Good morning Alysia! You can put it so much better than I can....
My ex brother in law made a choice when he was 35 years old that nearly ended his life in either way. He was riding his pedal bike...an advanced cyclist.....riding to the bank one day and just as he was approaching the bottom of this steep hill, the light at the intersection turned yellow. He made the choice to continue thru, hoping to get thru the intersection before it went red. But, it was a fast light change.
A man approaching the intersection from the other direction, was driving a cadilac. He had just left the race track, had been drinking beer all afternoon and was heading to the cold beer and wine store for more beer. He thought he was a race driver and decided he would 'time the lights'....so without even slowing down, he hit the intersection at 80k plus. He roared straight into the side of Farrell and sent him flying thru the air several feet.  There were no skid marks from the car...but there was plenty of wreckage from a destroyed bike.
They both made bad choices that will they will both live with for the rest of their lives. Farrell on the other hand, ended up with severe closed head injuries....a broken neck, broken ankle, several broken fingers...and 2 broken legs...one leg, from the knee down was completely shattered, blown out....with over 32 breaks.
At the hospital, they told us to say goodbye to him.
However...he managed to pull thru.....but only after numerous surgeries to his head, brain and legs.....he had over 50 muscle and skin grafts to his one leg....and fought off gangrene several times. He lay in the brain injury unit for months, after he came out of a coma....he had no mind, no memory.....after that, he was in the burn unit for many more months, where the grafts all took place. Finally he was moved to a rehabilitation hospital where he was to learn to walk again. And finally, on the day he was released, he was to go thru many months, if not years, of general rehab to learn to talk...and other daily functions.....
The doctors said that he would never be normal again. He was also put on antidepressants...
Do you know, the very day he got home for the first time...the very minute he got to the house.....he couldn't speak...and barely even walk......he went inside and got his other bike...took it outside and was about to ride away on it!
I did everything that I could to try to stop him.....he couldn't even walk...much less ride a bike!
He wouldn't listen to me.....all he said was 'trust me'......he got up on this thing...and started to pedal down the road!
I couldn't believe my eyes.
That was in 1997.
Today he is a fully back to normal person again.....no anger...no resentment over his 'roast' as he calls it (that huge lump of meat attached to his knee area).....he took himself off the pills...said he didn't need them.
He started his own business in race engine building....got married....and just the other day, he and his wife had their first baby.

Thanks Alysia! You have said something that has really warmed my heart in your words. You are a fantastic person...and I am very glad that I have met you here!
Love, Sandy
ohhhhh....it was my brother-in-law.....during my married days!  oooops! But that is ok..... we were very close back then. We could sit and talk for hours about life and all that exists....he is the one that I mentioned here before, where I sat at his bedside the entire , and I mean entire, time that he was in ICU. I used to put my hands on his arm and I could feel a vibration and a heat that would get really warm....at those moments, I could see changes on the monitor over his head....different body rates would change. The doctors had seen this too...and then they were blown away that he was actually starting to get better...rather than dying....one time I saw an angel resting on his shoulder....it was a woman. I don't know who she was.....but she told me that she was with him (he was still in a deep coma) and she told me that I wasn't to worry...he was going to be ok. She told me to tell the rest of his family too....but no one would listen to me.
They all thought that I was evil....seriously...because I talked about healing hands and angels......oh well...some people just don't get it, do they?
Thanks Alysia.......I'll bet that you make a great mother!!! And friend too!   

I rarely read this board anymore, but I happened to come on here today and saw this topic right up at the top, and saw some things people are saying that simply must be responded to.

It is a popular belief of "new age" spirituality that pretty much the only real sin is to commit suicide.  You can be a murderer, a thief, whatever, and you'll pretty much be fine in the afterlife, but heaven forbid you should ever kill youself, for if you do, "all your problems will follow you to the other side and you will even be worse off than before."

