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Wislawa
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/16/2001 10:15 AM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
“Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren’t in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.”
– Vaclav Havel, our prize poet/playwright and first president here in the Czech Republic. Disturbing the Peace.
I’m frustrated with how our culture in general and Christians (especially Catholics and Evangelicals) in particular treat those people who have committed, or are considering suicide. We harbor no compassion, only selfish thoughts about how their suicide has affected US. How much must life have hurt for this person to choose his or her own death? Can we really justify our selfish need for them to keep living in their misery, for us? Far from an act of cowardice suicide is an act of courage. It is cowardly to force life on someone else, to rape them with it, against their will, for our own sake.
We must think of suicides in similar ways that we think about other tragic ends such as starvation or terrorist bombings. In a significant number of cases I believe that suicides are less of a choice and more of the inevitable result of given circumstances. We can hardly blame the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing for not being able or strong enough to heroically hold up the walls which fell in on them. How can we blame the victims of suicide (which are in reality victims of life) from not being able to heroically hold up their walls when they fell in on them? We must see these people as victims of burdens too heavy for anyone to carry. One can only hold so much. One can only go on without life-giving nutrients for so long. How is it that when someone starves to death for lack of food we rightly blame greed but when some starve for lack of love (or lack of many other necessary things) we think that they ought to somehow be able to go on by means of sheer will power alone? As if you could will yourself out of your need for food!
Other cultures, such as Japan for example, view suicides as a very honorable response to that which is given to us. Why do we shame those same people? Isn’t it a sign of cowardice that we shame those who can no longer defend themselves against our accusations? Who knows, if they could, they might prove us all wrong. “When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.” (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols 36Th aph. In ”Expeditions of an Untimely Man.”) They threaten us because they reveal us for who we are in all of our nakedness. As a general rule of thumb I believe that those who have committed suicide, if given the chance, could justify their death better then the living can justify their lives. How do we, how can we possibly justify ourselves in judging them? As SK rightly sees: quote:
“It requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself form the ranks of the living; but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.”
–SK The Concept Of Irony. second part.
-Wislawa
Edited by - Wislawa on 08/16/2001 3:18:22 PM
Edited by - Wislawa on 08/16/2001 3:19:50 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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writerdad
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
| Posted 8/16/2001 1:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Wislawa: I am sorry to have to disagree with you, but as someone who has attempted suicide, I disagree with you in the most profound way. Because the person who commits suicide affects those around them who do not wish to be affected, including those that love them it is an act that has ramifications and therefore is an act that should be judged, even if judged in mercy.
I have had two people in my family who have commited suicide and the toll on my family has been incredible. Therefore, while I have empathy and compassion on those who commit suicide, I consider it an act of giving up, rather than battling on. It is the act, sadly, of a quitter. I hope this does not offend you, but, this was posted,so I feel the need to respond.
I still cope with quiting. But when I think about killing myself, as I did much of my earlier life and knowing that I would not have fathered my children, knowing they would not have entered into the world, I realize how wrong such an act would have been. I do not begrudge people who commit suicide their right to quit. Many people quit without killing themselves. I begrudge them because of the devastation they force on those around them. Like it or not, we are a society of interconnectedness. As long as people who kill themselves wreck havoc on others by what they do, their act has to be viewed as an act totally involving self. Such acts are not virtuous. To live or to die is a choice. Life is a choice. I have been in mental institutions, I have felt like I could not live. But I chose to continue on. If one chooses to die, it is not because they cannot go on. It is because they choose not to.John 17:3 Harold
PS why should I listen to the views of a society such as Japan, which is basically non-Christian, when the scriptures celebrate life?
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writerdad
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Total Posts : 448
| Posted 8/16/2001 5:09 PM (GMT -6) | | Wislawa: In a sense we are all victims, victims of abuse, sin, many other things. But there is vast difference bewteen starving to death because you cannot obtain food and giving up on life because you feel you can no longer go on, or being killed in a bombing by another. A big difference.
There are many things that contribute to suicide. It is not an easy subject to get around nor to fully understand. But I perfer to have compassion on those who are still living, rather than those who have decided that they can no longer do so. Those who are still living must deal with the painful aftereffects. The person committing suicide certainly doesn't. For instance, suicide is much more likely in families where there has already been one, as is depression, the need for counseling, etc. It is not something that happens in a vacumn. As such, it should not be viewed as such. Those who commit suicide should not be condemned, but neither should they be exalted. They should be viewed with sadness by us, the living. When one makes a horrendous decision we should try and find out why so it does not happen again. John 17:3 Harold
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Wislawa
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/17/2001 7:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Writerdad, It almost feels like too much work to keep this thread going but I appreciate your responses and they deserve a response on my part. In sentiment I think we can agree. The one main place where I still differ with you is that you feel suicide is a type of quitting where I feel it to be a type of crushing action, life bends the pistol towards us, or pushes us on our swords, or something like that. Know that I’m not trying to make blanket statements that cover all suicides, I can only speak to my own experience of dealing both with others and myself. As Emile Durkheim the French sociologist correctly, imho, points out, “Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon” (Suicide, bk. 2, ch. 6, 1951)
I’m not trying to exalt suicide as much as I am trying to ennoble it. There are more important things than life. Check out these insightful comments by the pycologist Edith Weisskopf-Joelson:
quote:
Our current mental-hygiene philosophy stresses the idea that people ought to be happy, that unhappiness is a symptom of maladjustment. Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy…
[By rejecting this we] may help counteract certain unhealthy trends in the present-day culture of the United States, where the incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading…[so that] he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy.
“Some Comments on a Viennese School of Psychiatry,” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 51, pp. 701-3 (1955).
Given certain situations sadness is the correct and called-for response by healthy well-adjusted people. I’m so worn out by Evangelicaland where everything has to be okay. I once made this print in my printmaking class that goes like this: have you ever seen that poster with a whole bunch of different faces on it and the emotions corresponding to these faces written underneath? Let me see if I can recreate it with these delightful emoticolons:
 happy estatic cool embaressed disaproving silly devilish sly
 playful bummed sad shy shocked angry hungover sleepy
 in love aproving
Well my print looked like this happyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappy
happyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappy
happyhappyhappy
I titled it "Whatever My Lot Thou Hath Taught Me to Lie". My profs loved it.
