Is it worng to kill ones self as a theological and
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Topic: Is it worng to kill ones self as a theological and
Posted By: d' artagnan
Subject: Is it worng to kill ones self as a theological and
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 13:58
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We will all probaly agree that people shouldn't kill themselves but that doesn't necessarily mean its wrong to do so. What I'm asking is whether or not people have the right to end their lives because its their life to end? ------------- Hunter Johns "We're surrounded? Good, now we can kill the bastards in any direction." — Col. Chesty Puller | Korean War |
Replies:
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 15:06
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Who or what defines... "have the right". ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 18:39
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People have the right to choose to live or die. after all one didn't choose to be born, so live is forced on us want it or not, so the only compensation can be the right at least to die by one own volition, if one so chooses. But here I hear people get arrested if tries it and it didn't work, which I think is quite vile. It's another question that it's rather pointless to do what will happen anyway. Of course the Abrahamic religions forbid it because it a freedom, and the Abrahamic religions don't like freedom, they want everyone controlled to the max - one to submit oneself, or to give oneself to the supposed divinity, so one have on will on one's own; and so they call it the right to decide who long one will live a "major sin" - sure. If there is a god, who created all this cruel and painful life, that is based on death, he obviously doesn't follow his own rules that supposedly people have to follow. So, I spit on it - if I want to kill myself, I'll do it when I want; then if there is a god and I have to meet him, I'm going to have a mighty irreverent conversation with him, and put him on trial according to his own rules. So, there! ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 18:51
Well, obviously, not a divinity of the Abrahamic religion style - those don't allow anyone to have any possible right, only to do their bid, and have a tortured lifetime doing that. If one is to wait on them to give one any right, one will have to wait for the whole eternity this to happen. All they want is is slaves, fully controlled - if the supposed divinity/divinities exist, that is. ------------- |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 19:18
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If you're in unbearable pain suicide might be acceptable, on condition you do it by your own hand
------------- Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains! |
Posted By: Cryptic
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 22:31
Obediance to the laws of the Abrahamic God does not always lead to a tortured lifetime. Though counter intuitive, those who spend a great amount of effort in obeying the Abrahamic diety report that they experience increasing amounts of freedom and happiness.
My impression is that all religgions demand obediance and promise true happiness through that obediance. For example, how did Confucian / Taoist China view presonal freedom and suicide in particular?
Even Buddhism demands submission to the dharma and then promises true freedom as a result of the submission. The acceptance of suicide by Japanese culture is probably contrary to Buddhist teachings and is instead the product of a shame / honor culture gone haywire.
Even if the Abrahamic diety does not exist ( I think he does), it might not be wise to discount the Abrahamic traditions. From an agnostic point of view, the ethics codes of the Abrahamic religions are the products of thousands of years of collective wisdom and trial and error experience.
Though many reject Abrahamic religions and associated their ethics, the last experiments with "make it up as you go" humanistic ethics resulted in Chairman Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot. Even if I was an agnsotic, I would go with Abrahamic ethics over risking more disasters with humanistic ethics.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 23:05
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Maybe my Bulgarian wording wasn't good - I didn't mean to say that obedience to a deity causes tortured lifetime, I'm saying that life itself is a pretty tortured experience. Why do I say that? Because in a world scale, if we are to exclude couple of rich countries, like Western Europe, US, Canada, Australia, everywhere else the standard of life, life expectations, level of medical problems, etc, are, mildly put, highly problematic things to deal with. Next, most humans suffer from multiple diseases, pain, terrible choices like "kill or be killed", that cause a great mental distress, the amount of broken dreams, loved people to lose, etc - pain is a part of human life from day one to day last. Life itself is a tortured existence, IMHO. Next, people who believe feel better for the most part, because of the calming feel most religions come with - mostly because people come to hope, /how much this hope is supportable is another question/. Of course it's easier to live if one hopes that someone is watching over him/her, and the relinquishing of freedom also make life easier - that's why people fell for ideologies like the totalitarian states employ - it's easier to live if someone else makes the painful and important desicions that otherwise one has to ponder and agonize over. In other words - god requires one to fully obey him, in which he takes one's freedom, any possible choice you can make of your own, hence the said individual feels free from responsibility to take all the hard choices he will have to make otherwise. Freedom from the responsibility of freedom - this is what