LIFE IS WORTH LIVING/A WORLDWIDE PROBLEM

Conclusion of Cultural Differences

In Christendom, on the other hand, suicide was long viewed as a crime. By the sixth and seventh centuries, the Roman Catholic Church excommunicated those who had committed suicide and denied them funeral rites. In some places, religious  fervor has bred strange customs regarding suicides-including hanging the dead body and even driving a stake through the  heart. 

Paradoxically, those who attempted suicide could incur the death penalty.  For trying to kill himself by cutting his throat, a 19th-century Englishman was hanged.  Thus the authorities accomplished what the man himself had failed to do.  Though the punishment for attempted suicide changed over the years, it was not until 1961 that the British Parliament declared that suicide and attempted suicide were no longer crimes. In Ireland it remained a crime until 1993. 

 Today some authors encourage suicide as an option. A 1991 book about assisted suicide for the terminally ill suggested ways to end one's life. Later, an increased number of people who were terminally ill used one of the recommended methods. 

Is suicide the answer to one's problems?  Or are there good reasons to keep living? (Note: Yes, there are good reasons, you cannot inherit any of God's Kingdom-have any hope of going to the new paradise earth, because God is against suicide.) Before considering these questions, let us first examine what leads to suicide. 

Next time:LIVE IS WORTH LIVING/WHY PEOPLE GIVE UP ON LIFE

From the Awake!  magazine