We have had our inner lives cut off from our outer ones. Any poison we’ve swallowed must stay swallowed and the natural result from this is death. It feels to me as natural as starvation would, as natural as being crushed, indeed it feels exactly like this. You may have made a conscious choice to go only living but that only proves that for you the choice to live was still a possibility. Just like an anorexic who makes a conscious choice to eat saves their life and sets them apart from those who starve to death because they simply don’t have that choice to make.
The Bible differentiates between ‘loads’ and ‘burdens’. If one does not carry their own load they are at fault. The Bible is clear that each should do their share. Load barring is hard work and some choose to give up and quit. But burdens are different. Burdens are that which we cannot bear even if we try. Those who commit suicide may outwardly look indistinguishable from those who merely give up and die, but I insist on a profound distinction made at a right angle to appearances. Just as a man who gets a sex change may look indistinguishable from a woman we would still believe that at right angles to their identical appearance they are still different.
He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself.
Thomas Szasz, U.S. psychiatrist. The Second Sin, “Suicide” (1973).
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
Edited by - Wislawa on 08/21/2001 02:06:14 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
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Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 8/19/2001 12:30 PM (GMT -6) | | I think both Wislawa and Writerdad are making good points.
Wislawa, I completely empathize with your fatigue with "evangeland" -- the land where everything is nice and nothing is sad. And I agree with you in your critique of the knee-jerk reaction evangelicals have toward suicide.
Yet, this knee=jerk reaction has a long long tradition (which is why its so instinctive). Traditionally (in Christendom), suicides were believed to go straight to hell, indeed, to the worst levels of hell. (Even Hollywood embraced this unbiblical notion in the movie What Dreams May Come).
We should be able to at least empathize with the desire to quit, for even Paul expressed it. He said for his own sake he'd rather go and be with the Lord (Die): yet, for the sake of those he could serve, its better to stay (Phil 1, I believe). In this war zone, I for one can completely understand the desire.
What I can't understand is the common Evangelical radical pro-life stance to preserve life at all costs (e.g. the pro-life group that worked, against the parents wishes, to force a hospital to mechanically keep a grotesquely deformed, terminal, and suffering newborn "alive" for the few weeks it was able). Given our perspective that this life is not the highest value, it seems odd that we often cling to it as though it were.
Writerdad: I'm so glad you didn't quit, as much as I understand the desire. While compassion is usually appropriate to suicides, it also is most often a very selfish act. My daughter had a friend commit suicide last week, and the effect it has had on her and many others -- especially the poor mother -- is devastating. Anger and and sense of betrayal are appropriate emotional responses in these cases.
Suicide is murder. But it is forgivable. I think God alone knows the inner motives of heart and workigns of the mind of a person who takes their life. And only he can judge.
Doc
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trosie
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 550
| Posted 8/19/2001 5:37 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc:"Suicide is murder. But it is forgivable. I think God alone knows the inner motives of heart and workigns of the mind of a person who takes their life. And only he can judge."
AMEN!!! I am SO GLAD to hear other Christians showing compassion and understanding on those who feel so hopeless and stuck that they feel the only way to escape the pain is suicide. When I was in highschool I made an attempt at suicide -- MANY "christians" tried to console me (I guess?) by shoving the fact that "suicide is murder and murder is sin... They'd told me that if a person succeeds in the suicidal attempt there will be no way to repent hence hell will be inevitable!" SUCH CONSOLING I NEVER KNEW -- YUCK!!! Somehow they missed the main point that God is LOVE and He wants to walk with the person in the midst of the pain not point an accusing finger at their attempt to relieve the pain. Sometimes I believe when we are too quick to condemn the result we entirely miss addressing the cause. What those who are feeling isolated, confused, betrayed... need is LOVE not condemnation and shame. What people in pain need to hear LOUDEST is that there is a God who LOVES and ACCEPTS them right where they are at!
I am truly glad to hear you all have compassion and understanding for those who are hurting enough in their lives to be caught up in Satan's deceiptful web of planting the lie that ending it will relieve the pain. This world is definitely a war zone! YUCK BUT God does have the VICTORY in the end
God ALONE is the judge of each heart!
trosie
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Wislawa
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/19/2001 9:31 PM (GMT -6) | | Doc:
quote:
Yet, this knee=jerk reaction has a long long tradition (which is why its so instinctive). Traditionally (in Christendom), suicides were believed to go straight to hell, indeed, to the worst levels of hell. (Even Hollywood embraced this unbiblical notion in the movie What Dreams May Come).
Wislawa:
But other cultures such as Japan have given a very nobel place to suicide. I cannot, as writerdad seems to do, dismiss Japanesse culture as unchristian since a)how can we really think that our culture, or any culture, is more or less christian then another one, and b)you have shown that the christian tradition has not even been very biblical on the matter. Maybe Japan is closser to Jesus. After all Jesus choose his own death even when it could have been avoided. Life, as you say, is not the highest value. LIFE? AT WHAT GREAT COSTS NONE THE LESS?
Doc:
quote:
We should be able to at least empathize with the desire to quit, for even Paul expressed it. He said for his own sake he'd rather go and be with the Lord (Die): yet, for the sake of those he could serve, its better to stay (Phil 1, I believe). In this war zone, I for one can completely understand the desire.
Wislawa:
Allong with Trosie i say AMEN! I've been sort of compiling all of the bibical characters or authors who have expressed the desire to kill themselves. So far we've got Job Paul Jesus Johna and Qoheleth but i think a number of the prophets also do so. I'm not as up on my prophets as i'd like to be. i'm saving that for the spring.
Doc:
quote:
What I can't understand is the common Evangelical radical pro-life stance to preserve life at all costs (e.g. the pro-life group that worked, against the parents wishes, to force a hospital to mechanically keep a grotesquely deformed, terminal, and suffering newborn "alive" for the few weeks it was able). Given our perspective that this life is not the highest value, it seems odd that we often cling to it as though it were.
