To inflict heavy damage on somebody else and. Or save other people? If it means certain death, yes.

[B]

This is based on the same principles that I was talking about earlier in the question from the students about sacrificing your life for God. In this situation, your death, you're not trying to kill yourself. Your death is not the goal, and it's also not a means to something else. You're not killing yourself in order to bring about something as a result of your death. Instead, your death is a foreseen consequence. That is a side effect of the fact that you're going to die when your ship crashes. But your death is not the goal and it's not a means to something else. It's just a side effect. If you have a space suit or if they beam you out at the last second, then. And you end up surviving, that's all great. So that shows your death. The ship would still crash, you know, since you're ramming somebody else, but you would live. And that reveals that your death is a side effect. It's not a goal, and it's not a means to something else. If the ship still crashes and you could hypothetically survive either because you got a spacesuit or because they beam you out or something like that, then your death is just a foreseen side effect in this situation. And thus the situation is analogous to like throwing yourself on a grenade to save others so that your body absorbs the force, the grenade, rather than letting the shrapnel kill everybody else. This is similar to that, but since you're taking an offensive action rather than a defensive action, it's more like if you. Let's say your buddies are in a foxhole with you and you hear enemy soldiers come in and you leap out of the foxhole to shoot. Let's say you got a machine gun to shoot all of the enemy soldiers that are about to pour into your foxhole. You may foresee I'm gonna die if I do this, but I'm gonna save all these other people and I'm gonna harm the enemy. And so that is morally defensible. You can. Even though your death's a foreseen side effect, it is morally justifiable for a proportionate reason, like saving these other people or taking out this major ship or stuff like that. And so it would be morally justifiable. You can also ride a nuclear bomb down to a target if you're trying to get the nuclear bomb to detach and go through the bomb bay doors and as you're banging on it, it just happens to detach. You can ride all the way down. Yee haw.

[A]

Slim picking style.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Thank you very much. That question came from Gregory. Gregory, thank you for the question. It's weird questions with Jimmy Akin. And this one comes from Aaron Jaeger. Aaron asks. My mom and sister are both nurses in a psych ward. They have had hundreds of patients who claim to see angels and demons. Some patients who claim they have seen them also knew personal information they shouldn't have about the mom and the sister. Do you think these people are actually connected to the spiritual realm in a way we aren't? Or is it just a mental illness?

[B]

It's possible that there's more going on here than just regular mental illness. And part of the key to that is that these patients, or at least some of them, report knowing information that they shouldn't know about the mom and the sister. Now, anytime you have anomalous information, you always have to ask how hard would it be to guess this? Or could they have learned it in some other way? Like maybe someone, maybe there's a rumor net and they learned it from the rumor network. But if they have accurate or truthful veridical information that they have not learned through any normal means and that goes beyond random chance, then that is evidence that something paranormal is happening. And there are various psych wards where people do seem to know, patients do seem to know things that they otherwise shouldn't have a way of knowing. This is. There's a real possibility that in some psych wards people may be displaying psychic functioning, assuming psychic functioning exists. They may be learning it that way. They. They may be having. They may be open to the spirit world in a way that they're seeing a lot of ghosts and the ghosts are telling them stuff, for example, or they might be learning it telepathically or clairvoyantly or something like that. So if they have veridical information that goes beyond random chance, something that's evidence that something paranormal is happening, it doesn't eliminate the possibility of mental illness playing a role here. You know, it could be they're seeing a bunch of ghosts because they're mentally ill and they're too open to seeing ghosts. It also could be kind of the other way around. It could be that they're so open that that's driven them mentally. That's. Insane is not exactly the right word here. But that's caused their mental illness. So it could be that the mental illness caused the openness or it could be that the openness caused the mental illness. Could go either way. But we have several possibilities here. One possibility is that there are no spirits involved and assume in psychic functioning exists that they're picking up on this information psychically. Another possibility is that they are getting it from spirits. But those spirits might not be angels and demons. They might be just human spirits, they might be ghosts. Or it might be that they're picking up the information from angels and demons. So I would have to know more information about the situation in order to make an accurate diagnosis on are spirits involved and what kind of spirits are they? I would not rule out any of those possibilities. Based on what? On what Aaron says. They're all possibilities to my mind. I would need to know more in order to try to narrow down what exactly is going on here. But. And it could be angels, it could be demons, it could be ghosts, it could just be psychic functioning. The patients may be miss Even now, Aaron said that some of the patients report see in angels and demons. And a lot of those who don't have veridical information that may just be mental illness. Even with the ones who do have veridical information, their mental illness could be color in their perception. So they think that they're getting this information from an angel or a demon when really they're getting it from psychic functioning or they're getting it from a human ghost. Or it could really be an angel or it could really be a demon. I'd have to know more about the situation. But what I can say is that those patients who are producing vertical information, meaning accurate information that goes beyond random chance, have evidence that something paranormal is happening in their cases. But I'd have to know more to try to pin down what that something would be.

