I'm serious here!
There is NOTHING in the Bible, condemning suicide. Not a SINGLE
WORD.
It is not until Augustine, that we see suicide condemned as a path
to "Hell", and then only due to a tortured, circuitous interpretation of the
sixth commandment "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder." (How can it be
murder if the victim - oneself..! - WANTS IT? MURDER implies an unwilling, or unwitting victim at the very least!)
Augustine wrote in the FOURTH CENTURY - OVER 300 YEARS after the
time that Jesus is said to have lived. He was no more qualified to
speculate as to what Jesus was "all about", than our own resident self-styled theologian (Don!) or any other modern-day "divine" is. (300 years is as good as 2000 years, especially considering the book-burnings, historical "revisions", and temple library-trashings which had been going on for decades by the time Augustine wrote. Either way all the eye-witnesses are safely dead and buried..!)
Not to mention, the Roman world of the 4th century AD was perhaps the most DECADENT period in the history of Western civilization. Augustine was PART, PARCEL, and PRODUCT of this rotten, decayed society! For instance, consider the fact that Augustine wrote that among the activities of the "blessed" in heaven, there would be choirs of FARTERS (I'm not kidding here, it's in Augustine's "City of God" - something to the effect of how "men would have such command of their bowels" in "Heaven" that they would be able to fart out church hymns on command. Says something about the generalized inanity of Augustine and his world, eh? Would you take your spiritual guidance from "Beavis and Butt-Head"? Didn't think so. Yet MODERN people, call Augustine a "great man" and a "saint"? GO FIGURE.)
So, back to the subject. We have no biblical proscriptions against suicide, AND the earliest arguments against suicide, were by a small number of ignorant (if not certifiably insane) Roman churchmen, and that's IT. (Indeed, prior to the 4th century and Constantine's declaration of Christianity as the state religion, there were mass suicides of whole congregations of Christians, the better to get to Heaven faster! In light of this, is it any surprise that the church declared suicide a sin AFTER (and only after) it gained Imperial power? It wouldn't do to have your workers and soldiers offing themselves in droves now, would it..?)
Why don't Christians (at least the literalist wackjobs and Rapture loonies) commit mass suicide, then? What's the matter - don't they believe in what they are spouting? (Especially the evangelical Rapture-heads, they think the Catholics are all going to "Hell" anyway AND the declaration of suicide as a "mortal sin" was a CATHOLIC deal from the get-go!) Why wait for the "Rapture", when you can take the expressway to bliss, Jim Jones-style???

B-man

thank u once more Chumley for another respite from boredom by your post.

well if St Augustine reccomends farting in church maybe we should look to more modern gurus for guidance, although farting goes on everywhere due to the fact people eat the wrong kind of indigestible food; I hear they still eat in heaven but only if it's necessary to maintain a habit. so if they still eat in heaven I imagine they eat beans over there too.



so what happens to the suicidal person? nothing much really but according to my favorite literature which I won't mention as I will be sent to hell if I do, the act of suicide is nothing more than a "delay" upon that persons selected journey.

you can do the work here, or you can do the work there. but the work has to get done, the seeds planted in the vineyard before we can harvest the crop.

the garden is your soul. I'm glad you're still here, even if we can't share a feeling.

My dears, I keep seeing this grandma figure who says: I'm gonna wash your mouth out with soap, you just wait til I get my hands on you!

hee hee

blink