Once again AMEN! Pro-lifers sometimes give me a real chuckle (even though i'm basically pro-life myself) espesally when they try to support their possitions biblically or post bible verses on picket signs. I've always wanted to make my own signs with verses where Job curses the day of his birth and the womb of his mother and go pretend like i'm a bible thumpn' pro-lifer myself until someone looks it up. I would but i'm worried they'd shoot me to isure the right to life (this is ironic for two reasons. 1)pro-lifers are big killers and 2) why should someone who is suicidal be afraid to die? i'm not sure why, all i know is that i am)
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
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Wislawa
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/19/2001 9:52 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
While compassion is usually appropriate to suicides, it also is most often a very selfish act. My daughter had a friend commit suicide last week, and the effect it has had on her and many others -- especially the poor mother -- is devastating. Anger and and sense of betrayal are appropriate emotional responses in these cases.
Suicide is murder. But it is forgivable. I think God alone knows the inner motives of heart and workigns of the mind of a person who takes their life. And only he can judge.
Okay this is the real part of Doc’s post that I’d like to spend some time on.
I will concede that some suicides are purely selfish acts. However, we can never know if this is the case with any given suicide. I can tell you that the only reason I’m alive right now is because I can’t bring myself to do to my mother what I know would result from my chosen death. I have seen first hand the devastation that suicide can bring and this question may seem insensitive but I think it is a valid question to ask.
At what point should we ask whether those who survive the chosen death of a loved one are being selfish or not?
My poor mother will no doubt experience unspeakable grief when I kill myself. I KNOW THAT. IT HAUNTS ME. IT DAMNS ME. But this motive to live is only so strong, and the forces to die may outstretch them.
What if this friend of your daughter felt intensely the burden he or she was placing on those they loved, yet when pitted against their pain it was merely an ant trying to hold back a glacier? Just as life is not the highest value so also the grief we feel for those we’ve lost may not be the greatest pain. How much must this person have been hurting if they were willing, perhaps against their will, to burden others with their own death?
I once had a friend commit suicide. I would like to be able to credit her with at least as much reflective power as I credit myself. If she didn’t know what her death would do to me SHE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. I think she did know, and she did it anyway. I know she loved me. I know she loved her family. How much must she have been hurting that she thought it less to afflict us then to go on herself? Can I really be so selfish as to ask her to, require her to go on is such suffering as this?
Again it may seem insensitive but maybe even that poor mother isn’t grieving now as much as her child was before. Jesus himself was grieved even to the point of death.
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
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writerdad
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
| Posted 8/20/2001 7:17 AM (GMT -6) | | My point was simply this: we, as Christians should uphold the value of life because God does. That is why Jesus said there is no great love than this...that one lays down one's life for his friends. It is the greater gift we have been given by God. To somehow label people who take their own lives as courage and "noble," to me, throws the gift God has given us back in his face. John 17:3 Harold
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pia†desideria
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
| Posted 8/20/2001 7:50 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
So far we've got Job Paul Jesus Johna and Qoheleth but i think a number of the prophets also do so. I'm not as up on my prophets as i'd like to be. i'm saving that for the spring.
Don’t forget Saul, who “fell on his sword.” And Elijah on Mount Horeb. And Jeremiah in the cistern. pia
“An exploration of reality is no place to lose touch with reality.” — Magneton
Edited by - pia†desideria on 08/20/2001 12:56:10 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Wislawa
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Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/20/2001 7:51 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
My point was simply this: we, as Christians should uphold the value of life because God does. That is why Jesus said there is no great love than this...that one lays down one's life for his friends. It is the greater gift we have been given by God. To somehow label people who take their own lives as courage and "noble," to me, throws the gift God has given us back in his face. John 17:3 Harold
But the gift was unasked for. Couldn't you think of it as a sort of rape? In "The God Who Risks" Sanders talks about second birth and irresistable grace in terms of rape. He says that "God does not rape us, even for our own good." I wonder how he would respond if someone pointed out that perhaps rebirth works much like birth.
Our birth is irresistable. I'm here because my parents didn't have enough self-control or any contraception. They didn't want me. now they're responsible for me. I've got to give this to them though, they are very responsible people.
p.s. My argument here wouldn't work on Levinas or Derrida. Both would say that we are always already responsible to alterier beigns. I have no rights. I must serve the other even to the point of death.
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
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Wislawa
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/20/2001 7:55 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
quote:
So far we've got Job Paul Jesus Johna and Qoheleth but i think a number of the prophets also do so. I'm not as up on my prophets as i'd like to be. i'm saving that for the spring.
Don’t forget Saul, who “fell on his sword.” And Elijah on Mount Horeb. And Jeremiah in the cistern. pia
“An exploration of reality is no place to lose touch with reality.” — Magneton
Edited by - pia†desideria on 08/20/2001 12:52:50 PM
Thanks Pia, and so the list grows...
any others anyone?
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
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pia†desideria
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Total Posts : 301
| Posted 8/20/2001 7:55 AM (GMT -6) | | Judas.
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pia†desideria
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| Posted 8/20/2001 8:01 AM (GMT -6) | | Samson.
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writerdad
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
| Posted 8/20/2001 2:13 PM (GMT -6) | | I am not sure what the point is of mentioning people in the Bible who commit suicide. Does that mean that they should be admired, just because they are in the Bible? Judas and Saul, both outside of God's will? Jesus did not commit suicide, he was killed, regardless of whether one believes God planned it.
Wislawa, I honestly believe you would do well to recognize that, like it or not, this is the life we each have and, whether or not you like it, God is the one who is in control. The fact that we have a life to suffer, that we have consciousness is far better than non life because one could not even recognize the fact of anything if one did not exist. Your argument that it was a gift that was not asked for strikes me as humorous, if for no other reason than you argue from the point of having a life that God gave you. Try arguing if you didn't have the life God gave you that you didn't ask for.
Regardless, people have suffered in various ways, in different cultures, in different times. Yet the vast majority of people don't commit suicide, which to me shows that suicide is not something people have to do, but choose to do. It is not noble, but self-centered.
