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Did the WTC jumpers "commit suicide"?

  • 20-05-2020 9:18pm
    #1
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,483 ✭✭✭


    This is a hot topic and it isn't my intention to offend anyone at all. On 9/11 as you may remember, people jumped from the twin towers to their deaths. Some say they didn't kill themselves and were forced out, not a conscious decision.

    I believe Islam is the only text to explicitly forbid suicide but Christianity also does say "thou shall not kill" which some interpret to include the self. So, keeping that in mind, could they be saved if they killed themselves?

    Also, if they weren't making a conscious decision and saved does that include people who also kill themselves because of mental illness?


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 177 ✭✭Calculator123


    This is a hot topic and it isn't my intention to offend anyone at all. On 9/11 as you may remember, people jumped from the twin towers to their deaths. Some say they didn't kill themselves and were forced out, not a conscious decision.

    I believe Islam is the only text to explicitly forbid suicide but Christianity also does say "thou shall not kill" which some interpret to include the self. So, keeping that in mind, could they be saved if they killed themselves?

    Also, if they weren't making a conscious decision and saved does that include people who also kill themselves because of mental illness?

    They were murdered by nutters. Many jumped in a vain attempt to save themselves or avoid an excruciating burning when faced with certain death.

    Your point of view is very warped.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,700 ✭✭✭storker


    The weren't deciding to die, they were deciding how to die. The decision to die had been made for them because of a suicide attack by terrorists whose holy book...er...forbids suicide.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    In the Christian tradition, suicide is generally considered to be as gravely wrong as murder.

    But, in mainstream Christian moral theology, to be guilty of a serious sin requires that you have full knowledge of the gravity of the wrong, and that you freely choose to do it. Where you are constrained, as in this case, by the certainty of an even more horrible death if you do not jump, you can hardly be said to have freely chosen to jump.

    The same goes for people who kill themselves under the effects of a mental illness. They can't be considered to have made a free choice to do that; their freedom is impaired by their mental condition.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    In the Christian tradition, suicide is generally considered to be as gravely wrong as murder.

    But, in mainstream Christian moral theology, to be guilty of a serious sin requires that you have full knowledge of the gravity of the wrong, and that you freely choose to do it. Where you are constrained, as in this case, by the certainty of an even more horrible death if you do not jump, you can hardly be said to have freely chosen to jump.

    The same goes for people who kill themselves under the effects of a mental illness. They can't be considered to have made a free choice to do that; their freedom is impaired by their mental condition.

    With the obvious exception of euthanasia, would there be a reasonable argument that those without mental health issues of some kind or another rarely commit suicide?

    I seem to remember in times past next of kin of suicide victims encountered difficulties when it came to a Christian funeral. I'm guessing most people today would consider this unreasonably harsh in the circumstances.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,483 ✭✭✭mr_fegelien


    smacl wrote: »
    With the obvious exception of euthanasia, would there be a reasonable argument that those without mental health issues of some kind or another rarely commit suicide?

    I seem to remember in times past next of kin of suicide victims encountered difficulties when it came to a Christian funeral. I'm guessing most people today would consider this unreasonably harsh in the circumstances.

    Wasn't the punishment for suicide until the 1960s in Ireland/UK hanging? lol. I do remember reading though that the punishment was never carried out


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    smacl wrote: »
    With the obvious exception of euthanasia, would there be a reasonable argument that those without mental health issues of some kind or another rarely commit suicide?
    I'd have to say no. There's an argument, but to my mind not a very convincing one.

    I know a person who killed himself having been diagnosed with a progressive and incurable disease. He wasn't in pain, and he wasn't incapacitated; both of those things would have happened in time, but that time was still a long way off. He decided he simply didn't wish to live with that as his future. He let people close to him know that, when the time seemed right to him, he would take care of matters and, when decided that time had come, he handled the matter himself without involving anyone else. I think that was a carefully made and rational choice. I don't think you necessarily have to agree with it, but I also don't think you have to appeal to "mental health issues" to explain it and, frankly, I know of nothing to suggest that he had mental health issues.

    I know someone else who killed himself because he was old and alone. His wife had died long before; his children, to whom he was close, lived a long way away and had homes and families of their own. I think he basically felt that he had done what was important in life and had no particular desire to go on living what, as he aged, was likely to be an increasingly challenging life. He made an extended tour visiting family and reconnecting with old friend and, some months after his return from that, he put his affairs in order and hanged himself. He told nobody what he intended to do. Again, you don't have to agree with what he did - at least one of his children was very angry about it - but I see no mental health issues.

