Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Yellum Notnef · 10-13-2002, 07:54 AM

Is there some biblical (OT) basis for suicide being a sin or did the church just make this up due to the obvious fact that dead people don`t tithe?

Gemma Therese · 10-13-2002, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fenton Mulley:
Is there some biblical (OT) basis for suicide being a sin or did the church just make this up due to the obvious fact that dead people don`t tithe?

The Old Testament prohibits murder, and suicide is the murder on one's self.

Gemma Therese

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Gemma Therese ]

StrongMan · 10-13-2002, 08:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gemma Therese:


The Old Testament prohibits murder, and suicide is the murder on one's self.

Gemma Therese

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Gemma Therese ]

What about self-defense? Is killing someone in self-defense murder?

Bible Humper · 10-13-2002, 09:34 AM

Quote:

The Old Testament prohibits murder, and suicide is the murder on one's self.

Is the admonishment against the murder of one's self as "flexible" as the church considered the prohibition against murdering others?

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Bible Humper ]

sakrilege · 10-13-2002, 10:03 AM

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2150/Biblesuicide.html" target="_blank">The Bible, Christianity and Suicide
</a>

Excerpts...

Quote:

Jesus of Nazareth (all four Gospels) chose to aggravate the authorities into crucifying him. Jesus was explicit in stating that his life was not being taken but that he was voluntarily choosing death: "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." (John 10:18) While many Christians would vehemently deny that this amounts to suicide, Jesus' actions in behaving in a way that he knew would cause the authorities to condemn and execute him, and his refusal to take any action to avoid his execution, is similar to what today would be called "suicide by cop," and even more closely parallels the execution/suicide of Socrates, and the self-imposed martyrdoms carried out by members of the heretical Donatist schism and condemned by St. Augustine

...

The Donatists' fanatic belief in an obligation to resist persecution in practice sometimes expanded into goading magistrates and other authorities into killing them, secure in the knowledge that this "martyrdom" ensured them a place in Heaven.

...

It was to "correct" this heresy that St. Augustine of Hippo, in the early fifth century, wrote his arguments opposing suicide. Augustine does make a weak attempt at finding a Biblical injunction against suicide, claiming that it violates the Sixth Commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (though a more accurate translation from the original Hebrew is "You Shall Not Commit Murder"). Augustine is forced to admit that there are exceptions making it all right to kill another person, but dismisses reasons for wanting to end one's own life.

...

Medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas, also condemns suicide, basing his arguments about suicide reasoning principally on the works of three pagan Greek philosophers, Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato. In Summa Theologica, Aquinas gives three arguments against the permissibility of suicide.

...

Finally, both Augustine and Aquinas deal with the uncomfortable facts that the Bible does present the suicide of Samson as the act of a saint, and that the Church has from its earliest days honored as saints certain Christians who, faced with persecution, committed suicide, by resorting to Socrates' excuse: without any Scriptural support whatsoever, they assert that God must have "secretly commanded" these suicides; and, again without Scriptural basis, they claim that God would not and has not ever "summoned" any other person in this way.

10-13-2002, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Fenton Mulley:
Is there some biblical (OT) basis for suicide being a sin or did the church just make this up due to the obvious fact that dead people don`t tithe?

You mean that non Catholics also are allowed to commit suicide?

In Catholicism it is a sin because it is wrong to kill the body if only the ego is the problem and to get rid of the ego all we need to do is rapture it.

When the ego raptures, that which remains is in heaven. So do you still think it is a smart thing to commit suicide?

Of course protestants probably think that the body should go up because they haven't figured out yet that none ever do.

Bree · 10-13-2002, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Amos:

Of course protestants probably think that the body should go up because they haven't figured out yet that none ever do.

I think that's an unfair dig at Protestants. I don't know of a single Protestant that refutes the part of the Bible that says, at the Rapture, the spirit shall rise and we all will be given new heavenly bodies.

10-13-2002, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bree:


I think that's an unfair dig at Protestants. I don't know of a single Protestant that refutes the part of the Bible that says, at the Rapture, the spirit shall rise and we all will be given new heavenly bodies.

Sorry Bree and I am not familiar with that scripture. The protestants I know think that rapture takes them "up" and that is why it was said that a protestant pilot was never allowed to fly unless with a Catholic co-pilot in case of rapture so the Catholic could get the passengers safely to the ground.

The above is based on the three rapture parables where one of the two always left the scene (presumably "up"). In my view, one of the two was the ego and vanished into oblivion because it was an illusion to begin with. Notice that these two were always either two men or two women but never a man and a woman which would make my interpretation wrong.

[ October 13, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]

kwigibo · 10-13-2002, 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by StrongMan:


What about self-defense? Is killing someone in self-defense murder?

and what about killing yourself in self-defense? if you were gonna kill yourself, you have to stop yourself somehow.

Sheep in the big city · 10-13-2002, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kwigibo:


and what about killing yourself in self-defense? if you were gonna kill yourself, you have to stop yourself somehow.

Well, since you could hardly launch a surprise attack on yourself you don't really have an excuse why you didn't just knock yourself unconscious and call the police instead of killing you.
On the other hand, if someone can be convinced of the existance of god you could probably also convince him that you had the right to shoot yourself because you were trespassing on your property.

10-13-2002, 07:54 AM	#1
Yellum Notnef Banned Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Gone Posts: 4,676	When did suicide become a sin? Is there some biblical (OT) basis for suicide being a sin or did the church just make this up due to the obvious fact that dead people don`t tithe?

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