Suicide

[Noxot]

if you really wanna die then no one can truly stop you but yourself which is why suicide should be something that you make sure you really wanna do. unless someone restrained and imprisoned you and force fed you, which would be very cruel and far worse a fate than death. human laws that try to attempt to prevent suicide don't really work. they are in that regard like gun laws. criminals don't obey laws. that is why when a criminal wants to go no a mindless killing spree he does it X2 as much in a gun free zone. because magical spells called warning signs don't work. people who are concerned about suicide and the doing of it or not do not care about what the 'law' says about suicide.

there are some mental disorders that one might not want to live with. there are things worst than death. I believe that many depressed people are only depressed because they are living a life that they do not want and there are ways of fixing that problem of which the desire for suicide is among other things a sign in their psyche that their manner of life needs to be put to death. perhaps some humans do have some terrible dysfunction and have no means to ever rid themselves of suicide. how dare anyone force another to live a life of torture.. and for the sake of what? that they don't kill themselves because YOU think it is wrong?

 

[Noxot]

DEATH by CHOCOLATE!

it might aid you if* it doesn't kill you first

 

[GrowingSmaller]

What about this, everything is like something else, death is unlike anything, therefore death cannot be a thing...?

 

[Moral Orel]

So a dead peron can be ethical. No, if you want to be ethical, for better or for worse, you have to be alive. Just as also if you want to paint pictures, you must be alive also.

Oh I see what you did there. Okay. So I don't want to be "evil". Dead bodies can't do evil things. So I should kill myself and then I can't be evil.

 

[Chris B]

There's a whole universe to live in, it was made for us. I guess people love killing each other over the little resources they have here.

I'm picking up a touch of dissonance between "it was made for us " and " "the little resources"...

I take the universe to be utterly indifferent to humanity. It's not about us.
Black holes colliding billions of years ago, that we've just managed to detect?
Oh yes, locally we're a remarkable little upstart species, but even so too much a johnny-come-lately to have any track-record for survival, as yet.

 

[joshua 1 9]

Only people can be ethical. Assuming that death is the end of the person, if you desire to be ethical you must never kill yourself.

Is this valid or a fallacy (e.g. equivocation on "ethical")?

The Bible says to love yourself and to love others. This mean that you are not to harm yourself and your not to harm others. We need to take good care of our self so that we can take good care of others. For some life can be difficult at times but God gives us the grace to deal with that and He is there do comfort us in our time of need.

 

[Chris B]

No one knows what civilization was past 10 thousand years ago.

(There's no trace of ancient structures or any community)

So if there was one, it failed. We know of a range of extinct cultures and civilizations.
"...just waiting for the hammer to fall..."

 

[Chris B]

You won't find the construction of any civilization leading up to the advancement of the pyramids. Where's all the knowledge leading to building the greatest wonder of the world?

It's not that high-tech. It's a triumph of persistence rather than anything else.
And there examples of pyramid experiments including failures: it was a developing technology, not one sprung fully developed from nowhere.
Towns can of course be built of far less durable materials than stone, though these would have left little or no trace. Assuming stone structures mark the start of civilization is a bit of a leap.

As well as the pyramids, sites in Mesopotamia now rival for age, and Gobekli Tepe in Turkey is still to be fully evaluated, it may be older still, and to that structures in the mouth of the Indus vallley, flooded at the end of the last major ice age

How far back we can push the beginnings of civilization is still an open game.

 

[nightflight]

I've been there and done that, and cannot bring myself to recommend the experience. I do think physician-assisted suicide should be legal, but only for terminal illnesses; not mental ones, and especially not ones which can be cured or otherwise treated.

If anyone's seriously considering suicide as an option (though the OP does not seem to), here is a lovely list of suicide hotlines by country. And here is a guide to coping with suicidal thoughts.

A hotline is a good way to get cops to take you away.

