[Warning] Morality of mortality

[Nin]

In Switzerland assisted suicide is legal. And every year there are more people who choose this: to say good-bye to your family and leave when you choose it. I think I might consider it myself one day. M being a dozen of years older than me, I have to face the idea of many years without him and am not sure how that will work out. Anyway, this is the future, but I also think suicide can be at some point a rational choice to end your lived life in the moment when you decide it has been enough. I know several families in which members made this choice - now it concernend mentally healthy persons aged over 80.

I have had my suicidal moments too and once actually took quite a lot of pills (although not a really life-threatening quantity) but for the experience was very different from what River describes.

I have no time to talk about it now, but have no problem doing it.

[Primula Baggins]

I think the preparation for loss is the difference between the DNR and suicide. If someone signs a DNR, they have to be in a certain state for it to be enacted, unlike suicide where the loss comes a bit more sudden.

Yes, people have to be "in a certain state" before a DNR order can be enacted: they have to be dead. Refusing to be clawed back from death at any cost and without regard to whether you will ever even be conscious again is an entirely different act from suicide.

[Lidless]

What is morality other than a code of conduct within a group that, ultimately and in the long-term, is for the good of the group and therefore the survival of ones genes - where the long-term plan wins over short-term selfishness? Like a shoal of fish trying to outwit the hunter.

That's why morals differ within groups. Each group has tried to work out what is best for them, and then instills the code at birth accordingly.

(Certainly back in the day suicide was a no-no because then it was a numbers game, where a suicide was only permitted if it took out more of Them than Us.)

Religion, I believe, was invented to strengthen the moral code of a group and keep individuals in line. How scary it must have been back in the day thinking there was an all-seeing bogeyman who at death would send an erring person for eternity to a fiery pit. Pshaw! Luckily, the human brain and human understanding has, in the main, gone past that.

This seems so obvious to me I am still completely amazed that intelligent and rational people, even after reading about sociobiology / evolutionary psychology and the like, still believe in that stuff they were told as a kid.

[Primula Baggins]

Lidless, posting in a way that is contemptuous of others' beliefs is inappropriate for Tol Eressëa. The introduction to this forum states:

We hope that the discussions in Tol Eressëa will provide opportunities for each of us to learn about the worldview of others. We encourage participants here to make an extra effort to understand why others believe as they do and to inquire about other belief systems with an open mind.

You are being needlessly rude. Please stop. If you find our insistence on courtesy toward people of all beliefs (or none) too constraining, this may not be the forum for you.

[Lidless]

It was not meant to be an insult, and I do not require a lecture.

As I said, "I am completely amazed", not "they are idiots". What I believe I hold merely as a belief - for that is all it can be. Just as religious people do with theirs. I make absolutely no claim to any truth.

I really *do* find it bewildering when intelligent people, such as those on this esteemed board, take very old stories over something like social anthropology which for me, rings so true I am baffled others do not get the resonance. What am I missing?

There is genuine puzzlement on my part.

If you read it as an insult, my apologies on bad phrasing on my part.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If you can manage to express your puzzlement respectfully, that's fine. Otherwise, take it some place else.

[Lidless]

*salutes*

*sigh*

[WampusCat]

This seems so obvious to me I am still completely amazed that intelligent and rational people, even after reading about sociobiology / evolutionary psychology and the like, still believe in that stuff they were told as a kid.

Sorry, but there is no way that can be read other than as an insult. You are saying, in effect, that intelligence and rational thinking are totally incompatible with religious faith. And you squeeze faith itself into the tiny box of "stuff they were told as a kid." Yes, there are some believers who believe exactly what they were told as a kid, who check their brain at the church door. That's not me, nor is it most other believers I know.

You might find Karen Armstrong's latest book, "The Case for God," to be interesting. It's not an apologetic for fundamentalist Christianity. She makes the point that humankind needs both the rational, scientific approach to understand the outer world and the religious/mythical approach to understand the inner life. Putting all the focus on the logical, scientific way of seeing was to a great degree what led to the rise of modern fundamentalism.

She says that participating in the ritual of religion -- re-enacting the stories of faith -- and living the life of faith through compassion are the heart of religion, not assent to a set of doctrines.

Please don't judge believers by religion's wackiest extremes, or assume that we're all gullible fools.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

To get back to the topic:

but I also think suicide can be at some point a rational choice to end your lived life in the moment when you decide it has been enough. I know several families in which members made this choice - now it concernend mentally healthy persons aged over 80.

