FaithNoMore

--Ok, answer this. How can your family offer help instead of criticizm when you're dead. The point I am trying to make is that no one can make your decisions but you. Ultimately, after disregarding any outside influences that may or may not persuade you, YOU make the decision on whether or not to "end it all".
--I'm not leaning to one side or the other. If someone needs help, I'd give it to them as well as I could. I don't think the only alternative to suicide is "continuing to suffer" as you put it. I think there IS help. But how can you help someone who shows no "warning signs"(which are complete bullshit anyways) and doesn't want help?
--You offering no explanations on how to help someone who is "in need" of it makes you just as much of a hypocrite for calling me one.

free12thinker

QUOTE by Sahmain:
You must obviously be joking, or you seem to have read my posts wrong once again. Suicide ceases to be of personal nature when massive nihilism results.

My Reply
Your assumption that massive nihilism doesn't make sense since you always note that most people don't agree with suicide anyway. If most people find it to be immoral, making it legal wont spark nihilism, which, by definition means: "advocating the destruction of the social system and a denial of all established authority and institutions." So tell me how you can think that MASSIVE nihilism would exist if people still found it objectionable. Would they all of a sudden change their approach on the matter?

QUOTE by Samhain
Your arguments have gone beyond the point of ridiculous. I say that providing that
explanation is not my problem, I do not hold that the government must not come up with a reasonable explanation for why suicide is illegal. They should if they wish to keep the law in place.

My Reply
I don't need to reply here since you've already recognized your "fuzzy" approach to this earlier.

QUOTE by Samhain
As far as that goes, I believe I stated why I feel it would be beneficial to keep that law in place. It is to protect the personal freedoms of otherss indirectly by stifling a problem at its source. Your ad hominem attack stating that I am not being rational is unfounded. I explain my theories why suicide should not be condoned, and yet you seem to fail at explaining why it should be considering the seriousness of the personal freedom of those who do value life. Thus I have stated my purpose beyond the idea that I am arguing on an appeal to tradition. You state that suicide should be legalized. For what purpose? There is no person who truly desires death who will not find it quickly and with ease, and there's nothing that you, I or the government can truly do about it, especically when that person is gone for good, and you admit to this.

My Reply
It should be legalized so that people can do it without fear of repercussions. What if they're unsuccessful? Then they're in a mental facility. And so long as it remains illegal and condoned, people from the outside will continue to intervene, even against the wishes of the person who wants to do it. Will it affect the overall outcome? No. Not if the person really wants to do it. But why should they have to deal with the distractions. There's principle here.

QUOTE by Samhain
For allowing something to be legal you hence allow something to be abused, and abused in an extreme
manner, as I have stated with my argument on nihilism.

My Reply
It's not going to be abused unless people find it desirable. And people don't, as you've already noted.

QUOTE by Shamhain
It is comparable in that sense to abortion. Abortion isn't used in the sense that it was supposed to be used for. In allowing abortion in all cases it has been abused as a method of birth control in many cases instead of using proper contraceptives. Truly, I do not feel there is any reason why a person should value life unless they want to live, but that doesn't concern me. What concerns me is that the value of my personal rights will most likely be diminished if such a law is passed allowing it to occur in all its forms.

My Reply
Once again, why would people all of a sudden change their views on the value of life, especially since a large number of people value it enough to shun suicide, the death penatly and abortion? Why would the value of your personal life be diminished?

My Reply
Making outrageous assumptions on my character and logic are not the best things to use in an argument. I feel I have stated well-formed, logical arguments on why I feel the law should be kept in place (although I hold it should make certain exceptions as far as euthenasia, but I do not hold that it should be condoned in its
entirety). You have failed to come up with a logical argument on why it should be legalized other than your argument of "personal decisons" which is clearly fallible since once a person is dead the laws no longer apply to that person, so its not as if we can bring them back and put them in a facility or put them on trial, etc. Further, you have failed to express reasoning contradicting my arguments of nihilism. If it is a potential danger to personal freedom, and the law cannot be extended to suicidees, then why not keep the law in place, if for nothing else but preventing loss of the personal freedoms of those who value life? I've never stated that it was immoral, unreasonable (except in some select cases), or that there is a sure-fire reason why one should value life, in the end it's truly a personal decision, no amount of law making will change that, but condoning it by taking away that
law could encroach upon freedoms of other individuals.