 

[mmksparbud]

I can't answer for the atheist--they do not think they answer to anyone. As Christians we do have to answer to God for our decisions. (Well, they will too, even though they don't think so!!)Suicide means you believe your problem is bigger than God. So it's a lack of faith in God to work things out. However, I do know God takes everything into consideration and having been in pain for over 25 years, I can understand wanting the pain to end. That goes for any kind of pain, It is not death that people really want, it is the end of pain---either physical or emotional. It is only God that has helped me through all of my pains, both physical and emotional, had I chosen death (and at around 18 and again at 30 I came very close)--I would have missed out on God's intervention to help me cope through it all to a better life.

 

[SkyWriting]

Only people can be ethical. Assuming that death is the end of the person, if you desire to be ethical you must never kill yourself.

Is this valid or a fallacy (e.g. equivocation on "ethical")?

Suicide is not a rational decision, though it likely seems so at the time.

 

[SamuelTP1977]

I feel medicine and good psychiatry can stop a person from suicidal ideation and getting more stimulation. Life is worth living!

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Suicide is not a rational decision, though it likely seems so at the time.

If you're in intense pain, and there's no medical relief, then there's nothing illogical at all about suicide. Life isn't about length, it's about quality.

 

[FireDragon76]

A person suffering but choosing to live provides a possible virtuous example to others to emulate. Whereas, somebody that just decides that life is not worth the suffering tends to set an example that others follow. This is well known from observation of human sociology, suicides can act almost like a contagion. It's a huge problem in Greenland, suicide is so common its almost accepted as normal.

So, if your philosophy or religious beliefs requires any consideration of others, I'd tend to say there are only two options:

1) favor the mass extinction of the human race to get over the misery of life as soon as possible
2) view suicide as generally unvirtuous behavior

 

[quatona]

Only people can be ethical. Assuming that death is the end of the person, if you desire to be ethical you must never kill yourself.

Is this valid or a fallacy (e.g. equivocation on "ethical")?

By the same reasoning, if you desire to be anything, you must never kill yourself.
Of course, when I say I am striving for a certain characteristic, I implicitly mean "...as long as I am alive".

 

[SkyWriting]

If you're in intense pain, and there's no medical relief, then there's nothing illogical at all about suicide. Life isn't about length, it's about quality.

Being free of pain is not logical.
If you don't feel pain, you will chew off your tongue.
Congenital analgesia: The agony of feeling no pain

 

[quatona]

Being free of pain is not logical.
If you don't feel pain, you will chew off your tongue.
Congenital analgesia: The agony of feeling no pain

That´s why noone here has been talking about being free of pain.
What has been addressed: Chronical pain that neither has any such "warning" value nor can be avoided by abstaining from chewing off your tongue or other such behaviours.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

A person suffering but choosing to live provides a possible virtuous example to others to emulate.

There's no virtue in needless suffering in my philosophy. Quite the opposite.

Whereas, somebody that just decides that life is not worth the suffering tends to set an example that others follow. This is well known from observation of human sociology, suicides can act almost like a contagion. It's a huge problem in Greenland, suicide is so common its almost accepted as normal.

I don't see a problem with it being seen as normal in cases like I mentioned in my first post. Greenland does not even remotely fit with that.

So, if your philosophy or religious beliefs requires any consideration of others, I'd tend to say there are only two options:

1) favor the mass extinction of the human race to get over the misery of life as soon as possible
2) view suicide as generally unvirtuous behavior

I'd say skip the crazy pants false dichotomy and realize that there are degrees of suffering. Unbearable suffering is... unbearable, and as such shouldn't necessarily be endured.

 

[nightflight]

Suicide is not a rational decision, though it likely seems so at the time.

I disagree. I think if a person is a certain age, is facing illness and poverty, suicide is very rational.

 

[SkyWriting]

I disagree. I think if a person is a certain age, is facing illness and poverty, suicide is very rational.

The purpose of life is not wealth and health.
I know many who have neither.