Are people who commit suicide brave, or cowardly?

cowardly, and cruel

cruel because the people left behind are left to deal with the mess

Not quite as clear-cut as that, but definitely not bravery, not matter what your culture is.

I do have the utmost sympathy for someone who think there is no other way out than to kill themselves however.

... and selfish

Depends what height you jump from. Or how much dynamite you use.

It's definitely cruel and selfish to leave other people suffering in your wake, but I'm libertarian though so ultimately I have to say its a personal decision.

I can understand if, say, you're a bankrupt hobo with no family or friends and your life is no longer worth living, but the fuckers who leave kids and widows behind don't deserve any respect or even a funeral as far as I'm concerned. Why must other people suffer 'cos you can't get your act together?

(Hmmm I can see this being moved to Fight Club soon.)

From a personal level people should not end there lives as the greif that they will bring upon there family and friends will be intolerable and will leavew a mark that time will take a long time to heal. People who commit suicide are selfish and do not care about what happens to them



Probably the only case i would agree to suicide.

In general. NO!

Personal Freedom.

It is your life, you have control over it. If you need / want to end it. You can do so.



Fight has begun

*Moved to Fight Club*

This stems from a situation at work recently:

A colleague and her hubby were having financial problems. They both used to work at the same company, but he resigned last year in order to start up his own business. The business has/had not been doing well, and they had been having regular fights.

About two weeks ago, they had another major fight, and she took their kid, and went to her mom's.

Later on that night, he sent an SMS to his siblings, to inform that he was gonna take his life... The problem was that there was slow traffic on the network, so the SMS only reached them the following morning... when it was too late and he had already hung himself.

So now, the kid has to grow up without a dad, which is really sad.

I only hope that he had a life policy (which he probably did), so that some of the financial issues can be sorted.

This is an example of cowardice.

Death is never the answer to any man's problems

What if you are suffering from a terminal ilness, are in pain and can not complete everyday life. Would it not be best to end the pain and suffering

Euthanasia, Mr. Magic is a different matter

Is it? You are still taking your own life. Aiding someone is hardly a crime, you are not heurting anyone

What about Dr. Jack Kervorkian, he helped people with terminal ilnesses and helped end there pain and suffering. He got chucked in jail for helping out people who needed his help. He helped them end the suffering with a painless retreat into the peace of death.

How is that wrong

Not hurting anyone eh. What about the people they leave behind. They have to cope with a loved one not being around anymore. For a long time they will refuse to believe that they are not there, it will envelope them in sadness. Is that an admirable action?

I don't think it is always selfish. In fact, in the case that Lobo is mentioning it could be considered unselfish... Bare me out for a second here.

There is financial problems, and he does (if he does) have a life policy that pays. By taking his life he is insuring that his family can go on living life without struggling financially. Yes it won't be easy on his wife and kids, but is it selfish to want to insure your family are financially stable for the rest of their lives.

Add to this (and this is hypothetially speaking) that he may have had a terminal illness... He knew it, and he knew that if he died due to it his family would not get a payout from his life insurance as it was setup in such a way....

There are many things to take into account. I don't think that suicide is the answer, and I don't think it is a brave thing to do. I do however think that SOMETIMES it might not be as SELFISH as it appears.

Euthanasia is a decision made by proxy i.e. a family member making the decision of behalf of someone who is ill and incapable of making it themselves.

Asking to be 'put down' when you are in such a state of illness is still classified as suicide IMHO; it's just the means of executing it that have changed.

correction taking your own life means you forfeit any life policies etc.

Depends on the clauses in the policy contract. Some policies have suicide clauses which do no end, whereas you get those that have a suicide clause in place for the first two years only.

Life is hard, deal with it.

Nice Ruro.

I think suicide because you are under strain is ridiculously pathetic.
Situations that Cyfer and Lobo described are..mmm, acceptable.

