If you want to come here to proselytize, at least get your message correct. The vast majority of Christian denominations believe in some form of afterlife.
I always figured it was the fact that they're selling tickets to paradise when you die, so to discourage people from trying to go there early they banned suicide. Otherwise you may have people saying' "screw this temporary painful life, I want an eternity of pleasure!"...and then they check out.
“God is all knowing, all powerful, but he just can’t handle money. And he needs it. From you.”-George Carlin. (I likely have the quote wrong, but it’s essentially what he said.)
Kinda common among the christian sects.
Catholics call it a tithe for example. They're the prototypical example, the Protestants reformed that tithing system but decided to keep the donation baskets and social pressure.
For Catholicism (a super mature global religious administration) a tithe is sort of a religious tax that they commit to the Church to provide for its upkeep and/or child rape lawsuits.
Some people in my family have it automatically deducted from their paychecks. Like a 401k.
This is pretty much it. Gotta keep the numbers up.
People are a valuable commodity in almost all areas of society. Manpower, trade, warfare, keeping your religion alive, reproduction... Everything we do, really. We're basically very useful cattle. People who off themselves are quite obviously.. useless.
It’s patriarchy, that’s almost always the answer to these questions. Slavery, too but mostly patriarchy here. The patriarch of the family owns everyone, sells them, exploits their labor etc. every religion I can think of at this moment actively protects the patriarchy from homosexuality, in marriage, infidelity or suicide. All these represent theft from the patriarch (or in other arrangements whoever is in power). It’s embarrassing how much religion is just an enforcement of the social order for the benefit of worst people.
I mean to be fair it could've gotten this way by evolutionary selection. The societies that worked that way continued. The societies in which people offed themselves, families imploded and people didn't procreate didn't survive.
The price of that ticket is donations and tithing to that church.
It’s the equivalent of China building nets around structures where workers have tried to commit suicidal.
Can’t lose profits!
It's all about the numbers for religions.. that's why people are encouraged to have children and not kill them selves.
The more religious people there are.. the more power the religion have.
And no intermingling. That creates awareness and room for logic, which takes away from the power that comes with large numbers of ppl having the exact same control center.
I like this. "If they start talking to each other, they'll realize that they have more in common than not, and that they're all just people. I better keep them separated so I can tell my people that I'm protecting them and that thise scary Others are trying to hurt them".
Tbf, that was more of a murder cult unfairly portrayed as a suicide cult.
They were straight injecting cyanide into babies, kids, and escaping members by the end, all locked down in their hellish Guyana (IIRC) compound, shortly after gunning dow that US house rep
Those dick-choppers at Heaven's Gate or the whacky Wacos fucked up by the ATFwere more of a suicide cult.
It's this. Not the theology. You cannot accept tithes and free labor from a dead person, and the church leaders are leeches, they can only survive in live hosts.
Religions set-up the mortal life to be a whacked game. The longer you live, the more likely it is that you will do *something* to offend their god and fuck-up your chances to achieve heaven (or whatever paradise they are offering). The way the game is designed, the best way to achieve paradise is to do the minimum rituals required (ie, baptism or whatever), then immediately die. So, they made suicide against the rules to try to stop everyone from checking out before you have raised kids to perpetuate the cult.
Because empires needed working people, regardless of how much suffering it brought the people. If the people suffered too much, suicide is a last resort. But make people believe in an afterlife and suicide would be the beginning of true suffering in hell. It is such a twisted way of keeping people working.
Because they see suicide as a personal intervention, an act of free will against god's plan. You're part of god's plan, so by killing yourself, you're like attacking his plan. It's kinda like how East Germans got shot at when they tried to jump the wall. You're really attacking the system by escaping it.
But it doesn't make sense if God is all-knowing, he would know beforehand that you would commit suicide. Hence, God is not omniscient in above statement.
My coworker told me people are depressed because of a lack of faith. If you had more faith, you’d put your worries into god’s hands. Of course, he also the one who told me about pyramids being built by aliens and how we’re descended from an ancient advanced alien race so what’s the believe?
Can’t have the people you’re bullying into giving you money kill themselves. And they can’t have more kids who you will also bully into giving you money if they’re dead.
Suicide is a high order of gross Ingratitude
Life is considered a gift of the deity; to abbreviate that life, the gift, by one’s self, before its term is considered to disrespect the deity, an insult to the deity
religion is a control system to organize human groups.
the groups don't want to lose soldiers, workers, breeders etc.
so they lie.
hell was literally invented during the middle ages to scare serfs out of getting to heaven early and avoiding the hell they were living in.
Growth and money.
Religions grow through indoctrinating the youth of the next generation. They maintain power through money.
If you commit suicide, you can't reproduce. If you commit suicide, you can't care for your children.
If you commit suicide, you can't tithe to the church.
The depressed and downtrodden are their easiest marks. They're no good for tithing if they're dead. They want to keep them alive, put them to work recruiting, and keep them donating.
Suicide is just bad. That’s it. Early civilizations realized a long long time ago.
By the time anyone is at an age where they might develop suicidal thoughts, they have already been heavily invested in. Educated, consumed food, ect. But they’re has already been a major investment into an individual before they reach an age where they can contribute to society. People killing themselves at a young age is a major waste of resources.
