Is suicide morally or ethically wrong?

imho, id say morally wrong. although i am presuming that the person has morals.
I also couldnt say ethically wrong because not everyone has ethics.(get it, morals above ethics) imho
 
Namaste Arthra,

thank you for the post. nice to hear from you again :)


arthra said:
Suicide or taking one's life is forbidden for Baha'is however there was a notable Baha'i who drowned himself in despair after the passing of Baha'u'llah from this life back there in 1892.

......
His act of suicide was still forgiven:
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interesting, thank you for the scripture. i'm not really sure what your view is in regards to the OP... do you think it is moral/immoral, ethical/unethical, both, neither?

metta,

~v
 
Namaste greymare,

thank you for the post.

greymare said:
imho, id say morally wrong. although i am presuming that the person has morals.
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whilst it is true that we do not know the potential suicides moral view and, in my estimation, trying to determine such is not going to be very productive and we'll probably get it wrong anyways. that is why i'm asking about your moral and ethical view on the matter :)

i'm not a big fan of mind reading so i hardly ever post threads where i'm advocating that we all give it a go ;)

I also couldnt say ethically wrong because not everyone has ethics.(get it, morals above ethics) imho
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this is an interesting view and one which, frankly, i've not considered. in my experience all social animals have ethics though we see examples in all social animal groups of beings that lack the same ethical parameters of the rest of their group and those beings also tend to be the ones which are amoral. in any case i'm curious about your view in regards to the ethical and moral nature of the question under discussion.

i would gather that you would deem suicide to be morally wrong, immoral but not necessarily ethically wrong, unethical, is that correct?

metta,

~v
 
Namaste Greymare,

thank you for the post.

greymare said:
i dont know, now ive just confused myself.
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no worries... our ideas are, hopefully, fluid and we have the ability to change them as we accumulate new ideas and experiences it's possible that you've not given this sort of thought to this topic in quite some time.

i find myself thinking on the dissolution of my physical form and of all sentient beings fairly often and have given much thought to this idea which is, perhaps, why i'm able to ramble on about it so ;)

metta,

~v
 
Vajradhara said:
i find myself thinking on the dissolution of my physical form and of all sentient beings fairly often and have given much thought to this idea which is, perhaps, why i'm able to ramble on about it so ;)
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Fond regards, Vajra!

I'm sorry I haven't read the thread, I will spare the excuses. But this last comment concerns me just a bit...is there any particular reason you might spend "fairly often" considering this? I am not asking pertaining to whether I consider the matter moral/ethical or not, I am asking out of concern for a friend.

Being in continual pain with a degenerative disease, the thought has crossed my mind occasionally too. I feel it is a personal decision, one that should be deeply considered first. Life is a gift no matter what the source, ending it prematurely is in my opinion showing disrespect for the gift...presuming a "normal" existance. I allow myself the caveat that when it becomes unbearable, perhaps ending the suffering is the better path...but that is a bridge I will cross when I get there. That is a path for me, not one I advocate for others. There is something that just doesn't sit right with me encouraging others to throw away such a precious gift as life is.

I'm rather fond of saying, "today is a good day, I'm on this side of the daisies and I'm not worm food yet." :) Being able to get out of bed, put my clothes on and feed myself are certainly bonus on top of that.
 
greymare said:
dont do anything stupid juan too3 or ill kick your a--. lol
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LOL...you'll kill me if I kill me... :D

No need to concern yourself. Should the time come it is still a ways off.

Though I have long thought the best way would be to slip into the woods for a nice long hike, and just not come home. ;)
 
juantoo3 said:
Though I have long thought the best way would be to slip into the woods for a nice long hike, and just not come home. ;)
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I never considered that suicide. That is my plan if I ever have a degenerative disease or cancer that becomes unbearable.

But I don't think it's suicide, as I'm pretty sure I'd fight to live (automatically, it's just instinct) until the end.

As a Druid and as an anthropologist, I see it as allowing the natural process, not as deliberately killing ourselves. Refusing treatment and society is not the same thing as taking a gun to our head or OD'ing on medication (at least in my book).

We domesticated ourselves and live artificially long lives in an artificial environment.

I see death by exposure as simply choosing to remove the artificiality and offer our animal bodies up to nature and her processes.
 
Actually, wasn't that something certain Native American tribes used to practice? Earl
 
Namaste juan,

thank you for the post :)


juantoo3 said:
But this last comment concerns me just a bit...is there any particular reason you might spend "fairly often" considering this? I am not asking pertaining to whether I consider the matter moral/ethical or not, I am asking out of concern for a friend.
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oh nothing too dramatic, it's a common injunction within my tradition to contemplate the impermanence of existence.

in my opinion this consideration and the implications that it has are one of the most important things that we humans need to determine for ourselves, to the degree possible according with their capacity.