[A]

Aaron, thank you very much for the question. I believe our next question questioner is a spoonerism. I am not sure Running Babbitt mom wants to know this and I really. Ronnie Babbitt mom, this is a question everybody has. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times. If a priest were to become a vampire.

[B]

You're using hyperbole there. You have not heard this question.

[A]

I have never heard this question before. If a priest were to become a vampire, would he have to retire?

[B]

Not unless there were additional circumstances that applied now. So if he's a vampire, he needs to receive human blood in order to survive, but that doesn't. Or he needs to receive blood. I should say in order to survive. But that doesn't mean that he has to predate on other people. If he's able to control himself and not predate on other people and either kill them or turn them into vampires, then that wouldn't be a barrier to him functioning as a priest. Particularly if he keeps it on the down low so other people don't worry, learn about it and worry about him. On the other hand, if it becomes public knowledge that he's a vampire and people start worrying about him, well, then he might need to retire. But it's not because of the vampiric condition itself. It's because of the alarm that the condition is causing in the community. So that would be an additional factor you noticed. I said not unless something else beyond just the vampirism itself applies. And that would be an example of something else that could force his retirement if he was causing a panic among his parishioners. There is is one thing that is intrinsic to the nature of a priest that could force his retirement. One of the things that priests have to do is, as part of every Mass they celebrate, is receive under both kinds. We as laity don't have to do that, but priests do. Because in commissioning the 12 to be priests, Jesus told them to take and eat and to take and drink. And so they have to do both. Even though they receive the full Christ under either species, they have to receive under both species. And if the priest's vampirism was such that he could not receive the host, then he wouldn't be able to say Mass and thus he would have to retire as a priest. So if he is kind of the vampiric equivalent of an obligate carnivore who must eat and only eat blood, then he would have to retire. But other vampires might not be constrained in that way, since according to fiction, there are multiple different types of vampires.

[A]

Ronnie Babbitt mom, thank you for that question. Runny Babbitt, Mom's little girl wanted to know this. So, supplementary question. If Santa Claus, not St. Nicholas, were to die, would he go to heaven?

[B]

Well, at least based on popular accounts of Santa Claus, he is a big fan of Jesus Christ. He celebrates his birth every year by flying around and giving presents to children all over the world. So that would indicate he has Christian faith. In addition, he is doing good by giving, at least according to popular accounts, by giving to presents, by giving presents to children all over the world, that's a good thing to do. So he's backing up his Christian faith with the good works that St. Paul says Christians need to do so, that would indicate he's living a Christian life. And therefore, if he were to die in that state, having Christian faith and doing what he's supposed to as a Christian and doing good in the service of Jesus Christ, then he would go to heaven.

[A]

Ronnie Babbitt, mom, thank you. That brings us to the break. We will take the break. Be right back with more Weird Questions for Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers Live.

[B]

Hang on. We'll be right back with more Catholic Answers Live.