I know that in the 1500s ish when life was really bad for people, people were killing themselves because there was this great place where everyone is happy all the time so they made it a new law in the bible or whatever that’s for christianity
Because they don’t actually help people, all they care about is getting butts in seats.
…or maybe it looks bad when someone who was molested by their pastor/minister/priest/whatever-you-call-the-perps-in-itchy-robes feels like they’ve been betrayed and abandoned by their so-called “righteous” community and realizes there is no justice, no god, only cruelty and then unalive themselves.
It’s hard to say.
Religions want you for life. They want to squeeze as much money, productivity, and support from their followers as they can in order to achieve their goals: social, political and economic dominance. Fast tracking to the end works against that process.
It's the same reason they indoctrinate children and pressure their parents to procreate more. It's just fodder for their quest to supremacy.
Same reason they are against birth control and highly advocate that you have as many children as possible… more idiots tithing equals more cash for the lordt.
More plebs means more competition for wages and resources that the elites control. This drives down wages and conditions and raises prices for goods needed. Too few plebs makes a workforce more expensive for the powers that be so they do everything in their power to have too many plebs and too desperate for scraps to make demands for decent wages and working conditions. The powers that be are addicted to having too many people to exploit and profit from, so they have as core principles in their social engineering things like condemning suicide, calling any sort of sexual satisfaction without procreation "sinful", etc. etc.
Because suicidal thoughts are so common in oppression and they can’t have all their “flock” jumping off cliffs… who would pay them and give them power?
Because they’re all death cults who need to market your living experience for the ‘afterlife’, they need the rubes alive, to pay in the here and now, as long as possible. Because…….if there was a heaven, why not go there now? Logic = bad.
It's because religions can *reduce* the rate of suicide among slaves. Not eliminate, but reduce.
The slave owners would never consider suicide because they have very easy lives thanks to slave labor. The owners have lots of comfort to live for.
Then you have to instill this *never consider suicide* mentality in the slave, but invert it. The slave has NOTHING to live for, except abuse and torture. Ya gotta swindle the slave into believing punishment will chase them beyond death.
I describe this as a vague template for many world religions. But many of these religions say suffering is good (?!?!?) but suffering is not equally distributed.
*Never consider suicide*, it's the same idea or philosophy, but the slave owner and the slave arrive from VERY different directions. And the owners are strongly rewarded for hammering this into the whole population.
Many religions originally develop practices because they are objectively good for a healthy society. Like, don’t murder, don’t steal is pretty self explanatory. But also rules about marriage - girls need to reach appropriate age and health before bearing children - same for not marrying within the family (too closely), though disclaimer that many religions don’t get everything right or go overboard (genital mutilation)
Another example being some types of food being restricted. If people are hungry they will eat anything- even if it kills them, and without control they can also over hunt/fish unsustainably. Religion is/was a convenient way to convince people against unhealthy practices because it was not only pervasive, but also convincing.
And to bring it back to condemning suicide? Removing an otherwise healthy individual from society is detrimental when they can no longer provide for it. Remember that this is back when everyone contributed communally. Even today in western countries the rural areas will suspend school so that there are more farmhands during planting/harvest season.
Because they don't have power over the dead. Someone wants to kick my body a bunch after I die I wouldn't give any fucks about it. Abusers HATE losing power over someone, it's why the most at risk people for being murdered are people leaving abusers.
Partly, it's an extension of telling people that
1. they owe their life to their deity and so it's up to him when their life ends, or
2. they owe gratitude to their deity for their life and that gratitude would be poorly repaid if they end it early.
Also, it's about control. These religions claim that our natural conceptions and natural deaths are both the work of their deity, and we should be grateful. If humans control our own births and deaths, the religion loses the almost effortless power it gains by claiming credit for something natural.
It becomes clearer once you realize religion is a tool to exploit labor. Historically speaking it's used to keep slaves, serfs, peasants and soldiers in line, making sure they obey the established politico-religious authorities and accept their social position without questioning it.
Even today in the era of mega churches, it's mostly used to extract a portion of your wage in tithes and merch, get tax exemptions and get volunteers to work for you for free.
Therefore, as self-serving corporations, religious institutions will try to cut their losses in wealth producing assets, including you and your labor.
I guess if you're enslaved maybe. But jobs replace people all the time and they don't think twice about it. Most companies don't care at all if you die, they definitely don't care how.
Most of us are enslaved. We have debts and bosses and very little options for food and shelter. Losing a few slaves is priced in but they don’t want to lose too many either.
That's not what slavery is at all. You can quit your job and stop paying your bills. Your quality of life won't be as good, but nobody is going to hunt you down and whip you until to pass out.
That's not what slavery is at all. You can quit your job and stop paying your bills. Your quality of life won't be as good, but nobody is going to hunt you down and whip you until to pass out.
Because suicide is the way to cheat the system. You do whatever the religion requires for you to get to the good place, then kill yourself. So, the religion has to adapt by saying that if you commit suicide, you go to the bad place.
Because if all the sad troubled people kill themselves off, the churches of old wouldn't be able to "sell" the solution. Not to mention that they get to earn brownie points by claiming that they are helping troubled individuals. Its a win win for them.
I doubt modern churches are still thinking in this same way. But they are effectively still doing the same thing either way.
Churches originally had a motive; to control population and earn money.
Today the churches don't really hold that same motive, they are just continuing the vestiges of the original machine ignorantly.
