Why shouldn’t someone have the right to end their own lives? Well, in reality, they do. If someone has such an intent and takes the right actions they will succeed in their endeavor. What law can then stop them? What punishment shall we bring upon them once they are dead?
Now, a legal argument can be made against assisted suicide and it can with a decent measure of success be enforced. The one assisting is still alive to punish and this can certainly serve as a deterrent.
It is odd, but those who favor the right of an individual to end their own life miss the irony of also being in favor of assisted suicide. You see, the argument in favor of the right of someone to end their own life is based on the view that, “its their own life, they can do with it as they please. Its no one else’s business.” If it is no one else’s business then what are they doing by getting involved and assisting? They are getting involved in someone else’s business.
The argument against Euthanasia is not a legal one. It is not even just an ethical one. It is a spiritual argument.
The foundation of the belief that suicide is an acceptable act is built upon a faulty assumption. The statement, “It is my life, I can do with it what I want,” is untrue. You did not create this life. You did not purchase this life. It was given to you as a gift by its creator, God and was ransomed by its Savior, Christ.
When you make it your life, in the sense that you possess it, you have become your own God. This gives us a clue as to why someone would want to end thier life. They have lost hope.  Surely there is little or no hope in to be found in ourselves as our own God. Our God must be someone greater than ourselves in order for us to find any hope in him. It is the running of ones own life that brings them to the point where they feel the answer is suicide.
It is not our own life, that we can do with it what we want. We are not our own God. If we live our lives daily with God as the ruler we can avoid the utter desperation and despair that makes us believe suicide to be the answer. As it is not our own life to do with, it certainly isn’t someone else’s to assist in bringing it to an end. Obviously if it is morally wrong and devastating to make the choice to be your own God, it is just as bad or worse to act as the God of someone else’s life. Rather than fighting for the right of someone to take their own life, a right that we have shown really does not exist, let us fight to show them the hope that exists in submitting to God as the owner and ruler of their life.
Alright well what your saying is that if people don’t believe in “god” they will commit suicide? Well I know first hand that isn’t true. I don’t believe in “god” I haven’t for 7 months now, and I have good reason to. I will never try and get people to not believe in “god” everyone has their own opinion. But saying that if you don’t believe in “god” then your going to kill yourself!?!?!?! That’s just stupid I know someone who at the time believed in “god” and still tried to kill themselves. They were so depressed that they couldn’t take it anymore, and where was god when this happened no where they were going to try it until they thought of everyone they cared about. Another reason i know this isn’t true is one of my best friends killed himself when he was 13 years old. Not because he didn’t have “god” in his life, because he was so depressed and felt un-loved that he did what he thought was best for himself and everyone. Of course it wasn’t but he thought it was and I’m not going to hate him I never have and i never will. I hate when people say that other people don’t have the right to take their life away IT’S THEIR LIFE!!!! Let them do what they want without disapproval because you might be pushing them closer and closer to them losing their mind and the next thing you know is they’re dead and there is nothing you can do but wish you had one more chance to talk to them and tell them how important they were to you. I’m sorry but I had to comment and leave some thoughts because I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t talk to a family member or a friend if they are having troubles. Please just think about what you say next time and make sure you know what your talking about not just your opinion.
Thank You,
Alycia
No, that is not what I am saying at all, “if people don’t believe in “god†they will commit suicide?” Certainly there are millions of people who do not believe in God and do not commit suicide. Life is not so cut and dry cause and effect.
When someone makes the decision to “end their ‘own’ life” they are assuming the role of absolute authority over their life. God, by definition, is absolute authority. Whether one believes in the Christian God, or any god or none at all, does not change that definition. To be God is to be Absolute Authority over some realm.
When someone assumes the role of Absolute Authority over their lives they have by default appointed themselves god of their lives. Unfortunately many Christians do this to some degree or another as well. By no means does this always result in suicide.
Suicide is however, always a result of some form of hopelessness. There are countless factors that can contribute to this hopelessness. Surely you would agree though that if someone is full of hope they would not commit suicide. My point is that ultimately there is little or no hope to be found in ourselves as our own God. We are all keenly aware of our own failures and shortcomings. How much hope can we find if we are the Absolute Authority and Power of our lives? The more difficult life gets the more we need an unfailing hope.