My Reply
Clearly fallible? I will defer to my previous statement regarding nihilism and my belief that it wouldn't grow to the extremes you're noting. But even if it did, I would not change my approach on "personal decisions", which I think are very important. In my opinion, making laws (or in this case) not making laws, because the results may impact someone else in philisophical ways (I'm trying to think of a word besides "philisophical" but I can't) is wrong. We can't help what other people think, or what emotions they have on specific subjects. And placing laws on a scale this big (suicide) in context with peoples emotions and line of thinking doesn't seem fair to me.

QUOTE by Samhain
Then I can see why you may have misread this. Sorry, I'll try and keep my ideas more clear.

My Reply
I appreciate the acknowledgement. It's very hard to write what we're thinking, I know.

QUOTE by Samhain
The idea that life is to be valued is one that is
generally accepted by the masses

My Reply
It is this thought you carry, which I believe people carry, that leads me to question your belief that massive nihilism would occur.

Samhain

Ok, maybe I wasn't clear on explaining my deductive reasoning leading to nihilism before. I'll try again. We have a few scenarios here which I believe that need to be explored.
1. Person A (one who does not value life) wishes to commit suicide. Person A is not in anyway forced to live by laws which the government places to commit suicide. Person A is not stupid (and thus can be seen as reasonable) and he knows that there are numerous ways to commit suicide quickly and painlessly without worrying about intervention by others. Person A realizes that laws are set into place to show that suicide is not socially acceptable on a mass scale (since these laws cannot truly prevent a suicidee from their ultimate goal). He then knows that the masses must value life to some degree for such a law to be placed into effect. He in turn will respect others wishes to value life even though he has no value of his own.
2. Person A (same person as above) has suicidal tendencies. The government has legalized suicide, thus they have condoned this act. In turn, through deductive reasoning, since we can see that the government does not stress a value on life, they instead condone no value of life. In condoning life as valueless and meaningless a Person A can clearly see that if life does not even matter (on a grand scale since the government condones the act), then how could anything within that life matter either. The view that nothing matters within life can clearly be connected to all social institutions (the government) and thus all of the laws that it creates, since life does not matter. Thus, if life does not matter to the masses (which can be seen by removing a law, which applies to all people within that governmental system, condemning suicide instead of condoning it) then nothing within anyone's life will make any difference. What is now holding back Person A from committing heinous crimes against his government and others now? Clearly the government does not value life enough to try and protect it, and thus life within that governmental system could be seen as meaningless, regardless of how many are opposed to suicide. The government condones it, thus the people within the government must follow suit and tolerate it whether they like it or not unless it is changed. So now nothing holds Person A at bay from committing crime for his own pleasure since life and death are all meaningless in the end, and are generally accepted as such. Do you see that it basically undoes any law which the government puts in place by expressing the meaninglessness of that law since life does not matter?
3. Person B (one who values his own life) is in the government in which suicide is legal also. While he values his own life, he does not value the lives of others, since life is meaningless, and he does not value the laws since they are meaningless. He instead lives his life pursuing pleasure with no societal moral restraints to hold him back except the law. Since the law is meaningless he is then able to justify that it makes no difference either way to break a law as long as he does not get caught. Now Person B may or may not choose to break that law due to personal morals, but he now has a larger chance of breaking set laws since he now views the government and its laws as wholly absurd.

Now if you accept the outcomes of 2 & 3 as possibilities (and I hold that they are entirely probable), then you can see why the situation in 1 prevents that. On to more questions...

