Damla,
Thanks for your comments. I also agree that the topic of suicide should be discussed more openly, which is one reason why I decided to start this thread and post intimate personal information about myself. I feel that having open discussions about such difficult issues can be a good learning experience for everyone. I should also add that I am generally against suicide because I believe it is tragic and usually a bad choice to make, but I do not agree with the fierce taboo about it that we have in our culture.
Quote:Committing suicide is not a business of “daring”. It is an attempt of denial of your humanity.
For me it would be an act of daring, because if I ever were to do it, it would be a very difficult decision to make and would involve accepting the risk of possible condemnation by God and/or a hellish state in the afterlife. To take such a risk is daring. Whether it is a good or bad choice is another matter, but it is indisputable that it is daring. Any big decision that is socially disapproved is daring, by definition.
As for denial of humanity, the only reason I would ever choose suicide is precisely in a case where my humanity would be endangered by continued life on earth. In other words, a case where my soul no longer was able to overpower the effects of the brain and where the brain was causing immorality to occur. In such a case, suicide would be an act of choosing nonexistence in the physical world over existence in a corrupted condition that impinges upon the expression of one's humanity. In my view, such a condition would have to be rather extreme before suicide would be justified, but certainly there are such situations that arise.
Quote:Let the pain kill you if it can…let the anger drive you mad, if it is so strong and willing to do it...Give THEM a chance. But don’t choose to kill anything with your own hands because of your own illusions about that you can decide what is right.
I thought humans were here on earth to learn how to make moral choices, to decide between good and evil. I also thought it is a bad idea to go mad, because madness usually hurts other people, and to hurt other people is morally wrong.
Quote:Committing suicide is exaggerating yourself. It is a mistaken act that presumes all THIS world will come to an end and be as if not been, if you dont exist.
I don't see it that way. I am perfectly aware that the world will go on without me, and the same is true for anyone else. In my morality, the question is simply whether your existence in this world does more good or more evil. If it is doing more good, then it's good to stick around; otherwise, leaving might be the better choice. So long as a person is capable of making the world a better place, even in some small way, then it is worth staying in the body.
Quote: Sadly enough, you cant even tell what existing means. Even if you could leave & be no more, there were and there would still be people experiencing the exact stimuli. they ll go on feeling just like you once did after you have gone and you know it now. So, whats the use of leaving?
Not so. There are all kinds of cases where if a person had opted for suicide, people would have been free from certain actions that were taken; they would not be experiencing the exact stimuli. For example, the woman who went crazy and drowned her five children in the bathtub. I don't remember her name. If she had simply chosen to kill herself instead, then she would have avoided becoming a mass murderer. The people she killed would still be living, and their loved ones would have been spared agonizing pain and psychological trauma. I certainly don't expect I would ever murder someone, but I'm just using this case as an extreme example to make a point. The point is, a person being alive or dead can have huge ramifications on others, and unfortunately, (sad as it is) sometimes a person being dead can make the world a better place.
Quote:committing suicide is a big risk. You cant know if the pain or anger would go away , if the bodily affects of naughty genes(?) or hormons (?) that once touched your spirit and shaped it this way in the end, would fade out.
Well, there are those who teach that diseases of the body or brain do not go away upon death. But I regard such philosophies as repulsive, because they completely deny the reality of divine grace. Furthermore, a person's form of death would not likely be the determining factor in whether or not a person would continue to be unhealthy after death. If we believe the unhealthy remain unhealthy in their astral body, because the astral body is an exact replica of the physical body, then it would be irrelevant whether the person died of natural causes or suicide or whatever else. The astral body would still be unhealthy either way.
There remains the question of hell. Some people argue that suicide sends a person to hell, either automatically or almost invariably. I acknoweldge that this is a point of view held by many, but I do not see that there is much evidence for it. Nowhere in the Bible is this taught, nor is this shown by most NDEs. However, the fact that so many people believe suicide = hell does exert a powerful effect on everyone's mind, including my own, and I would indeed worry about the possibility of a hellish state after death, more because that is what so many people teach, rather than because it makes any sense to me.
Quote: I always recommend If anybody wants to take such a big risk they’d better try extreme sports or marry beforehand to experience the simulation of similar sequences.
Yes to the extreme sports, no to marriage. Recommending marriage to a person with depressive and suicidal tendencies is a recipe for horrible things to happen. Bad vibes spreading to loved ones, fights in the marriage, maybe domestic violence, mistreatment of children, not to mention passing on genes for mental illness to the children. I would actually think this would be very immoral, and I would expect it would incur much harsher punishment in the afterlife than suicide would.
Quote:Talk less&listen more and choose to listen to silence or trees not the tv and not me, definitely.
You cant just sit and hope not to commit suicide. You simply dont commit suicide if you just “think” about it or if you give your pain and anger a chance to do whatever they are trying to do with you. But don’t pretend to be knowing all their aim&reasons.
Ok. I get angry with myself if i find myself speaking “don’t” “this” and “this”, as if I know, as if there is a way of knowing. Forgive me for this, this time. i just couldnt help because this is my favourite topic.
I appreciate your response and agree with some of what you have said. I especially like what you say about listening, developing quietude, and detachment from the pain and anger. That can help a lot to prevent suicide. I often try to meditate to feel a sense of inner quiet, to remember than I am not my mind. "I" am something bigger than mind or body or personality. I think suicide is more likely to occur when a person finds himself unable to detach himself from the pain and anger in the mind, to see that this is not really who he is. As for me, I prefer the feeling of cognitive dissonance or separation between my soul and my mind, rather than embracing the mind or personality as who I really am. Cognitive dissonance is no fun, but it can be a useful tool to keep a part of you as a separate observer instead of totally immersed in what your mind/body is feeling.
Freebird