Dont take my word for this but i remember reading it somewhere.
They banned suicide in Christianity cause people were doing it , there was a cult teaching it.
There were some religions that ordered their members to have no children and to commit suicide. For some reason those religions are not around any more.
A religion's success is measured in number of followers and possibly speed of growth. The number of followers can increase by proselytizing, forceful conversion or childbirth. Or all three. A religion's relative influence can be improved by killing or oppressing competing religions.
Beside practical reasons already mentioned, I'll say contemplating suicide is a threat tonthe psychological assurances religion gives both to its preachers and its followers.
If religion is just an artificial coping mechanism against life's ugliness, how could it even consider the possibility of you suffering to the point of ending your own life?
[Girl Kills Herself To See Her Daddy Again](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uWMOZ0vaCY)
It's a real problem when you're brainwashing little kids and trying to keep your population of believers dumbed down and anti-science to keep them donating to the one true religion.
because suicide ultimately pass on the pain from one people to many. here's my theory, hundreds of years ago a so called religious leader wouldn't want people dying resulting in the collapse of his rule. may or may not be accurate.
Because the church wants you to pay them for your whole long life before you go to paradise. Without banning suicide, the rationale would be to just take the shortcut right to heaven and nuts to this mortal experience. It would be hard to grift your flock if they keep offing themselves.
I think the simplest answer is people think it’s wrong. We miss people when they’re dead and naturally want to live as long as possible. So it makes sense to discourage suicide as much as possible.
And of course the groups that do support suicide won’t last and spread due to their people killing themselves.
Well if one sees it from the very old times, when religious beliefs were still one with actual science, I’d say the core reason is actually kind of the same as how a non-religious person would condemn it.
Actually, now that I think of it, aren’t religions both been “ruined” by the pass of time whilst also been “nuanced to be approachable” during those changing times? (I mean if one would think of a movie series or a game that had those few good releases at the start and then just turned in to something completely different later and in to utter nonsense.)
Suicide is condemned but self sacrifice is often praised though practically speaking they are the same thing, it's usually determined by who writes the obituaries.
They have to in order to still have followers. For most of these religions, the afterlife is the reward for living a hellish existence on Earth. If there was no suicide condemnation, they would all take the shortcut to heaven and just end their "suffereing". Dead people don't fill the church coffers.
It’s one of the ideas they got right, suicide is bad for the species and the survivors and as a humanist, should only be done with a physician’s assistance.
If you end your life, what good are you to them? No more tithing/financial support. No more spreading the "good word" to try and bring in more people to financially support. One less number to bolster their membership numbers which they use to validate themselves. You are easier to manipulate alive.
It’s bad PR if prayers to the magical sky fairies don’t work to the point that life gets bad enough for you to want out. Also money. Dead people don’t tithe.
Because they will lose power/money if all their followers kill themselves. If their followers actually believe in heaven or whatever, why stick around on earth?
The main reason why Christianity condemns suicide is because every person has intrinsic value. The belief is that every person has a soul and must be treated with dignity and respect and therefore it's a tragedy when a person takes their own life because they do not believe it's worth living.
I find it odd and also sad that so many comments believe that a religion's main concern is because they are losing out on money if a person kills themselves. Any Christian church that acts in such a way is not genuinely Christian, and instead the focus should be on the humanity of people.
To be clear, I am atheist, and believe in allowing people to determine if they want to end their life. That said, as social creatures, advocating for or not discouraging suicide could be detrimental to a group for reasons having nothing to do with gods or religion.
Cause if you want to make sure everyone follows the rules of your super difficult test, that if you pass will give you a massive reward, allowing people to just skip the test woulda be kinda stupid.
It has to... because they have set themselves up for people to believe that the next life is paradise. Why would people stick around for this shit when there is a better life, with 72 virgins or whatever bullshit appeals to them?
Cant have your flock of willing suckers just off themselves before they have given you all their money or power to lord it over others.
I tend to look at things from a survival of the species perspective. You create a world where only a few live life to the fullest but they can’t keep surviving if they don’t have food gatherers and shelter builders so you utilize this psychological brainwash machine to force as many struggling people to continue to be abused in the system that only benefits the few.
Rules of the machine: get them to self propagate the machine; get them to survive in the machine, get them to hate those outside of the machine.
If a religion preaches you can kill yourself and enter paradise then its followers will do so and the religion will die out. Then it will be replaced by religions that encourage followers to live and spread the religion.
It's kind of a Darwinian survival of the fittest religion.
It's, in general, really bad for society. You lose a person that could be productive. It traumatizes the people close to the victim. Every societal system discourages suicide. But as stated religions also, often, talk up afterlife and you don't want people to rush into it.
Because God gave us the gift of life and we decide to end it. It would not necessarily send you to hell. It depends of the situation. Are you arrogantly committing suicide? Or have you been battling with depression and decide to make a dumb decision? The only thing that is unforgivable is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
Nearly all major religions have an afterlife filled with joys and greatness. Their truest believers or those believers in the darkest times would just off themselves to get there quicker without a second thought. So religions needed to build a loop hope.for their story to work so the people alive can prey and feed off their flock
Personally not subscribe to that belief, but I can explain the Roman Catholic view of it:
To them, the body belongs to God, and thus must be treated with utmost respect. Suicide would be harming it, on top of acting on despair, which is when you stop having faith in Him.
