A Friend Of Mine

[Jose]

The Skewer Sucks

 

just a thought off the cuff

 

on weighing the pros and cons of Christianity

 

one thing really jumps out at me, as far as the principles of it.

 

you can't choose to die. the act of suicide is an unforgiven sin.

i mean, seriously, think about that for a second. we're talking about extraordinary circumstances here. it's not everyone who comes home after a long day of work and decides to eat a bullet. this is a situation where someone is in complete and utter misery. life is such anguish for them that that they see no other alternative than to end it all.

 

now, let's put aside any preconceived notions and personal judgements about this and just agree that this is an extremely sad, unfortunate thing. to say the fucking least. let's agree that there are situations where someone's mental and/or physical health has debilitated to such a point where suicide is a rational option, if not entirely justifiable.

 

however, Christianity doesn't see it that way. the good loving Lord God disagrees here.

suicide = an afterlife of endless torment in the fires of hell and abandonment by God in the absence of His love

 

 

seriously, how the fuck does that work?

 

i'm trying to think of an analogy here for this, but i can't.

the closest thing i can think of to compare here, as a bad metaphor, would be that this is like going to a restaraunt, and then getting a steak which was rancid and covered and maggots and there was a big steaming shit on it. and you didn't even order the steak. you didn't even want to go that restaraunt, someone grabbed you off the street and forced you into it.

but you get punished for not eating the whole steak.

 

if this did actually happen, this establishment would be immediately shut down by the authorities and the operators of said establishment would not only have their food handling licenses revoked, but they would be put in jail. and this makes perfect sense to us.

 

but Christianity, it doesn't work this way. in Christianity, it somehow is your fault, and if you don't eat every fucking bite of that steak, you'd get sent to this really scary basement where you're tortured for all eternity by little goblin-looking fuckers with pitchforks.

 

there's just no good explanation for this.

 

Christianity is a diner run by crazed hillbilly serial killers who will shit on your food and rape you in the bathroom.

 

 

 

but sometimes they put some acid in your Kool-Aid, though. and you can be one with god and the universe, and ride magical fairy unicorns in the clouds with your dead grandpa!

 

so, maybe it's a fair trade-off.

 

i still have to weigh this one out some more.

[Angel]

I was once asked this question by a friend of mine. Her other friend had commited suicide and she fear that she was in hell. I went against everything that I was taught in christianity with my answer. I told her that it is not up to us to know, that it depended on the circumstances. I was taught that there was no chance for repentance, therefore, anyone who chooses to end their own life have sealed their own fate and have sent their soul straight to hell. I can not imagine someone telling someone that lost a loved one through something like that, that their deerly departed is in hell. I couldn't do it when I was a christian. I just thought that it was completely and totally heartless....and I still believe it to be a very low thing for a chrisitan, or anyone for that matter, to do. One thing is for sure, in a lot of cases, compassion and sensitivity to others seems to be quite dulled when you are a christian.....they seem to forget how to be human.

[BenjaminHaag]

A friend of mine (well, acquaintance, but why split semantic hairs) is contemplating suicide. The catch is that he just found out that he has ALS, and is already feeling the symptoms. What this means for him is that God's most precious Gift of Life will, after at best three more years, entail total paralysis, the inability to breathe, eat, move a finger, or take a shit, of his own volition...and all the while he remains cogent, able to know what is happening to him and what he is losing. He will, as he put it, literally become a prisoner in his own body, as it wastes away.

 

So he's scared -- fucking terrified, in fact -- and angry. He is determined not to love that way and has resolved to end the life he has, the life he calls life, with a .45 before he is too weak to be able to move without assistance. To him, life with the ravages of this disease is no life at all.

 

So here I am, having spent many years since college immersed in an ideology that, as far as I've seen it presented, has nothing of substance to offer this person. Some people think that suicide is a ticket to Hell, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 Hail Mary's. Some think "it depends." Most of a Christian bent to whom I've talked agree that suicide is a sin, yet seem reluctant to delve deeper into why, as people on this board have stated, someone would be driven to that point. And when asked why exactly this loving God is inflicting this horrific condition on this person, the stock answer is "God's ways are mysterious" or some equally redolent-of-bullshit cliche.

 

So is that the best most Evangelistos can do? Say "Who are we to question God" or "Just have faith" when confronted with hard questions, or someone's pain? Just once I would like to hear some honest acknowledgement of the anger and pain that goes with suffering...some indication that Job raised a middle finger to God in the worst of the hell God put him through. And more than once I'd like to see a fraction as much willingness to care for someone suffering like my friend, to bring him a beer and feed him when he can't feed himself, to clean his diapers when he has to wear them every day of whatever life he keeps living, as to toss off (pun intended) glib sanctimonious tripe from a safe distance...

[Ouroboros]

Question to the Christians: where in the Bible does it say that suicide is a sin and will take you to Hell?

[non conformist]

This has touched me personally....more than once I've sat up with my girlfriend on account of her suicidal thoughts. She's been in a really dark place until recently (we've come a long way). Not even the prospect of leaving behind her five year old son to be cared for by someone other than her (a horrific thought to me) was able to get through her wanting to die.

 

I was taught that suicide sent you to hell because of the "Thou shalt not kill" commandment and since there's no way to repent for that after you're dead, you go to hell. The thought of saying this to the woman I love is truly sickening. Her mother actually said "Think about your soul"! I said think about your daughter!! Instead of trying to figure out what led to her state of mind, she's worried about some reprecaution from god! Surprisingly (not) her upbringing, and her suppression of many childhood occurences, were part of her severe depression. I told her mother that the best thing she could do was to go to church and pray, just so that she would go away. It worked. With the help of therapy and some happy pills my baby sleeps next to me every night. She needed help, not dogma.