I don't think that the bible does condemn suicide anywhere specifically. It's another one of those issues like abortion that are decided on by the church and then they frantically look up passages to try and support it. The catholic church views any issues regarding life/death as an offense against god for essentially doing his job. It has a thousand holes in it but if you wanted a better explanation you could read Humanae Vitae by John Paul II.

If anyone was planing on using the idea as an argument you should know the first thing they are going to hit you with is the "If life is meaningless why don't you just end it now?"

Although this might be a good response to the question, especially if they can't find good support in the bible.

I think all of this is result of the problem people have with suicide. No one really wants to say its ok, but its kinda hard to say people don't have a right to control them self. Evolutionary it doesn't make sense, but ethically the argument against it would amount to saying it can "hurt" other people or is a dodging of responsibilities.

The only other way I can think of is basically saying its crazy to kill ones self, but it when I ask why it would be crazy there really isn't a good answer. Well except that it doesn't make sense evolutionary, I mean really its the opposite of what a species should do to survive.

PS I'm not suicidal, even if life sucked I wouldn't pull a bitch move like that.

Of course, this leads to an interesting dilemma. If only crazy people commit suicide, it could stand to reason that suicide is a good thing, because it's removing craziness from the gene pool...

In reality, I think many of the definitions of "crazy" over the years have had little to do with the perception of reality, and much to do with societies perceptions of the "crazy" person's perceptions of reality.

Ugh. Tough sentence, but do you see what I mean?

If we don't like suicide, we can say that people who commit suicide are crazy, and then we can sit back happily and not have to worry about it any more. Of course, there are often pretty good reasons for suicide. If I ever contract a painful, terminal disease, there's a pretty good chance I'll off myself. Some people really have screwed their own lives and other people's lives up so much that suicide might be a "sane" choice if you were looking at it with mathematical coldness.

I don't think suicide is inherently crazy. I also don't think it's inherently wrong. Yes, it can cause pain for people who care about you, but you know what? Everybody's going to die, and it's going to hurt others when they do. You're only getting the inevitable over with sooner by doing it yourself.

I'm not recommending suicide, but I think it's just like anything else. If you try to make a blanket moral statement, you're going to find yourself up a creek without a paddle.

it's like what a friend of mine said: if the whole point for christians is to get to heaven, why don't they all just commit suicide?

I didn't say anything about pain you don't experience. So your response doesn't make sense.

You might not experience the emotion of relief, but you will certainly be relieved of pain in that you aren't experiencing it anymore.

Alright, I will answer as an ex-priest. The argument against suicide resides in 'Thou shalt not kill." If you kill yourself, you are killing nonetheless. At any rate, doesn't the song say "Suicide is painless"?

So all the families of all the people who ever commited suicide get the added "comfort" of the Church telling them that their loved one couldn't have been a Real Christian tm because if they were they wouldn't have wanted to commit suicide.

Besides the fact that it's the no-true-Scotsman fallacy, it's just a putrid worldview to foist on vulnerable people. Why are religions so blind to human suffering? Actually I know the answer to that one: because they were invented in the dark ages when human life was valued somewhere just below that of a good farm implement.  

Oh I see, so you can be a real Christian without really believing in Jesus. This is definitely some version of Christianity that I've never heard of. 

Just to recap, we asked why suicide would be wrong according to Christians.

You pointed out that according to the RCs, someone who really believed in Jesus would not want to commit suicide.

I pointed out that this view sucks. 

I think the problem with your argument is that you seem to be saying that the absence of a bad experience is valuable but the absence of all experiences is not. But for a person in constant pain all experiences are bad because they come in conjunction with pain. So the person doesn’t have the option of relief in the way you describe it. They have the options of pain or death. You’re trying to sneak in a third option as if it existed. It’s like saying that anything is better than death. That simply isn’t true.

Also, at their moment of death the person might experience relief. You don’t know that they don’t so I think your argument fails for this reason as well.

You said that the RCs think someone who believes in Jesus won't want to commit suicide. This is the same as telling the families of the victim that the deceased was not a good Christian. Which sucks, since this is likely to greatly upset the families. I merely stated my opinion on the matter and now you are accusing me of arguing. I didn't ask you to respond, you took that on yourself.

Also I am right on the topic of this thread which is "what's wrong with suicide?" 

And why would I ask questions if I'm presenting my own opinion? 

And thanks, yes, pointing out the no-true-Scotsman fallacy inherent in the RC position did make me feel good.  

