Girl, 12, commits suicide to be with father in heaven

[AniThyng]

@Jub

Point taken regarding the studies - until I can find better sources that would probably be the limit of what I can offer in the way of empirical evidence.

On the other points - as you yourself noted, most practicing religious people are more lenient about their faith then the extremes would suggest - many people simply dodge the whole "good people end up in hell" part with a wishy washy "god will let good people in".

[Hillary]

many people simply dodge the whole "good people end up in hell" part with a wishy washy "god will let good people in".

To be honest, I think that is what most moderate Christians actually think the bible says. I have had several arguments with Christians over here in the UK about this - most refuse to believe that 'good people go to Heaven' isn't actually in the bible.

[krakonfour]

What if the girl had been a Jew? A mormon?

This thread makes me giggle. It really reveals a lot about the posters and how they go about discussing bashing their readers on the head with their opinions.

Do some of you really think that writing: 'This is X' or 'X does not exist' is an argument that proves anything? It's an unfounded opinion no matter how many times you repeat or reformulate it. You have to prove it, or at least show how you reached that conclusion.

But then again, what's the point of my post? Writing something on a forum is no way to change how the well-oiled flamewar machine works. Silly me.

[cadbrowser]

What if the girl had been a Jew? A mormon?

What is your point for asking this question?

I think the main point of some of the posters here are that if there is a teaching regarding an afterlife where a loved one resides (as a real place of existance), regardless of what religious label it has, to a child that has no/limited concept or training in rational thinking; especially one clearly suffering from said loss, AND no evidence for said afterlife, then it is foolish to not expect something like this to happen.

From that premise it would suggest that teaching children fairy tales and myths as truth (i.e. Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, God...etc) is highly detrimental and dangerous to the physical and mental welfare of that child.

With that said, I am deeply saddened that this tragedy befell this family. I hope that other families can learn something valuable from it.

Do some of you really think that writing: 'This is X' or 'X does not exist' is an argument that proves anything? It's an unfounded opinion no matter how many times you repeat or reformulate it. You have to prove it, or at least show how you reached that conclusion.

Right, because you are the epitome of logical arguments.

But then again, what's the point of my post? Writing something on a forum is no way to change how the well-oiled flamewar machine works. Silly me.

Apparently all you are here to do is troll.

[Jub]

I'm going to open with an example of why I think Christianity is harmful to children, though I think in this case that any hardliner with an agenda could cause the same effect.

I'm friends with a person my age who has sisters aged 7, 6, and 4. We took them trick or treating last night and the 6 year old told us that she couldn't celebrate Halloween because they were supposed to celebrate heaven. The oldest sister convinced her and the youngest to go by saying, 'We'll celebrate heaven but do Halloween.' So we went out and the kids knocked on some doors and got candy. Then we got home and realizing that we didn't have any candy to hand out ourselves the girls ran to the door and gave away their own candy because they thought it was the right thing to do. So far nothing overly bad has happened, but the childrens mother gave them full permission to go out and me and my friend were supervising and the kids themselves were reluctant to go because of what they were taught in school.

Now on to the biggest thing that got to me. It happened right before bed when the 4 year old came to me, nearly crying, because her teacher told her that participating in Halloween was bad and that it upset Jesus. They aren't mine and I'm not related to them so I couldn't tell her that her teacher might be wrong or try to change her stance on religion, instead I related Halloween to the dress up and play that the girls already do at home and asked her if she felt bad about walking around, meeting people, and getting some sweets to enjoy? That seemed to help some, but she was still upset enough to call my friend over and have her big brother explain things to her again.

Can anybody honestly say that a young child should have to feel bad about something so small as Halloween?

Now to the replies:

Still other religions might not be as aggressively harmful, most still have aspects that can be harmful, such as excessive meditation leading to damage in certain regions of the brain.

Excessive meditation causes brain damage? Where the fuck did you pull that from?

I could have sworn I'd seen an article about in on this forum years back, but doing a search all I found was a non-scientific article posted in 2007. Googling didn't turn anything up either. I'm going to concede this point as I'm unable to find anything to support it.

I will cast out a feeler and ask if anybody has heard that meditation may cause a decrease in critical thinking ability if it is practiced for long enough. That is what I think I saw posted here, but the search function isn't finding me anything. I know that it can reshape the brain, and that the right meditation focus can have some good effects, but I was more thinking of how the connections in the brain of a monk who meditates for many hours a day would look and if there would be any harm to his ability to think critically.

