Historically Christianity has condemned those who commit suicide as grave sinners. The Catholic and Orthodox church refused to bury or say prayers for suicides up until very recently and even now they rarely do. Due to the Augustinian logic in particular it is felt that suicide is murder and because there is no oppurtunity to repent the person dies in a state of mortal sin. Along with this because the person dies without repent they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit meaning there sin is unforgivable and therefore they must go to Hell according to the logic.Christians, how do you defend this?
>>24892116Defend what? The punishment of sins? Or the notion that suicide is a sin?
>>24892122Defend not only the lack of empathy for suicides but to hold them up as the worst of the worst by saying they are pretty much the only people guaranteed to go to Hell. A child rapist has a better shot at eternal life than a suicide in the Christian framework
>>24892125>get raped by pedo priest>kill yourself from the trauma>go to hell while he goes to heaven because he repented
>>24892129So grateful I left this ugly jewish death cult behind
>>24892125It's, as you stated, more so by the nature of the suicide rather than any weight it has. You can't repent for it so you immediatly go to hell.It's also important to state that life is a gift by God no matter how shitty it is and that God's clock will decide when you have to stop suffering and go. Hell is the abscence of God it's not a punishment but a choice you make out of taking God out of your life and living in a godless lifestyle. When you deny God's gift and spit on Him for it you are basically denying Him as a whole out of your life and he will be respectful enough to let you go into an afterlife where he won't be there to interfere
>>24892134>it's not a punishment but a choicemodern cope
>>24892134Fuck you. Hope you get raped by a pack of Hebrews
>>24892125I'm still not totally sure what we're supposed to be defending. A rapist who truly repents is still punished in traditional Christianity, for they will face the refiner's fire of purgation.Christianity is not a monolith either. Dante includes Cato the Younger, a Pagan suicide, as the gatekeeper of the shores of Mount Purgatory (and so presumably among those who will eventually be saved) because his act was committed from noble sentiment for instance. So too, there are a number of saints of the highest level of pedigree who believed that the damned would eventually be turned to repentance, although they would first suffer Hell and would only be reconciled through Christ (making ancient and medieval universalism quite different from modern universalism, with its ethos of liberal pluralism). For example, there is Saint Isaac of Nineveh, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, and even Saint Jerome held to such a position at one point. But this is a minority position to be sure (others assumed the total annihilation of the damned).At any rate, the more core belief of the faith has always been that God is a just judge. We should not presume to know his judgement. Dante makes this point by having one of Virgil's pagan heros in Paradise (through a vision of Christ), while Virgil himself returns to Limbo precisely to reflect the hopelessness of the poets own philosophy (as best represented in the Aeneid and the murder of Turnus rather than the full exemplification of pietas).So, is the idea that suicide ought not be punished? That rapists ought not be offered mercy? That suicides ought be offered mercy? If the question is the latter, I do not think this has ever had a definitive answer, especially since some instances of martyrdom fall close to suicide (Socrates, for instance, chooses to drink the hemlock, but for just reasons). People also commit suicide for extremely selfish and sinful reasons however.
>>24892173>extremely selfish and sinful reasonsFor instance?>A rapist who truly repents is still punished in traditional Christianity, for they will face the refiner's fire of purgation.To be fair so will babies
>>24892138No, the Cross as primarily a means of juridical satisfaction, to appease God's wrath, is the modern view. Penal substitution is modern. The Anselmian Catholic view is a step halfway towards this, but is itself a later innovation. The Patristic understanding is that Christ is ransoming us from sin and death, not from God the Father (and to be fair, particularly since the 20th century, a lot of Catholic theologians have moved back in this direction). That view dominates the ancient texts and has remained the dominant view in Eastern and Oriental churches. Christ is a sacrifice who heals our nature and restores the possibility of communion. (To be fair, Anslem can be read more in this direction, as Bishop Barron does. It was more the modern period that saw Anslem warped into essentially just penal substitution , unfortunately.
>>24892173>the more core belief of the faith has always been that God is a just judgeThis is irrelevant in many ways as the Church's attitude has been that suicides are disgraceful, deserve no sympathy and their families probably suffered eternal shame, judgement and condemnation in the eyes of the community as that was what they were told to think.Also the problem with the doctrine of Hell and the afterlife in general is that it is massively contradictory. Plenty of things Christ states are contradicted or entirely in Revelation so trying to work out a coherent narrative is impossible
>>24892180For instance, provided Epstein killed himself, he did so to spare himself the shame of being exposed for his crimes. I also know someone who killed themselves essentially just to punish his wife. Other people essentially commit suicide through reckless drug abuse, the feeding of their own passions and appetites at the expense of all else.>babiesThe Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood have been seen as sound theology since the Patristic period.
>>24892171I hope you find God in your lif>>24892130e and that you get to go Heaven!! Jesus loves you and wants you saved!!
>>24892188>Core doctrines of the faith are irrelevant because real Christians must defend my vague pointing towards Medieval custom.In Russia they also buried the unconfessed dead in mass graves the same way, or travelers whose status was unknown. But the theologians and monks often decried this as degenerate superstition. Who exactly are we supposed to listen to here?
>>24892192>reckless drug abuseThe free will is severely impaired here.
>>24892192>Other people essentially commit suicide through reckless drug abuse, the feeding of their own passions and appetites at the expense of all else.This shows that Christians live in a total moralistic judgemental fantasy. You don't know shit about addiction, the reasons why people do it and the realities of it. As someone who has struggled with addiction, seen friends be overcome and have people I know die because of it I can tell you it's got jack shit to do with feeding "passions". All the people I know who are addicts have either trauma inside them that they cannot contain and have to numb with whatever they choose or have a deep sadness running through them that they feel they only escape when they turn to the thing they feel gives some kind of a release.You don't know what you are talking about and how dare you judge people who lives you can't even imagine surviving
>>24892198>A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. (Matthew 7:18)This is all I'll say
>>24892203The Bible is also explicit in many places about the risk of false teachings and false converts.
>>24892211Are you implying the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Churches are inauthentic and preach false doctrine? Because all three believed this stuff until less than 100 years ago
>>24892213No, they're implying that if you were truly saved you wouldn't kill yourself..But I don't find that a compelling argument. It's an interesting thing to think about, and it's true most churches were or still are content to condemn a soul to hell if they died by suicide.
>>24892226Forget their view, what is your view? And if it completely contradicts the view of mainstream churches what does that in itself imply?
What if I die protecting someone?I don't deliberately kill myself, but I put myself in a situation I know will kill me.
>>24892235I haven't ever given it much thought, at least not in regards to salvation, but my natural inclination is to regard it as sinful, but I'm a Calvinist so I assume in my tradition it wouldn't be seen as causing you to lose your salvation, but rather proof you were never saved at all.It's obviously cruel and "unfair" from a secular standpoint, but belief in theological concepts like total depravity and original sin make it a more complex issue than it would initially appear. I would hope that suicide cases don't default to hell, but who knows.. There's a lot of struggle not only with doubt, but with reconciling divine justice with our own human morality. That's pretty normal for us Christians, as far as I can tell. I get why a nonbeliever would not understand this, or see it as outrageous and view it as mental gymnastics or something.
>>24892255Also I thought about it a bit and I think there's more weight to their argument than I initially gave credit for.
>>24892130I bet you're fine with atheists letting violent felons out of jail 10 times until they kill someone though
>>24892129>I deserve more because I worked moreNot how it works in earthly life, why would it be in after life?
>>24892263What the fuck are you talking about, you psychotic?