Being in continual pain with a degenerative disease, the thought has crossed my mind occasionally too. I feel it is a personal decision, one that should be deeply considered first.
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i can certainly relate to this situation as i find it's effecting myself as well given the nature of my physical form. i would certainly agree that the ending of ones arising is a decision that need be deeply considered.

Life is a gift no matter what the source, ending it prematurely is in my opinion showing disrespect for the gift...presuming a "normal" existance.
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interesting... arising as a human is, in the Buddhist world view, the single best arising that a being can have and as such it should be continued as long as possible but i wouldn't consider such to be a gift as it arises directly from our karma... then again, we've a different world view anyways :)

I allow myself the caveat that when it becomes unbearable, perhaps ending the suffering is the better path...but that is a bridge I will cross when I get there. That is a path for me, not one I advocate for others. There is something that just doesn't sit right with me encouraging others to throw away such a precious gift as life is.
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thank you.

so.. in relation to the question, it seems that you'd suggest that suicide is neither moral/immoral or ethical/unethical, is that correct?

metta,

~v
 
V. I don't know if your thread represents a very personal, intimate struggle with the issue. Certainly, I would not put forth a "judgment" re that. However, if your probe is more philosophical, I would answer philosophically. From a Buddhist perspective, suicide is not apparently condoned:

Buddhism and Suicide - Damien Keown

May you be well, Earl
 
Namaste earl,

i'm curious regarding to view and answer to the OP, i've nothing going on at the moment in such a regard ;)

metta,

~v
 
Vajradhara said:
so.. in relation to the question, it seems that you'd suggest that suicide is neither moral/immoral or ethical/unethical, is that correct?
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As in most things I tend to weigh matters on a case by case basis.

According to my tradition, suicide is unethical and sinful. For this reason I do not advocate for it or advise it as a general rule. This is also a portion of the reason it should be carefully considered before proceeding. As I mentioned, it is a disrespect (or disregard if you prefer) for the gift. Perhaps better understood as squandering a precious resource.

I can also intimately appreciate extraordinary physical pain and suffering. My mind does not require a great deal of imagination to understand that debilitating and painful disease serves little purpose for spiritual edification. The martyr complex can be assuaged at a much lesser frequency and level. Even self-inflicted emotional trauma can bear spiritual fruit, but overwhelming physical pain leads to torment and agony with nothing of spiritual value to be gained.

It took a physical therapist to break me of one of my cherished delusions. I used to kid myself, "I'm a man, I can take a little pain." And a little more, and a little more. "After all," I reasoned, "women can put up with the pain of childbirth."

"Ah," she responded, "the pain of childbirth ends, and there is the gift of the child at that end. What do you have to show for your pain?" Nothing.

Needless to say I have not considered enduring pain in the same way since.

Don't get me wrong. Low grade pain I consider a nuisance I simply have to deal with. But there are days, when I wonder if I can even drag myself to the vertical. Imagining days like that as my new normal, is simply unthinkable. Until then I will continue to do what I can to keep those days to a minimum.
 
I came across this today and was startled by its implications.

BBC NEWS | Health | Suicide linked to brain changes
The researchers, from the University of Western Ontario, Carleton University and University of Ottawa, analysed tissue from 10 people who had a serious depressive disorder and had committed suicide and 10 who had died suddenly from other causes, such as a heart attack.
They found that the DNA in the suicide group was being chemically modified by a process normally involved in regulating cell development, called methylation.
It is methylation which shuts down the unwanted genes in a cell - so the necessary genes are expressed to make a cell a skin cell rather than, for example, a heart cell.
The rate of methylation in the suicide brains was almost 10 times that of the other group, and the gene that was being shut down was a chemical message receptor that plays a major role in regulating behaviour.

Now the question is does the brain undergo those changes as a result of the depression or does the depression cause these changes. Many suicides are caused by circumstantial depression, not physiological depression. Yet all the brains exhibited the same anomalies. Very interesting research. To me it seems like you can 'groom' the brain into a suicidal state. This is something I have personally thought before from my own observation.

tao
 
Tao_Equus said:
Now the question is does the brain undergo those changes as a result of the depression or does the depression cause these changes. Many suicides are caused by circumstantial depression, not physiological depression. Yet all the brains exhibited the same anomalies. Very interesting research. To me it seems like you can 'groom' the brain into a suicidal state. This is something I have personally thought before from my own observation.
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It would go a way to validate the influence of epigenetics in changing the genetic signature. Nurture over nature, as it were.
 
Namaste Tao,

that is very interesting! i would like to see the study sample more beings before i'd draw any particular conclusions from it as the sample size is pretty small. still, it's quite promising insight into this discussion.

to continue the discussion, somewhat.

let us assume that what causes a person to commit suicide is a physiological issue. does that change the moral/ethical determination? by and large my understanding of morality and ethics are predicated upon choices taken by an individual being. if there is, literally, no choice is an action still immoral or unethical?

metta,

~v
 
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