The depression that leads to suicide comes about as a person centers down. All depression, to a great extent, destroys a person when that person cannot see outside of theirselves, when they believe their lives are not worth living because they cannot see any good in their lives. I am not saying this self centered is bad, in that sense. But suicidal people tend to obsess on the quality of their own lives. There is no reason to go on, for me. Seldom does the consideration of others play in, or they would not commit suicide. In my case, that is esprecially true. Fatherhood has made me focus outside myself and, as a result, I have less tendency to slip into the depression I am prone to. I am not trying to critise, but, from my view, the vast majority of suicides are selfish, and have little regard for those around them. God calls us outside ourselves because that is what is best for us. When we worry too much about the state of our own lives, we tend to get into trouble. John 17:3 Harold
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Cibertus
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Total Posts : 57
| Posted 8/20/2001 3:28 PM (GMT -6) | | Wislawa,
Accidents aren't hard to come by. Ever thought of begging and pleading with the Lord asking him to "take you home?"
I did once. God answered and scared the shit out of me.
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Wislawa
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/20/2001 5:15 PM (GMT -6) | | Writerdad
quote:
I am not sure what the point is of mentioning people in the Bible who commit suicide. Does that mean that they should be admired, just because they are in the Bible? Judas and Saul, both outside of God's will? Jesus did not commit suicide, he was killed, regardless of whether one believes God planned it.
No it doesn’t mean that they should be admired JUST because they are in the Bible. But there may be additional reasons to admire them. I’ve just got this hunch that people who see clearly naturally fall into suicidal thoughts “with much knowledge comes much sorrow” says the Qoheleth. I remember hearing a psych prof once say (or maybe it was Doc?) that suicidal persons have a more accurate understanding of what their life is really worth in the big scheme of things. Most non-suicidal people foolishly think that they are more important then they really are. They think that without them to hold things together something bad will happen.
But the more important reason for collecting biblical figures who sung the merits of suicide is to combat the idea that suicide or suicidal thinking is unbiblical or ‘unfit for Christians to spend much time dwelling on’ since we are supposed to be joyful right? And suicide isn’t very joyful.
Did Jesus commit suicide? It depends on how you define the term. You’ve seemed to exclude any form of nobility to the term so Christ’s death, the most noble choice of all, falls outside the scope of its extension. But I’ve been defining it as self-chosen death. Even if “God planned it,” as you say, the Son could have resisted. The Father and the Son had to come into agreement about this. Sanders treats the subject well imho in “The God Who Risks.” In the Garden Jesus chose a death that WAS NOT inevitable. Socrates, Patocka, among others, also chose a death they could have escaped.
quote:
Wislawa, I honestly believe you would do well to recognize that, like it or not, this is the life we each have and, whether or not you like it, God is the one who is in control. The fact that we have a life to suffer, that we have consciousness is far better than non life because one could not even recognize the fact of anything if one did not exist. Your argument that it was a gift that was not asked for strikes me as humorous, if for no other reason than you argue from the point of having a life that God gave you. Try arguing if you didn't have the life God gave you that you didn't ask for.
Yeah I think it’s humorous in a way myself. And Fateful too, your concern is one shared by good company. Check out what I just read today:
“Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment— a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.” (Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, vol. 2, ch. 13, sct. 160)
quote:
Regardless, people have suffered in various ways, in different cultures, in different times. Yet the vast majority of people don't commit suicide, which to me shows that suicide is not something people have to do, but choose to do. It is not noble, but self-centered.
I find your argument here a little humorous as well. Silly me I’ve been aiming higher than “the vast majority off people”. Let’s look at this great mass of men who ‘live lives of quite desperation’ as Thoreau put it. Lately my thoughts have stuck on St. Annie Dillard’s text “For the Time Being” (which btw Doc, if you haven’t read it yet, is one of the greatest books on the problem of evil together with her “Holy the Firm” which I’m in the process of memorizing right now). In “For the Time Being” Dillard collects and juxtaposes meditations on a series of, at first glance, unrelated themes. For example she collects journal entries on clouds. Beautiful and careful descriptions of the way clouds looked on such and such a date in a certain part of the globe, for a matter of minutes only. Why should any of us care what Constable wrote about a cloud formation that is here one minute and gone the next in 1829, while his wife lay dying? Qoheleth called that heval(sp?) a chasing after the wind. Yet he wrote the most touching description of it. He painted it also (lets see if this works 
Dillard juxtaposes themselves with meditations on really big numbers. Do you know that for every person alive right now there have been ten dead people who have lived in the past? The dead will always out number the living. Dillard also throws in bits on evil. Each even unique and most forgotten.
Why meditate on grains of sands, or cloud formations, she asks? Why stop to read a gravestone she answers.
There are 6 billion-plus people living right now. How many of them are living significant lives? Jesus tells us not to grieve for his death, rather we should grieve for our lives. We are the dead burying the dead.
Has anyone seen RADIOHEAD’s music video for ‘Just’? I wish I could find it on the internet because I would but a link up for it. In it a man in a nice suit just lays down in the middle of a London sidewalk. For the whole thing everyone asks him why his doing it and they start to get pretty mad. Finally he tells them why he is doing it. The camera zooms in close, his lips move, he tells his secret, but we can’t make it out. The camera zooms out and we find the entire crowd laying in the middle of the sidewalk. They became enlightened, and devastated.
I’d stay and finish my argument but others have shown up magically at my window to take me out on the town before I have to leave. What I blessing.
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
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whasssuuuppp
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 210
| Posted 8/20/2001 5:21 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
I’d stay and finish my argument but others have shown up magically at my window to take me out on the town before I have to leave. What I blessing.
Is it customary in the czech republic for friends to come by at 5 am?
*******************************
When we can reach beyond our fears to the One who loves us with a love that was there before we were born and will be there after we die, then oppression, persecution, and even death will be unable to take our freedom.
