Life is suffering. Death is the end of Suffering.

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by ryobi, Feb 13, 2023.

  1. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    [​IMG]
    Sorry this graph is so small, but the dark blue is female suicides and it is by age. Girls have many more attempts (ER visits) but boys are more successful. The most successful suicides are white male geezers with handguns.

    Don't take your moral guidance from an unreliable source.
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2023
  2. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    Interestingly I've recently learned that nitrogen asphyxiation is super quick and painless. Apparently, our autonomic breathing mechanism is based on our biological chemical sensor response to imbalances between CO2 and O2 in our lungs. When flooded out by a nitrogen atmosphere, the automatic breathing mechanics simply stop working. Crazy right!?
     
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  3. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think thats how laughing gas (NO2) works. There's a point at which partial asphyxiation numbs the senses without causing brain damage. I could be wrong...
     
  4. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    death with dignity should be an option for anyone with a terminal illness in all States

    though no one with life insurance would use it, as that would void it

    but at least then the people choosing to suffer, would be doing it for a reason and it would be their choice
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2023
  5. ryobi

    ryobi Well-Known Member

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    I think that's the method my mom used.
     
  6. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    interesting....
     
  7. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    Seems like the NO2 buzz has to be different than that, otherwise I'd get the same feeling by holding my breath seems to follow. I've done NO2, and it's a pretty strong sensation.
     
  8. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Apparently laughing gas is N2O, or nitrogen oxide, while nitrous oxide is NO2. I didnt know they were different. Also I didn't do well in chemistry...
     
  9. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    Condolences, I'm so sorry for your loss. Totally support your Mom too though. So, you have a bit of a personal struggle with this subject?

    http://www.donmarquis.org/themoth.htm
     
  10. Grey Matter

    Grey Matter Well-Known Member Donor

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    Ah, funny, so much for my ChE degree, hahaha.... I can calc the different vapor pressures of them though! Yeah, N2O is used by the dentist and race cars, NO2 just causes bad air.
     
  11. ryobi

    ryobi Well-Known Member

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    The time my mom attempted suicide by slitting her wrists the police scolded her like she was a child who had done something wrong.

    Towards the end I supported my Mom's decision. She was in inconsolable pain and couldn't sleep and had tremors.

    Death is the end of suffering.
     
  12. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Hard to imagine anyone agreeing it is better to die, rather than to comply with such a non-specific alternative, as merely "to beg." I am guessing, the surrounding text puts that quote into clearer context.
     
  13. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    I think that is common knowledge; and also common sense. A close range gunshot, usually to the head, is going to have a high success rate. Adopting this type of brutal violence, is one stereotypical difference between the sexes, that is accurate. Also, as I'm sure you know, "suicide attempts," can merely by cries for help; and men are less likely to ask for help. Granted, slitting one's wrists, is not exactly "asking." Still, anyone who is serious about killing themself-- which is a pretty big decision-- one would think, would give it the minimal amount of thought, and research, to realize that one should not cut crosswise, but lengthwise, down the forearm.

    Interesting story, about a prestigious Roman, named Arbiter, who, after understanding that he had fallen out of the Emperor's good graces, and was so not long for this world, slit his own wrists, but bound them back up, so that he could throw a final dinner party, before bleeding to death.



    EDIT: If one "kills himself," in effect, but without consciously choosing to do so, necessarily, as perhaps is the case in some accidental drug overdoses, men are more likely to be doing something more risky, and "spectacular." For example, I had a friend who died while driving his motorcycle on a little, country back road, at well in excess of 100 m.p.h., without a helmet. When we had been in elementary school, his father had committed suicide, by gunshot.
     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2023
  14. Nonnie

    Nonnie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

    Bruce Lee
     
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  15. impermanence

    impermanence Well-Known Member

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    It's not about the individual right to die, per se, because anybody can terminate anytime they wish [if the will to die is greater than the will to live]. Instead, it's about giving somebody else the right to kill you, and this is where the law gets involved [for good reason].

    There are many examples where the intellectual process fails because our understanding is so primitive. We cannot comprehend life nor death and therefore issues such as this one, abortion, terminal illness, etc., are left to flap in the emotional breeze of public opinion.
     
  16. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Your simplification is largely erroneous; that is, would only apply in those cases in which a person could not self-administer the deadly drugs. Especially if one already has an IV drip, this is not very difficult.

    But I am not even talking about supplying the drugs, on the most basic level-- rather, the illegality of this choice, itself. To say that it doesn't matter, because "anybody can terminate (their own life) any time they wish," is untrue: the illegality is the justification for intervention in any suicide attempt. And, of course, many times, attempts prove to not be successful, so saying that a law is fine, since it doesn't stop people from breaking it, if they want, could be applied to laws against any, common practice: they might not stop the activity, but they would make all who do it, criminals.
     
  17. yabberefugee

    yabberefugee Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Who can stop anyone from taking their own life? We can point out the good that often comes from suffering. We can tell them about God's value on our lives. We can tell them about eternity. But in the end it is their choice. Now for those who would assist them......we have something to say about murder as a society.
     
