Suicide

I find this a fascinating topic which is entirely inappropriate to discuss within a thread in which someone began with the almost cliche "cry for help," and so I decided to start one which isn't based on an ulterior motive.

If the promise of a better life after death was intended to keep peasants in their place, why the Christian suicide taboo?

Suicide seems to me to be the ultimate act of self-focus (as opposed to the negative connotation of selfish), but it also seems somewhat self-focused (or even selfish) for loved ones to find it so terrible a possibility.

I wonder though if this explains the more generalized societal attitude towards suicide as a expression of mental illness.

There is, of course, something of a societal exception made for people we can all agree have found themselves in an entirely untenable position, with the most accepted being an inevitable but lingering and agonizing process of dying, but most of us also make an exception for the person who has painted himself into a very tight and uncomfortable corner.

Clearly suicide is perceived somewhat differently in different cultures, but I am focused on Western culture, which really doesn't think the idea of honor suicide is all that crazy.

Why do we make it so hard for people to kill themselves in a manner in which they will not suffer?

Yes, if painless suicide was easy, a lot of mentally troubled people would be killing themselves rather than obtaining help, but without intending to be callous, so what?

It's not as if these folk only have a single flirtation with taking their lives and so if stopped will never consider it again. Preventing someone who is mentally troubled from ending their life doesn't assure a long and happy life thereafter. the opposite is often the case and additional suicide attempts are very often in their future.

Perhaps someone is more knowledgable on this topic than I and can share with us, but my sense if that there are very few instances of someone who has been prevented from acting on a true suicidal impulse leading a long and happy life.

If we can be said to have any immutable rights, it's the right to end our life one of them?