Suicide or Stupidity!
 

There's actually a question that's been plaguing me for quite a while, and thought I'd bring it up here. I'm not overly religious, but I believe in God, Heaven, Hell, and all that good stuff. Well.. Hell's not good.. but you get the idea.

Anyway, we're all taught that if you commit suicide, no matter what kind of life you lived, even if you were Mother Theresa and lived the perfect saintly life, you're still going straight to hell. Now, how does this affect people who are Daredevils and risk takers?

If I'm stupid enough to jump off of a 10 story building without any means to stop myself or slow down, but truly believing I'll survive, but knowing that I could die from the fall... do I go straight to hell when it doesn't work out?

If I ride a motorcycle blindfolded on the interstate while facing backwards, knowing it could be the last thing I did, and ends up being so.... would I go straight to hell?

Just got thinking about this with all of today's youth getting into the Jackass mentality. Showing off and doing stupid crap just to get thier 15 seconds of fame (or immortality, if it gets posted to the internet)

I wouldn't consider that suicide: just stupid. To me, suicide is sticking the shotgun in your mouth and pulling the trigger, or dragging the dagger across your wrist. There is very little chance you are going to live with that. At least if you are riding the motorcycle backwards, you have a decent chance of living (assuming its like 1 am). As for the 10 story building... :D

Two things.

First, most churches (including the Catholic church) teach nowadays that a person who commits suicide is mentally ill, and not necessarily going to hell.

Second, intention is everything. People engage in high risk sports for the thrill, not because they have a death wish.

inadvertant suicide is a whole other bag of bones from intentional suicide. Go read up on the Darwin Awards and you'll know what i mean

Hey everybody knows you might not make it home if you walk out the front door to go to work. But everybody does it. Does that then mean they are stupid or going to hell if they die?

Personally I'd like an explanation of why suicide is a mortal sin. I've never gotten this one...

it's the ultimate insult to god to shun that which he's given you: life... or something like that, I'm not religious, but I find suicide incredibly selfish.

The logic behind suicide being a mortal sin is that you're telling God "Fuck You, I'll do what I want, not what you want."

According to most religions, God will call you back to him when he sees fit, not when you can't handle a bad day and decide to end it. The reason that mentally ill people don't go to hell is that to be a mortal sin, a person has to 1: Know it's a mortal sin, and 2: freely and willingly choose it. If someone is seriously ill and can't think rationally, and kills themself, they didn't freely nd willingly choose it, and most likely had their judgement clouded to the point where they didn't know it was wrong.

what about if you commit suicide to save others like in battle a granade gets thrown in the middle of where your squad is and you jump on it, do you still goto hell?

i don't believe in hell so this doesn't apply to me.

yea man those kamikaze pilots were doing it for battle and their country. then again, i don't think they believe in hell either. ;P does that make them 'exempt' from hell?

rules and creeds are silly.

I don't know much about Shintoism but I believe the kamikaze pilots were promised a place at the Yasukuni Shrine for war dead in Tokyo.