You mentioned someone who tried to kill themselves but didn’t when they thought of all the people that cared about them. You ask, “where was God then…? He was right there. Maybe He was the one who caused them to think about the people who cared about them. In addition, God is Love. All love begins with and eminates from Him, even in those who do not believe in Him. It is He who provided the people who cared about this person the very ability to care about them, so it was His love originally that reached at to them.
Your statement of “IT’S THEIR LIFE!!!!” is precisely the point this article was addressing. There are two differing world views. One says that our life is our own to do with it what we want. The other says that our lives belong to God who is the Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of our lives. I’m not forbidding anyone from ending this life and my disapproval means very little if anything at all, even if that had been what I was stating. My argument against euthanasia is not a legal one or ethical one, but rather a philosophical one based on spiritual truths. If we hold to the second world view mentioned above then we do not have the right to end our lives ourselves because in that world view it doesn’t belong to us, but rather to God.
There is far more joy, peace and hope in the second world view, that is, that our lives belong to God who is the Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of them. As we surrender ourselves to God we experienc His presence more and more and this increases our peace and hope.
I am all for talking to people who are experiencing hopelessness and may be considering suicide. I agree that we should be telling them how special and important they are to others and to God as well. We should be praying for them and encouraging them. Ironically though this contradicts the attitude that says let them do what they want. Think about it, if you are trying to talk someone out of committing suicide you are not ‘letting them do what they want’. You see, I agree with you regarding the tragic result of suicide and believe that we should intervene to try and help. I agree with your statement where you said, “…because he was so depressed and felt un-loved that he did what he thought was best for himself and everyone. OF COURSE IT WASN’T…”
I am sorry to hear that something has occurred in your life to cause you to stop believing in God. I will be praying that He will reveal himself to you and you can experience His goodness, gtrace, mercy, and hope.
thanks for your response
What i dont get is that you are trying to impose religion onto someone through this thread, you are trying to say that the person that the last post stated was going to kill themselves and then decided not to because of what they were going to leave behind, the reason why he was thinking that, is because of god. Through that, you are stating that god is able to make people think a certain way, if that is true, than we wouldnt have anyone doing anything wrong, however, to counterdict the arguement that ‘if god were to do this, than he would be giving up on his children’ and any argument like that, it begs the question, then didnt he give up on this person? Even for a second? Another thing is that you claim god is almighty, if that is true, than why do religious people believe in demons and devils? The thing I would think is that the almighty power you are talking about would be able to get rid of all of these forces. Along with the fact that with only 2 people in the garden of eden, i think it would be easy to see a snake come up and speak to one of them and tell them to get the apple of truth and eat it.
So, with that reasoning out of the way, i think i will spill a theory i have heard, might make you angry, might make you confused, might just make you change your ideas. Your god is working with the devil. The only explanation i can think about the devil not being destroyed by god so far. Which brings up the question, why? The theory i heard was taht it was a test to see how a person will react facing all possible senarios between 2 absolute forces, being that this man believed that god was almighty, he believed that any forces could have came into reality, that good and evil are things god created to test the human race, and the apple was a signal to start the test. This man was a christian priest, and as such, he kept his beliefs out of church, just as we keep different religions out of government. Now, i think i have gotten the whole mass rallied, the reason i have posted this thread was to not harp on religion, and i appologize in advance if i actually took it too far. I just want you to actually think without using god as a factor, and to use god as a different kind of factor. I am not asking you to change your beliefs. I personally believe in a theory close to a infinint reality posibility, where god does and does not exist in a innumerable ammount of realities, which of these is ours, i can not say, and when i die i find out, i will not care either way.
I am here as a person interested in the ideas that each individual has, not as a group. To interview someone for what they believe, and what there choice will be. I am working on my senior prodject paper, flat and simple. And here is my questions for everyone who reads this. Feel free to use fake names if you usually do not.
