Are you kidding?

I see atheists argue against the "social construct of long ago religions" and all of the traditions that they entail and then you bring up traditions created by societies long ago to DEFEND suicide? As if suicide has some sort of "reason" behind it?

Defending suicide is the ultimate admittance that life has no meaning, which is the biggest flaw in the Atheist arsenal. The idea that because you cannot come up with a reason to live tomorrow means that you might as well kill yourself tonight holds no ground in the argument FOR humanity. Forget reason and logic, those two old and cold biddies yelling at the children to get off of their lawns, humanity wants life, all kinds of it, the happy life, sad life, the poetic life, the boring life, the romantic life, the awkward life, the atheist life, the believers life, the full life, the might-have-been life.

Struggle is growth, struggle is heroic, struggle is what makes women strong and men beautiful. Imagine if your birth happened with no pain or struggle or fear, all you would be is a pretty nice shit. But we are more than that in every way, because we question and observe, we seek beauty in truth and truth in beauty and struggle to grasp both. We look for the the beast in the maze despite all the "Beware Ye Who Enter" warnings and fight the piece of shit with all we got, whatever that may be. Life is climbing Rapunzel's hair and laughing when you get to the top because the doors are locked and you two have all night before the witch gets back, but it doesn't happen without the DAMN CLIMB!

Too much Disney, maybe. But I think I made my point.

Fight the causes of suicide. Eg. Bullying.

http://www.iasp.info/

http://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/links

Choosing not to live is bad for the moral of those left behind.
I'm a very gloomy robot though so perhaps happiness would pick up if I left.
I'm not going to though, so take that silly grin off your face.

I can't think of a case where an otherwise healthy person should be allowed to just kill themselves without attempts to help overcome the problem. Great strides are being made in the neurobiology/chemistry of depression. Everyone I know who has been suicidal has been glad they got past that time.

Euthanasia is a different story. During my grandfather's painful dying, I wished many times that I could treat him as humanely as I treated my ancient dog, who I put to sleep in the same month as my grandfather died (it was a really shitty month). I was able to relieve my scared, hurting, old dog's pain and keep her from dying a worse death. I was not allowed to do so with my grandfather- and we even had to struggle with the hospital about treating him. He was almost 102, senile, and crippled from various bad bone breaks, and the hospital wanted to put him on a respirator when he got pneumonia! What for? To prolong his misery and fear? We prevailed and he died, and it was good. It was time.

I wake up every day disappointed that I'm still alive. You get past that and keep going.

STILL I DEMAND that I am able to end my life IF I am the situation that I am unable to enjoy a quality of life that I now know even in my depressed state. To do so would be inhumane and cruel and everything that religion stands for...hatred fear loathing cruelty misogyny bigotry and did I mention FEAR?

FEAR is the only thing stopping people from "euthanasia" the allowing of the terminally ill/ suffering to end their pain.



Fucked if I know what everyone is afraid of

(November 13, 2013 at 9:57 am)KichigaiNeko Wrote: I wake up every day disappointed that I'm still alive. You get past that and keep going.

STILL I DEMAND that I am able to end my life IF I am the situation that I am unable to enjoy a quality of life that I now know even in my depressed state. To do so would be inhumane and cruel and everything that religion stands for...hatred fear loathing cruelty misogyny bigotry and did I mention FEAR?

To what extent should society (friends, family, etc) step in, though, Kichi? Many people are later really glad that others stopped them from committing suicide. How do we know when it has come to a point where happiness is utterly irretrievable for the depressed person? What if I allow you to kill yourself without stepping in, and tomorrow a better technology emerges that could have helped you? How can a depressed person ever know for sure that they won't get past this bad period, too- after all, if they thought it was bad enough to die before and were wrong, how do we know they're not wrong now, too?

I have never suffered from depression (I simply don't understand suicidal tendencies at all), so maybe I am lacking some crucial empathy here? I do know that I have stepped in several times in my life to help suicidal people, and they were angry at the time (I hospitalized one of them, and he was pissed off about it), but love me for it now.

What are the guidelines for society?

Quote:FEAR is the only thing stopping people from "euthanasia" the allowing of the terminally ill/ suffering to end their pain.