  18. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    A couple of things. Nearly half of suicides are on impulse, especially among the young. Females tend to overdose or cut themselves which allows time for second thoughts. Males tend to hang or shoot themselves leaving no time for second thoughts.

    Also, to bleed out efficiently you need to cut your radial and ulnar arteries. Cutting your arm lengthwise does not get the job done.

    I’ve had three coworkers kill themselves. Two males that shot themselves and one female that sat in her running garaged car.
     
  19. pitbull

    pitbull Banned Donor

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    That's true but not if you kill yourself deliberately.
    Suicide directly brings you into hell. which means endless suffering.
     
  20. impermanence

    impermanence Well-Known Member

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    There is only a law against attempted suicide. Suicide [itself] sort of obviates the need otherwise.

    For those concerned with situations where you have lost the ability to control your bodily functions, then it makes sense to plan ahead by having somebody willing to do whatever it takes...

    The state believes it has the ultimate say over the individual but clearly this is not the case. The absurdity of making suicide "illegal" reveals the state's desperation in attempting to abscond with individual autonomy provided by Nature or Creator.
     
  21. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    Oh, really-- cutting down your arm, if you don't do it along a main artery, won't kill you? <sarcasm>

    I had thought it implied, that the same artery which many just slash across, needed to be slit lengthwise. But thanks for your concern(?), in offering the correction. So are you saying that it requires not just one, but both of the main arteries in the lower arm, be sliced this way? While this really seems to be more attention to this little detail, in relation to the central idea of the thread, than is warranted, I think that you might be wrong, that just one of these, cut along the length of both forearms, will "not get the job done," especially as most tend to know enough, to sit in warm water, to help the process. Fewer arteries will mean it takes longer-- but if the person was really in a rush, there would always be the femoral artery, or jugular vein. One could also take aspirin, to lessen clotting (and why not drink a bit of wine, on the way out?). Further, after losing a significant amount of blood, while in a bathtub-- drowning would be a very legitimate, backup option.

    I had not been trying to portray myself as an expert on suicide, if that is how it came across to you, but had only been saying that anyone serious about killing themself, one would think, would put in the modicum of research & effort, to see that it was done right.

    Which brings me to your first comment, about those who commit suicide "on an impulse." Personally, I wouldn't consider doing something so rash, and potentially unalterable, to be indicative of being of a suicidal mindset, as much as of being irrational; due, I would guess, to having very poor control over one's high degree of emotionality. That is not the type of situation I-- or, I think, the author of the OP-- had in mind, when talking about a person's right to choose death. But I will take your point that, even if I wouldn't think of those spur of the moment suicide attempts as being "serious" intentions, some of these do still succeed.

    The point though, is how could one possibly expect to be able to intervene, with the person who is that erratic, to decide to kill themself, on a whim? I am not saying that efforts to encourage the idea of talking to someone, when one is depressed, are not all well and good; only that they will never sufficiently address that problem.
     
  22. edna kawabata

    edna kawabata Well-Known Member

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    I suppose you know where the radial and ulnar arteries are in the forearm, but they are easily found in the wrist. The wrist also require smaller incisions and therefore less pain. My comment was on efficiency and as I noted nearly half of suicide attempts are impulsive acts where prior research and thought does not come in. Suicide attempts, sometimes against their will, are seen in the ED all the time where they get help.
     
  23. DEFinning

    DEFinning Well-Known Member Donor

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    1) I am very vascular; blood-drawers, sometimes, even salivate.

    2) It was my understanding that just a small cut across those blood vessels, was not as assured of bringing death, as would an incision from the wrist on down, splaying open that artery (or those arteries-- but I still think that would probably be, so to speak, overkill).


    And, as I'd noted, there is little that can be done about people, without warning, doing something dangerous. However, if there were an official process, for granting approval for suicides, and one of these impulsive types, were to be satisfied, for that moment, with merely applying for the permit, when their evaluation did occur-- if they'd not already had a change of heart-- then these people could get that "help," you mention, before their suicide attempt, instead of after a failed first try.

    Think about it. My suggestion could only help identify the people, whom you've claimed would not want to kill themselves, with proper medical care. So, it seems that our two views would then be working in a syncretic fashion. Strange, therefore, you would seem to be openly opposing my suggestion.

    Of course, when you had been advocating for getting people the right medical treatment, at the thread's start, you had been talking about "end of life" patients, not teenagers, as your argument has seemed to have swiveled toward. But my reading of the end of this post of yours, is that you have confidence in the medical community's ability to help these people, as well, who are willing to accept help. So, what, again, is the argument against approving suicides, after one has undergone an evaluation?
     
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2023
  24. ryobi

    ryobi Well-Known Member

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  25. ryobi

    ryobi Well-Known Member

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    F the evaluation suicide is the last FU to society that needs your body to fill their beds to maximize their profits to pay their shareholders who have invested in for profit prisons.
     

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