I didn't feel the need to ask you for any clairification since the implication of the RC position you stated was self-evident. Are you saying now that there was some mistake in what you posted?

But according to you, the RC church says that wanting to commit suicide is only possible if you lack faith in Jesus. So how can you receive salvation if you lack faith? And how can you be considered a Christian if you lack faith?

Quit trying to backpedal. You know as well as I do that the RC church condemns people who commit suicide. Maybe they think it's a deterent, but what it amounts to is a vicious attack on the character of someone who is dead and can't defend themselves. It's a doubly callous doctrine because if the person was an RC you can certainly make the case that the church failed in its pastoral duty to help them in their spiritual distress. 

I DID NOT SAY REAL CHRISTIANS.  What the hell man...why are you changing what I said?  Your whole line of arugments is based on that.  I didn't acknowledge any fallacy; you did from your own flawed quote.

Very interesting thread. 

Suicide is not explicitly condemned in the Bible,to my knowledge. However, implicitly it does not resonate with what appears to be the Bible's teaching of God's will for mankind.  It is simply bad theology to think that getting to heaven is the only point to this life--bad theology that unfortunately many, many Christians have.  On the contrary, this life is sacred, and each moment of this life is to be taken captive and maken the most of through loving people, loving and trusting God, taking care of the earth, social justice, etc.  Suicide is not an act of trust, nor love with respect to those who love you, and in this and many other ways it doesn't mesh with the rest of Biblical teaching.

Now, if I may turn the question onto the atheist worldview: if there is no form of post-mortem consciousness, how does the atheist avoid the conclusion that death (and thus life) is completely arbitrary?  i.e., why shouldn't everyone in the world just blow their brains out?  

RCs = Roman Catholics. You said that Roman Catholics do not consider people who commit suicide to have faith in Jesus. Since a Christian must have faith in Jesus, this is the same as saying that the RCs don't consider suicides to be real Christians. 

Because then you'd be dead and missing out on life. If we don't define ceasing to exist as a failure, then what is? From a pragmatic standpoint there is one imperative: continue to exist. This is axiomatic because anyone who doesn't accept this imperative ceases to exist and isn't around to make an argument.

We can also work backward from our observation of nature to arrive at this imperative. Living things don't care how they exist as long as they do. They will accept any condition, make any evolutionary changes possible to themselves and their behaviour before accepting the loss of their genetic lineage.

I guess the short answer to the question is go ahead and die if you don't agree that continued existence is imperative. Tomorrow I'll be here with all my errors and you'll be right...and gone. 

RC is very common slang for Roman Catholic.

Here is what you wrote on page 1: 

Do I have to spell this out for you or are you going to admit now that, based on what you wrote, the RC position is that someone who commits suicide does not believe in Jesus, and is therefore not a Christian?

If you want to change or elaborate on what you posted, fine, but my responses to what you wrote has in no way misrepresented anything that you've said here.

How's that foot tasting?

Interesting thread. On the question of where (if at all) in the Bible is suicide expressly forbidden, it depends on which translation you use.

Exodus 20:13 in the New International Version says "You shall not murder", but the King James Version has this as "Thou shalt not kill." I don't know anything about the original languages...but if the latter is closer to the original then presumably it includes killing oneself as much as killing other people.

Come to think of it, it doesn't mention people at all - just killing. Which could raise a problem for any christians who work in abattoirs or enjoy hunting.

Y'know what? You're right! I just reread the post and you were indeed making a distinction between Catholic doctrine of mortal sin and the larger Christian point of view.

So now it's all of Christianity that shares this disgusting, heartless condemnation of people who commit suicide. Thanks for clearing that up.

This one's a no brainer.

Suicide was declared a mortal sin to stop people killing themselves to escape their godawful lives and move straight to heaven.  After all, someone has to build those fine churches and pay the tithes, don't they? 

I would say if God doesn't want people to commit suicide, he shouldn't have given them depression or made their lives so bad that it seems a good choice.

Many cases of physician assisted suicide are carried out with a lethal dose of morphine. So the process of dying absolutely does alleviate whatever was causing the pain. It’s not within the realm of speculation in point of fact its well within the realm of what is known.

I think you can only compare an experience to another experience; you can’t compare it to experiencing nothing. I used to work in a cancer ward and I’ve seen people who can’t breath, and people who can’t stand to live another minute and literally beg to be killed. What matters to the person is that they stop feeling what they are feeling. How stupid would it be to look at a person like that and say hey, well at least your experiencing something?