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writerdad
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
| Posted 8/20/2001 7:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Actually I thought both Holy The Firm and Piligrim At Tinker Creek were much better books. While I appreciate and enjoy Dillard I found the book very imbalanced and have found many other books much better in dealing with the concept of randomness and evil in the world. That is my opinion, of course.
The Bible nowhere exalts suicide. It simply reports that they happen. Saul was not noble in his suicide, nor was Judas. Samson died in a noble cause, but he died that way primarly because of the life he lived. He did not die of his own hand, but giving himself over to a cause greater than he. And there was a chance he could have lived. He simply asked God for his strength back that he may defeat God's enemies is all. He did not ask to die and therefore his death was not truly a suicide.
I would go on, but apparently I have struck a raw nerve and, as such, do not really see the need for further dialogue.
As a Christian, I cannot celebrate or praise or declare something noble that is anti-life, which suicide is. I have spent the better part of my life talking through, counseling, listening to and walking through people who are hurting and want to stop their lives. I have seen the tremendous pain of those who want to go on but feel they cannot. I've seen some come through and others quit. And even among those who come through many still struggle. The Bible does not celebrate or support suicide, but it does recognize the great pain and hurt being in this life entails, as does God. Still, we are called to follow God regardless of how we feel, all along going to him with our pain and suffering. Jesus did not quit. We do not quit. That is the road for Christians. Jesus died in the time of his Father, we die in the time of his Father. Sometimes, it is as black and white as that.
Many Christians seem to think that the road is easy because we follow God. But it never has been and never will be...commiting suicide does not mean you see things more clearly or that in doing so you are more "clueful" about this life. It only makes dead, both dead to yourself and dead to those who loved you. John 17:3 Harold
Edited by - writerdad on 08/21/2001 12:33:00 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Wislawa
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/20/2001 9:27 PM (GMT -6) | |
FOR CIBERTUS
quote:
Wislawa,
Accidents aren't hard to come by. Ever thought of begging and pleading with the Lord asking him to "take you home?"
I did once. God answered and scared the **** out of me.
Cibertus
question: after God scared the **** out of you did you still want to die? In Kieslowski's "Three Colors: White" there is a scean like this.
question: can an open theist even say that it was God who was the one doing the scaring or might we just be interpreting our cercumstances with a spiritualization slant?
There was a couple of months where I thought it would help to pray for God to knock me off somehow. Nothing came of it except the feeling that God was saying to me "look buddy your on your own with this one." i was thinking about going on a long fast to try to win him over and to protest the human condition. do you think it would work?
FOR WHASSSUUUPPP
quote:
quote:
I’d stay and finish my argument but others have shown up magically at my window to take me out on the town before I have to leave. What I blessing.
Is it customary in the czech republic for friends to come by at 5 am?
Well it's not customary but this is finals week here. Yesterday and today is our two part final for my class. Some of my fellow students who, like myself, stayed up all night studing came to take me out to breakfast before our test. the trouble is that instead of studing i spent most of the night on this stupid 'puter? but you know what i do best when i get sleepy right Polish girl was one of the friends i think tonight we might do a little post-test studing if you know what i mean
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
Edited by - Wislawa on 08/21/2001 02:29:18 AM
Edited by - Wislawa on 08/21/2001 02:32:17 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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trosie
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 550
| Posted 8/21/2001 2:22 AM (GMT -6) | | Wislawa:"My poor mother will no doubt experience unspeakable grief when I kill myself. I KNOW THAT. IT HAUNTS ME. IT DAMNS ME. But this motive to live is only so strong, and the forces to die may outstretch them."
The 'Praise of Suicide Part I' thread has been one with a wide screen on my computer up to now so it has made it harder for me to follow along, however, now that the screen is back to normal size, reality is finally starting to hit me. Wislawa, have you already made a decision to commit suicide? The reason I ask is because you said "My mother no doubt WILL experience unspeakable grief..." Does that "WILL EXPERIENCE" mean that you have made a definite decision? Up to now I was under the impression that you were simply dialoguing about suicide from a theological stance, I had no idea you talking about it on this site because you were trying to presuade people, maybe even yourself, that suicide isn't as bad as it seems -- trying to make it seem noble. I now am worried that you are trying to get the courage up to actually do it -- it this true? In that case I'm with Springs, I will be praying deligently BIG TIME on your behalf that God will help you see the TRUTH and NOT Satan's deceitful lie.
Wislawa:"Again it may seem insensitive but maybe even that poor mother isn’t grieving now as much as her child was before. Jesus himself was grieved even to the point of death."
NO WAY do I agree with that statement. I have walked the life of living in so much pain that suicide felt like the only viable solution... BUT now that I am a mother, I know there can be NO PAIN, not even the pain I felt back when I attempted suicide, that can compare with the pain a mother would feel in the loss of her own child. There is NO WAY that your statement is correct when you say, "that poor mother isn’t grieving now as much as her child was before." That poor mother's life is damaged in many ways for the rest of her life. She will always live with the pain, hurt, and guilt. She may even wonder if it was indirectly her fault. I have had many women who have lost children to natural causes tell me that there is no loss, not even the loss of a spouse, that hurts as much as the loss of a child regardless of the child's age.
Wislawa, the bottom line is it may seem that suicide is the only real choice that will bring relief, Satan may even be effective in getting you to buy into the "noble" idea of suicide, BUT none of us know with certainty what happens to a person if they take their own life. It may be that God shows mercy on those who successfully commit suicide but we don't know for sure that that's the case. To me it's like gambling major league with eternity.
I am still unclear if you are for real set on the decision or not? Be assured that I will be praying for you. I thank God that you are open enough to discuss this topic on the board!
trosie
Edited by - trosie on 08/21/2001 07:25:40 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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Wislawa
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/21/2001 8:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Given for/to Trosie,
Trosie wrote:
quote:
Wislawa, have you already made a decision to commit suicide? The reason I ask is because you said "My mother no doubt WILL experience unspeakable grief..." Does that "WILL EXPERIENCE" mean that you have made a definite decision? Up to now I was under the impression that you were simply dialoguing about suicide from a theological stance, I had no idea you talking about it on this site because you were trying to presuade people, maybe even yourself, that suicide isn't as bad as it seems -- trying to make it seem noble. I now am worried that you are trying to get the courage up to actually do it -- it this true? In that case I'm with Springs, I will be praying deligently BIG TIME on your behalf that God will help you see the TRUTH and NOT Satan's deceitful lie.