whoever obeys god gets, and calls it freedom, which it's not. Which, of course, is only my opinion, which I don't force of anyone. Now, let's look at how doable are the commandments god gave to people to follow - you shall not kill, but the others can come and kill you, because they have the free will to do that, which a person who submitted to god's laws cannot do; you shall not commit adultery, but the others can do this to you; you shall not gossip, but the others can do that to you, etc. You get attacked, have to turn the other cheek, so you get beaten good, the same goes for mugging, raping, etc. Also you have to give all you have to others, and in result you have to live on the streets. A good wife is supposed to obey her husband, who can beat her, rape her in all possible ways, take her earnings away, make her live like a dog - and she cannot do anything, because she is supposed to obey him, but he is not supposed to do anything. All this sounds great, I presume, and leads one to have free, happy etc, life. Because it's promised that after death one is to get supposedly to heaven, and maybe get a new body, because the old one is torn to peaces due to the results of obeying god's commands. Also, I have no idea how military men possibly justify breaking the "you shall not kill" command, because their trade is to break this command many times; if not, they'll die right away, because the other side will not follow those commands. In other words, the world that supposedly god created is based not death and pain, but one is supposed to be fully defenseless against it, because otherwise it will be not following the commands. And somehow the very cruel humans are made in god's image, who is so benevolent, that makes one be beaten, tortured, raped, burned alive, etc, so through those sufferings they learn something. There is nothing but absurds here. Thousands of persons are born with genetic diseases and spend their lives in 24/7 pain, but they are not even allowed to stop this torture, because they have no right to do it. Only god who in his infinite benevolence gave them this torture can end that, because he didn't let the human being he created to have even this measly choice to make - to end the pain of existence - which is the absurd of the absurds. So, it goes. ------------- |
Posted By: Cryptic
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 23:12
^ This is only one half the equation.
- Women are to obey their husbands -and- husbands are to offer their lives for their wife, like Christ offered his life for the church.
As you can see, the full equation is a form of dual submission. The husband and wife submit to each other. I would like to talk more, but I need to go. I"ll post tomorrow.
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Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 23:20
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My answer to your last post is included in my long one - we don't live by ourselves, we live with others, and those others are not made to obey the same equation, so the point is mute. Following god's commandments leaves the person who does so vulnerable and unprotected for everyone to do what they will with them. Husband-wife relationships are power-axes - every textbook on marriage says so, and so is in life; people like nice people so they can use them, not so they submit to them. Those are the realities, most lamentably. This is one of the things about which I wish I was wrong. ------------- |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 19-Apr-2012 at 23:58
By that definiton.. neither does a secluarist, aethist or agnostic. Who have replaced or denied traditional faith with altered representations, they preach as their gospel and doctrine. Justified either thru science or their own ego driven requirements and agendas; which have become a theology in and of itself as their acceptable replacement. Thereby making them as much slaves of their created version of counter nirvana as much as the traditionalist. According to that rationale anyway.  ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 00:12
And what exactly is "traditional faith"? There are 38,000 Christian denominations in the world, and every one of which has quite different ideas about pretty much everything except that there is God and Jesus is his son - this is pretty much the only one thing agreed. Everyone interprets what they read, the Bible, the NT, etc, if they are to think, on course, not just to buy what someone sold to them. None of these denominations has more right that another one to claim "traditions" - it's all what humans think about what deity is. That's why are so many denominations - if there was one "tradition" there would be one denomination only, not 38,000. I asked for a respect to each other's opinions, no matter of we agree with each other ones or not; I see that I'm not going to get that. But because I'm secularist, agnostic, atheist, revisionist, etc, and not a Christian, I guess I cannot answer with the same style labeling, because there is no god for me to forgive me, so guess I'll have to keep to civility. ------------- |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 00:23
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You dismissed Abrahamic faiths....which you have often been in your posts, quick to do, imo and which hundreds of millions consider 'traditional'. I'm rendering the same to atheists, agnostics and secularists...not a matter of labeling anything. I'm merely refuting your dismissive attitude with a like one. That's neither labelling or rendering unnecessarily harsh criticism. It's offering an opinion that your not necessarily willing to accept. But it's mine. And I'm sticking with it. And if you infer a violation of the CoC then proceed with corrective action... that's your job. Because these cries of yours recently that every response you might receive, in refutation, especially from me, is labelling...... is getting a bit tiring.