All I can say is this: use some common sense, people!  Suicide in the majority of cases is caused by a physical disease of the brain, usually either severe chronic clinical depression or bipolar disorder.  The "problems" that suicidal people have are usually simply the fact that they feel like sh*t all the time and they cannot control their own emotions and thoughts -- and sometimes not even their actions -- because they do not enjoy a normal healthy mind, due to the defect in their brain.

So let me ask you this:  If people with Alzheimers or mental retardation don't "carry their problems with them" after they die and their diseased brain rots away, then why do the mentally ill, a large percentage of which end up killing themselves as a direct result of their brain illness, end up in torment in the afterlife?

Only if the universe is a big torture chamber where some people get lucky and other people get screwed.

All I can say is, that's not the God I worship.  I believe in a God of Love.  And my God, Jesus Christ, happened to be a person who *himself* voluntarily chose to end his own life.  He did everything possible to deliberately get himself crucified.  He also died in a horrible emotional state -- he was so full of fear and negative emotions that he actually sweated blood the night before he went to the cross, and then on the cross he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?"

So, new agers here, are you prepared to say that Jesus "carried his negative emotional state with him"?  Are you prepared to argue that the Alzheimers patient continues to have memory loss in the afterlife, or that the retarded person continues to be stupid in the spirit world?

If not, then for heaven's sake, please stop making the absurd and totally uncompassionate argument that suicidal people end up in torment on the other side.  It doesn't make any sense, and it reflects a philosophy that is lacking in compassion for people who struggle with mental illnesses, which are real diseases of a physical organ, the brain.  I'm sick and tired of hearing people spouting this kind of rhetoric on all kinds of discussion boards, that depression and suicide is an automatic ticket to a hellish afterlife.  Stop and think logically for a moment, with a compassionate heart, before you say that the severely mentally ill are the only people who get screwed in the afterlife.  They didn't choose to be that way, you know.

And if you really do believe the people with negative emotions and the suicides all suffer in the afterlife, you better hope and pray as intensely as possible that you are never stricken with the curse of mental illness.  For then, it would be you facing being royally screwed in both this life and the afterlife, according to the popular "new age" ideology espoused in this forum.

Personally, I hope you are wrong when you say that suicide guarantees that a person will continue to suffer and be in an even worse state beyond the grave.  If you are right, it would be simply unthinkable injustice in this universe -- that the very people whose lives on earth were the least bearable (by definition, the people who were suffering so much they could not even bring themselves to keep living) -- are the ones who must suffer even more in the afterlife.

As for me, I choose not to believe that the Creator of the Universe is a sadist.

Freebird

Freebird..............so then what you are saying is that is it ok to committ suicide because it is a brain disease? You have your belief system based on Jesus.......so do I. I also believe that on a general ground, we believe the same things...but only that they vary some on some issues. If you are basing your opinion strickly on what Jesus says and what the Bible says on committing suicide....then isn't one of the 10 commandments not to take your own life? And does the Bible speak firmly on this issue....that suicide brings automatic 'hell'...you can't get to heaven if you take your own life.
So then which is worse? Committing suicide because you feel like crap..(and the Bible or commandment gives no exception to the rule on reasons for killing self vrs heaven or hell entry).and then going straight to hell? or commintting suicide because your life is hell....and going straight to hell anyway?
I think we both agree on that in heaven we are in spirit form....no physical body. So then tell me, what makes up our spirit then? Is it not 'who we are'? which is our character, traits and feelings? or are you saying that we have no feelings after we die?

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No, that is not what I'm saying.  I'm saying that in most cases, people who kill themselves do so because they have a brain disease that led them to do this, and therefore God has compassion for them and probably does not punish them very much for their decision to die.  There may be some negative consequences in some cases -- especially the cases where people commit suicide rashly, without really trying to overcome their problems.  But people who have done their best to overcome their problems and ended up insane anyway, probably face no negative consequences in the afterlife, since they did not choose to go insane.  It all depends on the individual case and specific facts and circumstances.  At least that's what I believe.  I certainly wouldn't say that suicide is a good idea except in very extreme and hopeless cases.  Some such cases might include people who are rotting in mental hospitals who have tried treatments and nothing worked for them, and they cannot be productive members of society anymore; and people who are in chronic, unbearable pain that is incurable and untreatable and prevents them from living a productive life.  Even just those two categories alone are a significant number of people, and probably are a large percentage of people who actually kill themselves.

