Thou shalt NOT kill... even yourself.
“Those who believe in the finality of death (i.e., that there is no after-life) – they are the ones who advocate suicide and regard it as a matter of personal choice”
Describes me!!
I heard of this guy - he’s written various article on the timing that Israel might strike Iran. Like a lot of folks, the time periods he expected have long passed but he keeps talking about new ones.
The writer to the Hebrews wraps up the loose ends pretty good, "It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub!
“...if one is willing to take their own life, then they seem more prone to take someone else’s life, too.”
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Think what you just said and you’ll realize that you have described the Muslim philosophy.
And then there are those who support suicide because they smell money.
interesting piece, but you won’t get far making a rational argument to someone who’s suicidal because of mental anguish. Their immediate situation is so bad that they just want it to end, and whatever comes next doesn’t really matter to them. I’ve never been that bad off, but I’ve suffered bouts of depression that were pretty bad. I have a lot of compassion for someone in that situation. I have to believe a loving God would look kindly on them.
To be or not to be– that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep
No more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
A very permanant solution to a temporary problem.
It is the concept of despair, or lack of faith in God, or the belief that you’ve been handed a situation that is more than you can bear.
It is important that we don’t judge the state of mind of the deceased at the time of death. We don’t know!
To me that article read like so much “blah”, “blah”, “blah”...
Almost no one knows what it is to step inside the mind of a person seriously considering suicide.
“The latter argument is interesting: God is supposed to own the soul and it is a gift (in Jewish writings, a deposit) to the individual.”
What the hell kind of “gift” is this?! I never asked for it and sure as hell don’t want it! Life is nothing but a festering cesspool of cruelty and evil. There is no grand purpose, no beauty, no goodness, and no hope for the future. People cannot be aided or saved. There is no heaven. God is not in charge and most likely doesn’t exist.
The only reason I stick around is out of a completely irrational sense of duty. If I cease to be useful, suicide will be performed immediately.