------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 00:30
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I'm not inferring anything. I didn't use derogatory remarks toward your views, not towards the Abrahamic faiths. I said that according to the Abrahamic religions one has to submit to god, which is equal to relinquishing one's rights. Because according the the same religions one's life doesn't have right on his own life, because it was given to him by god, ergo it belongs to god, that's why is a mortal sin to take it away. I didn't come up with labels toward them, and don't have to take labels either. I think we can come up toward mutual understanding without such. Millions of human being follow different views form 38,000 different Christian churches, there isn't one traditional view. There are such dramatic differences between some of them, that they have almost nothing in common that Jesus, everything else is seen in different way. I've studied only 3, more or less - Catholic, Orthodox and LDS, - and there is nothing that can put the 3 of them in one equation and call them "traditional". The same is even more valid for the rest of 38,097 faiths. What you claim to be "traditional" in other words, is valid only for your church and your translation of the bible, this done in the cultural context of your culture - what is traditional to someone else, like me, /if I'm to claim Christian affiliations, that is/, is something completely different. Besides, I'm not dismissing anything - I argue with the Abrahamic faiths, if I was dismissing them, I wouldn't waste my time to write about them, let alone to read or study them. Arguing is not a dismissal, unless one claims that everyone who thinks differently is dismissing. There is refutation and refutation, it can be made in more than one way. And I'm not "crying", I'm trying to get to a mutual understanding. ------------- |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 08:20
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Your header phrase works nicely so I'll quote it and use it.... in an amended post. ''Well, obviously, not a divinity''....... or theology, doctrine or dogma created by a secularist, atheist or agnostic. Who have replaced or denied traditional faith with altered representations, they preach as their gospel and doctrine. Justified either thru science or their own ego driven requirements and agendas; which have become a theology and doctrine in and of itself as their acceptable replacement. Thereby making them as much slaves of their created version of counter nirvana as much as the traditionalist. ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: d' artagnan
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 08:42
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''Well, obviously, not a divinity''....... or theology, doctrine or dogma created by a secularist, atheist or agnostic. Who have replaced or denied traditional faith with altered representations, they preach as their gospel and doctrine. Justified either thru science or their own ego driven requirements and agendas; which have become a theology and doctrine in and of itself as their acceptable replacement.-Cebtrix Vigilis Atheist by definition have no religion and thus no doctrine that they can possibly consider quoting much less replace with their own ideals of the truth. If you' ve met a atheist who is doing that then he is giving himself a definition and so no longer has a purpose. Agnostics on the toher hand do have scripture from which they can quote, bt these are things like Thomas More's Utopia and other mostly humanist works. The idea that either of these groups is doing this out of their own agenda is ridiculous. ------------- Hunter Johns "We're surrounded? Good, now we can kill the bastards in any direction." — Col. Chesty Puller | Korean War |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 08:57
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By their very rejection they have indeed created their version of it's replacement...their individual fervor and passion in defending it thru secularist attacks is obvious and is synonymous with a traditionalist's faith based believer in theirs, imo. Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris spring to mind....It is not only their dogma ie. the former as well as the later.....it is their doctrine, gospel and epistle...and theological philosophy...... and they preach it.So I must disagree.
------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 09:36
In practise; The community you live in, and the rules that govern that community. You only have rights when those rules allow you to have them, or rather when those rules don't specifically say you can't have them. If you live in a community governed by rules that do not prohibit killing yourself, then you have the right to do so. If the rules say you can't kill yourself, then you don't have the right to do so. You can try to oppose and change those rules to allow you to have the right to kill yourself, but sometimes even arguing against a rule (and pick any rule at random, here) isn't a 'right'. But some communities may have multiple sets of rules covering their behaviour (legal, religious, traditional, etc) which overlap or contradict or create areas of gray, and most people live in a variety of communities throughout their lives (family, school, friends, work, church, society, etc) each of which may favour adherence to varying degrees to their own sets of rules, which may be of different kinds (eg your work follows legal rules, your school traditional, your family religious), which differing sets may also have contradictions or gray areas. Suicide is one of those subjects that crosses over these different rules and communities simultaneously. Here, in the UK, the law no longer says you cannot commit suicide, but the traditional view and the religious view of the wider society is that you shouldn't. So I have the legal right to kill myself, but I don't have the moral right to do so. However if my desire to kill myself was supported by my family and friends, then I would be gaining extra right to kill myself, as I would also do if I belonged to a religion that permitted it. However, IMO a 'right' is the freedom (within the rules of the community) to do or not do something. A suttee didn't have the right to kill herself on her husband's pyre, it was an expectation, and she didn't have the right not to. A person who feels compelled to kill themselves because of family or religious pressure is no more exhibiting a right than someone being compelled to live when they don't want to. I do not have a right to live unless I also have a right to die - otherwise my living is nothing more than a compunction, and something I have no choice over. |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 11:23