Again, I can swear I read an article on this ages ago, but not being able to find it I'll concede.

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@Jub

Point taken regarding the studies - until I can find better sources that would probably be the limit of what I can offer in the way of empirical evidence.

On the other points - as you yourself noted, most practicing religious people are more lenient about their faith then the extremes would suggest - many people simply dodge the whole "good people end up in hell" part with a wishy washy "god will let good people in".

Yeah pretty much, and that's kind of why I feel that some people might ignore the suicide = trip to hell bit.

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Punishment for non-adherence isn't even a constant across Abrahamic religion. Judaism is pretty vague on the issue of the afterlife in general, much less eternal punishment, and I understand that not all denominations of Christianity believe in it either (I don't know enough about how Islam sees the topic to address it).

Don't most forms, even if they lack a defined hell, believe that your punishment is not being with god and those that you love? That in itself is enough to frighten a child, especially if, as I've seen first hand, simply telling kids that it upsets Jesus can be enough to get them upset over something as small as Halloween.

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You really don't know how mental illnesses work, do you? The brain is not functioning properly at that point. What a rational, healthy mind would perceive as unthinkable or delirious can be the most sane, clear and obvious solution once the chemicals in your brain are not doing their job properly and are out of balance. Depression, clinical one, makes one lose all sense of self-worth and/or drive to accomplish anything or strive for anything, because it cannot be done, the person is "not enough" and so on. Even normal things like cleaning, socializing, eating and so on become horrendous tasks. Once your life is utter hell and you see no way how to make it better, how to get better, the solution of suicide becomes that much more attractive. It doesn't care whether your Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, Wiccan or who knows what else. So your entire counterargument is based on an idea that someone who is actually suicidal or suffering from a mental illness is capable of rationally thinking about it, or what is rational to us. And that is not the case. Hell, I could pull out an even more stupid counterargument to that and say that to a depressed person the thought of no afterlife and no God means that life has no purpose, that they are meaningless and nobody will miss them when they die, so why bother living at all.

Yeah, a person with diagnosed and sometimes medicated depression doesn't understand how it works... I'm pretty sure I have at least some understanding of the disease that at times can be bad enough that I fail to get out of bed. Suicide is a bit out of my sphere, but I have changed meds after one of them started to cause thoughts of self harm and suicide.

With that out of the way I think what's already in your head changes your behavior regardless of your current state of rationality. I find it easier to see somebody jumping because they think that they can escape to heaven than somebody jumping when they know deep down inside that they go nowhere. Depression doesn't always silence the rational side, it just tends to put it in the back seat, so having a stronger rational side might create a stronger inclination to listen to it in ones darkest hours.

[HeavensThunderHammer]

@Jub

Just a thought from my own perspective of a religion (Baha'i Faith): I was born into the religion and after some doubts as a teen chose to join my faith formally. (It was a choice.) That said, the people who don't grow up in the religion often have large emotional wounds that they are already dealing with. I wonder if there's selection bias in those who choose to become religious - they do it because they are already unhappy and it seems to help.

Happy secular people very rarely become religious IMO.

[cadbrowser]

Don't most forms, even if they lack a defined hell, believe that your punishment is not being with god and those that you love?

Comming from personal experience, I've heard it taught several different ways depending on what denomination you ask. I am unfamiliar with any variants on Hell within the Muslim sects or the Jewish ones, so I won't be able to comment on that aspect of it.

On the other hand, I do recall reading in Josephus that the Jews of that time did believe in, what I can only describe as, a type of purgatory called the Bosom of Abraham. IIRC, it was where all the souls went to for judgement upon death. The thing here is that even the soul could choose to go to heaven or not. I don't recall off the top of my head if that belief system was attributed to the Pharisees, Saducees, or Essenes...or a common belief held by all three.

The most common version of Hell that I have had the pleasure of learning about was the literal one that is a physical Lake of Fire within the Earth, where the Devil (Lucifer, Beelz...etc.) tortures you for all eternity. Seems a very "Fundie" dogma to me. Penacostal, Holy Roller, Quaker...in that vain.

Another Hell that I have heard of which takes a closer approach to what you describe is the idea of Knowing the Love of God and what it is like, but never getting it. It's right there so close, yet you can't reach it no matter how hard you try.

A kooky one I heard one time was that Hell was when the Sun died and the Earth froze over; because some cold (dry ice?) can feel like a burn.

Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in Hell.

Here is a decent link that you might enjoy: Christain Views on Hell