Page update: 29.08.07
Suicide is in the news. People are making suicide pacts on the internet. People are travelling across continents to facilitate euthanasia lawfully. Teenagers are taking their lives in advance of receiving their public examination results. Suicide bombers are recalibrating the Jewish/American dream. And Christians increasingly, it seems, are choosing the suicide portal as a way out of third dimension materialistic despair.
But can Christians take their own lives? No. Can non-religious people take their own lives? No. This is impossible. It is impossible for any human being to take his own life. Each human being is an immortal being who has eternal life. This eternal life cannot be removed from him by anything. On this view, there is no such thing as death. Death is simply an illusion of Piscean Age religiosity.
It is true, of course, that certain superstition-groups, such as those found within fundamentalist Churchianity, have tried to talk up the death-fear as a means of religious control. But, these days, fewer and fewer educated people in the West are buying the deceit.
Most people agree that each physical human body appears to "die" after a few decades of use. But these physical human bodies are not human beings. These physical human bodies are physical vehicles which human beings use to get around physically on the physical plane.
The physical plane is just one dimension (the third) of thirty three different dimensions in this local universe. Human beings are multidimensional immortals. We use a different "body" to get us around in each of the thirty three different dimensions. Certain of these bodies we sometimes refer to as our astral bodies, or our resurrection bodies, or our ascension bodies. But we are not our bodies. Our bodies are our vehicles. We are the drivers.
Second, there is the question about whether a Christian is "permitted" to take his own life. This is a nonsense question. Christians are "permitted" to do anything they wish. God has given Christians, along with all other human beings, free will. This free will is a divine gift which lies beyond the reach of religion to steal or conceal. Any Christian – any human being – is entirely free to do anything he wishes at any time and for any reason. That is what free will means.
It would be unwise to suggest that committing suicide is a good idea. For most people, to commit suicide would probably be a serious spiritual mistake. But Christians, by virtue of, and in exercise of their God-given free will may, if they freely so choose, freely decide to commit suicide without religious let or hindrance.
It is easy to forget that the tortured history of Western Churchianity is littered with prominent exemplar suicides. We call them "martyrs". The most prominent of these was Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus committed suicide on a Roman cross. If the stories are to be believed, he could easily have avoided death on the cross, but he freely chose not to. Like many other martyrs before and after him, Jesus freely chose to commit suicide in a manner, and for a reason, and at a time of his own free choice.
Suicide is not an easy topic for Christians. But it is not always wise to trivialise legitimate discussion of the suicide issue with cheap religious judgments about why, in every case, it must be "wrong".
It was interesting, recently, to notice some comments made by God on the subject of suicide. Speaking in conversation with Neale Donald Walsch, God said: "On the question of ending one's life, it is the current imaging of the majority of people on your planet that it is 'not okay' to do that."
"Similarly, many of you still insist that it is not okay to assist another who wishes to end his or her life."
"In both cases, you say that this should be 'against the law.' You have come to this conclusion, presumably, because the ending of the life in question occurs relatively quickly. Actions that end a life over a somewhat longer period of time are not against the law, even though they achieve the same result."
"Thus, if a person in your society kills himself with a gun, his family members lose insurance benefits. If he does so with cigarettes, they do not."
"If your doctor assists you in your suicide, it is called manslaughter, while if a tobacco company does so, it is called commerce."
"With you, it seems to be merely a question of time. The legality of self-destruction – the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of it – seems to have much to do with how quickly the deed is done, as well as who is doing it. The faster the death, the more 'wrong' it seems to be. The slower the death, the more it slips into 'okayness.' "
"Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of what a truly humane society would conclude. By any reasonable definition of what you would call 'humane,' the shorter the death, the better. Yet your society punishes those who would seek to do the humane thing, and rewards those who would do the insane."
"It is insane to think that endless suffering is what God requires, and that a quick, humane ending to the suffering is 'wrong.' "
I quote here from pages 167-168 of "The New Revelations – A Conversation with God" by Neale Donald Walsch (2002): Hodder & Stoughton; ISBN 0 340 82589 8.
The Conversations with God Foundation is based at Ashland, Oregon, USA, and can be found here.
......................................
Accepting suicide
A doctor's letter to The Sunday Times (2006)
Swiss suicide clinic sees number of British clients rise by 700 per cent
An Independent article (2005)
Swiss euthanasia charity helps 22 Britons to die
A Guardian article (2004)
Dignitas - Swiss suicide helpers
A BBC News article (2003)
Assisted suicide
A BBC Q&A piece (2003)
The Swiss way of death
A BBC Newsnight report (2002)
Dignity in Dying
This charity replaced The Voluntary Euthanasia Society
in January 2006
...........................
Images of suicide
Warning: Some of these pictures are very explicit, shocking and difficult to view or assimilate.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41
..............................