[A]

The catechism defines evangelization as the proclamation of Christ and his gospel by word and the testimony of life. But what does that look like in real life? It looks like St. Paul street evangelists out in the public square sharing the good news. We're a Catholic nonprofit that starts conversations by handing out free sacramentals. Then we employ our method of listen, befriend, proclaim and invite. Catholic Answers is supported in part by St. Paul Street Evangelization. Visit streetevangelization.com to learn more. Another great podcast on EWTN Podcast Central is Catholic Review Radio. It's a weekly radio program and podcast featuring newsmakers, authors, entertainers and Catholic leaders from the Archdiocese of Baltimore and around the world. You can hear this and other faith filled podcasts at EWTN podcast central, visit ewtn.com radio and click on Podcast Central today. Welcome back to CATHOLIC Answers live. I like a lot of things about Weird Questions with Jimmy Akin, but I really like the names that people give themselves.

[B]

You just, you just asked me a weird question in the break, which was are we going to see woolly mammoth soon and would their mothers be elephants? And I said, we may get them at some point in our lives. And yes, at least initially, their mothers would be elephants. But what I didn't have a chance to mention in the break is we're already doing stuff with woolly mammoth genes. And recently scientists spliced woolly mammoth genes for wool into mice. And so there are woolly mice now and they're incredibly cute. It's like a little mouse. But wow, it's got all this mammoth wool all over it.

[A]

Yeah, I would like to. Well, I'll have to look up the woolly mouse. I would kind of like to see a woolly mouse mammoth. I'm not at all opposed to bringing the woolly mammoth back, but I did ask you, will it be an actual woolly mammoth or will it just be something that's similar to a woolly mammoth?

[B]

At least at present it would be genetically very similar to Historic woolly mammoths, but not identical. We'd presumably have to use some elephant DNA as part of the process. But that could be refined over time to where the genome becomes even more similar to the until it was indistinguishable from the woolly mammoths of history. By the way, woolly mammoths survived. Now we know they survived into human times because our ancestors killed a bunch of them. And we can tell that by the markings on their bones and stuff. But they actually survived a lot longer than people realized into. I think, I think if memory serves, just like 800 or 1,000 years ago, there were still mammoths living on an island off the coast of Russia, you know, kind of near where Alaska is. But they weren't that mammoth by that point because they suffered from a condition known as island dwarfism. One of the things that happens to organisms when they're confined on islands or other ecosystems that they can't move out of and that are hard to move in and out of is they have fewer resources to eat, you know, and they don't have as big, they don't have a big hunting range or grazing range or whatever. So they have fewer resources. And if there's a population of them there, they get less food, less calories per organist. And so that creates a survival disadvantage if you're really big and need lots of calories, but it creates a survival advantage if you're smaller and don't need as many calories. And so that leads many organisms that exist on islands for long periods of time to shrink. And this is a condition known as island dwarfism. And so the woolly mammoths that were on this island shrank over time and became dwarf woolly mammoths. So they're not quite so mammoth. This effect also happens with humans. If you look at various islands like the island of Flores in the Indonesian archipelago, the inhabitants, or if you look at Indonesians in general, they tend to be a little shorter than say Europeans are. But in particular on the island of Flores, a subspecies of humans developed that were quite small by modern standards. And they're the so called hobbits that you sometimes hear about. Real life hobbits. Their technical name is Homo floresiensis, which means the man of Flores Island. But they also appeared to have island dwarfism.

[A]

There's like little elephants too, I think in the Mediterranean Sea. They have the bones of little elephants probably, you know, like on Sardinia and you know, those islands out there, they just, I guess as there were geological changes, they just got trapped in these places. But I had no idea. There were woolly mammoths a thousand years.

[B]

Ago, Something like that. Yeah. It's much, much later in human history than people realized.

[A]

You know, if you're. The problem is, if your name is mammoth and you're small, that's just. That's. You're gonna get picked on at school for that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The next question comes from the Dino Revival official.

[B]

I think it's Dino Rival.

[A]

Oh, the Dino Rival.

[B]

Okay. I'm added a syllable there.