Wislawa writes:
Did you know that in a couple of places the Bible speaks of humans as having foreknowledge? Foreknowledge is just a knowing-ahead-of-time. All of us know ahead of time that we are going to die. Ever since I was old enough to start approaching that reality I’ve known how I’m going to die as well. Its just something I know the same as you know that someday you’ll die. I don’t know exactly how, and I don’t know at all the when, but my suicide is something I’ve just known. Does this make sense?
But all that being said there really is no reason to be worried. I guess I shouldn’t try to convince you to stop praying since we should always like prayer right? But seriously I can’t emphasize this enough WHATEVER YOU DO DON’T FLIP OUT ON ME!!!!!!! This whole issue has been a chatch-22 for me. At the end of the day it has forced me to just keep everything to myself since the slightest whisper of suicidal thoughts sets everyone crazy around me. I have no one in real life, except for a new friend in MN who is also really suicidal and knows exactly what I mean by everybody flipping out, who I can discuss this with safely. I can’t air anything out. I have to keep it inside or else I end up in some mental hospital. And now that I’m not 18 anymore the adult wards are less friendly then the children’s ones. Every time I try to simply talk about it to people it just makes everything worse. I’m trapped. I can’t go on but I can’t tell anyone that I can’t go on or else things will get set into motion that will INSURE that I won’t be able to go on. That’s why this whole internet gizmo might be a better place to air some stuff out. But if everyone starts getting freaky on me I’m just going to have to shut back in on myself and do the best I can to cover my tracks. If you were for real when you said, “I thank God that you are open enough to discuss this topic on the board!” know that this is contingent on you and others NOT freaking out. If anyone tries any funny business I’m outta here (by that I mean stopping the discussion, not killing myself). I cannot say this loud enough. DON’T WORRY!.
That said, Trosie also wrote:
quote:
NO WAY do I agree with that statement. I have walked the life of living in so much pain that suicide felt like the only viable solution... BUT now that I am a mother, I know there can be NO PAIN, not even the pain I felt back when I attempted suicide, that can compare with the pain a mother would feel in the loss of her own child. There is NO WAY that your statement is correct when you say, "that poor mother isn’t grieving now as much as her child was before." That poor mother's life is damaged in many ways for the rest of her life. She will always live with the pain, hurt, and guilt. She may even wonder if it was indirectly her fault. I have had many women who have lost children to natural causes tell me that there is no loss, not even the loss of a spouse, that hurts as much as the loss of a child regardless of the child's age
Wislawa writes:
Trosie you just can’t be sure that this is true. All you can say is that when YOU were suicidal the pain you felt then was less then the pain you would feel if (God forbid) you would lose one of your own children. But you’re just not in a position to say this for OTHER people. You cannot say that life is worth living until you’ve spent a day in my shoes, just as I can’t justify suicide for everyone else unless I could spend a day in theirs. We have polarized the issue so that it has become one of LIFE/death and MOTHER/child. All I’m saying is that there might be higher values then life or greater sorrow than a mother’s grief. I can’t be sure of this but isn’t it possible? How can you know that it’s not?
All that I can say is that when I look at my own options they are usually framed in this manner: either a) go on living another day, or b) collapse. A is supposedly the noble and selfless thing to do, to live in misery just for her, to preserve her in this low-grade death she’s already living instead of giving her sharper, less romantic pangs of grief. But this selflessness isn’t all that persuasive. Simply put the good I’m preserving isn’t all that great. Indeed at times it doesn’t even seem like it would be worth preserving in the first place. At what point does a supposedly ‘selfish’ action become justifiable? The good I’d be granting myself seems so much greater then the good I’m granting others by simply staying alive. Is it wrong to do something good for myself for a change? Probably…that’s why I’m still here at least.
Given for/to Writerdad,
Writerdad wrote:
quote:
All depression, to a great extent, destroys a person when that person cannot see outside of theirselves, when they believe their lives are not worth living because they cannot see any good in their lives.
Wislawa writes:
One of the things that I’ve been trying to come against in this thread is the polarization of values that center around this issue. People pit life against death as ultimate without really knowing what either are. My hunch is that those who constantly have suicide in front of them, or on their minds, as I do, might actually know better what life really is, and what is really at stake in death, in the ‘adieu’ as Levinas called it. That being the case I would like to submit that it are those people like myself, those in-between life and death, who are the most destructive. Death is not an ultimate; the dead alive do more harm then suicides. “The destructive character lives from the feeling, not that life is worth living, but that suicide is not worth the trouble.” (Walter Benjamin [1892–1940], German critic, philosopher. “The Destructive Character,” in Frankfurter Zeitung). It may even get to the point where the moral thing to do is to leave—adieu. As it has already come out on the poverty thread we can do much harm, even if we don’t mean to.
One of the Biblical characters who I’ve always identified the most with is Jonah. When he was on the boat the boat was going down, as soon as he jumped ship everything went calm. Perhaps, like Samson, we should see this as acting for a greater cause. As things are now the world is going to hell, in part (or maybe in whole) because of me.
One August, when I was about 16 or so it finally slipped out. My mother told me she had had an abortion. Not only that but she also had another child, one who was born very ill both mentally and physically because of all the drugs she had taken during her pregnancy. She never found out what happened to him. He probably died early on, she thinks, but if he didn’t we’ll never know. She turned him over as a ward of the state not knowing what else to do. My dad said he would kill me if I told anyone this, but I don’t think he really would, and I’m sure he doesn’t check this site. Besides how can you really swear someone to this kind of secrecy, especially when my mom forced it on me without my wanting it? But when she told me this all the pieces of the puzzle started falling into place and I immediately remembered something she had said to me when I was about 5 or 6.
