tfl: The Flatiron Life

One of my principles is that man’s natural state is alive. This is something all people should be able to agree upon, regardless of religion. This is reinforced as a Christian. I believe God creates us to be alive and we should try to be alive as long as God allows us. Being alive is not our purpose though; it is a means to accomplishing our purpose. Our purpose, our reason for existing, is to worship God. We all have different ways of worshiping, but we ought to worship him through everything we do.

However, we are told that when we die and if we enter heaven we will spend our day, for all of eternity, worshiping God. The catch is, that we cannot choose to enter heaven. We cannot kill ourselves and be accepted into God glory. Suicide is usually seen as a way of guaranteeing being left in the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Also, as it is natural for men to want to live, under normal circumstances it is unnatural for people to want to die. We should do all in our power to help suicidal people to over come what ever is ailing them.

There are times when no amount of counseling, no amount of medicine, and no amount of intervention can sway a person from wanting to end their suffering, real or otherwise. In these cases I don?t think we should prevent people from killing themselves. I am also not convinced that all these cases are suicide.

Many, maybe most, people say they do not want to be kept alive just to be on machines. If you do not want to be kept alive by machines are you saying you want to commit suicide in that case? Are you saying that you want to forfeit heaven? I don?t know the right answers to these questions and I think religious leaders would have trouble answering them. Are machines keeping you alive, or keeping from dying and possibly going to be with your creator? Are we playing God when we try to keep our bodies alive? Are these people even alive? Has the soul moved on already and this is just a shell of a person?

I know when and how people come to be alive. We are supposed to be alive. We are supposed to fight to stay alive for as long as possible. We should enjoy our life while we are alive. We will die one day, but I am not sure when and how people die.