More Americans now commit suicide

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Jul 29, 2012
1,211
2
0
#1
Jul 29, 2012
1,211
2
0
#3
Be proud -- By removing GOD / JESUS from all this is what you get.
 
Sep 13, 2012
619
1
0
#4
opinions on how God deals with those who are ill when they commit suicide? I do believe sometimes people are not in their right mind due to brain injury or illness, does God see in their heart that they dont understand what they are doing?
 
Aug 29, 2012
298
3
0
36
#6
in the absence of hope, suicide becomes practical.
all the more reason we should be offering the hope of Jesus, to the masses.
 
F

flight316

Guest
#7
The fact that people actually go through with it boggles my mind. Sometimes from a human perspective I feel like what's the use in going through this everyday. But from a spiritual perspective it is my duty to Him and myself to endure until the end. I don't have the luxury to end it all. That's for Him to decide.
 
Sep 7, 2012
532
0
0
#8
Has anyone bothered to compare it to other times when the economy was bad. This recent time back in 2008/9 is hardly even in the first 10 economic crashes. Looking at financial crashes they go well back into the 19th century while the one during 1930 is still considered the worst of them all, each one had their own little peculiarities. Remarkably the most common fact is that it was the rich folks who caused them and the common folk who suffered most.

Frankly the reports of suicide during the 1929 crash were exaggerated greatly.
 
Sep 13, 2012
619
1
0
#9
since a basic part of being a human is surviving and staying alive, gong against basic self preservation is sinking into the ultimate madness, if someone takes their own life I really think they have gone completely insane. On the other hand what about people who sacrifice themselves for others? I wouldn't consider this suicide I would consider this the ultimate act of love, caring so much for another that you you give up your own life to save another is as close to being like Christ as you can get. countless people over time have given up their own lives to allow others to live, everything from the soldier throwing himself on the landmine to save his platoon,to the fireman saving a child,then dying from his injuries. I need to find that story about the truck driver who drove into a tree and died,instead of hitting a school bus full of kids, killing yourself is the ultimate selfishness, dying to save others is the ultimate love
 
Apr 29, 2012
864
511
93
#10
^^
Well said.

Let's also remember the passengers on Flight 93 Sept 11, 2001. They had no doubt that they were going to die anyway but managed to take down that plane short of it's target. That amazes me
 
T

TheGrungeDiva

Guest
#11
Be proud -- By removing GOD / JESUS from all this is what you get.
You're going to have to provide some evidence that the high suicide rates are a result of a lack of religion.

First of all, you would have to provide a DIRECT correlation between Christianity and suicide. For example, if you could show that, at a time when 80% of the US population was Christian, the suicide rate was, let's say for an example, 0.04% (I'm making that number up ... I have no idea what the actual number was in 1953), and then when the US Christian population fell to 60% (is it even that low yet? I don't think so) suicides rose to 0.12%, well, that would be a start.

A start, but not proof. Correlation does not prove causation. And you haven't even proved correlation.

The higher rates of suicide are primarily in the military, and as a direct result of war-time disorders going untreated. If you're going to blame anyone for that, blame the idiot politicians (which includes BOTH parties) that got us into this war, the idiot politicians who don't feel like tax dollars should be used to support our troops once they get home, and the idiot politicians who limit health care because they don't think people should be "mooching" off the system (that one is mostly a republican problem, but they don't deserve all the blame, just most of it).

Tragedy? You bet it is. Not sure how blaming godless communists is going to help, in this particular case, though.
 
T

TheGrungeDiva

Guest
#12
The fact that people actually go through with it boggles my mind. Sometimes from a human perspective I feel like what's the use in going through this everyday. But from a spiritual perspective it is my duty to Him and myself to endure until the end. I don't have the luxury to end it all. That's for Him to decide.
Speaking as one who has been diagnosed with clinical depression -- and who has dealt with it for a quarter of a century -- I assure you that it isn't as simple as making a decision not to take your own life.

A person who is suicidal has as much power over his or her own thoughts as you would have the power to knit back together a broken leg just by staring at it. Depression is a chemical reaction. Sometimes it is brought on by specific incidents (ranging from death of a loved one or extreme stress, like war), and sometimes it is internally triggered rather than externally triggered. We have all had cases of "the blues" - sadness, usually appropriate to the situation. Disappointments and frustrations are a natural part of life, and we learn to deal with it and move on. But sometimes the body just doesn't "bounce back." The coping mechanisms we all have just stop working, the same way a diabetic person just stops producing insulin properly. Regardless of the cause of the depression (whether it's brought on by real problems or a chemical imbalance), some people need help in getting out of that black hole.

Suicide is the result of an untreated disease called depression. Depression is a real (not imagined) medical condition, one with very real symptoms, and various different possible courses of treatments, some of which work differently in different people (just like different people react differently to different cancer treatments, or HIV medicine or any other of a number of diseases that aren't always easy to cure with a bottle of "take two and call me in the morning"). The problem is, our society stigmatizes depression and other mental disorders, as if someone who suffers from them is somehow just not as strong as someone else. Would you ever tell someone who got chicken pox, "Oh, you just weren't strong enough to keep from getting that virus...?" With a few exceptions to certain cults who believe that all medical treatments are evil, I don't know anyone who would advise someone against going to the doctor for an appendicitis, or gall stones, or other physical ailment. Why is it that when the psyche is the injured organ, it's somehow not okay to seek medical counsel?

I don't mean to say ALL Americans, or even all Christians, are like this. I know a lot of wonderful Christian communities that are working to help those with mental disorders such as depression, bi-polar disorder, psychosis, and all sorts of problems. I know many Christians are accepting of the people who suffer from these diseases, and don't stigmatize us. The sad thing is, I know a lot who do.

My hope in writing this is to educate. If anyone out there didn't realize that depression and similar diseases was real, I hope you recognize now that it is, and that it's not just a matter of "snapping out of it."

Thanks.
 
N

nw2u

Guest
#14
in the absence of hope, suicide becomes practical.
all the more reason we should be offering the hope of Jesus, to the masses.
Unfortunately, I know this to be true. I have not attempted it, but I have been without hope. It is what motivates the thoughts. It can feel, quite clearly, like the logical solution.

Jesus Christ turned my thoughts away from this and toward His mercy and goodness. Praise God!