Once, when I was being particularly difficult (which was 99.9% of the time) she started sobbing from frustration. She threw me into my room and said the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me in my life: “My mother [which would be my grandmother] always cursed me as a child by wishing on me that someday I would have my own child who was as bad to me as I was to her, and now I have it—this Devil-child. But you…you living curse…you are supposedly a gift from God? God sent me you as punishment for my sins!”
I never knew which sins she was talking about until that August day when I was 16. The ship is going down, its time to throw the curse overboard. It seems like a fitting curse for an abortion, doesn’t it—to replace these first two children with a third, an anti-christchild.
Wouldn’t the morally right thing to do be to commit suicide if you were Hitler in his youth? Wouldn’t suicide be the best ethical move for the Anti-Christ? The whole destructive choreography should follow me overboard, shouldn’t it?
Writerdad wrote:
quote:
Fatherhood has made me focus outside myself and, as a result, I have less tendency to slip into the depression I am prone to. I am not trying to critise, but, from my view, the vast majority of suicides are selfish, and have little regard for those around them. God calls us outside ourselves because that is what is best for us.
Wislawa writes:
One of the traps that I’m in is this one. I can’t put myself in positions like fatherhood, or marriage, or any other close relationship because if I do it will only make things worse for others if I jump off a bridge or something. You may not give me credit for it but I think I do understand what my death would do to others so I have to try to limit the number of others this would happen to. But this is a trap too because the lack of close relationships doesn’t make it easier for me, it might even make suicide more likely on my part, even if it makes it easier for others when the time comes. Once again I’m damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t. Since I’m damned either way I’m just looking for the most ethical way to go about it all, but nothings looking very promising right now. I even asked an ethics prof once what an ethical way to kill oneself would look like but his answer basically said that there was no such thing.
Lastly Writerdad wrote:
quote:
Many Christians seem to think that the road is easy because we follow God. But it never has been and never will be...commiting suicide does not mean you see things more clearly or that in doing so you are more "clueful" about this life. It only makes dead, both dead to yourself and dead to those who loved you.
Okay Writerdad, out of all of the Biblical character’s we’ve listed you’ve at least got to give me the Qoheleth. He at least speaks of suicide as the natural conclusion to clear headed reflection and enlightened perspective. With this canonical foothold we can hang a long tradition in philosophy and art as undersigners to the Qoheleth, or as the last great authorities who have come to the same conclusion. And how many others who have written nothing but have followed through with actions can we add to that list? How many anonymous suicides have said as much where it counts—in their deeds? Nietzche, Havel, Patocka, Camus, all the poets and philosopher’s achieve canonical status in as much as they see what the Qoheleth saw and spoke accordingly.
quote:
The philosopher is like a man fasting in the midst of universal intoxication. He alone perceives the illusion of which all creatures are the willing playthings; he is less duped than his neighbor by his own nature. He judges more sanely, he sees things as they are. It is in this that his liberty consists— in the ability to see clearly and soberly, in the power of mental record.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–81), Swiss philosopher, poet. Journal Intime, entry for 30 Aug. 1872.
I can die when I wish to: that is my elixir of life.
Ernest Renan (1823–92), French writer, critic, scholar. Quoted in: H. W. Wardman, Ernest Renan: a Critical Biography, “The Republic” (1964).
Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life.
Seneca (c. 5 B.C.–A.D. c. 65), Roman writer, philosopher, statesman. Epistulae ad Lucilium, Epistle 70, sct. 11.
To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one’s own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there.
Friedrich Nietzsche Twilight of the Idols, “Expeditions of an Untimely Man,” aph. 36 (1889).
Whensoever any affliction assails me, mee thinks I have the keyes of my prison in mine owne hand, and no remedy presents it selfe so soone to my heart, as mine own sword. Often meditation of this hath wonne me to a charitable interpretation of their action, who dy so: and provoked me a little to watch and exagitate their reasons, which pronounce so peremptory judgements upon them.
John Donne (a Christian preacher no less!) Biathanatos, Preface (written c. 1608; published 1646; repr. in Complete Poetry and Selected Prose, ed. by John Hayward, 1929).
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 afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.
Albert Camus The Myth of Sisyphus, “Absurdity and Suicide”
The prevalence of suicide, without doubt, is a test of height in civilization; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it snaps.
Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), British psychologist. The Dance of Life, ch. 7 (1923).
The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never swerves from this double impossibility.
E. M. Cioran (b. 1911), Rumanian-born French philosopher. The New Gods, “Encounters with Suicide” (a very cool book!)
It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
E. M. Cioran (b. 1911), Rumanian-born French philosopher. The Trouble with Being Born, (a very very cool book I might say) ch. 2 (1973).
It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.
Friedrich Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil, ch. 4, aph. 157 (1886).
If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.
Antonin Artaud (1896–1948), French theater producer, actor, theorist. “On Suicide,” in Le Disque Vert, no. 1 (Paris, 1925).
However great a man’s fear of life, suicide remains the courageous act, the clear-headed act of a mathematician. The suicide has judged by the laws of chance— so many odds against one that to live will be more miserable than to die. His sense of mathematics is greater than his sense of survival. But think how a sense of survival must clamour to be heard at the last moment, what excuses it must present of a totally unscientific nature.
Graham Greene (1904–91), Dr. Magiot, in The Comedians, pt. 1, ch. 4, sct. 1 (1966).
A heart that's full up like a landfill
a job that slowly kills you
bruises that won't heal
you look so tired-unhappy
...
I'll take the quite life
A handshake of carbon monixide
With no alarms and no surprises
sielnce, sielnce
this is my final fit
my final bellyache
such a pretty house
and such a pretty garden
with no alarms and no surprises
please
RADIOHEAD no alarms (the song that just happened(!) fatefully to be playing as I type this.)
Human life consists in mutual service. No grief, pain, misfortune, or “broken heart,” is excuse for cutting off one’s life while any power of service remains. But when all usefulness is over, when one is assured of an unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935), American philosopher and a pioneer feminist. Suicide note, 17 Aug. 1935.
Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me me.
G. C. Lichtenberg (1742–99), German physicist, philosopher. “Speech of a suicide composed shortly before the act,” in Aphorisms, “Notebook B,” aph. 37 (written 1765–99; tr. by R. J. Hollingdale, 1990).