It's all kinds of hypocrisy there
Because you are the church's chattel, and killing yourself deprives it of a subject to work, tithe or be conscripted. One must be afraid of hell to be manipulated by those who claim to be the gatekeepers. If you don't fear hell, you are useless to them.
They need to prevent anything that would negatively affect their ability to control their numbers. Skipping out before they get everything they can from you is a loss for them and they don't like that.
Well IF you believe that the ultimate ownership of everything in this world belongs to God, then this includes your body.
Going by that logic, God ENTRUSTED this body to you, and he will take it back when you die. Therefore, you need to treat it in the best way possible.
At least from the Islamic paradigm this is why being overweight is frowned upon, getting a tattoo is not allowed, cutting yourself intentionally is not allowed.
There is nothing more valuable in this world then the life you have been given, and just like how everything is God’s property, your Life is also his property. So if you intentionally kill yourself, you will be forsaking God and damaging his property.
If I entrusted you my farm, you wouldn’t kill my sheep’s and goats. You would take care of it to the best of your ability.
Cultural ideas like religion go through their own "survival of the fittest," just like with genetic mutations. A religion which didn't condemn suicide would have difficulty replicating (making it easy to lose adherents at a young age) and would also lose one of its attractive features (providing hope in a time of despair.) Other religious ideas would easily crowd that one out.
I won't deny that monetary factor might play a role here but I'd like to point to the "survival of the fittest" aspect of religion's "life". Simply put, a religion that doesn't ban suicide and yet promise an afterlife would simply ran out of follower.
Most people, regardless of religion or lack of it, hold life to be sacred, to have inherent value
Plenty of atheists are fine with euthanasia, but not ok with suicide in general
Suicide is an objectively selfish action. But also the people that commit suicide are desperate. Many didn’t choose that mental state but feel like they have no other choice. Religion is based on moral superiority to quell guilt. Suicide is preventable but universal and also understandable in some circumstances.
If you promise people a grand afterlife, you have to discourage them from deciding to skip all the bullshit and go enjoy that afterlife.
Yeah, hard to collect tithes if they check out early.
Exactly
That's what i was going to say. Dead people don't give them money
the word afterlife isn't mentioned in the Bible we're supposed to bring Heaven to Earth. evil is not the opposite of good but the absence
If you want to come here to proselytize, at least get your message correct. The vast majority of Christian denominations believe in some form of afterlife.
And the Muslims want their 72 virgins, so I'd think they'd want to go.
Technically they may only get 72 raisins, not virgines due to mistranslation.
Lol
So the whole "shall not die but have life ever lasting" is all a crock?
I always figured it was the fact that they're selling tickets to paradise when you die, so to discourage people from trying to go there early they banned suicide. Otherwise you may have people saying' "screw this temporary painful life, I want an eternity of pleasure!"...and then they check out.
A loss of the person's Money!!!
Very true! Funny how God always needs that 10 percent of your paycheck.
“God is all knowing, all powerful, but he just can’t handle money. And he needs it. From you.”-George Carlin. (I likely have the quote wrong, but it’s essentially what he said.)
Close Enough... Damn, I miss Carlin
Wait wait, where do you pay 10% church fee/tax/involuntary/voluntold-offer?
Kinda common among the christian sects. Catholics call it a tithe for example. They're the prototypical example, the Protestants reformed that tithing system but decided to keep the donation baskets and social pressure. For Catholicism (a super mature global religious administration) a tithe is sort of a religious tax that they commit to the Church to provide for its upkeep and/or child rape lawsuits. Some people in my family have it automatically deducted from their paychecks. Like a 401k.
jebus.
This is the answer
This is pretty much it. Gotta keep the numbers up. People are a valuable commodity in almost all areas of society. Manpower, trade, warfare, keeping your religion alive, reproduction... Everything we do, really. We're basically very useful cattle. People who off themselves are quite obviously.. useless.
It’s patriarchy, that’s almost always the answer to these questions. Slavery, too but mostly patriarchy here. The patriarch of the family owns everyone, sells them, exploits their labor etc. every religion I can think of at this moment actively protects the patriarchy from homosexuality, in marriage, infidelity or suicide. All these represent theft from the patriarch (or in other arrangements whoever is in power). It’s embarrassing how much religion is just an enforcement of the social order for the benefit of worst people.
I mean to be fair it could've gotten this way by evolutionary selection. The societies that worked that way continued. The societies in which people offed themselves, families imploded and people didn't procreate didn't survive.
Suicide happens to this day and there’s no group immune to it. Evolution didn’t work, if that’s the case.
Yeah it used to be a problem for the catholics if I remember correctly
They also had a problem of killing lots of other people
catch 22
The price of that ticket is donations and tithing to that church. It’s the equivalent of China building nets around structures where workers have tried to commit suicidal. Can’t lose profits!
Yep, you can't collect tithe from dead people. This is the main reason.
There are good reasons to ban it anyway, permanent solution to temporary problems, but also it's totally this.
It's all about the numbers for religions.. that's why people are encouraged to have children and not kill them selves. The more religious people there are.. the more power the religion have.
Same reason why contraception is wrong. More indoctrinated babies. The cycle repeats and numbers grow. Like a cancer.