    And it's not difficult to find example of people who kill themselves rather than surrender, or kill themselves rather than face arrest and trial, or kill themselves rather than be shamed. Obviously those people are in stressful situations, but their behaviour doesn't look like something that has to be accounted for by an appeal to mental health issues.
    smacl wrote: »
    I seem to remember in times past next of kin of suicide victims encountered difficulties when it came to a Christian funeral. I'm guessing most people today would consider this unreasonably harsh in the circumstances.
    We certainly would today. I think the position mostly taken nowadays is one of "we cannot judge; all we can do is entrust this person to the mercy of God". This doesn't necessarily mean that their behaviour is attributed to an assumed mental health issues; just that it' accepted that it may not have been a freely-made choice. Mental health issues are not the only thing that can compromise the capacity to make a free choice.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    All very good and reasonable points P. I was thinking of it more as an 'out' for a church having to treat suicide as gravely as murder, whereas I doubt you'd find many people in today's society as finding the two comparable at any level.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    smacl wrote: »
    All very good and reasonable points P. I was thinking of it more as an 'out' for a church having to treat suicide as gravely as murder, whereas I doubt you'd find many people in today's society as finding the two comparable at any level.
    In terms of the damage they do, the holes the punch in peoples lives, the grief and pain and guilt that ensues, the sense of a profound violation of the proper order of things, an outrage against any sense of balance or justice in our existence? Yeah, they absolutely are comparable.

    If you think of sin as basically analogous to crime, I'd say (1) that's a very narrow view of sin, but (2) yeah, most people would see suicide as a less serious "crime" than murder. But most people who are close to a murder also tend to see it as a less serious crime than what they previously imagined murder to be, before they actually experienced one - as in, they see how the murderer was constrained by his circumstances, by history, by drug addiction or abuse or violence. Obviously people who are close to the victim are shocked and horrified and violated and grief-stricken but, with most murders, people who are close to the victim are also close to the murderer; they may be angry at him and they may blame him and they may never forgive him, but they also tend to see that the circumstances and events that led him to this point were not entirely of his own making.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    In terms of the damage they do, the holes the punch in peoples lives, the grief and pain and guilt that ensues, the sense of a profound violation of the proper order of things, an outrage against any sense of balance or justice in our existence? Yeah, they absolutely are comparable.

    Dying naturally will also cause major grief to your loved ones, but we all die and it is not a crime. Choosing when and how you die I'd consider a basic human right. In some cases, if done thoughtfully and with consideration, it could well be make your passing easier rather than harder on those you love. I'd have sympathy for both of the cases you listed previously and don't think it reasonable we can demand someone stay alive in miserable and deteriorating circumstances because it might cause others grief.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,483 ✭✭✭mr_fegelien


    smacl wrote: »
    Dying naturally will also cause major grief to your loved ones, but we all die and it is not a crime. Choosing when and how you die I'd consider a basic human right. In some cases, if done thoughtfully and with consideration, it could well be make your passing easier rather than harder on those you love. I'd have sympathy for both of the cases you listed previously and don't think it reasonable we can demand someone stay alive in miserable and deteriorating circumstances because it might cause others grief.

    Side question, is someone a sociopath if they don't feel grief when their loved ones die? I know a guy like this in my former secondary school. He seemed "emotionally flat" and i think had some mental disorder. Was never happy, never sad, never angry etc...


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,443 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    Side question, is someone a sociopath if they don't feel grief when their loved ones die? I know a guy like this in my former secondary school. He seemed "emotionally flat" and i think had some mental disorder. Was never happy, never sad, never angry etc...

    bare in mind, he could be autistic, we do feel emotions, and very intensely at times, possibly more so than the average neurotypical


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    Side question, is someone a sociopath if they don't feel grief when their loved ones die? I know a guy like this in my former secondary school. He seemed "emotionally flat" and i think had some mental disorder. Was never happy, never sad, never angry etc...

    Firstly, I've zero expertise in this other than losing a few people very close to me in recent years so please don't take this answer as any way definitive. I think everyone experiences death of a loved one very differently and some won't show any obvious external emotions but could well be grieving in ways that aren't apparent. It can also be less immediate for some people than others and much longer lasting. I certainly wouldn't go judging anyone by how they appear to be dealing with loss, better just to give them some room and a listening ear when they need it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    smacl wrote: »
    Dying naturally will also cause major grief to your loved ones, but we all die and it is not a crime. Choosing when and how you die I'd consider a basic human right. In some cases, if done thoughtfully and with consideration, it could well be make your passing easier rather than harder on those you love. I'd have sympathy for both of the cases you listed previously and don't think it reasonable we can demand someone stay alive in miserable and deteriorating circumstances because it might cause others grief.
    That's not really my point. I didn't mean to suggest that we should view suicide as a crime, or that we do view suicide as a crime, or that you in particular should or view it like that. It's more an interrogation of what it means for the Christian tradition to say that "suicide is a sin". If your understanding of "sin" is basically "moral crime" or "crime against divine law" or something like that then, yeah, saying that suicide is a sin is comparable to saying that it is a (moral) crime. And of course that very legalistic perspective is found within the Christian tradition.

