They say, but think about all the people who care about you. Think about their loss.
Obviously the person willing to kill themselves is going through more pain than other’s transferrence. If they want the suicide person to suffer so they don’t, isn’t that selfish?
Why not asssisted suicide?
We slaughter animals. We wage war. By this alone, life can be said to be nothing short of pain. If someone wants out, it almost seems reasonable.
Is It so important for an individual to love themselves that they must be masochistic in order to measure that love?
Why not allow someone who suffers to escape the pain by a method that might be less fearful?
NANO------------this is a very good thread. I really don’t understand why it is considered a mortal sin by some groups. I still ask myself why, about my friends who killed themselves. And I still feel some residual guilt about each person.
I think that they chose what was preferable to them or easier. People who continue to live choose the easy path alll the time. Resistance being what makes life hard.
We can be really close to people and not know everything about them or what they go through. And them, us.
I know I’m alone. But I’m okay with it.
Some people expect to be something other than alone and never get past the disapointment.
Alone is different than feeling lonely.
In eastern ideas, to recgonize life as suffering is the first positive step. And people unware of this reality might end up realizing they have suffered more for ignoring it. Time, the only factor.
But they were you before you realized it. And the you-to-be is in others, as well.
But NANO------------I feel OK with feeling guilty about my friends. Guilt is a part of suffering in life.
I always let my friends down and they let me down, maybe not on purpose. But to me that is life.
I have a problem with having no attachments. I want attachments and am willing to suffer for it.
I don’t think there is anything after you die and hell is right here on earth. I have a problem trusting others.
To say its selfish due to those around you is only one part of why we should not kill ourselves. Now if you are talking about a terminal patient, then to keep them from ending their life would be selfish. To try keep a physically healthy person from killing themselves is kind. Life changes day to day, just because life is smacking you upside your head lately does not mean it will always be so. There could be a chemical imbalance in your body causing so much depression or pain. Or you could just not know how to reach out for help. Get it checked out first before you pull that plug. Once you are dead there is no changing your mind. If you have dependents then yea suicide is not only selfish its cowardly and cruel to do to them.
If you don’t have anyone dependent upon you and you are totally physically healthy, have talked to people and you still want to die, well the world will be better off without you. You are useless if you are such a quitter. In the end you would just harm someone who may have the bad judgement of loving you. Generally though there are few of those types of people . Most are unhealthy in someway and so need help or medical attention. You also have to look at teen suicide. Teens need help. There is just not enough mental help for teens out there, that is one of this societies great screwups. No teen should want to kill themselves. Their whole life is ahead of them filled with possibilities.
Why suicide is viewed as morally wrong can probably be traced to religion. In theory, when you die you go to heaven which is all smiles and rainbows all the time. Wouldn’t you want to get there quickly? But if that happens, all the people who follow your religion will kill themselves to meet god. No followers means no money means no power. So most religions added a clause that states killing yourself is a sin and will bar you from heaven.
Society, even atheists, are still affected by the views of religions.
I have always viewed suicide as a selfless act. If you are dead, you don’t consume resources, you don’t pollute, your place in society can be taken by someone lower down.
That being said, I do not think everyone should kill themselves.
R.I.P. Richard Serrano
The permissibility of suicide depends on the culture, but the overall prohibition exists because life is a social, rather than individual, good. As such, any given life is not owned by any one individual (that would be slavery) but rather it is shared by a community. Suicide that does not express the values of said community is therefore wrong. The other forms of death you mentioned are in keeping with the values of the community from which they stem. That would be the distinction.
sometimes life gives so much pain to a person they become numb. Or they don’t feel the “right things at the right time.” To a person who still feels when events call for it, numb would seem like a bad thing. To person who is numb that is their lifelong shield. They consider themselves capable of shutting down. But it’s difficult to care enough to express this to feelers as good thing, because that would require feelings about non-feelings. And to tell them to get hurt really bad first . . . well, no.
sometimes not trusting is seen as a reasonable advantage by the wary. But how often would they tell people that? And to what success?
I think it has something to do with life begginning sweet for some, ending bitter. Bitter from the start for others, then sweetness.
I am puzzled. How is it slavery to say that you own your own life?
On the contrary, “life is social” suggests that your life doesn’t belong to you, but rather to the community. That is slavery - we are slaves of our community.
The rubric of “life belongs to the community” can (and has, in the past) be used to justify every possible horror. What if the community decides that my life is better served worker in an agricultural collective?
I’m pretty much pro-euthanasia in nearly every case, and often pro-suicide too, simply because it is your life, you are the one experiencign whatever you are experiencing, and if it is that dreaded and horrific to live your life and the good things are way outweighed by the bad, it is probably better not to experience it at all. There are always reasons for people to live though. If it’s a carefully considered decision I’m not gunna argue.
That isn’t a view set in stone though, because it is always contingent on circumstances. There is SO much literature on this sort of stuff, but nobody ever gets any closer on it. Nobody mention ‘abortion’ or this thread will run into eternity.
If you knowingly do anything unhealthy, eat sugary things, sleep too little, don’t exercise, you have contributed to your death. On a long enough time line you are the likely cause of your own death.
If you risk your life in any way, even in a car, you don’t love yourself enough to value your own protection. If you live where natural disasters are known to occur and you don’t spend your free time finding a safer place then you are masochistic.
So if someone wants to die suddenly, this is strange?
Look at what you just wrote there. By the very way you’ve phrased that sentence, you’re assuming the answer.
Life is a communal good, that is subtly (but importantly) distinct from the notion that any given life is a commodity owned by the society.
Plenty of stances have been used for good and for ill over the course of history. I fail to see how such an observation argues against the veracity of any given position.
Wikipedia defines Slavery: “Slavery is a system in which people are the property of others” (my emphasis).
Ownership is the right to control. Slavery is being owned by others. Self-ownership is the exact opposite.
The subtlety of the difference escaped most leaders throughout history. It escapes me as well.
Here are just a few random problem with the concept:
The Community is an abstraction. Community goods ar either neglected (hence the tragedy of the commons) or abused by the politically powerful, pretending to represent “the good of the community”.
What ever gave “the community” any rights to any aspect of my life?
How can you justify any particular definition of “community”? Is it my village? Urban neighbouurhood? Town? County? Or whatever political organization emerged through random historical military developments?
What problems do you see with the principle of self-ownership?
Fair enough. Can you give me an example of how “self-ownership” has been abused to the detriment of society?
As I indicated above, abuse of “community rights” is not accidental. Communities can only make decisios through politicians (formal or informal) and such politicians, like all people, don’t really feel like community goods themselves, but rather, being power-hungry humans are much more likely to try and benefit personally from their position.
It is human nature to always take much better care of what’s ours than what belongs to others. Hence people in general will be much better treated as self-owners than as community property, especially as the relevant “communities” grow from intimate tribes to faceless nation-states with millions of people.
Dear Lord you must have had some horrific parents. Your attitude brings out my sympathy, to have so much venom in you, your childhood must have been truly painful. My condolences. Some day you may get to experience love, I hope so. Its sad to see so much pain in one soul.
