Comment 4 - Suicide

In response to:
“I wondered at the beginning of this module, why suicide wasn't included as one of the topics. Like I've admitted before though, I do have a morbid curiosity -but I wasn't waiting for something tragic like this to happen before bringing the subject up in my blogs.

Suicide must be the ulitimate personal statement. I also have to admit that sometimes in my rather murky alcoholic past, it has been something that played on my mind quite a bit - as a way out of a situation I felt I had no control over. Alcoholism is a process of slow suicide in its own right, if you take it to the bitter end.
I digress though. The question in my mind isn't so much the 'why?' - but the 'how?' Not the mechanics of doing it, obviously, but how someone can feel so utterly at the point of no return, where they can actually go through with it. There are those that would say it's the coward's way out, but in my opinion, it's one of the most courageous things anyone can do. The act goes against a lot of peoples' beliefs and opens a whole debate on the rights and wrongs of it.
One train of thought is that life was given to us by God, and only he can take it away again. I'm not a religious person, and feel that our life is our own and it's up to each individual to make the decisions in their life that they feel are the right ones for them; whether that be from the most basic and trivial, right through to what is probably the most difficult - whether to take your own life or not - it does have a certain finality about it; once you've done it, you can't change your mind.
There's also the big question of what happens if it goes wrong? With some methods - such as hanging, a person could end up permanently brain damaged, and then they could have to live the rest of their lives powerless to do anything because they're trapped in a mind they have little or no control over - which to me would be worse than dying. Would that be seen by some as God's punishment for trying to take something that wasn't theirs to take in the first place? I'm sorry, but I can't see it that way.
Mark Speight - Telegraph”
http://stundreded.blogspot.com/



My comment:
I too do not understand the religious viewpoint on suicide. It is one of the fundaments of religion that I cannot seem to grasp. Christianity teaches us (the church itself and not the Bible) that any sin is forgiven, if only we repent, apart from suicide. So you can rape, torture or kill thousands of people and still be let into the kingdom of heaven if only you apologise. Yet if you’ve never harmed a hair on anyone else’s head, yet you take your own life, it's an eternity in hell for you.
However I don’t think that committing suicide is a courageous thing to do at all. Life is hard, it’s a struggle, its not easy, you have to fight for what you want. You have to work hard. You get knocked down and have to get up again repeatedly. But wouldn’t life be dull if it wasn’t a challenge? If happiness was handed to us on a plate, I’m sure we’d all get sick of eating it. Everybody has dark days when they wish they didn’t have to face the world. The courageous thing to do is get up and face it.