Would you mind saying more about this? Since I don't live in a country where assisted suicide (or suicide) is considered appropriate my knowledge is purely conceptual. I think suicide has the potential to be a rational conclusion, but it does go against basic human instinct (self-preservation). Perhaps it is a culmination of "civilized" societies not having to fight for survival, but instead have leisure time... I don't know. Feel free to omit anything you are uncomfortable with.

[Lidless]

TED, my apologies. It seems I need to better word my thoughts, and it is not for this thread anyway.

[Nin]

I can think of many cases where suicide or at least suicidal behaviour do not go at all against basic human instinct: protection of others even if you know this will cost your life, self-sacrifice, honour (like in ritualised japanese Hara-Kiri - rather die than live with the shame,) ideology... Would you consider all those persons also as mentally ill, unstable or willingfully hurting their family?

Now, as said, in Switzerland not only suicide is legal, but also assistance to suicide under some conditions: the person must be an adult, mentally stable and sane (capable of discernement - do you say so in English?), physically capable of comitting suicide and the person who helps (e.g. with presence or providing drugs) does not benefit from the the death.

There is mainly one society known for providing suicide assistance and euthansia, called EXIT. Now, it would be legal to provide assistance even to healthy and young persons, but their policy is to assist only their members (you have to be a member for at least three years when you choose suicide, or become a lifetime member when you choose their assistance) and only either to persons above a certain age or those in physical distress because of ilness or handicap. This society - which is not benefital by the way, all the persons who accompany suicides are volounteers and work for free - is quite well known in Switzerland. I know families in which several persons are members of EXIT and make that know openly. They want to have the choice of their lives until the end, the ultimate liberty to dispose of their own lifes.

I also know families in which family members have taken this option: the great grand-mother of a student of mine last year. She was over 90 years old (I think 94) and tired of waiting for death - I quote my student. A bit like Bilbo at his birthday, she told her family that all those years had been good, but that it was enough. a few days later committed an announced and assumed suicide. Now, you can say at this age - why? (there was no other phyiscal or mental loss than due to age, no Alzheimer). But I respect this choice. And although I think it is more difficult to accept for a younger person, I also think that it is ultimately, utterly your right to choose your death.

I have also seen how devastating suicide can be: the 18-year old son of a friend of my sister hang himself three years ago. He gave no prior warning neither to his parents nor to friends or any explanations of his gesture. I was very shocked because this young man had been the first new-born I had seen. His parents were devasted. But I think the worse of all had been for his younger brother: the one who had chosen to die had always been the special one, the perfect child, the prodigious son. A year after his suicide their mother - now close to 50 - made a hormonal treatment and got pregnant again with twins (a boy and a girl) - as if the son who had chosen to live was not enough as a child..- she had to replace the lost one. It was weird and painful to see her with those new babies - and yet so joyless and I fell sorry for those two "replacement" children.

I also know - like all teachers know - that suicide is the main reason for mortality among young people and we have received training in recognising suicidal thoughts - and I would always denounce a student whom I would believe suicidal. And I have already informed the school psychologist when I had students who were openly writing about suicidal or murderous fantasies.

Yet, I still judge that suicide remains a right, a freedom to choose. Only it has to be a concious and outlived choice, a real and assumed decision. And I don't think that this is something that a person with so little life-experience as a barely young adult or even younger can have. Or only very few.

It would hit me very hard if one of my children or step-children or my partner would take this decision - because it would also mean that my presence, my love is not a reasons worthy enough to make live enjoyable. So, the hurt would be in fact a hurt of my ego, somehow. In this case it would be the feeling of guilt and failure: I was not able to give a reason to live, to show the beauty of the world as magnificent enough to give them the will to carry on. Because life is magnificent. For my step-children it would maybe be different because I know that it is not me who can give them any recognition of the beauty of live. But the fear the it was was presence - so unwanted that made life unbearable for them.

Lucikly, this is hypothetic.

I have myself already now very conciously thought about suicide later in my life and I might consider it one day as the ultimate free way to leave.

[vison]

I'm thinking of starting a thread about The Nature of God. But I don't want it to become a slugfest between believers and non-believers. I want something else entirely, but I'm not quite ready to start it.

[Primula Baggins]

I think such a thread could work, if those who posted in it kept focused on listening and speaking with generosity and patience.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I appreciate your thoughts, nin. That was enlightening.

vison, go ahead and start it. I may not partake much unless the thread moves into the existence (or non-existence) of a god.