Tell me this Nukes, in your infinite wisdom. lets say Joe Blogs has a terminal illness. Lets say there is 0% chance of him living for more than 3 months, and the doctors KNOW that those 3 months are going to be the most excruciatingly painful 3 months of poor Joe's life. Lets say that keeping Joe in hospital, while he is going through all of this pain on his way to dying, his family is forced to take their kids out of school and home school them, and take a second job because of the financial burden placed on them. Lets say Joe is conscious, and he decides, in a sane state of mind, that he will cause less harm to his family by pulling his own plug (or getting a doctor to do it) than by staying alive.
I say, euthanasia is ok

Lets try it differently. Lets say the family wasn't there. Lets say Joe was a hobo, has no friends or family. All he has to deal with is 3 months of terrible suffering with only a coffin waiting for him as the light in the tunnel a the end. I say euthanasia is ok

Euthanasia. Suicide due to medical issues etc. Is a different matter altogether.

I am talking about taking your own life due to stress, depression, failure and others. For those purposes suicide is a worthless tool of the weak.

For euthanasia i stand on neutral ground, i do not know enough to make any decision on that.

I do not jump into taking a stance for the sake of anything

Even though he has just sidestepped the question completely!, he still makes a valid point. Which one are we discussing about. Euthanasia is different (even though i brought it to focus in the first place)

Even outside of the euthanasia argument, deciding whether suicide is brave or cowardly is very dependent on the situation and you cannot reach global decisions. The guy who kills himself because his life is so bad, sigh gasp, is a coward. Liviu Librescu who stayed to let himself get killed so others could escape the Virginia Tech massacre, that was suicide, but one of the bravest acts I have ever heard of. Same with the anglican priest who stepped forward in a concentration camp to be killed in the place of a Jewish man. Brave suicide.

Whoa rev, never heard about those stories? You got links or something so I can read about them?

That is some awesome bravery right there.

Yes please do share the links.

Right, most recent first

Liviu Librescu from the Jerusalem Post and his wikipedia entry.

Then, the priest, his wiki entry and the site made for him.

Not really in depth, but hey, good enough for a Saturday evening

Look, as great as those acts were, neither of them are suicide.

The definition of suicide is: "a person who kills himself intentionally".

Neither of the people that RevQ mentioned killed themselves.

Stepping forward to certain death is killing yourself intentionally as much as putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger.

I will grant that Librescu did not know he was going to die, but Kolbe certainly did. He basically said "Kill me" knowing that it would be acted on and he would be killed. Had he done nothing he would have lived that day. He intentionally killed himself.

No. It is like committing suicide, or almost as good as, but it's not. He was either murdered or committed suicide, and I think it's quite clear that he was murdered.

Fair enough, I could probably contest that semantically, but you are probably right. Well, that was a fun thread hijack

Being a martyr and committing suicide are two completely different things.

A martyr gives his life for his beliefs (not necessarily religious), whereas someone committing suicide does not.

Ok I'm probably gonna get flamed here but oh well here goes...

I want to just add the possibility of mental illness. I'm talking depression here. Not the kind you get when your girlfriend leaves you for the guy with the Porche, but the mental illness. I have suffered from Major Depressive Disorder with Bipolar tendencies since I was 13, so I know quite a bit about the subject.

All I want to say is that in many depression cases, your brain does not function properly, it does not have the ability to make you feel anything but despair. While a normal person could and should get over lifes knocks, a person with severe depression quite possibly simply cannot without medical treatment. I for one been through the lot (including shock therapy) and can now proudly say that I got through it. I can also say that if my dad didn't book me into a mental clinic when he did, I would have killed myself, I simply could not stand life anymore and my brain was not able to help me through this.

I don't think anyone that has not suffered from this kind of disease has the right to call someone a coward because he killed himself. If a person breaks his leg, no one expects him to run the Comrades, yet when your brain breaks, you are expected to just toughen up and "get over it".

I was lucky, I got the medical attention I needed, many may not be so lucky. I don't feel its right for you "healthy" people to judge others when you have no idea how it is to live like this. Do you think its easy to kill yourself? I have tried many times but I didn't even have the courage to do it properly. This just made me hate myself more and gave me more reason to do it.

