So I was re-reading Marcus Aurelius's Meditations and some of the comments were about suicide. Stoics did not believe suicide was wrong. They didn't really push that everyone should do it but that it is a persons choice and right to do so.

I personally have always believed it, and while have been disappointed and upset by friends and family who have committed suicide, I do feel that it wouldn't have been right to stop them. I do think with clear guidelines, folks should have the right to physician assisted suicide as well.

So really, what makes suicide wrong?

Are you looking for religious reasons? I have none.

I am a great proponent of physician-assisted suicide, have been since the hell my father went through when he died. Now, my former MIL is suffering from advanced Alzheimers. She has lost all mental capacity, her physical body is suffering but there is nothing anyone can do. She is now refusing food. Thankfully, her doctor is "bending" rules and allowing her to make that decision and since her daughter is her guardian, she is allowing it as well.

As for non-disease rated suicide, IMO, it's a selfish act. Most times, I think people could be gotten past what has led them to that decision with the right help.

u knew ppl who committed suicide?

Yes. About 7 or so. 2 were fairly recent, beginning of the year.

omg 7 or so

Actually not so much religious. I find religions views on suicide being wrong more from a standpoint that they want control and anything that removes that control is considered wrong.

I can agree with the consideration that it might be selfish, but isn't it more selfish to force people to exist when they don't want to?

yea what she says....

I don't know. I wonder, though, if people who did commit suicide at a low point in their lives, when they saw no way out, if the knew there was a different option, would they choose that? If they could take themselves outside of themselves for just a moment to see that maybe, things could be different, would their choice be the same?

I don't know. In essence, I agree with you, people should have the freedom to choose. Yet, I have to wonder if they would still make the same choice if even one tiny thing in their life changed? I still stand by my opinion, though, that it is a very selfish act. It may end their troubles, whatever they may be, but it leaves their friends and family to deal, for the rest of their lives, with the aftermath. Suicide is like abuse. It profoundly affects people who have no control for the rest of their lives, even if they somehow make peace with it.

Whoa now. Is this for real? Personally, I think the only reason suicide is justified is if an incurable medical problem makes life unlivable (chronic SUICIDE headaches, for example). But that's really not suicide as much as euthanasia.

Depression or some messed up situation in life does not justify suicide. And I don't say that because "they're being selfish, and not considering the people they'll leave behind" or whatever. I'm saying, depression is a treatable illness; looking away is not acceptable! A life, mind, potential is a a terrible thing to waste!

What If. Is the eternal and unknowing question. We can what if things to death, and I have several friends who live that way and are very negative folks in general.

Thanks for your thoughts. :-)

Well I thought it was a decent philosophical question. I'm certainly not advocating people go commit suicide. I just want to know why we wouldn't allow them that right.

Anything requiring treatment also means the person has to take and use that treatment for their benefit. It only works then. Forcing someone to take treatment is abuse and cruel. That takes away their rights and essentially puts them through as slaves. God or the Deity of most people gave people the Free Will to make their own choice, however flawed it may be. What give us the right to forbid anyone their choice?

I think that's the best I ever heard that put

However, for many depression is so debilitating that they can't see that there is treatment that may work. I know many who have suffered from depression, including myself, and a few where it was so pervading their existence that they could see NOTHING beyond, one who has attempted suicide many times. She's so heavily medicated, she has no life. Yet she refuses any other treatment that may help. And there are other options for her, she just won't. And if she goes off her meds, even for a few days, she ends up hospitalized.

I agree with Equus, you cannot force anyone to do anything. But, I still don't think suicide is the answer.

Suicide is painless, it brings on many changes, and I can take or leave it if I choose.... Theme from Mash

I too have lost many friends to suicide... I miss them, it is sad when you wish you could have helped them through what it was they were going through..
Everyone chooses their life, what they want from it, what they want to do with it.. I also know some who have tried over and over again to kill themselves and keep coming back... I don't believe in accidents.

States of mind make suicide wrong. Sometimes the next day I regret what I did, its a permanent solution to a temporary problem in many cases.

I would urge anyone with anything left to live for to carry on.

What makes suicide wrong?

Well, some cultures view it as a form of murder and if they feel murder in of itself is wrong, then self murder is even worse.

Take "The Divine Comedy" for instance, in hell the suicides grow into gnarled trees that have their leaves eaten off by harpies. The gnarled aspect is supposed to show how the person viewed their "self", something twisted and ugly. The leaves being eaten off is suppposed to represent a way to vent the pain of the soul, even though the pain is eternal. After the judgement day, the suicides are to collect the bodies that they threw away and it is hanged from their branches, so they can forever look upon what they gave away.

So, from a religous viewpoint, suicide is wrong because you destroyed the gift you were given, your body.

Other cultures view it as an honorable way to die and view it as nothing serious.

The latter statement is evidenced in Japanese culture, in the act of "hari-kari"--not sure I spelled it right, where samurai kill themselves with their own sword or the suicide bombers in WWII. It is something you do for your country and for honor.

Just a few thoughts, there are many others.

It is better to die like a tiger than to live like a Pus*y.

I find it fascinating the societal mindsets that have evolved....

intervention...opinion, rules, laws, all of it compounding, twisting, devolving.

On the one hand there is self-righteous indignation when suicide, or assisted suicide touches us.

On the other hand these self same righteously indignant applaud war....applaud young people trained to go to war.....is that not really also suicide?

To willingly train in combat where the object is to 'kill or be killed'?


This society, (westernised) is so anethatised (sp?) to death.... so terribly adverse to even thinking about the ending of this identity of self, that it causes almost panic, and violent reactions.

The collective sense of ought.

The problem is that we can undoubtedly prove why something is so, but we can never prove why it ought to be so.

Morals...

IMO suicide is the Pus*y way out