Prayer is breathing
Health issues
Teen issues
Astral projection, the soul and the spirit
Index of blog contents
Spirituality websites worth watching
Suicide is in the news. People are making suicide pacts on the internet. People are travelling across continents to facilitate euthanasia lawfully. Teenagers are taking their lives in advance of receiving their public examination results. Suicide bombers are recalibrating the Jewish/American dream. And Christians increasingly, it seems, are choosing the suicide portal as a way out of third dimension materialistic despair.
But can Christians take their own lives? No. Can non-religious people take their own lives? No. This is impossible. It is impossible for any human being to take his own life. Each human being is an immortal being who has eternal life. This eternal life cannot be removed from him by anything. On this view, there is no such thing as death. Death is simply an illusion of Piscean Age religiosity.
It is true, of course, that certain superstition-groups, such as those found within fundamentalist Churchianity, have tried to talk up the death-fear as a means of religious control. But, these days, fewer and fewer educated people in the West are buying the deceit.
Most people agree that each physical human body appears to "die" after a few decades of use. But these physical human bodies are not human beings. These physical human bodies are physical vehicles which human beings use to get around physically on the physical plane.
The physical plane is just one dimension (the third) of thirty three different dimensions in this local universe. Human beings are multidimensional immortals. We use a different "body" to get us around in each of the thirty three different dimensions. Certain of these bodies we sometimes refer to as our astral bodies, or our resurrection bodies, or our ascension bodies. But we are not our bodies. Our bodies are our vehicles. We are the drivers.
Second, there is the question about whether a Christian is "permitted" to take his own life. This is a nonsense question. Christians are "permitted" to do anything they wish. God has given Christians, along with all other human beings, free will. This free will is a divine gift which lies beyond the reach of religion to steal or conceal. Any Christian – any human being – is entirely free to do anything he wishes at any time and for any reason. That is what free will means.
It would be unwise to suggest that committing suicide is a good idea. For most people, to commit suicide would probably be a serious spiritual mistake. But Christians, by virtue of, and in exercise of their God-given free will may, if they freely so choose, freely decide to commit suicide without religious let or hindrance.
It is easy to forget that the tortured history of Western Churchianity is littered with prominent exemplar suicides. We call them "martyrs". The most prominent of these was Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus committed suicide on a Roman cross. If the stories are to be believed, he could easily have avoided death on the cross, but he freely chose not to. Like many other martyrs before and after him, Jesus freely chose to commit suicide in a manner, and for a reason, and at a time of his own free choice.
Suicide is not an easy topic for Christians. But it is not always wise to trivialise legitimate discussion of the suicide issue with cheap religious judgments about why, in every case, it must be "wrong".
It was interesting, recently, to notice some comments made by God on the subject of suicide. Speaking in conversation with Neale Donald Walsch, God said: "On the question of ending one's life, it is the current imaging of the majority of people on your planet that it is 'not okay' to do that."
"Similarly, many of you still insist that it is not okay to assist another who wishes to end his or her life."
"In both cases, you say that this should be 'against the law.' You have come to this conclusion, presumably, because the ending of the life in question occurs relatively quickly. Actions that end a life over a somewhat longer period of time are not against the law, even though they achieve the same result."
"Thus, if a person in your society kills himself with a gun, his family members lose insurance benefits. If he does so with cigarettes, they do not."
"If your doctor assists you in your suicide, it is called manslaughter, while if a tobacco company does so, it is called commerce."
"With you, it seems to be merely a question of time. The legality of self-destruction – the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of it – seems to have much to do with how quickly the deed is done, as well as who is doing it. The faster the death, the more 'wrong' it seems to be. The slower the death, the more it slips into 'okayness.' "
"Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of what a truly humane society would conclude. By any reasonable definition of what you would call 'humane,' the shorter the death, the better. Yet your society punishes those who would seek to do the humane thing, and rewards those who would do the insane."
"It is insane to think that endless suffering is what God requires, and that a quick, humane ending to the suffering is 'wrong.' "
I quote here from pages 167-168 of "The New Revelations – A Conversation with God" by Neale Donald Walsch (2002): Hodder & Stoughton; ISBN 0 340 82589 8.
The Conversations with God Foundation is based at Ashland, Oregon, USA, and can be found here.
......................................
Accepting suicide
A doctor's letter to The Sunday Times (2006)
Swiss suicide clinic sees number of British clients rise by 700 per cent
An Independent article (2005)
Swiss euthanasia charity helps 22 Britons to die
A Guardian article (2004)
Dignitas - Swiss suicide helpers
A BBC News article (2003)
Assisted suicide
A BBC Q&A piece (2003)
The Swiss way of death
A BBC Newsnight report (2002)
Dignity in Dying
This charity replaced The Voluntary Euthanasia Society
in January 2006
...........................
Images of suicide
Warning: Some of these pictures are very explicit, shocking and difficult to view or assimilate.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41
..............................
Prayer is breathing
Health issues
Teen issues
Astral projection, the soul and the spirit
Index of blog contents
Spirituality websites worth watching
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