There's also a fear of abusing it. I inherited money from my grandfather, so to many it would have looked pretty suspicious that I wanted him to die.

When I tell you to for my own personal life


For others when they say so

(November 13, 2013 at 12:07 am)leodeo Wrote: I think under circumstances suicide should be acceptable.
For example if I was paralyzed I wouldn't want to live just because everyone who isn't paralyzed tells me I'm coward if I die, its easy for them to be so pro life when they have healthy bodies.
I really hated in my old Christian communities how they were so pro life for the sake of their morals rather than caring about how Much a person is suffering.

Agreed.

leodeo Wrote:What is the atheist stance on suicide/euthanasia?
So how do we feel about euthanasia?

There is no "we." Atheists don't believe in god(s). That is all. Simply ask the question, "How do you as a person feel about suicide/euthanasia?" Atheism has absolutely nothing to do with it.

(November 13, 2013 at 4:23 am)GodsRevolt Wrote: Are you kidding?

I see atheists argue against the "social construct of long ago religions" and all of the traditions that they entail and then you bring up traditions created by societies long ago to DEFEND suicide? As if suicide has some sort of "reason" behind it?

Defending suicide is the ultimate admittance that life has no meaning,

No its not. Not at all actually. If I chose to defend suicide for my 80 year old grandfather with pancreatic cancer that has absolutely nothing to do with me feeling that life has no meaning. Even if I defend a 20 year old man's right to kill himself because he got his dick blown off by an IED, I'm STILL not admitting that life has no meaning for ME. The meaning of life is subjective to each person and you are by no means an authority on what the meaning in my life or anyone elses actually is.

GR Wrote:which is the biggest flaw in the Atheist arsenal. The idea that because you cannot come up with a reason to live tomorrow means that you might as well kill yourself tonight holds no ground in the argument FOR humanity. Forget reason and logic, those two old and cold biddies yelling at the children to get off of their lawns, humanity wants life, all kinds of it, the happy life, sad life, the poetic life, the boring life, the romantic life, the awkward life, the atheist life, the believers life, the full life, the might-have-been life.

Struggle is growth, struggle is heroic, struggle is what makes women strong and men beautiful. Imagine if your birth happened with no pain or struggle or fear, all you would be is a pretty nice shit. But we are more than that in every way, because we question and observe, we seek beauty in truth and truth in beauty and struggle to grasp both. We look for the the beast in the maze despite all the "Beware Ye Who Enter" warnings and fight the piece of shit with all we got, whatever that may be. Life is climbing Rapunzel's hair and laughing when you get to the top because the doors are locked and you two have all night before the witch gets back, but it doesn't happen without the DAMN CLIMB!

Inspirational speeches aside, your rant still does not address the point. Some people have nothing left to make the climb, and universal answers for such difficult questions never work. Is suicide often the answer? No, I don't think so either, but to just assume that everyone has the ability to struggle through and find a happy ending is a small-minded notion. There is a level of suffering that no living thing should have to endure, and I believe that that level may vary greatly from person to person.

Originally I wasn't really talking about life not having meaning, what my stance is, that when Life is more painful then it is joyful, and there doesn't seem to be any hope that things can get better.

For example look at people in prison. I can honestly say, that if I accidentally hit a kid while driving and got life in prison for involuntary manslaughter, and I would never be able to feel a fresh wind or be free again, I would end my life because it all comes down to what you consider "a life worth living."

There are people who can manage to live their life in prison, but there are also many who end their lives, just because someone commits suicide doesn't mean they have a mental illness, I think the right to live should = the right to die. It should be our choice that, if we feel life is no longer meaningful, joyful or worth it, we should have the right to end it without having cops bust down my door at 3am and dragging me away to the hospital where they lock me up to keep me "safe", but don't do actually do anything else to help like talking about whats bothering me :/

The fact that the world is so determined to stop us from ending our lives, makes me wonder if The Matrix is real and they need us alive to harvest our body heat.

I am neither pro-life or pro-death. I would rather be pro-choice. If someone wants to live, it is our duty to help them accomplish that no matter what. If someone wants to die, it is our duty to not keep them from dying. It is their life, after all.