I’ve heard similar counter arguments against autonomy based arguments in favor of suicide. If you die you have no autonomy anymore so you can’t argue for suicide based on autonomy, so on and so forth. Its bullshit, what matters is what you experience while you’re alive and if you can express your autonomy at that time. What matters to the person is what they feel when they are alive, not that they are going to die. Everyone is going to die. Can’t you understand that the value of life is determined by quality not quantity?

Hey all

I've been reading thru the thread and been watching the replies. So, gonna have a stab at it myself. Answering as a former Christian, God said that he would not give you a burden greater than your can bear and to put your trust and faith in him. To commit suicide would denounce your faith that God would give you your salvation from your burden (or whatever is causing you to commit suicide). So, i think a) I think it was the apostle John who said he wanted to get to the end of his life by fighting the good fight and keeping his faith - a testament to the christian walk, b) should trust God that he will help out and by off'ing onesself you have denied him and shown that you don't trust your Creator c) that your life should be a sacrifice to GOD, not to yourself and the world and that you should marter your world self to take on your spiritual self, thus being indifferent to persecution.

Ok, so that's what i remember from Church days. My perspective now is somewhat colder. People with mental disorders who do it well... dang. People who just see no hope, well, i don't htink there is an eternal punishment for it and nor do i see it as a morally wrong thing to do UNLESS you have people who are depending on you. I woudl never do it because i have kids who depend on me, i have the love of my family, and i want to give my kids a secure foundation for them to build a successful emotional life on. Thats the "evolutionist" perspective i have. Progressing the next generation of kids to be strong individuals. 

Meh... thoughts 

You're the best Flatlander! I love it when someone makes me think.

I think we can say that murder and accidental death are undesireable from a social perspective. Without security we have chaos, then no one is happy.

This begs the question that it is possible to lose your innate desire to live through philosophy. I would argue that it is not, that this is hardwired into our neurological structure and that all we can really do is overcome our will to live.

For that matter, there really is no further justification needed for the value we place on life than the observable fact that we want it quite badly.

Hmmmm. You're right. I thought I remembered seeing a self-refuting argument along these lines but I've bungled it.

I'm sticking to my guns, though, that it is illogical to prefer non-existence to existence. How can we assign value to something which doesn't exist? Existence must precede any determination of value. We can't point to nonexistence and say "that is good." There's nothing there!

No, axioms are supposed to be able to be reworded as tautologies in the sense that any reverse proposition doesn't make sense. They are more than just arbitrary presuppositions.

 Maybe I'm wrong about the value of existence being axiomatic, I don't pretend to be a logician. But I know it isn't logical to say that something which does not exist has a value, whereas it is perfectly logical to assign a value to something which does. So if there's to be any possibility of a thing having value, it must exist. To me, this is the same as saying that existence is a precursor to all value, and therefore a basic value in and of itself.

If an idea doesn't admit to the value of its own existence, can the idea be said have any value?

"X exists and has a value." OK.

"X does not exist and has a value." No good.

 Maybe that's the tautology I'm looking for?

Sorry, I wasn't clear on what I meant by Truth.

We are all, to some extent, in the Matrix. Our senses can never deliver to us a perfectly accurate model of our environment. The Truth is analogous to what Neo sees when he awakes from the Matix - a universe totally different than what he thought was real.

The question is, is there a Truth underlying our present understanding? Is there an absolute and correct model of the universe that we can discover and subscribe to? Religion says yes. I say we have no evidence for that. We know that we are wrong about everything we think we know, but we simply do not know if there is a right answer. IMO, it is probably an invalid question, since a fundamental understanding of the universe would go past information itself to directly connect with the matter and energy that are the only things that can be rightly said to exist in and of themselves.

I think Dawkins is (rightly) discarding this consideration and searching for the truth as it relates to our empirical senses. Small "t" truth. Which is all any of us can really ever aspire to know. 

The pain doesn't end until you die.

So your state after death is irrelevant?

I thought the whole point was to end the pain!

Tilberian,
Thanks for the response!  This is completely unrelated to our talk, but I was wondering... does "Tilberian" have anything to do with Star Wars?  It sounds like something familiar.  I'm a SW geek... lol.  
 