I'm just trying to get you to understand that not all people have the same ability to get over things, something very small can break the camels back, and you cannot apply logic to a person that suffers from mental illness, his/her brain does not function in the same way as yours.

Ok flame away folks, but ya I had to type this as the topic is very close to me, something I been debating for years.

I can second what FatBoy is saying. My ex suffers from "unresponsive major depression", and I know how such an illness affects a person.
But, from the two options presented, I still choose cowardice over bravery, although its not as clear cut as this.

very well put FatBoy. RESPECT!

Man FatBoy that made tears come to my eyes.

Amazing how you have put it into words.

I'm in awe

This whole thread has made me teary eyed. especially reading about the priest that RevQ posted.
Fatboy, respect, you totally made me think again.

I have never seen it in that light before, i really have no words to say. Except i have just turned my stance around.
Man i was such an ignorant person to have posted all of that stuff before without knowing this side

RESPECT

There is no bravery in the act of taking your own life. I mean it's one thing to sacrafice yourself to save another but it's a completely different thing to just take the easy way out and end it...

I've had some people I know kill themselves. Lame!

It is a far braver act to stick it out and face your hardships.

One can go even further to say that none of us opted into this world which gives each and every person the right to opt out at anytime. If you have religious, ethical or moral concerns then that is your problem, deal with it.

Suicide is a basic human right and should be recognised as such. It in neither brave nor cowardly as the act does not actually request the consent of others, the opinion of others or even a score from 1 to 10. It is a personal option and best left as such.

Well said Milano.

I hardly think that someone who commits suicide even gives a shit either way, once they're dead

Thanks guys, glad I got some support on my view here. Thought I would be flamed to death lol

Ciao

Sometimes it cause accident. A person jumped off a highway and other cars bumped into him and caused accidents

That isn't even discussing the topic here. Come on Moo. At least discuss the topic at hand.

I really wish he would make at least 1 intelligent post

guys maybe moo doens't have the intellegience to make a constructive ontopic post ya?

at least he tries... shame must be hard being a 8 year old


I found that there are two kind of sucide attempts: 1. For attention, 2. Mental illness...

I for one must admit when I was young I seeked attention and tried via the sucide way... needless to say was the most outragous attempt and I am ashamed to even think it!

what about "going down in a blaze of glory" knowing full well you will die? would you consider that suicide?

otherwise i dont see how anyone could say anything but cowardness.

suicide is cowardly man
its the most extreme form of Running away from your Problems

Well I agree when they say there are two types. People with mental illness - well that speaks for itself. There's no room for being cowardly or fighting your problems cos there's no real logic involved.

CLINICAL DEPRESSION IS A MENTAL ILLNESS.
A lot of people lose sight of that and expect people to 'pull themselves together.' Sometimes you can't. Sometimes people try to kill themselves, and you ask them why and they say "I don't know. I want to die."

Having said that, more often than not the people who roll into casualty on a stretcher have swallowed something because they had a fight with their girlfriend, or husband, and want to get back at them. These people are not even cowards, they're manipulative and selfish. And they don't even want to die, just to make a point.

Losers.

EDIT: Just realised how old this topic is. Oopsie.

I don't care much for the *attempted* suicides.

Really, a person that pops a few pills or cuts one wrist with a blunt razor blade is more pathetic than anything else.

*Successful* suicide as an opt-out technique is perfectly valid and an entirely private matter.

If you look at the failure rate then maybe suicide prevention lines should drop the prevention aspect and rather dedicate themselves to educating people on methods which offer the highest success rates. Cut down on wasted calls from those looking for attention.

^^ Effective Sarcasm?

No seriously, as i have said before i don't think suicide is morally right for people. In effect i thought that people were cowards who did commit suicide, however after reading fatboy's post i saw it from a different angle and that has muddled my vp.

I don't know but i you have a problem, seek help. This is my generic response to most things

Just blunt truth.



Suicide is immoral? I doubt the "(im)morality" concerns a person who is serious about suicide. Besides, one would first need to prove that we do in fact live in a moral world. John Doe may commit suicide because he finds the world immoral.

cowardly and selfish!!