The woman is perfected
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment.
Sylvia Plath (1932–63), U.S. poet. First lines of Edge. This was Plath’s last poem, written a week before her suicide.
Van Gogh’s Last painting before he committed suicide can be found herewww.artchive.com/artchive/V/van_gogh/crows.jpg.html
He shot himself in the stomach. It took him two days (or was it two weeks?) to die. With his brother Theo at his side he kept repeating these words: “There is no end to sadness.”
At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.
Cesare Pavese (1908–50), Italian poet. The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935–1950 (1952; tr. 1961), entry for 1 Jan. 1950.
No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.
Cesare Pavese (1908–50), Italian poet. The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935–1950 (1952; tr. 1961), entry for 23 March 1938. Suicide was a continuing theme in Pavese’s diaries; he took his own life on 27 Aug. 1950, shortly after being awarded the Strega Prize for literature.
With Much Computer Love,
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
Edited by - Wislawa on 08/22/2001 02:19:16 AM | | Back to Top | | |
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writerdad
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
| Posted 8/22/2001 6:36 AM (GMT -6) | | Wislawa: I wish to make some general comments, but before I do I would preface this by saying that each is given in the spirit of Christian love and, as such, should be taken that way.
First, I must be honest and say that it is hard to take anything personal you say as truth, given that you have stated at various times that things you say were not true and in fact are playing a game about your identity. Given that, its hard not to wonder if this whole suicide isn't in fact another play on words, so to speak. This is not to criticise but rather to simply state because suicide is not with me. It is something I've dealt with on an ongoing basic throughout my life, either personally or through other people. It is not a thing of words, but of reality for me.
In regards to "this being something I've always known," that you would die this way: this simply strikes me as a self fulfilling prophecy. If we suppose that God has somehow predetermined that you would die that way, why would he give you such foreknowledge? In love? I doubt it. It would seem to me that you have had suicidal thoughts (who hasn't, if all are honest with themselves), have made it more noble by finding words by authors who have written on it and now see yourself in that nobility. Given that you previously answered another question by saying that you have asked God to "knock you off," brings your seriousness about suicide into serious question. I think you have what a lot of have regarding suicide: a utopian view that does not square with reality. Death is called the last enemy by the Bible. Ushering yourself into it before your time is not noble; its giving in to the enemy.
You say you cannot let it out because people will freak out. I would suggest you find those who won't. There are many around. I've found them and you can too.
Jesus did not commit suicide. He laid down his life for his friend. He did not want to die. Read in the garden. He died because it was needed, not because he wanted to.
It should also be noted that quoting different authors at times when they are suicidal or quoting characters within their plays (such as Greene's) doesn't mean the author himself believes suicide is just. Context is needed.
Finally, I assume, since I cannot remmber who this "Q," guy is that he is in the Apocrypra books. I am Protestant. They are not in my canon (though I do read them). If you are going to prove that suicide is from scripture, you will have to do it with the 39 OT books and 27 NT books. John 17:3 Harold
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writerdad
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 448
| Posted 8/22/2001 6:49 AM (GMT -6) | | Wislawa: I did want to add this: much of what you have said in this area is prefaced by the word "cannot." I cannot let it out and I cannot tell anyone. That is a very common feeling in suicide, going along with "no one understands." When one gets so deep in, it does truly feel that way. But you are wrong. There are people who understand, will listen, will hear you through what you need to go through. But you have to seek them out. You have to take the chance and find them. Otherwise, nothing will change. What it comes down to with each suicidal person is this (and this goes with all people who are trying to recover from something): are they willing to do the work? One of the worse things to believe is happiness is easy, that you deserve an easy life. That simply isn't true. Life is difficult is one of the noble truths. We each must decide if we are going to work at life and if we are going to work at life for the rest of our lives. Because growth and healing are a continous process in this life. John 17:3 Harold
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Wislawa
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 83
| Posted 8/22/2001 6:57 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
First, I must be honest and say that it is hard to take anything personal you say as truth, given that you have stated at various times that things you say were not true and in fact are playing a game about your identity. Given that, its hard not to wonder if this whole suicide isn't in fact another play on words, so to speak. This is not to criticise but rather to simply state because suicide is not with me. It is something I've dealt with on an ongoing basic throughout my life, either personally or through other people. It is not a thing of words, but of reality for me.
Well i guess i can't blame you for being skeptical. what else can i say? there isn't any way, other than by action, that i can show you i'm for real too. sorry.
quote:
In regards to "this being something I've always known," that you would die this way: this simply strikes me as a self fulfilling prophecy. If we suppose that God has somehow predetermined that you would die that way, why would he give you such foreknowledge? In love? I doubt it. It would seem to me that you have had suicidal thoughts (who hasn't, if all are honest with themselves), have made it more noble by finding words by authors who have written on it and now see yourself in that nobility.
I'm not suggesting it is God's will for me to die, or that my foreknowledge came from him. I'm simply tring to describe a phenomena that i've experanced. the knowledge that this is how im going to die someday has simply been alterier to my being conscience of it. as i grow in conscienceness, and try to make sense of things, it has been one of the first objects to come into view. what it means or where it came from is still out of view.
quote:
You say you cannot let it out because people will freak out. I would suggest you find those who won't. There are many around. I've found them and you can too.
Where do you find these people? my experance has been that lay people flip out and that professional people have a legal obligation to take action if someone lets on that their suicidal.
quote:
Finally, I assume, since I cannot remmber who this "Q," guy is that he is in the Apocrypra books. I am Protestant. They are not in my canon (though I do read them). If you are going to prove that suicide is from scripture, you will have to do it with the 39 OT books and 27 NT books.
Qoheleth is the preacher in ecclesiatees(sp?) but its easier for me to spell. i always learned to refer to this book by its hebrew name just because it sounded cooler i guess. so it qualifies as on of our 39 OT books.
-Wislawa
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame [shalhevet-Yah = the very fire of Yah(weh)].
Canticles 8:6
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