Yes, we would have insecurity and chaos.  To that I would say this: if you have a choice between a negative value and an arbitrary value, why not choose the arbitrary value?  I suppose appropriate analogy would be: if you have a choice between eating poo poo ice cream (a negative value—unless you’re my dog…lol) or air (arbitrary taste value), why not choose air?  In the same way, if society became chaotic because of the logical application of “there is no post-mortem consciousness, and thus death is arbitrary” by individuals in society who begin going around killing people in their sleep for the sport of it and to make a philosophical statement, the rest of society has the logical option of either accepting the negative value of prolonging their own existence in this chaos and suffering, or else the arbitrary value of ending their life.  However, I cannot see how, purely through logic or empirical method, you could establish a case for restraining these murderous individuals.  It may be the desire of the majority to live without that chaos, but it is an intuitive, not a logical or empirical, leap to assert that majority “desire” should be normative. 

Thus, I suppose this logic would follow:

Proposition 1 : (As you say) Existential purpose is a purely subjective choice—we create our own existential values.  This is our ultimate teleological presupposition.
Proposition 2:  The state of being dead is arbitrary because there is no consciousness in death.
It follows then that…
a) P1 is likely to create a negative state of existence because individual choices are likely to clash against other individual choices (e.g., the individual choice to murder or rape will clash with their victims).
b) If P1 is true and should be upheld, then a person whose state of existence is negative because of P1 has a choice between a negative and an arbitrary option: negative—go on living; arbitrary—kill yourself.  

What about the option of restraining murderers and rapists?  Well, you could, but you could not call what they are doing “evil” or “bad,” but rather “inconvenient.”  What would make the most sense, however—logically speaking—would be to execute anyone with the proclivity to murder and/or rape (or any other “inconvenient” action).  If death is an arbitrary state, it makes no sense to keep them alive at the expense of the general pubic.  As far as that goes, science and psychology can give you keys to determine what people have that proclivity before they even act it out.  If death is arbitrary, it would make sense for the public, then, to send all potential creators-of-inconvenience to that arbitrary state instead of keeping them around thus creating the anxiety of potential inconvenience for the majority.  Of course I could go on and on and on with this line of reasoning, but as you can see it would lead to many intuitively unsettling implications.

And I guess that is the point I’m trying to drive home: intuition is an important epistemic tool; it is crucial in order to make sense of existence.
 
 

I would definitely agree that it is hardwired into our structure.  But again, if you are looking at this through the lens of logic (or scientific method, for that matter) alone, the mere existence of something (i.e., the urge to live) does not "mean" that it should continue to exist.  It simply means that it exists.

And what exactly does “hardwired” mean other than “it is a direction in which most of us are intuitively, instinctually aimed.”  Logic and science are not the only epistemic tools that we have at our disposal.  There are other ways of knowing beyond logic and science: intuition, feeling, culture, etc.  We cannot escape these ways of knowing.  In fact they influence us even when we are not aware of it.  The way we treat life as something so sacred, to be preserved at all costs...this is something we arrive at through intuition, I think.  And this intuitive desire is necessary in order to continue to exist.  When we hear the suggestion: "nuke the entire earth, and have all life cease to exist," I'd say it is not our logic that cringes, it is the intuitive sense of "rightness" that does.     

As I understand him, in his book Personal Knowledge , Polanyi makes the very interesting point that the “highest” truths are ones that are circular, ones that we must only tacitly rely upon, ones that escape our ability to be focally aware of, ones for which we do not have any external, objective evidence.  This is true of the laws of logic and science.  It is true of life itself—why do we press on existing as we do?  It is my hunch that the existence of post-mortem consciousness and of God is similar in this respect.  While “bottom-up” evidence is important, it is not the all-in-all.  The BIV (Brain in Vat or Matrix) scenario is a perfect example of why: you cannot prove that the senses yield truth by appealing to the senses.  If the senses are lying to you, they would not tell you they are.  This is something that we must simply take as a presupposition: that our experiences do give us generally accurate information.  While evidence is important and good, the ultimately important thing is not evidence but that your system of worldview is internally consistent: that it makes sense of things internally.  If you suppose the laws of logic to be true, it helps to make sense of things and it is internally consistent.  If you suppose that certain forms of post-mortem consciousness exist, it is internally consistent and helps to makes sense of life and death, right and wrong, etc.  Suppose that God exists, and it also helps to make sense of post-mortem consciousness, right and wrong, etc., is (arguably) internally consistent, etc. 

Man… I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff…  Or maybe not enough… either way… I’m such a nerd.