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None of the 10 commandments is "thou shalt not commit suicide."  The commandment is "thou shalt not murder."  Murder is usually understood to mean killing another person willfully and intentionally.  Some people have chosen to interpret it to include all suicides, but I disagree with that interpretation.  There have even been cases of honorable Jews who committed mass suicide, such as the Jewish community at Masada, who chose to end their own lives rather than submit to military defeat and slavery imposed by the Romans.  These Jews were hard-core Old Testament followers, and they didn't interpret the Ten Commandments to say that they would automatically go to hell.

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You are simply wrong.  There is *nothing* -- I repeat, *nothing* -- in the Bible, either the Old or New Testament, that says suicide brings automatic hell.

In fact, since you are a believer in the Bible, here's a quote from the Apostle Paul in which he himself considers suicide and judges it to be a legitimate option in case he can no longer be productive in his life.  Because he is still able to be productive, he decides not to kill himself.  There is no mention of going to hell:

"I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me." (Phil. 1:20-26).

Paul's view of suicide as stated in this passage is that it is a poor moral choice when a person has a chance to continue living a fruitful life that benefits other people, but it could be a legitimate option if a person no longer will be able to do so.  Severe incurable illness which takes away one's basic ability to function would seem to be a case where suicide is morally permissible according to Paul's philosophy.  Other than the functionality issue, we should also notice that Paul did not say anything at all that even hints that suicide would result in condemnation to hell.  In fact, he indicates that if he were to die by his own hand, that would be "gain" and he would go to "be with Christ," a "better" life than a purposeless existence on earth.  The important thing for us to understand is that suicide is never morally legitimate if a person still has a reasonable chance of doing something beneficial with one's life.  But if that chance has passed, then it becomes an option.

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Since the Bible never actually prohibits suicide, I guess your argument doesn't really make sense from a Biblical point of view.

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I am saying that any aspect of your mental state, your character, and any other feature of who you are that is not caused by your soul and your free will, but instead by a physical organ such as the brain, will simply not exist anymore after death.  Any bodily and brain problems will just not exist when you are dead, since these organs will have rotted away.  Only the aspects of "who you are" that transcend the body-brain system of flesh, will continue to be who you are in the afterlife.  Since the mentally ill have a brain disease, just like people with Alzheimers, Cerebral Palsy, and other commonly known brain diseases, therefore they will not continue to suffer from mental illness after their soul is liberated from connection to the physical brain.

There are some on this forum who do believe that the people with Alzheimers will also continue to have memory loss in the afterlife, but I don't take that view seriously.

I would remind all here that at any moment, today, tomorrow, next year, whenever, you could suddenly have a stroke and it could target the part of your brain that controls your emotions, changing your whole personality and leaving you with suicidal depression.  My great uncle, for example, had a stroke about a year before he died of natural causes, and his personality did change dramatically, because that part of the brain was affected.  He ended up severely depressed and agitated all the time after his stroke, and had to be kept on sedatives.

My point is, anyone who thinks "who they are" is totally under their own voluntary control, could be in for a big and nasty surprise one day.... in this life or the next.  One of the biggest lessons I have learned so far in my life is that we have much less free will than we tend to think.  We do have some, and we are supposed to try to exercise it to our best ability -- because this exercise builds spiritual character -- but free will is limited during the physical incarnation and especially so for people with brain diseases.  My own experience of developing major clinical depression, which during the past two years has also gradually added a bipolar component (thankfully not really bad yet, but who knows what the future holds), has taught me that our own personality traits are largely determined by the flesh that our soul is currently imprisoned in.  This is one of the main reasons why I realize that God must have compassion on the suicidal people who go totally insane and kill themselves.

