Suicide: Atheists, theists, teenagers?

A friend of mine commited suicide recently, causing me to wonder about the attitudes of those who die that way. The following questions occur to me.

Does belief in a hereafter or reincarnation make a person more likely to commit suicide? It is my guess that the answer to this question is yes, but I have never seen statistics on this subject. Furthermore, I do not trust my judgment on people-related issues. In my lifetime, my strengths related to math, logic, science, & dumb jock activities, none of which help in understanding people.

I have often wondered if teenagers have any concept of the finality of death. I remember a friend from my youth who left a suicide note. He expected friends & relatives to feel both sad & guilty, with implications that he expected to be able to observe their reactions. He never seemed to be religious although he was not an atheist or agnostic. The concept of his being able to observe post mortum did not seem to be linked to a belief in the standard hereafter preached by Christianity & other religions.​

BTW: From circa being 9-10 years old, I was very aware of the finality of death. My grandfather was a funeral director & one uncle was an embalmer.

 

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To the best of my knowledge, there is generally a negative attitude toward suicide in all religions that have a belief in the "hereafter" or reincarnation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_on_suicide

 

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Wynn: The following is a valid statement relating to religous dogma.

To the best of my knowledge, there is generally a negative attitude toward suicide in all religions that have a belief in the "hereafter" or reincarnation.​

However it is known that many religious people do not run their lives in complete conformance to all the dogma of their particular religion.

To me, it makes sense to believe that an atheist with no expectation of an after life would have a strong tendency to resolve problems by means other than suicide. It makes sense to me that a theist believing in an after life might be more likely to end his earthly existence, expecting a continuing sense of self awareness.

Admitting my lack of people-oriented knowledge, I do not put a lot of credence in what makes sense to me on this issue.

BTW: I always wondered about the plot relating to an athlete whose soul was taken too early by a zealous angel who wanted to prevent his suffering a painful death in an accident. His superb reflexes were actually destined to save his life without harm. The powers to be set out to find him another body so that he could live out his allotted numbers of years.

During the story, the athlete has a memory of his life. At the end of the story, he has a new body & memory of his previous life has been erased.

I always wondered: In what sense was this athlete still alive? I would consider myself to be given a death sentence if told that all memory of my life would be erased, but that my body would live another 50 years.

I consider my body to be a life support system for my conscious awareness.

BTW: I had a crude friend who referred to a woman as a life support system for her sexual equipment.

 

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Excuse me? Islam?

 

What about it?

 

When I was in high school I met a girl who's father commented suicide. Went into his garage put a 12 gauge in his mouth and pulled the trigger. I don't remember how old she was when it happened. But I do remember she seemed okay and well adjusted and easily made friends and was doing well with all her school studies.

Now I wish I would have delved a little deeper to see if she had any idea why he did it. It's truly hard to imagine why any man with what appears to be a great family would ever do something like that.

However, all living things die one way or another, sooner or later, and many people who contemplate suicide just don't have any problem making it sooner. If it wasn't for the fact that you also must overcome your aversion to hurting those who care about you, many more suicides would probably happen.

 

Looks like you haven't read many books about suicide ...

Then perhaps you should do some further reading on these topics to understand why in most religions, suicide is not regarded as some kind of quick path to enlightenment or God.

 

Disregarding the impulsive youth, the impetuous fanatic, or the desperate fugitive—I don't think instinct prevails as the antipole to suicide. Instinct is reactive and sharp, primal and encompassing; while the idea of suicide ferries from a personal injunction—from self-awareness—as it grows strength in conviction.

 

Wynn: From 2 of your posts.

Then perhaps you should do some further reading on these topics to understand why in most religions, suicide is not regarded as some kind of quick path to enlightenment or God.

To the best of my knowledge, there is generally a negative attitude toward suicide in all religions that have a belief in the "hereafter" or reincarnation.​

You seem to be implying that theists (particularly Christians) never commit suicide because it is contrary to their religious dogma.

I guess your answer to my question is that belief in a religion makes a person less likely to commit suicide, making atheists more likely to do so.

My knowledge of suicides does not come close to being a statistical survey. However, the few people I knew who commited suicide were Christians & did not do it to avoid extreme physical pain or to become martyrs.

 

It's not clear how you came to conclude that.

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I can only address some religious doctrinal points.

In general, if a person actually keeps to the religious doctrine, then on principle, there is no reason to commit suicide.

Like I said earlier, perhaps you should do some further reading on these topics to understand why in most religions, suicide is not regarded as some kind of quick path to enlightenment or God - ie. to understand what reasoning various religions provide for why committing suicide is counterproductive to spiritual goals.

 

Albert Camus began his "The Myth of Sisyphus" as follows:

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer.

 

Yeah… one must first answer.

But one isn't pressed to answer right away. And so the question drags on and on—as a backdrop to life isteslf.

But I suppose the answer for most doesn't justify the… the sheer savagery involved in killing onese'f.

 

Viktor Frankl thought along the lines that to be human, means to find meaning.

 

I would be interested to hear from people who have ok'ed suicide for themselves but can't bring themselves to commit the ultimate crime against life because it's not life they wish to escape, but life under human omnipresent rule.

 

I don't think such people would post a reply to this quest here, even if they otherwise post at the forums.

 

Don't know, but don't see why some couldn't feel that way about it. The decision to commit suicide is a very personal one and if successful no one can understand why he/she did it and obviously they can't tell you why. I'm thinking if you knew all the reasons and plotted them in a bell curve, a few reasons would be at the top as most popular, but there must be thousands of less popular reasons.

 

Suicide and thoughts of suicide have a connection to emotional-thought loops which begin to resonate, until the loop needs to be broken. Thoughts can induce feelings and feelings can induce thoughts. For example, I can think about images of food and start to feel hungry. Or I can feel hungry and I will start to think about food. In some cases this can lead to a self resonant loops; feeling, thought, feeling, thought, feeling (getting stronger and stronger).

The resonant thought-feeling loops that lead to suicide can begin with either a feeling or a particular thought pattern. I feel sad today. This causes me to think about my woes. Thinking about the woes makes me feel worse. Feeling worse makes me think deeper about the worse woes. This makes me feel even worse, which makes me think,, etc, until the loop resonates.

If you think about this somber topic it makes you feel sad. This sadness makes you think about people you might know. This might recreate a past time adding to the sadness. But for most people the loop does not go all the way to resonance where you take the dive. It sort of fades away.

What often causes resonance is departure from natural. The natural urge is to disrupt to loop by disrupting the ego's role in feeding the loop. Since the ego has become unnatural, and think it is the only one there is, it often misinterprets the impulse for loop disruption for permanent physical change. The brain only wants a reboot not oblivion.