Can religious teachings effect mental imbalances?

MatthewVII

Right, I'd have to say that there's a lot of poorly informed opinions going around here about what causes suicide. For one

-You can't draw lines between rising suicide and ANY OTHER TREND YOU LIKE. That goes for declining mass attendance, rising levels of atheism, declining community spirit, whatever. Suicide is incredibly complex, multifactorial aetiology and if we understood exactly what caused it we'd be happy campers.

Obviously, we can't interview people who have committed suicide, as they're pretty much dead. We can, however, interview people who commit parasuicide. Obviously, this does not give us sufficient data, as those who commit parasuicide are a fundamentally different group (more young women, more use of non-lethal means as expressions of emotion rather than true suicide attempts etc). What we can learn from them is that the following increase your risk of suicide

-Alcohol and drug abuse, particularly within a day or so of the suicide attempt
-a history of mental illness (depression, schizophrenia, anorexia)
-Access to means - medications, guns, etc
-Family member who committed suicide
-Adverse life events in the week leading to suicide

I'm sure there's more, but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head as being the ones which keep popping up.

So can we tie religion (or lack thereof) to the above? I'm sure many christians will. However, the last four have nothing to do with religion in ANY WAY, so religion has no way of modifying your risk. I'm sure the first one will be seen as a sinful and impure act by most religious people, but the fact is that many christians drink, smoke etc.

The personal factors involved with suicide are beyond comprehension. No-one can say that any one factor is a major force, because we just don't know. So I would advise everyone to stop jumping to conlusions, pointing fingers and saying that everyone else is the cause for all the pain and suffering in suicide victims. We have no idea why one person will commit suicide in a given situation when another won't. There is no evidence it is caused by the grace of god, or the glory of science, or ms. o'keefe down the road who organises a dinner dance every saturday. WE JUST DON'T KNOW. Everyone should just calm down and stop trying to take an authoratative stance on the issue.

Latchy

I dont think anybody is suggesting thay have a bigger , better insight into suicide than anybody else, how could they ? . However I am sure we all know at least one person who has killed themselfs . Somebody mentioned in the ' most horrific sight you've seen ' thread thread last week, about how they had seen a womon jump to her death in front of a train . I replied wondering what was the defining factor that made her committ sucide.? Of course nobody but the deceased knows that answer .Each will be unique and be a story in it's own right .