Bullshit...your telling me I can't leave if I don't like the movie? I don't think so...mind your own damn business. :p

IMO, one of the reasons that religions had to make suicide a sin was because they pushed the concept of heaven so hard. They told a large group of people who in many case had really hard, crappy lives that if they did what they were told that they would live in paradise when they died. Well, if you're living in Europe in the dark ages and really believe this, then of course the ones who believed this would ask themselves "what am I waiting for". This means that the organized religion would lose it's most gullible....er....devout followers without any benefit to the organization. It's one thing to have someone martyr themselves or die as a soldier or suicide bomber for the organization, but plain suicide does not offer any benefits back to the group while causing attrition among the most ardent supporters. Hence, martyrdom is applauded and suicide becomes a sin.

Too cynical?

Not too cynical, rich, but you don't have to be a peasant in the Dark Ages to want to kill yourself--today's world suffices just fine. I understand what you are saying and all but I am thinking less globally and more locally. The people close to a suicide are left with immeasurable guilt and grief. If children are involved, even more so. Suicides have a nasty habit of inspiring MORE suicides. Kids imitate parents, etc. Nasty business. You can leave the movie IF no one loves/knows/depends on you. So, Bruce, that leaves you out.

Ok, but I get all of your doodads.

No logical reason for me to feel guilty about someone offing themselves.
Grief, certainly. If they'd gotten run over by a bus I suppose then you have the bus to focus your anger at and I believe anger is one part of greiving. It's hard to direct your anger at the deceased so I guess that leaves yourself, in a suicide. But if you use your head for something besides a hatrack you'll so realize that's not rational.....unless you're an MBA. ;)

When you've been actively working to save the person, yes, there is a lot of guilt for the survivors.

Probably not, in most cases. However, the emotions which arise out of the death of a loved one or even just an acquaintance, by definition, have no basis in logic. The distance from the head to the heart and all that.

As far as suicide in the dark ages, I imagine that the conditions people lived under resolved the question for them more often than not.

Shouldn't be. Maybe if you hadn't tried but certainly not when "you've been actively working to save the person". :headshake

Don't confuse guilt and grief, it's an easy mistake to make. No, they are two different animals. ;)

And with sudden death, unexplained by anything more that "something evil" being commonplace, probably many suicides were undetected.
Body fished out of the river....accident?.....murder?....suicide?

I was just sent an article that says, and may have been in one of the articles here already, that he killed himself while he was on the phone with his wife and the kids were in the other room. Any takers?

When he gets back on I'll add the link to the article.

It's here. :)

I never fully understood Gonzo journalism after reading so many of his books. And yet The Economist (rather interesting that it took his death to better appreciate his life) provided a rather good summary of who Hunter Thompson was.

the above: What A Bunch O' Crap.

Lost my control in an ever-changing world---christ. What a load.

Toldya he looks just like plthijinx

I have to say I'm incredibly disappointed;the second I found out he took his own life,any respect I might have had for him went right out the window.