Are you religious or not? What are your beliefs in Death with dignity and euthanasia? Think if you were the opposit of the first question, would you still be the same? If there was no penaltie, no sin in it, would you, as a religious follower, follow through? If you are athiest, or your religion does not believe suicide to be a sin, and if you learn that it is as you enter the after life, would you ask for forgiveness, or would you accept your fate? And if you use the death with dignity act, is there reason? are you in pain? Are you going to die, and you know it?
Again, I do not mean for this to be a attack on religion, only that religious people tend to fall on god, if athiest think they are scotch free, dont, i can say a lot about you also.
Stating or offering one’s belief’s is a far cry from imposing one’s religion on someone.
If you read more carefully you will see that I didn’t claim that “the person that the last post stated was going to kill themselves and then decided not to because of what they were going to leave behind, the reason why he was thinking that, is because of god (sp).” In response to the example of the person who was going to kill themselves but did not when they thought about all the people who cared about them, I suggested that maybe God was the one who introduced the thoughts regarding those people who cared about them. That’s a long way from saying that God control’s our thoughts. While by definition, an almighty God would have the power to control how people think I do not believe this is is how He normally operates. To do so would usurp the free will that He himself created us with. To believe that God could introduce such thoughts to us or remind us of such thoughts is not a difficult thing to believe in. You and I regularly introduce ideas to people and remind them of memories. If we can do so, how hard is it to believe that an almighty God can? God absolutely did not give up on this person or any person. A person can be loved continuously and reminded of this love regularly but still choose to ignore it.
The height of love can be seen no more clearly than in the idea of free will. Free will is full of possibility and risk at the same time. One cannot experience love both in receiving and in giving without free will. It requires the ultimate love to create someone with free will. Mindless robots carry far less risk, but they cannot experience the joys and the pleasure of being loved and loving.
The existing of demons and devils concurrently with an almighty God poses no contradiction at all. Any created being with the capacity to choose can choose to rebel against authority. This again illustrates the risk involved in creating things with the capacity to choose. It is not a matter of whether or not God can get rid of these rebellious spirits. Because He has not chosen to do so yet in no way leads to the conclusion that He cannot. I still have an old beat up pickup truck. I can afford a new one. Becasue I still have the old pickup truck does not indicate that I cannot get rid of it.
On your ideas of good and evil lets consider something. We’ll start with the scientific realm for our illustration. Scientifically speaking there is no such thing as darkness. We measure light. The term darkness really means some level of the absence of light. You see light exists. It exists in an almost infinite number of levels or degrees, all the way down to 0. The same goes for coldness. We measure heat. We do not measure coldness. Coldness and darkness are abstracts. Light and heat are the absolutes. Goodness, which is God in its absolute sense, exists. Evil is an abstract that is defined by the absence of goodness.
Light is not in competition with darkness. As soon as light is introduced into an area it overcomes the darkness. You cannot say the same thing in reverse. You cannot introduce darkness into a room and overcome the light. All you can do is remove the light. It is the absence of light that brings about what we call darkness. I can bring a light into a room and make it light. I cannot bring darkness into a room and ovecome light. As soon as goodness is introduced it overcomes evil. It dispels it because by definition evil is the absence of goodness. The reason evil exists in this world is not because of the devil. Evil exists because we reject the good (and that whole free will thing comes into play again). Sure the devil is an agent of evil, but he is not evil itself. Evil is not created, it is an absence of good; a result of us rejecting the good.
I find it intersting that one can believe in an innumerable amount of realities and not believe in an absolute God. Lets suppose there is this system of innumerable amount of realities – from where do they get their reality? what makes them real? Consider if you for a moment that concept of right and wrong. I know you believe in right and wrong because you mention good and evil and the concept of death with dignity (what is dignity? It is some defined standard of a good death), etc. Where did the concept of right and wrong come from? What makes something right and something else wrong? What is the basis of this standard that we use?
In response to your final questions regarding suicide, euthanasia, death with dignity, et al; read the original post again. It doesn’t focus on punishment. It focuses on the question of whose life is it? In place of hopelessness God offers hope.