[A]

Reading is not my strength. Jimmy the Dino Rival official with a genius question. And I wonder how you will solve this particular puzzle. Jimmy, how does the Rick Astley paradox work? Here's how it goes. If you ask Rick Astley for a copy of the movie up, he can't give it to you because he can't give you up. But if he doesn't give you up, he lets you down. This has been the hardest question since I've heard it. What do you think?

[B]

Yeah. So this is based on the song by Rick Astley, where he sings that he's. He's like, never going to give you up and never going to let you down and stuff like that. The. The answer to this is that the paradox is based on it. Sometimes it's called ambivalence or amphibole or equivocation, where a single word is being used in more than one sense. When Rick Astley sings that he can't give you up or is not going to give you up, he means he's never going to break off a romantic relationship with you. He is not talking about the movie up. And so he could. Even if we stipulate that everything he says in the song is absolutely true, he could give you a copy of the movie up. He just wouldn't break off a romantic relationship with you. And so that solves the paradox. But I suspect Rick Astley, being a performer, would probably not devote as much thought to it as I just did. He would just roll with it. And so you'd get a Rick roll.

[A]

Yes. That had a payoff at the end. Thank you very much, the Dino Rival official. Appreciate that. All right, I got to read this. Don't want to, but got to. Nick Sears wants to ask this. Sorry, this is kind of a gross one. A few years back, there was a news story about a man who had his leg amputated and then had his friends over for a party where they ate tacos made from his amputated leg. While this is definitely strange, is it immoral?

[B]

Okay. And Nick provides a link to an article on Vice.com which I did not actually click on and read because I think this is disgusting. But, but stipulating that this is a real scenario, cannibalism is not intrinsically evil. It can be justified morally in extreme circumstances. Therefore, cannibalism is normally extrinsically, it's not intrinsically evil, but it is frequently extrinsically evil in a wide variety of circumstances. You don't want to eat human flesh unless you absolutely have to. I would say that making tacos for your friends shows a lack of respect for proper human remains, or lack of proper respect for human remains if you're making those tacos out of your leg. And therefore I would say that in this instance, the cannibalism in question was not morally justified and displayed a disordered moral sensibility and thus would be evil. It's not that cannibalism is intrinsically evil. It can be justified in extreme circumstances, like in the famous airplane crash in the Andes where people had to become cannibals with the bodies of those who had died in order to survive. The Vatican acknowledged that that was legitimate. But making human tacos to have a party with your friends, that's not going to cut it for me.

[A]

All right, thank you, I guess. Thank you for that question, Nick. I'm not sure, but thank you. Each money each Monday, there's a new episode of the Jimmy Akin Podcast and the Jimmy Akin Podcast, younger, but every bit as vibrant as the Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World Podcast. What's been happening at the Jimmy Akin Podcast lately? Jimmy?

[B]

Well, this most recent, the most recent episode, which came out this Monday, was on what Is the Gossip? Because you hear a lot of people talking about the gospel and they seem to use the term in different ways. In fact, there are a bunch of different definitions for what the gospel is, especially in the Protestant community, but in the Catholic community, too. Here are a lot of different definitions for it that just don't correspond to the way the term is used in the Bible. Now, I don't have any problem with language communities making up their own definitions for terms. They can use language however they like. But what they shouldn't do is pretend that their usage is how Scripture uses the same term. They need to clearly distinguish those things. And so I look at some of the definitions that have been proposed for what the gospel is, and I look at problems with them. And then I look at how Scripture uses the term. And this coming Monday's episode is on a related theme. It's on why do we call? We have this. These four biographies of Jesus in the New Testament. Yes. Even though they're biographies, we call them gospels. Why do we do that?

[A]

All right. Check out the Jimmy Akin podcast. You can get it on Jimmy's YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts. We've got a lot more weird questions to get to, so we should probably do this for another hour. We'll take a very quick break. We'll come back, and we will tackle more weird questions questions with Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers Live. And I can promise you, because I've looked ahead, there's some weirdness coming. Not necessarily as much grossness as we got there at the end, but plenty of weirdness to come. With Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers Live.