Sucide?

[EvilAngel401k]

My best friend killed himself, all my christian and catholic friends are saying that he has to suffer for taking his own life. What is the Pagan/Wiccan beliefs/Views on suicide. Is my friend really doomed to suffer? I loved him and I can't believe that he should suffer, he was a great person. But I'm so lost now I barely know up from down.  

[Gingerbread . Coffin]

Asking what Pagans think is a big question, regardless of what it is...

Some believe that you just die, and through decomposition, support other lives (except, with so much preservatives and such used in most funeral preperation today, it's not as good as it once was..).

Some believe that you're reborn into a new life. And even with that perspective, there's variants on where you go next. Some think you can go on to become any other species, or that you stay human, but most that believe that say that every life span is another step towards learning, so you take on a different aspect every time, and then one day, your soul meshes with the divine (whatever you want to call it, I've heard a lot of names for it).

And then, there's others that believe in reincarnation say you'll be given the same aspect of life until you make it without killing yourself. o_O;

In most religions, not just Neo-Paganism, there's new life after death, in some celestial or earthly place.

I wonder why your Catholic friends didn't bring up Purgatory/Limbo or the layers? I think there's a specific ring in the 7th layer, where they're turned into tree's, but it's been a long time since I've read the Divine Comedy...  

[TeaDidikai]

[ Message temporarily off-line ]  

[TheDisreputableDog]

Gingerbread . Coffin

I wonder why your Catholic friends didn't bring up Purgatory/Limbo or the layers?

I heard that Limbo is no longer official doctrine of the Catholic Church?  

[TeaDidikai]

TheDisreputableDog

Gingerbread . Coffin

I wonder why your Catholic friends didn't bring up Purgatory/Limbo or the layers?

I heard that Limbo is no longer official doctrine of the Catholic Church?

Actually, it likely has more to do with the assertion that Suicide can be considered BotHS, and even if it isn't- that it is the kind of sin that one doesn't escape from without the aid of other Sacraments- such as Confession and Pennance.  

[Starlock]

Given the diversity of 'what Neopagans believe' on the subject of life after death alone, it is hard to say what they think as a whole about suicide. I haven't seen any essays or surveys about it anywhere. I think it would be safe to say, though, that like the great majority of Westerners they dissaprove of suicide in general. Given their religious bents, I do not think they would condem people who *do* commit suicide as much as others do, perhaps. But really, I'm not sure.

From a personal standpoint, I find death, regardless of the means you took to get there, a simple transition much like any other point in life. While I might generally frown on suicide, it isn't something I hold in contempt. Some people, perhaps, would be better off dead because they have the total lack of will or ability to better their lives and are suffering extensively (ie, euthanasia of terminal patients in hospitals).

Whenever the subject of suicide comes up, though, I like to put this spin on it to aid in understanding it. Mostly we think of suicide as what makes us choose to die. What about what makes us choose to live? Every day we choose to live, after all. wink  

[saint dreya]

EvilAngel401k

My best friend killed himself, all my christian and catholic friends are saying that he has to suffer for taking his own life. What is the Pagan/Wiccan beliefs/Views on suicide. Is my friend really doomed to suffer? I loved him and I can't believe that he should suffer, he was a great person. But I'm so lost now I barely know up from down.

to each pagan their own. as far as i know, there is no general consensus on suicide.

personally, devoid of my religious beliefs, i feel the utmost sympathy for the person who committed it. it is such a sadness that they go through that the only option they saw was this. their grief was so infinite that they saw no other course of action to remove the feeling, or to even lessen it.

i like to think that if anyone ever felt such an all-encompassing sadness, they would do the same. we each react to the same things so differently though that chances are, even if someone else went through the same actions, they might not take their own life. it might be something far more different, but i believe we all have that capability.

not to sound blasphemous to the thread, but, borrowing from Starlock, it can be a bit empowering to think that you do have to ability to end your life, every second of it. and some don't. some do choose to live. but i do not advocate any harsh feelings to those that choose to die. it is their perogative and i respect their grief at having to live.  

[TatteredAngel]

Gingerbread . Coffin

I wonder why your Catholic friends didn't bring up Purgatory/Limbo or the layers? I think there's a specific ring in the 7th layer, where they're turned into tree's, but it's been a long time since I've read the Divine Comedy...

The Divine Comedy is closer to political satire than actual doctrine. Since Dante Alighieri invented the layers of the inferno, I don't see why anybody should be taking them as actual points of faith.  