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Atheism can be a dogma, if it is taught as such, as I was raised in communist military atheism. However, for the most part, everyone has his/her own interpretation of existence or nonexistence of god and why, that differs for individuals as well as communities or cultures. Atheists don't have one simple rule to abide accordingly, they go as their individual conscience dictates them. Agnostics are even more diverse, depending from there do they come - from agnosticism, from atheism or from religion. So, there are no simple rules, and people or opinons cannot be defines as simply Christian, agnostic, secular, revisioninsm etc - everyone has more or less his/her own version, and to push it aside in favor of a a simplified stereotipe is to miss the individual input and variety in it, and in many cases to caricature it. ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 11:27
Very true. We are products of the culture we have been raised in, and even if we try to escape it, it's along the routes that had been permitted and set. The individual input in one's own understanding is limited to what is permitted or not; even the biggest rebels don't have much of a margin space to move in. ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 11:48
The diference is that secularism or agnosticism doesn't require one to cede their freedom to a person, state, or a god, which religions from the Abrahamic style do. Communist atheism does that, however, there a person is a creature of the state and the state owns him/her, pretty much as a divinity does in religion, that's why communist has been frequently defined as "secular religion". So, my phrase can be properly used only in a case on communist atheism, not in the case of other varieties of atheism or agnosticism. ------------- |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 18:14
A concise and thoughtful explanation as you percieve it. I commend you for your objectivity in analysis. And I commmend your ability to refrain from the usual norm ie. secularist attacks on beliefs and opinions of others. Traditional or non. I share much of it...and was waiting to see if others could elucidate similar. ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 20-Apr-2012 at 20:56
That's very well said. But this is exactly what is done in religion, taking one's freedom to live, since one cannot choose yo die if one want to, since Christianity in all shapes, AFAIK, considers it mortal sin. Hence, if a person is interested where he/she is going to spent eternity, he/she has no choice but to live, as a compunction. I know of several persons in the local jail that had been arrested because of trying to commit a suicide - so there is in US a legal control over it; AFAIK they are not to be put on trial, but spent some time there. The practice of sutee wasn't really a suicide, but a remnant of human sacrifices, when wives were killed on the grave of their husband, the practice was very ancient and was mentioned by some Greek historian who traveled with Alexander to India, if I remember right. So I don't see it a suicide; now, the practice of harakiri was a real suicide, because even though it was expected, one wasn't obliged to do it - only had to live in shame if he/she didn't. Suicide was more or less valued by the Greko-Roman stoics, and it was done as a conscious choice /even though some emperors, like Caligula, I think came to the perverse practice to send a knife to people they wanted gone, which meant "commit suicide or I'm going to do it for you"/. ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2012 at 11:32
If I offended your or anyone else's views, I apollogise, this was never my intention; nor was my intention to attack them. I don't remember saying "Christian did, Christians that", all I do is say my opinion. Since I cannot change it only to accomodate others, I apologise for all future insults and attacks on anyone beliefs in advance - this is the most I can do. ------------- |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2012 at 11:57
I cant speak for others.... wont even try..and really dont give a damn. You did not offend me. I sincerely doubt your capable of it....  especially at my age. You do on occasion irritate my sense and understanding and practice of the method. But that's ok as interps are supposed to be different.Your opinions are what make you unique..and valuable... hence continue being you. And when we differ, and we damn sure will, remember... it ain't personal. It might be merely the different way in which we use the vernacular and style in presentation. Or expressions, thoughts and concepts verbalized, words, phrases, idioms in language etc...but it ain't personal.  ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: Sidney
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2012 at 13:38
