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From: mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio)
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: Re: Why society - religions - oppose ...
Message-ID: <224@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 5-Jan-85 23:17:24 EST
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-c.224
Posted: Sat Jan  5 23:17:24 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 03:39:37 EST
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 37

I think part of it is the theory that since suicide is killing a human, it 
is wrong (like murder).  I think most religions oppose murder not because it
is taking away someone else's right to live, but because it is taking away a
life that [some] god has put here for some reason.  Thus, suicide was a
mortal sin.  [Suicides were buried at crossroads (don't know the reason for
that) with stakes through their hearts; this was supposed to prevent their
souls from getting to heaven.]

Also, the Church [the one that tried to run Europe during the middle ages]
was real 'posessive' of its members and potential members.  Heresy was bad
partly because it went against church teachings, but also largely because the
heretics and any they persuaded to their degenerate point of view ( :-) ) 
were lost souls, lost sources of income, etc.

[The following is real fuzzy and is based largely on history classes for 
which I no longer have notes.]
On a more practical note, in medieval times people were, uh, more valuable to
the community.  If a peasant farmer who had ten kids depending on him killed
himself, that was a lot more devastating than a father today killing himself
(from a financial/practical point of view only; I'm sure the psychology of it
hasn't changed much).  There was no social security or whatnot to take over,
and while the rest of the community could help a bit, if the kids weren't yet
old enough to run the farm (women were probably not a viable option) things
could get bad.  [As an aside, up until the 1800s it was normal for a couple
to have a kid that survived every two years.  Or so one of my history
professors claimed.]

And, of course, a lot of people back then thought that insanity (anyone who
commits suicide is insane by their standards) was contagious and/or
hereditary.  Thus, showing signs of insanity was bad.

As for *today's* society, I'm not really sure, religion/murder theory aside...

							-Dragon
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