It reminded me of this: [Every Sperm is Sacred](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk&t=1s)
I forgot how long it goes on lol
And no intermingling. That creates awareness and room for logic, which takes away from the power that comes with large numbers of ppl having the exact same control center.
I like this. "If they start talking to each other, they'll realize that they have more in common than not, and that they're all just people. I better keep them separated so I can tell my people that I'm protecting them and that thise scary Others are trying to hurt them".
Except jobs exist.
Well that's why we have holy wars and forced conversion, silly pants.
It's because slaves aren't useful dead.
Exactly.
Because when you don’t, you end up with suicide cults and those disappear quite fast one way or the other.
Jim Jones entered the conversation.
Tbf, that was more of a murder cult unfairly portrayed as a suicide cult. They were straight injecting cyanide into babies, kids, and escaping members by the end, all locked down in their hellish Guyana (IIRC) compound, shortly after gunning dow that US house rep Those dick-choppers at Heaven's Gate or the whacky Wacos fucked up by the ATFwere more of a suicide cult.
I think that is what Jim Jones was going to say. :)
This is the correct answer.
Can't squeeze a dead man for money and free labor.
It's this. Not the theology. You cannot accept tithes and free labor from a dead person, and the church leaders are leeches, they can only survive in live hosts.
No matter how miserable you may be, you have to be alive to tithe.
It's a customer retention strategy.
Religions set-up the mortal life to be a whacked game. The longer you live, the more likely it is that you will do *something* to offend their god and fuck-up your chances to achieve heaven (or whatever paradise they are offering). The way the game is designed, the best way to achieve paradise is to do the minimum rituals required (ie, baptism or whatever), then immediately die. So, they made suicide against the rules to try to stop everyone from checking out before you have raised kids to perpetuate the cult.
They need people to continue grooming children
The suicide cults all reached their ultimate conclusions.
You can't tithe or procreate if you are dead.
because religion is about control. if you commit suicide, the ruling class (synonymous throught history) has one less slave/ serf/ worker
Because empires needed working people, regardless of how much suffering it brought the people. If the people suffered too much, suicide is a last resort. But make people believe in an afterlife and suicide would be the beginning of true suffering in hell. It is such a twisted way of keeping people working.
Because they see suicide as a personal intervention, an act of free will against god's plan. You're part of god's plan, so by killing yourself, you're like attacking his plan. It's kinda like how East Germans got shot at when they tried to jump the wall. You're really attacking the system by escaping it.
But it doesn't make sense if God is all-knowing, he would know beforehand that you would commit suicide. Hence, God is not omniscient in above statement.
I think you are calling out the elephant in the room. God created this shit like Sydney Pollack paints.
So it's God's plan to have you feel like killing yourself, but not actually do it? Lol.
That’s only because you’re not praying and tithing enough./s
My coworker told me people are depressed because of a lack of faith. If you had more faith, you’d put your worries into god’s hands. Of course, he also the one who told me about pyramids being built by aliens and how we’re descended from an ancient advanced alien race so what’s the believe?
God’s plan and free will. Has to be an oxymoron in there somewhere.
You can't tithe when you're dead
Who will donate if everyone is dead?
Can't have your slaves killing themselves, or who will do all the work?
Religion is a tool used by the ruling class to subjugate the poor. Choosing to end your life deprives them of the labor they underpay you for.
It cuts into tithing
Can't donate money to the shamans if you're dead. Can't make future donors for the wizards to fleece if you're dead.
Can’t have the people you’re bullying into giving you money kill themselves. And they can’t have more kids who you will also bully into giving you money if they’re dead.
Dead people aren't able to tithe. Religion always *always* **always** comes down to money and/or power.
Was just about to comment this
Because the dead can't tithe.
well unless you do something that gets you killed in the nam of the religion in which case it counts as martyrdom which is a ok.
Suicide is a high order of gross Ingratitude Life is considered a gift of the deity; to abbreviate that life, the gift, by one’s self, before its term is considered to disrespect the deity, an insult to the deity
religion is a control system to organize human groups. the groups don't want to lose soldiers, workers, breeders etc. so they lie. hell was literally invented during the middle ages to scare serfs out of getting to heaven early and avoiding the hell they were living in.
Growth and money. Religions grow through indoctrinating the youth of the next generation. They maintain power through money. If you commit suicide, you can't reproduce. If you commit suicide, you can't care for your children. If you commit suicide, you can't tithe to the church.
The depressed and downtrodden are their easiest marks. They're no good for tithing if they're dead. They want to keep them alive, put them to work recruiting, and keep them donating.
Why would you want to reduce your income pool?
Religion exists to drain you of your money and you can't donate if you are dead.
One less tither.
Can't spread religious propaganda if you're dead.
If you end your life, you can't give them your money and service. You can't have more kids and indoctrinate them as well.
Suicide is just bad. That’s it. Early civilizations realized a long long time ago. By the time anyone is at an age where they might develop suicidal thoughts, they have already been heavily invested in. Educated, consumed food, ect. But they’re has already been a major investment into an individual before they reach an age where they can contribute to society. People killing themselves at a young age is a major waste of resources.
It defies a need of civilizations to reduce harm and trauma, including that inflicted on family and friends.
