I have been thinking about this a lot lately, in light of
the WTC attacks, and I apologize if this post is in any way
offensive to anyone.
Let’s consider this from the perspectives of many different
religions. I know that a lot of religions forbid suicide.
But is it a sin to jump to your death from a burning
building?
If jumping and not jumping have equal chances of death, is
committing the act that causes your death a sin (even though
it is a less painful death)? Or is the issue that you
aren’t allowed to knowingly choose a course of action that
makes your time of death sooner - does religion require that
we postpone our deaths as long as possible? Or what?
I don’t know; isn’t smoking (knowing that it’s likely to kill you) suicide, just slower? - can’t the same be said for eating too many hamburgers (will bring on an untimely death), or driving at excessive speed or just failing to be quite observant enough when crossing the road.
shouldn’t a religion that forbids suicide also forbid the above?
I’m no religious expert, but I think most of your better religions have a duress clause. Thou shalt not work on the Sabbath, but you can do so to save a man’s life, that sort of thing.
I’d have to imagine that the terror, pain, confusion, etc., that would compel someone to see jumping as preferable gives a person an out in most scenarios.
1 Samuel 31:
3 The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically.
4 Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.” But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it.
5 When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.
most religions that i know kinda make it up as they go along anyway, so what difference does it make?
if you ask me, jumping at least is the natural reaction and a last desprate attempt to survive. hell, you may get lucky and live! (not likely, but the fire is certain death. i really hope i never have to make choices like this)
Suicide is a serious sin in Roman Catholic thinking.
However, in the situation described in the OP, the intention of the people jumping was not to die, but rather to take one last, desperate chance to live. None of them wished to die, and their deaths would, under no circumstances, be considered suicide.
For sin to be serious, it must be done with full advertance of the will. Decisions - even if they were misguided - made under such conditions of terror would not qualify in any event. In other words, even if the rational choice might have been to remain in place and await rescue, no one - God or man - would assign blame to a hastily made decision by a terrified person.
Gatopescado: with all due deference to your no-doubt encyclopediac knowledge of the world’s religions, I suggest you are quite misleading when you say:
Most major religions have a set of beliefs, rules, or a creed that remain relatively unchanged over the short term - that is, while the passage of decades may wrought changes in belief or practice, that’s hardly the same as “making it up as they go along.” I suspect your comment was not intended to actually deliver information about what you know about “most religions” but rather to simply take a gratuitous swipe at organized religion.
If I’m wrong, then perhaps you’ll share what major religions’ core doctrines have flip-flopped in your lifetime. I’d be quite interested.
Saul is not a good example, because in the context of Sunday School, he’s generally considered a “loser”, and his actions are not generally held up to children as worthy of emulation. He disobeyed God in the matter of the Amalekites and King Agag (I Samuel 15), and so God took the kingdom away from him and gave it to David.
I agree with the rabbi’s view, it was what I was going to post but I finished reading the thread - staying in the fire is certain death, jumping gives you a chance (albeit extremely small) of surviving. Of course, most religions take into consideration the motivation behind sinful acts, and I’d imagine that the jumper would still be guilty of suicide if he jumped hoping for a painless death, instead of hoping to survive.
In terms of Christian theology, I’m not sure it matters, because it isn’t as if anyone who jumped was sinless in the first place. One sin more or less has no bearing on one’s ultimate destination. What this thread does bring to the fore is the impossibility – under Christian precepts – of living free from sin.
It isn’t as if there are certain relatively ‘little’ sins, or extenuating circumstances, in light of which God can be convinced to look the other way at transgression. Rather, there is one all-sufficient righteousness, and one all-encompassing sacrifice – Jesus Christ’s – in light of which we may be reconciled to God.
Christianly speaking, the imputed righteousness of Christ and his once-for-all sacrifice are necessary, even if all you have are ‘little sins’. And even if those ‘little sins’ were all committed in response to extenuating circumstances beyond your control.