I'm not pro-suicide; I'm just acknowledging the reality of the phenomenon as it exists, with reference to scientific knowledge about the brain, and the implications of such knowledge for the condition of the soul in the afterlife and how God would probably deal with the majority of suicides.  Jesus did say, after all, "Blessed are the poor in spirit....  Blessed are those who mourn."  A depressed person is certainly described by those words.  Suicide is just the worst-case scenario of severe clinical depression, which unfortunately occurs in some cases.  Some suicides may spend some time in hell after death, and others may not.  I think it depends a lot on their motivations and mitigating factors, and especially on how they lived their life while they were alive.

Freebird

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Excellent observations, Alysia.

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I do believe he was filled with pain and negative emotions and feelings of being abandoned and foresaken by God when he was hanging on the cross.  I believe this is very important to believe, because it proves that one's own mental state on earth *does not* equal heaven or hell in the afterlife, contrary to some popular notions.  Jesus died in uttermost sorrow, yet he was filled with spiritual power and was able to transform his physical corpse into a Body of Light in the resurrection.  He surely gained immediate entry into the highest paradise, despite the fact that he died a death of anguish and intense physical and psychological pain.

For anyone who is interested in the significance of this issue and Jesus on the cross in general, here is a link to an article I wrote:

God's Love Can Never Fail: The True Meaning of the Cross of Christ
http://www.christian-universalism.com/articles/love-cross.html

Freebird

Joe said: The part I have a problem with is the mental capability...say I have a mental disability, psychosis or whatever that is the cause of my suicide, will my interdimensional being judge that to be a bad thing that needs some kind of karmic balance?  My limited view falls on the side of no, since my psychosis is absent in the dimension of reality, but that's a conclusion based on personal opinion.
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I agree with you Joe. I believe there is a thing called mercy, and compassion and justice working in the universe. fact is, we all came here and nobody promised us a rose garden so we can't really expect favors and thats when it gets hard sometimes and then we may start working on ourselves, our attitude or philosophy. I can't speak for the criminally insane or psychotic or genetically impaired, maybe those journey's have their opportunities for mastery. maybe suffering teaches compassion?
maybe the only way we can understand is to walk a mile in someone else's shoes? I can only speak for myself, and you for yourself in the end. if you didn't intend to hurt anyone by committing suicide, but you hurt them anyway unintentionally, I think what would happen is that you feel their grief on the other side and try to alleviate it, what u have caused because now the love is being revealed. speaking from my experience and talking with family members this is most often the case, that they try to make amends as suddenly relationships become important on the other side. it is interesting to observe how important forgiveness becomes to them and how the mourning pulls them back into the physical world until they are able to receive forgiveness.
hmm. got off track a little. lol. if mercy is for one, then I would say it is there for all, even those who know not the harm they have done. I have had a lot of guidance in my life that comes from out of nowhere seemingly. I don't feel to be any different from anyone else, so I suspect that guidance is always there as soon as you ask believing in it. I do believe to love one another as best we can without being a doormat is the way to go, or to have tolerance for different viewpoints at the least.
I remember so well the day my deceased husband came to heal me of grief. only he could pull me from that chasm where I had sunk. he had committed a type of suicide. we had discussed it even. I guess he was unaware how I would feel responsible that I could not turn him from drink, that somehow it was my failure. my mind told me it wasn't my fault, but my heart said different. my heart said if maybe "I" was more lovable, then he would have stayed with me and stopped drinking. so he died, then he came for a visit and he had a guide with him! see this is what I mean about helpers on the other side. this seemed so normal to me, that a guide was always with him. his project was to tell me he did love me and that it wasn't my fault he drank and if he hadn't come to straighten me out I might still be hurting. so that's what I mean to say about considering others when you take your own life, as we are responsible for each other, the pain we cause to each other. we seem to all want to come back and fix things. the hardest person to forgive turns out to be the one you love the most. but forgiveness is a great and freeing experience. love to you all, alysia