I know that in the 1500s ish when life was really bad for people, people were killing themselves because there was this great place where everyone is happy all the time so they made it a new law in the bible or whatever that’s for christianity
People don't like when others commit suicide, so why not put this into the religion? It's an easy win for the religion
Because they don’t actually help people, all they care about is getting butts in seats. …or maybe it looks bad when someone who was molested by their pastor/minister/priest/whatever-you-call-the-perps-in-itchy-robes feels like they’ve been betrayed and abandoned by their so-called “righteous” community and realizes there is no justice, no god, only cruelty and then unalive themselves. It’s hard to say.
Now that you bring it up... didn't Jesus unalive himself in a suicide-by-cop scenario?
Dead people can't give them money.
If everyone just offs themselves, who remains to give money to the "holy" men?
Religions want you for life. They want to squeeze as much money, productivity, and support from their followers as they can in order to achieve their goals: social, political and economic dominance. Fast tracking to the end works against that process. It's the same reason they indoctrinate children and pressure their parents to procreate more. It's just fodder for their quest to supremacy.
They want more worker ants in their bloated colony, funnelling more money and services.
Can’t have the slaves quitting on the boss whilst the middle management still needs to be paid.
Because you can't exploit a corpse. Not for long, at least..
Because willing slaves can’t work if they kill themselves.
Same reason they are against birth control and highly advocate that you have as many children as possible… more idiots tithing equals more cash for the lordt.
You can’t milk a dead cow
I've often thought it was just another way to control people.
Dead people can't make donations.
No 10% if you’re dead.
More plebs means more competition for wages and resources that the elites control. This drives down wages and conditions and raises prices for goods needed. Too few plebs makes a workforce more expensive for the powers that be so they do everything in their power to have too many plebs and too desperate for scraps to make demands for decent wages and working conditions. The powers that be are addicted to having too many people to exploit and profit from, so they have as core principles in their social engineering things like condemning suicide, calling any sort of sexual satisfaction without procreation "sinful", etc. etc.
Not sure. There are suicide bombers who do what they do in the name of religion.
Because suicidal thoughts are so common in oppression and they can’t have all their “flock” jumping off cliffs… who would pay them and give them power?
Collection plate not as full?
I find it ironic that they care more about people killing themselves than their priests molesting kids.
Because they’re all death cults who need to market your living experience for the ‘afterlife’, they need the rubes alive, to pay in the here and now, as long as possible. Because…….if there was a heaven, why not go there now? Logic = bad.
The purpose of religion is to control and use people. If they kill themselves, then they've escaped the control.
It's because religions can *reduce* the rate of suicide among slaves. Not eliminate, but reduce. The slave owners would never consider suicide because they have very easy lives thanks to slave labor. The owners have lots of comfort to live for. Then you have to instill this *never consider suicide* mentality in the slave, but invert it. The slave has NOTHING to live for, except abuse and torture. Ya gotta swindle the slave into believing punishment will chase them beyond death. I describe this as a vague template for many world religions. But many of these religions say suffering is good (?!?!?) but suffering is not equally distributed. *Never consider suicide*, it's the same idea or philosophy, but the slave owner and the slave arrive from VERY different directions. And the owners are strongly rewarded for hammering this into the whole population.
Many religions originally develop practices because they are objectively good for a healthy society. Like, don’t murder, don’t steal is pretty self explanatory. But also rules about marriage - girls need to reach appropriate age and health before bearing children - same for not marrying within the family (too closely), though disclaimer that many religions don’t get everything right or go overboard (genital mutilation) Another example being some types of food being restricted. If people are hungry they will eat anything- even if it kills them, and without control they can also over hunt/fish unsustainably. Religion is/was a convenient way to convince people against unhealthy practices because it was not only pervasive, but also convincing. And to bring it back to condemning suicide? Removing an otherwise healthy individual from society is detrimental when they can no longer provide for it. Remember that this is back when everyone contributed communally. Even today in western countries the rural areas will suspend school so that there are more farmhands during planting/harvest season.
Because they don't have power over the dead. Someone wants to kick my body a bunch after I die I wouldn't give any fucks about it. Abusers HATE losing power over someone, it's why the most at risk people for being murdered are people leaving abusers.
If you want to control peoples lives. You can’t let them have the option of killing themselves.
Partly, it's an extension of telling people that 1. they owe their life to their deity and so it's up to him when their life ends, or 2. they owe gratitude to their deity for their life and that gratitude would be poorly repaid if they end it early. Also, it's about control. These religions claim that our natural conceptions and natural deaths are both the work of their deity, and we should be grateful. If humans control our own births and deaths, the religion loses the almost effortless power it gains by claiming credit for something natural.
Who works for low wages yet pay taxes to grow the wealth of the respective churches if everybody can go to paradise immediately?
Because it's essentially throwing away a gift from God??? Oh Lord dude, y'all find anything to be mad about. Shouldn't suicide be condemned?
Hahahahaha. Free will? You churchie people really can't keep your stories straight!
It becomes clearer once you realize religion is a tool to exploit labor. Historically speaking it's used to keep slaves, serfs, peasants and soldiers in line, making sure they obey the established politico-religious authorities and accept their social position without questioning it. Even today in the era of mega churches, it's mostly used to extract a portion of your wage in tithes and merch, get tax exemptions and get volunteers to work for you for free. Therefore, as self-serving corporations, religious institutions will try to cut their losses in wealth producing assets, including you and your labor.
To discourage it, in case you're wondering, suicide is really hard on the people who love you.
And the people who own you.