    But there are other perspectives on sin - that sin is a failure to acheive all that we are called to, or to become who we are called to be, or that it's a breach or tear in the meaning of the universe, or any of the other way you could express the gap between the potential of how good things could or should be and the actuality of how good they are that doesn't default to the language of law, crime and punishment. And saying that suicide is a sin in that sense is not quite so comparable to saying that it's a crime.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,228 ✭✭✭Thinkingaboutit


    Where someone is engulfed in the actions of evildoers like that, the moral responsibility for the killing of self, cannot apply.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Where someone is engulfed in the actions of evildoers like that, the moral responsibility for the killing of self, cannot apply.

    Why not?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,252 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    No, they took a leap of faith and relied on God's mercy.

    Whoops.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    cnocbui wrote: »
    No, they took a leap of faith and relied on God's mercy.

    Whoops.

    Mod warning: That's an exceptionally crass comment both in the context of lives lost in the 9/11 tragedy and of suicide. All for the sake of point scoring against Christianity on the Christianity forum. Any more like this and you'll be carded and/or banned for trolling.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    This is a hot topic and it isn't my intention to offend anyone at all. On 9/11 as you may remember, people jumped from the twin towers to their deaths. Some say they didn't kill themselves and were forced out, not a conscious decision.

    I believe Islam is the only text to explicitly forbid suicide but Christianity also does say "thou shall not kill" which some interpret to include the self. So, keeping that in mind, could they be saved if they killed themselves?

    Also, if they weren't making a conscious decision and saved does that include people who also kill themselves because of mental illness?

    As I see it, the jumpers were pushed out of the building. Your will can't sustain itself against the pain to body brought about by the effect of the heat.

    Some people have withstood the pain, eg self immolation. But presumably they were prepped for it.

    So no, not suicide, rather, murder.

    As for salvation and suicide? A person attracted to sexually abusing kids feels the urge to do so come on stronger and stronger. One day, they decide to kill themselves, the motivation being to prevent them doing what they find themselves urged to do.

    Greater love hath no man, than that he lay his life down for his friend.

    I would suspect such a one would be saved, since he is, with that self sacrificial act, aligning himself, in no uncertain terms with good. And rejecting, in no uncertain terms, what is evil

    Which is the axis around which salvation rotates, in my view


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    cnocbui wrote: »
    No, they took a leap of faith and relied on God's mercy.

    Whoops.

    There was an ad right above your post. A picture of the Irish football team and an article about Irish football fans.

    Accuracy by accident.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,150 ✭✭✭homer911


    smacl wrote: »
    Choosing when and how you die I'd consider a basic human right.

    An interesting comment. In a purely humanistic way, I can understand where you are coming from. As a child of God, I couldn't think of anything more inappropriate. God gave me life, everything I have comes from him. It's up to God to decide when to take it way.


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,812 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    homer911 wrote: »
    An interesting comment. In a purely humanistic way, I can understand where you are coming from. As a child of God, I couldn't think of anything more inappropriate. God gave me life, everything I have comes from him. It's up to God to decide when to take it way.

    That's fair enough and very much the majority Christian position on the matter which I fully respect. At the same time, would you seek do deny someone access to euthanasia who wasn't a Christian or didn't share your point of view?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    smacl wrote: »
    That's fair enough and very much the majority Christian position on the matter which I fully respect. At the same time, would you seek do deny someone access to euthanasia who wasn't a Christian or didn't share your point of view?


    Asked myself the question and figured you can't deny someone the right to kill themselves. Their will be done sitting, as it does, at the epicentre of their dealing with God (which is not to say a suicide puts them on the wrong side of the equation, so to speak. See upthread)

    But you might be able to deny the right for others to kill a person. It is, after all, not their life to take. Whereas with a suicide, of whatever type, it is someone's own life to take. Helping someone's will be done makes you an accessory to that will. And without full insight into that will, for who can say they have that, you are deciding to take a stab in the dark. Whatever about the light you think you have.

    Play God as an accessory and one day, if God, you'll face God.

    Accessory to suicide? Part of your overall answer to God, I suppose.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    smacl wrote: »
    That's fair enough and very much the majority Christian position on the matter which I fully respect. At the same time, would you seek do deny someone access to euthanasia who wasn't a Christian or didn't share your point of view?
    Euthenasia isn't killing yourself; it's having someone else kill you. You might argue that I have a right to commit suicide on the grounds that this does not impose on anyone else, but a right to be euthanized, it seems to me, must impose on others.

    If my "right to choose when and how to die" extends to a right to be euthanized, that can only mean that there is someone else who has an obligation to participate in killing me; they have no right to decline. Which is a pretty far-reaching claim. Yet if everyone is free to decline to euthanize me, in what sense have I a right to be euthanized?

    All of which suggest that the absolutist language of "rights" may not be the most productive way of approaching this particular moral issue.


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