Suicide is a big taboo in the 'western' christian society, but there are (and have been) lots of cultures were suicide is looked at differently - as something honorable, good, etc.
Even our culture has different interpretations for it - eg suicide vs sacrifice.
We morally condemn the former but elate the latter, even though the outcome is the same - a person dies.
Metaphysically, the meaning of suicide is given by the perceived meaning of death and the [lack of] belief in some sort of afterlife.
Is it a sin or not ? If there's an afterlife, will you be punished for committing suicide? What about the loved ones ? They will judge..
But for example, if you knew that this life is actually a realistic VR simulation that you've entered into, then suicide would be perceived as a sort of 'ESC' key - a way out of the simulation. Like exiting a game.
If a person's circumstance in life is such that the person is bound to suffer until death (eg. disease, mutilation or loss of everyone), then suicide might be looked at as a sort of release - a good thing..
There's the whole controversy regarding assisted suicide..
Then there's the sacrifice - going into battle screaming is a form of attempted suicide combined with attempted murder. At the end of the day, the battlefield participants are eventually split into killers and those who committed suicide. From this perspective, going to war is collective [attempted] suicide.
War is a form of temporarily suspending the moral rules we obey by (do not kill others or self) and people gladly participate in both killing others and themselves.
I guess my point is that tfa is looking at a very narrow spectrum of 'suicidal people' - suicide is a lot more prevalent than that and it's practiced not just by people with mental illness..
The problem of suicide isn't so much whether killing oneself is "wrong" or not, or the possible impact of someone's death on their social circle, but that it's extremely unlikely that any boundedly rational agent acting under imperfect information can truly commit to an irreversible choice. The "permanent solution to a transient problem" quip is very much true: way too many who wake after a suicide attempt take it as an opportunity to regret what they've done, and try to turn their lifes around.
> Even suicide bombers don't have death as their primary aim - if they achieve the same result without dying, they would."
That depends on how you define "the same result". The assumed (in some cultures) moral superiority of the suicide bomber regardless of the legitimacy of the target can have considerable PR value. In a way that somewhat resembles a ponzi scheme, those at the very top may reap higher rewards, and so choose to elevate the tactic into a strategy.
Consider "the result" to include religious goals based on a belief in the afterlife. If they could obtain piety some other way they could - as opposed to wanting to end life as it is no longer enjoyable.
And you now know why some groups (religions, sects, etc.) use (or have used) martyrdom (including the suicide bomb variety) as a tactic, and others have not:
More than one goal exists for each group, many of these goals are not mutually compatible, and different groups arrive at different mixes of tactics in pursuit of their goals and to resolve (or ignore) the various contradictions and incompatibilities in different ways, and these mixes change over time in reaction to a changing environment, including the S&T employed by other groups.
IOW, don't expect the strategies or tactics that groups use to settle on any sort of Nash equilibrium.
Even our culture has different interpretations for it - eg suicide vs sacrifice.
We morally condemn the former but elate the latter, even though the outcome is the same - a person dies.
Metaphysically, the meaning of suicide is given by the perceived meaning of death and the [lack of] belief in some sort of afterlife.
Is it a sin or not ? If there's an afterlife, will you be punished for committing suicide? What about the loved ones ? They will judge..
But for example, if you knew that this life is actually a realistic VR simulation that you've entered into, then suicide would be perceived as a sort of 'ESC' key - a way out of the simulation. Like exiting a game.
If a person's circumstance in life is such that the person is bound to suffer until death (eg. disease, mutilation or loss of everyone), then suicide might be looked at as a sort of release - a good thing.. There's the whole controversy regarding assisted suicide..
Then there's the sacrifice - going into battle screaming is a form of attempted suicide combined with attempted murder. At the end of the day, the battlefield participants are eventually split into killers and those who committed suicide. From this perspective, going to war is collective [attempted] suicide.
War is a form of temporarily suspending the moral rules we obey by (do not kill others or self) and people gladly participate in both killing others and themselves.
I guess my point is that tfa is looking at a very narrow spectrum of 'suicidal people' - suicide is a lot more prevalent than that and it's practiced not just by people with mental illness..