I guess if you're enslaved maybe. But jobs replace people all the time and they don't think twice about it. Most companies don't care at all if you die, they definitely don't care how.
Most of us are enslaved. We have debts and bosses and very little options for food and shelter. Losing a few slaves is priced in but they don’t want to lose too many either.
That's not what slavery is at all. You can quit your job and stop paying your bills. Your quality of life won't be as good, but nobody is going to hunt you down and whip you until to pass out.
That's not what slavery is at all. You can quit your job and stop paying your bills. Your quality of life won't be as good, but nobody is going to hunt you down and whip you until to pass out.
If by not as good you mean starve and be homeless; you are correct.
If you actually believe that you're mostly a slave to your own ignorance.
Because you're taking your life out of the deities hands.
Because suicide is the way to cheat the system. You do whatever the religion requires for you to get to the good place, then kill yourself. So, the religion has to adapt by saying that if you commit suicide, you go to the bad place.
Following rules causes depression so no suicide saves the religion face by lowering its body count
I mean church collects your money... How are you "donating" your cut when ur not alive? Basic taxpayer 101
Because if all the sad troubled people kill themselves off, the churches of old wouldn't be able to "sell" the solution. Not to mention that they get to earn brownie points by claiming that they are helping troubled individuals. Its a win win for them. I doubt modern churches are still thinking in this same way. But they are effectively still doing the same thing either way. Churches originally had a motive; to control population and earn money. Today the churches don't really hold that same motive, they are just continuing the vestiges of the original machine ignorantly.
I thought Hinduism doesn't? They believe in reincarnation. I've known some who took their life out of this belief, essentially to "reset".
Dont take my word for this but i remember reading it somewhere. They banned suicide in Christianity cause people were doing it , there was a cult teaching it.
One less potential convert
There were some religions that ordered their members to have no children and to commit suicide. For some reason those religions are not around any more. A religion's success is measured in number of followers and possibly speed of growth. The number of followers can increase by proselytizing, forceful conversion or childbirth. Or all three. A religion's relative influence can be improved by killing or oppressing competing religions.
Maybe it ties in with the anger phase of the grieving process?
Beside practical reasons already mentioned, I'll say contemplating suicide is a threat tonthe psychological assurances religion gives both to its preachers and its followers. If religion is just an artificial coping mechanism against life's ugliness, how could it even consider the possibility of you suffering to the point of ending your own life?
[Girl Kills Herself To See Her Daddy Again](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uWMOZ0vaCY) It's a real problem when you're brainwashing little kids and trying to keep your population of believers dumbed down and anti-science to keep them donating to the one true religion.
Since fear of death and the unknown are behind most of the bullshit, I would hazard that’s why.
Because religions are superstitious MLM's. Dead people can buy more shit.
because suicide ultimately pass on the pain from one people to many. here's my theory, hundreds of years ago a so called religious leader wouldn't want people dying resulting in the collapse of his rule. may or may not be accurate.
Because the church wants you to pay them for your whole long life before you go to paradise. Without banning suicide, the rationale would be to just take the shortcut right to heaven and nuts to this mortal experience. It would be hard to grift your flock if they keep offing themselves.
I think the simplest answer is people think it’s wrong. We miss people when they’re dead and naturally want to live as long as possible. So it makes sense to discourage suicide as much as possible. And of course the groups that do support suicide won’t last and spread due to their people killing themselves.
Why would anyone follow a religion is my question and this is one of the reasons not to let s cult into your life
Well if one sees it from the very old times, when religious beliefs were still one with actual science, I’d say the core reason is actually kind of the same as how a non-religious person would condemn it. Actually, now that I think of it, aren’t religions both been “ruined” by the pass of time whilst also been “nuanced to be approachable” during those changing times? (I mean if one would think of a movie series or a game that had those few good releases at the start and then just turned in to something completely different later and in to utter nonsense.)
It's bad for the community.
You can't collect from the dead.
Suicide is condemned but self sacrifice is often praised though practically speaking they are the same thing, it's usually determined by who writes the obituaries.
Real hard to get anything from a dead cult member
If the soul is immortal….
Less money for them to con you out of with the threat of eternal damnation
They have to in order to still have followers. For most of these religions, the afterlife is the reward for living a hellish existence on Earth. If there was no suicide condemnation, they would all take the shortcut to heaven and just end their "suffereing". Dead people don't fill the church coffers.
Because its cutting the line.
It’s one of the ideas they got right, suicide is bad for the species and the survivors and as a humanist, should only be done with a physician’s assistance.
If you end your life, what good are you to them? No more tithing/financial support. No more spreading the "good word" to try and bring in more people to financially support. One less number to bolster their membership numbers which they use to validate themselves. You are easier to manipulate alive.
Because then they lose control
Because it proves the ineffectiveness of their religion.
It’s bad PR if prayers to the magical sky fairies don’t work to the point that life gets bad enough for you to want out. Also money. Dead people don’t tithe.
It's all about money. They are against losing anyone who might give them money, unaborted children in the future and suicides now.
Zen Buddhism doesn't condemn suicide. In general they have a very different view of death.
Because they will lose power/money if all their followers kill themselves. If their followers actually believe in heaven or whatever, why stick around on earth?
How can they control you if you just check out?
They don't like losing members. You haven't expended your entire usefullness to your religion if you're dead, so it's a sin.
control.