If they are unsuccessful then they are doing something entirely wrong, and I would say they may not be in a reasonable state which would allow the act of suicide to be considered reasonable. There are thousands of ways to commit suicide which are also quick and painless and in which there is no worry of intervention and which do not have potential of harming others.

Principle should not take precedence over possible danger to others.

The death penalty and abortion aren't entirely comparable. Death penalty is something which people can view as justice and hold it as right. Abortion can be viewed as a woman's right to her body without consideration of the fetus (since the fetus is not viewed as entirely human by some). Suicide can only be comparable to the destruction of life, while it may be a personal decision, the legalizing of it could spark adverse side effects.

All laws aren't fair. We could make the same argument on personal drug use, but the government views it as potentially harmful to stop the war on drugs. All the while personal drug use is still a personal issue, but it has large potential to be abused and create crime. Thus, stifling a problem at its source.

If allowing suicide (in all forms) has potential to lead to more problems than it solves, then I feel that the law should be kept in place. In an ideal world, this would not be a problem, but alas, we are not perfect, and the masses are largely stupid and foolish.

free12thinker

QUOTE by Shamhain
The death penalty and abortion aren't entirely comparable. Death penalty is something which people can view as justice and hold it as right. Abortion can be viewed as a woman's right to her body without consideration of the fetus (since
the fetus is not viewed as entirely human by some). Suicide can only be comparable to the destruction of life, while it may be a personal decision, the legalizing of it could spark adverse side effects.

My reply
Well just the idea that the death penalty and abortion have legitimate reasons behind their existence, and yet are still met with "what about life" questions from the opposition, leads me to believe that people place such an emphasis on life that legalizing suicide would not change such an opinion.

I guess the difference in opinion regarding impact leads to nothing more than a difference in credibility granted to the general population. While I normally don't give the general population much credit when it comes to making reasonable decisions, I do believe that something as grandious as life will never be taken for granted by the general population.

The rest of your responses regarding our need to have laws that protect people are right on the money. We just disagree about whether or not the legalization of suicide would negatively impact the general publics perception of life.

But that's okay. That's why we have these forums. They're addicting.
I don't think

Samhain

LMAO! You're right on the money there, yourself, friend. I go into withdrawls if I stay away too long. For some reason I can't stay away from this place, it draws me. But my work productivity has been cut significantly, though, LOL.

Ierrellus

My Friends,

I suffer from major depression, which usually carries with it the option not to exist. To me that personal alternative is in no way upsetting, except for the problems it may cause for the people who care for me. Since I cannot believe in a nonsensical afterlife of rewards and punishments, I see no big deal, only good things in a death that could engender new life and oblivion from the torture of thought.

No one else should be able to make my judgment of what to do on the values they have learned to believe. Legality has nothing to do with one who experiences the existential place of a singularity without connection to anything real. And no one can explain to one in this condition what "should" be real.

Ierrellus

free12thinker

Not only has my work productivity slipped, but when I get home, my wife is quick to keep me off the PC.

Samhain

Hmm...just curious, I'm thinking about creating a thread on this topic. Is it ethical to use business internet for free-thought discussion purposes?

emotional

</strong>

My point is that people should learn never to criticize a depressed person. It's counter-productive and will usually push him to suicide. Help and criticism are mutually exclusive - if you help you don't criticize, and if you criticize you're not helping. The depressed person tired of criticism would rather not hear it again and again.

</strong>

There are three alternatives:

1. Being helped to get out of suffering.
2. Continuing to suffer.
3. Stopping suffering by committing suicide.

When option 1 is void (which happens when people criticize instead of helping), only 2 and 3 apply.

</strong>

For all the warning signs I gave for the last three years, I got much more criticism than help.

No, that's going into specifics, and every depressed person has an individual way of being helped. The positive duty changes according to the case; however the negative charge is the same for all: do not criticize!

Samhain

devnet:

What about constructive criticism?