I was pondering this during a boring lecture in Geometry:
If you were given a chance to die, would you take it? Two things are being assumed:
1)Your death will be painless.
2)Where you go upon your death will be someplace nice.
Would you take the chance? I can see arguments for both sides. On one hand, you would never get to achieve your dreams, but on the other, you might not achieve them anyone.
So, would you play the odds and live, take the easy way out and die, or suggest that maybe I should start paying attention in Geometry?
your showing intelligence by realizing that death is a more important subject than geometry.
i think the underlying motivation for the question is a desire to avoid death,which is again intelligent thought.
lack of knowledge, or ignorance, is the cause of fear, so to remove fear,knowledge is required. unfortunately, we tend to get taught about geometry.
i`ve never been afraid of angles – how about you?
You’re pretty much “given the chance” for a painless death by default today aren’t you. My first thought was sleeping pills.
People that are firmly Christian for example will obviously “know” that they’re going to “someplace nice” (unless suicide by default cancels that option).
Actually, if those both apply, I wouldn’t consider it rational to not committ suicide if I were fairly sure that the “afterlife” was better then the actual life.
Unfortunately I am an atheist, so I will have to go on living, at least for now. Dangit.
Considering that I don’t believe in any sort of afterlife, I’d have to say no.
However, if I assume, for the sake of this question, that there is an afterlife, then it depends on what my chances of getting into the “good” part of this afterlife are by default, compared to my chances if I avail myself of this painless suicide. If we’re dealing with an eternal afterlife here, then any increase in my chances of getting good seats would be enough to cause me to ditch this temporary life.
Sleeping pills aren’t as pleasant as people make them out to be. Intense vomiting, seizures, bloody foaming from the mouth… it can be a pretty unpleasant way to go…
Life is an experience in itself. Take advantage of it. You don’t know what’s after death. Neither do I. So why waste this phenomenon of conscious sensation that may be all we have?
Thanks, Cthulhu, I had a feeling you might say that
BTW, since attempted suicide is (though wrongly IMHO) illegal in many jurisdictions, I really hope we don’t get anyone in here who decides they’re convinced by someone’s argument and want to end it all, or the Chicago Reader might end up getting a few calls down the road.
I’d do it if it meant I went somewhere nice. Considering right now I’m pretty sure my life is going to be short and strange at best and after that there is nothing at all. I’m not about to gamble this crazy mixed bag of a life against garenteed eternal bliss.
There is no afterlife, nor do I want there to be one. There is no painless, 100% method of suicide – you need assistance for that.
So I assume you’re talking about an assisted suicide, one that would involve you going to sleep or something.
Hell yeah, I’d do that in a heartbeat.
If there were an afterlife, then no, I’d just assume avoid eternal consciousness as long as possible, as that would surely result in insanity. If I have to be aware, I much prefer being corporeal, thank you very much.