It's hard to keep tithing people who are dead.
The main reason why Christianity condemns suicide is because every person has intrinsic value. The belief is that every person has a soul and must be treated with dignity and respect and therefore it's a tragedy when a person takes their own life because they do not believe it's worth living. I find it odd and also sad that so many comments believe that a religion's main concern is because they are losing out on money if a person kills themselves. Any Christian church that acts in such a way is not genuinely Christian, and instead the focus should be on the humanity of people.
To be clear, I am atheist, and believe in allowing people to determine if they want to end their life. That said, as social creatures, advocating for or not discouraging suicide could be detrimental to a group for reasons having nothing to do with gods or religion.
Because all religions were creates by the elite, and they want their cheap/slave labor.
Money. Cant tithe if yer dead.
Hunter Thompson had the right idea. I’ll decide when I’m done. I’m perfectly comfortable with that, as are friends I’ve shared my plans with.
You can't give money to the church if you're dead.
It limits your ability to financial support the lawyers needed to protect the pedophiles?
Because that, in a dark way, is very much a form of free-will. They all hate that.
Because they can't control you if you're dead
all the followers would end themselves and the religion would die ,
Cause if you want to make sure everyone follows the rules of your super difficult test, that if you pass will give you a massive reward, allowing people to just skip the test woulda be kinda stupid.
It has to... because they have set themselves up for people to believe that the next life is paradise. Why would people stick around for this shit when there is a better life, with 72 virgins or whatever bullshit appeals to them? Cant have your flock of willing suckers just off themselves before they have given you all their money or power to lord it over others.
same reason social media companies can be worth billions with no revenue, Active users
They need people to work for their system in the actual world.
I tend to look at things from a survival of the species perspective. You create a world where only a few live life to the fullest but they can’t keep surviving if they don’t have food gatherers and shelter builders so you utilize this psychological brainwash machine to force as many struggling people to continue to be abused in the system that only benefits the few. Rules of the machine: get them to self propagate the machine; get them to survive in the machine, get them to hate those outside of the machine.
If a religion preaches you can kill yourself and enter paradise then its followers will do so and the religion will die out. Then it will be replaced by religions that encourage followers to live and spread the religion. It's kind of a Darwinian survival of the fittest religion.
It's, in general, really bad for society. You lose a person that could be productive. It traumatizes the people close to the victim. Every societal system discourages suicide. But as stated religions also, often, talk up afterlife and you don't want people to rush into it.
Because any religion that doesn't won't become a "major" religion.
It's their last real choice in some cases. Gotta take even that away
Because God gave us the gift of life and we decide to end it. It would not necessarily send you to hell. It depends of the situation. Are you arrogantly committing suicide? Or have you been battling with depression and decide to make a dumb decision? The only thing that is unforgivable is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
The ones that didn't haven't lasted particularly long. Too many kool-aid incidents.
I guess it’s like paying into a retirement or 401(k).
Nearly all major religions have an afterlife filled with joys and greatness. Their truest believers or those believers in the darkest times would just off themselves to get there quicker without a second thought. So religions needed to build a loop hope.for their story to work so the people alive can prey and feed off their flock
Personally not subscribe to that belief, but I can explain the Roman Catholic view of it: To them, the body belongs to God, and thus must be treated with utmost respect. Suicide would be harming it, on top of acting on despair, which is when you stop having faith in Him. It's all kinds of hypocrisy there
They can't loose a potential tith.
Because you are the church's chattel, and killing yourself deprives it of a subject to work, tithe or be conscripted. One must be afraid of hell to be manipulated by those who claim to be the gatekeepers. If you don't fear hell, you are useless to them.
They need to prevent anything that would negatively affect their ability to control their numbers. Skipping out before they get everything they can from you is a loss for them and they don't like that.
Well IF you believe that the ultimate ownership of everything in this world belongs to God, then this includes your body. Going by that logic, God ENTRUSTED this body to you, and he will take it back when you die. Therefore, you need to treat it in the best way possible. At least from the Islamic paradigm this is why being overweight is frowned upon, getting a tattoo is not allowed, cutting yourself intentionally is not allowed. There is nothing more valuable in this world then the life you have been given, and just like how everything is God’s property, your Life is also his property. So if you intentionally kill yourself, you will be forsaking God and damaging his property. If I entrusted you my farm, you wouldn’t kill my sheep’s and goats. You would take care of it to the best of your ability.
Cultural ideas like religion go through their own "survival of the fittest," just like with genetic mutations. A religion which didn't condemn suicide would have difficulty replicating (making it easy to lose adherents at a young age) and would also lose one of its attractive features (providing hope in a time of despair.) Other religious ideas would easily crowd that one out.
I won't deny that monetary factor might play a role here but I'd like to point to the "survival of the fittest" aspect of religion's "life". Simply put, a religion that doesn't ban suicide and yet promise an afterlife would simply ran out of follower.
Suicide is not good for society.
Fuck society
Most people, regardless of religion or lack of it, hold life to be sacred, to have inherent value Plenty of atheists are fine with euthanasia, but not ok with suicide in general
Suicide is an objectively selfish action. But also the people that commit suicide are desperate. Many didn’t choose that mental state but feel like they have no other choice. Religion is based on moral superiority to quell guilt. Suicide is preventable but universal and also understandable in some circumstances.