Not just Christianity - Judaism, Islam, Buddhists, Hindu. Of course, you still could kill yourself, it was just that the fear of eternal damnation, or bad karma, would stop you. Under both religious and non-religious laws there was also the fear of the family left behind being punished for the dead person's actions. Even on non-religious grounds you can deny the right to commit suicide by stating that it denies the State your potential man-power, it removes the financial or emotional support of your dependents, it creates an inconvenience to those who have to deal with the 'mess' you leave behind (both your actual body and the situation you were escaping from), plus the potential grief from those who cared for you. In ancient Athens, suicide was an acceptable way of dying, but only if State sanctioned. Otherwise you were given an ignoble burial and your family were shamed. I think the same applied in other countries where suicide was permissable only in certain circumstances. Even in societies where killing yourself was seen as your individual freedom, there was still a social ideal of how and why you did it - calmly, intentionally and having led a good life and leaving your family well provided for was a fine ethical way for the Romans, but doing it out of fear or desperation to escape a situation and your responsibilities was shameful and wrong. Only the noble aristocracy could kill themselves. The criminal, peasant and slave were still not allowed. Forced suicide (as the Emperors sometimes imposed) was frowned on as a cowardly act on behalf of the enforcer. Then again, killing yourself needn't be socially defined as suicide. Killing yourself as political protest or as a religious declaration, or to save the lives of others or to save yourself further pain, can turn it into a martyrdom or heroics. An example of being legally required NOT to kill yourself; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382396/Workers-Chinese-Apple-factories-forced-sign-pledges-commit-suicide.html - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382396/Workers-Chinese-Apple-factories-forced-sign-pledges-commit-suicide.html |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2012 at 14:59
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I haven't research the perception of suicide among the slaves and the plebs in Greece/Rome, so I'll take your word on it. Anyway, it seems that any given community anywhere in all times had to deal with the potential suicides, so they devised ways to keep people from doing it - moral, religious, citizenships, family, etc, obstacles so it not to be done. However, in those times the natural selection was allowed to weed who's body is able to live and produce, and whose's not - this is not valid anymore, due to the progress of the medical science, so many people end up having to live long and painful lives, with no hope of relief, or a sooner end. With the raising of life expectations people develop and have to live with diseases that weren't a problem before, because people died before they can get Alzhaimers, senility, etc. It's a very close to sadism to require people how live in constant pain for different reasons, and who refuse to take specialized painkillers because the last make one unable to have a normal life, due to the dizziness and muscle suppressoin they cause. This wasn't a problem before, because such people wouldn't be born to start with, or would die as kids, because no one would have the resources to artificially prolong their lives. But now it's a legitimate problem, to which, AFAIK, there is no solution found; we messed up the natural selection, we learned to create artificially lives that not always are viable, and come at high cost. It's easy to talk how suicide is a weakness, or whatever, for a person who doesn't have to endure pain on 7-8 out out 10 scale, 24/7, all the time. It's easy to require the others to live with that, when it's their back on the rack. After all society sees it's members as assets, what are there to provide, work, etc, and doesn't care at all about the cost on which such life is to be continued. The personal happiness of people was never an objective to any society, only the work it can get from a given person. So I reject any attempts from any side on any grounds to forbid me, or anyone else, the right, if I/they want to, to end my their life/s, if I, or anyone else, chooses so. This is a personal decision, and no one has the right to make a person, any person, endure what he/she himself don't have to live with; no more than anyone has the right to take mine, or anyone else's life. All this said, again, is another matter that in my opinion is not such a hot choice to cause something that will come anyway, and it's unavoidable to start with. ------------- |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2012 at 15:12
Good  , I'm glad we ironed this out.------------- |
Posted By: d' artagnan
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2012 at 16:05
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I would like to propose the idea that the reason we think of suicide in the way that we currently do is because we have lost our honor system. In ancient Japan, China, and maybe medieval Europe(not really my specialty)it was a way of protecting ones honor and his families honor along with it. So what I' m thinking is that we judge suicide as bad because we no longer look at things through a system of hone but instead look at it as a religious ideal/social views. ------------- Hunter Johns "We're surrounded? Good, now we can kill the bastards in any direction." — Col. Chesty Puller | Korean War |
Posted By: Centrix Vigilis
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2012 at 16:18
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And why pray tell.... is honor not to be looked at from either a religious or aspect of social conditioning? What specifically about theology-religion prohibits it from being honorable. Because that leads to the next thought.... how is an honor system designed and developed... in your view specifically others generically.... then promulgated by an individual or collective numbers.... to others. ------------- "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" S. T. Friedman Pilger's law: 'If it's been officially denied, then it's probably true' |
Posted By: d' artagnan
Date Posted: 21-Apr-2012 at 17:41
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I'm not saying that honor can't exist in a religion based system.What I'm saying is that we don't currently have an honor based system but one that looks at how gos and society with society usually having even more pull then the religious side. ------------- Hunter Johns "We're surrounded? Good, now we can kill the bastards in any direction." — Col. Chesty Puller | Korean War |