"God doesn't give us more than we can handle"

[Rev. Rye]

That's kinda my point, though: people commit suicide all the time anyway. Hell, I've attempted suicide a few times myself. Yet these people still continue to say god doesn't give us more than we can handle. If that, suicide, isn't "more than we can handle," what is?

Once again, this whole point of view comes, ultimately, from Stoic thought, and one very important thing that tends to be forgotten is that Stoics actually said, that, given a particularly intolerable situation, suicide was, in fact, an acceptable way of dealing with them. Bear in mind that Cleanthes, one of the early Stoic philosophers, died because he chose to starve himself to death because of his stomach ulcer. In addition, Seneca the Younger and Cicero, two other famous Stoics, after getting embroiled in Roman political controversies, slit their wrists and allowed themselves to be killed, respectively.

With this crucial bit of context, the whole "God won't give you more than you can handle" idea makes perfect sense. Take it away, and you get a callous thought based on the unwarranted assumption that the world is just.