Suicide

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Suicide (Latin suicidium, from sui caedere, to kill oneself) is primarily the act of intentionally terminating one's own life, though it is also used as a metaphor for the "willful destruction of one's self-interest" either as an individual or as a group. Suicide may occur for a number of reasons, including depression, shame, pain, financial difficulties or other undesirable situations. Nearly one million people worldwide die by suicide annually. There are an estimated 10 to 20 million attempted suicides every year. Views on suicide have been influenced by cultural views on existential themes such as religion, honor, and the meaning of life. Most Western and some Asian religions—the Abrahamic religion, Hinduism—consider suicide a dishonorable act; in the West it was regarded as a serious crime and offense against God due to religious belief in the sanctity of life. Japan views on honor and religion led to seppuku, one of the most painful methods of suicide, to be respected as a... full article at wikipedia

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Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment -- a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man's existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer.
Would Hamlet have felt the delicious fascination of suicide if he hadn't had an audience, and lines to speak?
He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself.
It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune.
Then is it sin to rush into the secret house of death. Ere death dare come to us?
Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.
And one of his partners asked Has he vertigo? and the other glanced out and down and said Oh no, only about ten feet more.
No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide.
The prevalence of suicide, without doubt, is a test of height in civilization; it means that the population is winding up its nervous and intellectual system to the utmost point of tension and that sometimes it snaps.
At great periods you have always felt, deep within you, the temptation to commit suicide. You gave yourself to it, breached your own defenses. You were a child. The idea of suicide was a protest against life; by dying, you would escape this longing for death.
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Topic History

Metaweb
Created by Metaweb Oct 22, 2006
pipeline
Last edited by pipeline Jul 16, 2008

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