[TeaDidikai]

TatteredAngel

Gingerbread . Coffin

I wonder why your Catholic friends didn't bring up Purgatory/Limbo or the layers? I think there's a specific ring in the 7th layer, where they're turned into tree's, but it's been a long time since I've read the Divine Comedy...

The Divine Comedy is closer to political satire than actual doctrine. Since Dante Alighieri invented the layers of the inferno, I don't see why anybody should be taking them as actual points of faith.

Is political satire unless someone made it Canon when the whole of M&R was not looking.

However, Purgatory exists within Canon.  

[cambrylyd]

EvilAngel401k

My best friend killed himself, all my christian and catholic friends are saying that he has to suffer for taking his own life. What is the Pagan/Wiccan beliefs/Views on suicide. Is my friend really doomed to suffer? I loved him and I can't believe that he should suffer, he was a great person. But I'm so lost now I barely know up from down.

First, I'm very sorry to hear you've lost your friend. I can't even imagine how much pain you're in. I hope you will be able, one day, to focus on his life and the joy you shared, rather than the manner of his death. [[[[[]]]]]

Now, just remember that there is a consensus among true Biblical scholars that the concept of hell was actually inserted into theology by the church as a means to control the masses. What better way to keep people in line than to play on their superstitions and threaten them with eternal damnation?

I can only echo everyone else here in saying that, among Pagans, there is no one way to look at this matter. I have some very different beliefs from the rest of my Pagan friends. I think everyone is always, no matter how educated they are, finding their own way through it.

I doubt very much your friend is in hell, because I doubt very much there is a hell. Obviously, he was in a very bad place when he was alive, and no one can really know why he chose the solution he did. I don't think it makes a lot of sense for any god to punish a soul *forever* no matter what the "sin."

I hope this has helped, a little.  

[MST3Kakalina]

yes, there is no general pagan consensus on suicide because really...when has there been a pagan consensus on ANYTHING?

again, Tea's point about hell was well-stated.

as for current church canon, i thought they changed just the policy on unbaptised babies? i'm actually in Catholic limbo in a D&D campaign going on at the moment, so we were talking about it today. synchronicity!

i offer my sympathy, as i don't know what i would do if my best friend killed herself--it would be an absolutely heart-wrenching experience for me. at the very least, whatever suffering your friend was facing before is now non-existent.

allow your Christian friends to believe what they believe, and know that their beliefs come from a shallow understanding of their own path.  

[Gideon Starorzewski]

TatteredAngel

Gingerbread . Coffin

I wonder why your Catholic friends didn't bring up Purgatory/Limbo or the layers? I think there's a specific ring in the 7th layer, where they're turned into tree's, but it's been a long time since I've read the Divine Comedy...

The Divine Comedy is closer to political satire than actual doctrine. Since Dante Alighieri invented the layers of the inferno, I don't see why anybody should be taking them as actual points of faith.

The Divine Comedy has no relation whatsoever to Catholic dogma. Generally speaking it references literature and Greek mythology more than it does scripture.  

[MST3Kakalina]

but then didn't the Catholic church adopt it as "official" dogma? from what i understand, that's where the concepts of purgatory and limbo first originated: Dante wrote them and the Church borrowed/stole them.

i don't know if the different layers of hell also carried over or if that's people superimposing The Inferno on official Church canon, though

i could be wrong, i'm just saying--that's what i've always thought.  

[TeaDidikai]

MST3Kakalina

but then didn't the Catholic church adopt it as "official" dogma? from what i understand, that's where the concepts of purgatory and limbo first originated: Dante wrote them and the Church borrowed/stole them.

i don't know if the different layers of hell also carried over or if that's people superimposing The Inferno on official Church canon, though

i could be wrong, i'm just saying--that's what i've always thought.

Nope. It's not Canon.

The realm of "purgatory" was canon long before the Inferno, it came from the concept of Sheol.  

[LadyEladrin]

I'm very sorry to hear that you lost a friend. I think Starlock made a good point when she said you should ask yourself why he would do such a thing, to choose not to live anymore. Personally, I feel that a person chooses to commit suicide when they honestly can't see anyway out of their problems and situations except death. Before this life, when we choose what we're going to go through, sometimes we pick too much as we feel invincible at the time. It's then that we commit suicide. I personally would say that your friend is now either in some kind of limbo, trying to figure out what happened or what to do next, or is already being rehabilitated on the otherside so he can go on to his next life unscarred. In either case, no hell, no purgatory, no burning lake of fire or punishment of any kind.