Facts about Suicide

One, rather classic, definition of the situation leading to suicide reads: "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain."

The views on suicide have shifted lately, however.

Lastly, largely thanks to the work of sociologists, such as Durkheim (1987) and Laplace, suicide was increasingly viewed as a social ill reflecting widespread alienation and other attitudinal byproducts of modernity.

The most famous Polish dragon is the Wawel Dragon or smok wawelski.

Jewish tradition holds that the Land of Israel has been a Jewish Holy Land and Promised Land for four thousand years, since the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob).

From a Buddhist perspective these include questions such as whether nirvana is a kind of suicide.

Saul apparently committed suicide to avoid dishonor and suffering at the hands of the Philistines.

Among the Church Fathers, Saint Augustine was the most prominent and influential opponent of suicide.

Suicide has always aroused deep passions in humanity.

A terminally ill patient who requests that another person inject her with a lethal dose of tranquilizers has, intuitively, committed suicide.

Raymond Perlman of Sinai Mortuary in Phoenix says that suicide deaths today usually are dealt with the same as others.

Undoubtedly, the challenge of simply fathoming suicide accounts for the vast array of attitudes toward suicide found in the history of Western civilization: bafflement, dismissal, heroic glorification, sympathy, anger, moral or religious condemnation.

Suicide is always as morally objectionable as murder, and the Catholic Church has always rejected it as an evil choice.

Views on suicide have been influenced by cultural views on existential themes such as religion, honor, and the meaning of life.

Unfortunately, a suicide death in most cases punishes the living."

Kant made suicide a special example in his moral philosophy, and was troubled by the challenges it posed.

Islam, like other Abrahamic religions, views suicide as sinful and highly detrimental to one's spiritual journey.

Judaism has traditionally, in light of its great emphasis on the sanctity of life, viewed suicide as one of the most serious of sins.

Modern medicine treats suicide as a mental health issue.

Suicide is sometimes interpreted in this framework as a "cry for help" and attention, or to express despair and the wish to escape, rather than a genuine intent to die.

That said, it is clear, nevertheless, that suicide is a far more enigmatic and disconcerting phenomenon.

A common medical term for thoughts about suicide, which may be as detailed as a formulated plan, without the suicidal act itself.

Severe depression can continue throughout life even with treatment and repetitive suicide attempts or suicidal ideation can be the result.

Suicide is not simply an illness nor a condition.

People who engage in self-injurious behavior, such as cutting, however, are at higher risk of suicide.

Nearly all the great philosophers had positions on suicide.

Suicide has traditionally been condemned in Hindu scripture because, being an abrupt escape from life, it creates unseemly karma to face in the future.

Regardless of what specifically motivates someone to attempt suicide or complete suicide, a number of medical, biological, psychological and social risk factors are often involved.

Objective truths are concerned with the facts of a person's being, while subjective truths are concerned with a person's way of being.

Suicide has always been forbidden by Jewish law in all cases.

The "A" can be felt as a vibration that manifests itself near the navel or abdomen; the "U" can be felt vibrating the chest, and the "M" vibrates the cranium or the head.

Of the seven or so suicides reported in Scripture, most familiar are Saul, Samson, and Judas.

Many questions arise from the ambiguity in defining suicide.

Attempted suicide generally refers to an act that was intended to cause death but failed.

Suicide is a threat whether religious, existential, political, or emotional.

Suicide is now an object of multidisciplinary scientific study, with sociology, anthropology, psychology, and psychiatry each providing important insights into suicide.

Japanese views on honor and religion led to seppuku being respected as a means to atone for mistakes or failure during the samurai era; Japanese suicides rates remain some of the developed world's highest.

Seneca had earlier argued for the reason as well as virtue of suicide, that is before Nero’s wrath descended upon him forcing him to take his own life.

Plato laid out specific instances where suicide was or was not deviant.

Medically assisted suicide (euthanasia, or the right to die) is a controversial ethical issue involving people who are terminally ill, in extreme pain, and/or have minimal quality of life through illness.

Suicide hotlines are widely available for people seeking help.

Suicide is in Hindu scripture called Pranatyaga ("Abandoning life force") and generally means intentionally ending one's own life through poisoning, drowning, burning, jumping, shooting, and the like.

The person making such a decision declares it publicly, which allows for community regulation and distinguishes the act from suicide performed privately in traumatic emotional states of anguish and despair.

Heroic suicide, for the greater good of others, is often celebrated.

Acts that may resemble suicidal behavior but are not intended to lead to death, such as deliberately injuring oneself, are known as parasuicide.

Despite this view, an ancient Asian ideology similar to seppuku called (hara-kiri) continues to influence oppressed Buddhists to choose the act of honor suicide.

The suicide of Samson has posed a greater problem for Christian theologians.

The prohibition of suicide has also been recorded in authentic statements of Hadith.

Completed suicide means successful taking of one's own life.

Both Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas wrestled with the case and concluded that Samson's suicide was justified as an act of obedience to a direct command of God.

Spinoza regarded the will to self-preservation as fundamental and key to value, and likewise suicide as true irrationality and wrong.

Suicide occurs for any number of reasons, often relating to depression, substance abuse, shame, avoiding pain, financial difficulties, or other undesirable situations.

Suicides that are clearly other-regarding, aiming at protecting the lives or well-being of others, or at political protest, may fall into this category (Kupfer 1990, 73-74).

Self-sacrifice for others is not usually considered suicide, as the goal is not to kill oneself but to save another.

Conceptions of suicide clearly are framed within and affected by the cultures they are born out of.

Medically assisted suicide (euthanasia, or the right to die) is a controversial ethical issue involving people who are terminally ill, in extreme pain, and/or have minimal quality of life through illness.

Perlman says, "So we would just classify (the suicide) as another death.

Some factors consistently increase a person's risk of suicide and attempted suicide.

Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending one's own life.