Dear SPQR,

Everything which exists is temporary. Had God existed, then He too would be mortal.

It is possible (though expensive) that you may realise your wish to resume living in your current body, but that too would be temporary. Eventually, this whole universe will be gone, either collapsing in a big crunch, or dispersing indefinitely with no sub-atomic particles left intact.

Personally, I see this world changing so much during my own natural life, that I have no wish to awake again to a world so totally different. Recognising none of my former family and friends, with every way of life so strange beyond my imagination, what would I do there?

Your best bet, as Pascal would say, is to look for your happiness elsewhere than this physical universe.

Dear Yuyutsu,

There is no evidence for anything existing other than this physical universe. If we don't find happiness in this physical universe we don't find happiness.

I wish you happiness.

Yuyutsu,

<<Everything which exists is temporary...>>
How did you decide that? all your experiences (gleaned through your limited senses) up to now have informed you that, that is the way of the world. But that hardly makes it conclusive.

<<Eventually, this whole universe will be gone, either collapsing in a big crunch...>>
Again, how did you determine that? That might be the best guesstimate of our leading brains today --but again, that doesn't make it conclusive.

The best brains we had 200 years ago would have given a different scenario. And quantum physics is pushing us towards some strange ways of (re)viewing "reality".

There is no "hope" which effectively deals with the overwhelming fact that Death really does rule to here.

You do not go to "heaven" when you die. In fact you inevitably get reborn again into essentially the same dazed and confused circumstance in which you have lived in this life-time.

Nor are you relieved from the necessity of having to deal with and understand what death requires of each and every single one of us while we are alive, by believing any of the usual Disneyland fantasy nonsense that one has been "saved" by the blood sacrifice and "resurrection" of "Jesus" (whenever and wherever that was in all the space-time paradoxes of an Indivisible quantum universe).
Nor will you be "bodily resurrected" when "Jesus" comes again - which of course will never ever happen. When and where in the Indivisible quantum universe could that possibly occur?
And what would your "resurrected" body look like - when you were in the prime of your life at 30, or as it was/is the moment before the dying Process begins (on your death bed)? What if your body was vaporized or smithereened by an explosion or bomb?

Most peoples lives become more and more wretched as they grow old, especially in the last months/weeks/days of their lives.
And most people essentially get brutalized by the system in their days. This is what happened to both my mother and father, especially my mother. Even if only by the sheer lack of Wisdom about death as a Living Process that mis-informs our "culture" at large, even amongst the usual god-botherers.

Unfortunately very few people have ready access to the necessary human and financial resources to be assisted to consciously participate in the Process of conscious dying. Such a process necessarily requires the participation of numbers of other human beings informed by the necessary Wisdom in serving the dying Process, and in most cases the financial resources to be able to afford such a compassionate circumstance.

Without access to the necessary Wisdom, and resources most people end up being more or less brutalized by the system.

The author wrote:

"The intuitive assessment that suicide should be shunned and is never the only option is natural, normal and something hardwired into humanity."

It is not hardwired into humanity. It is not common in Japanese society. It is an accepted response to great loss of face. Japanese are as human as we are but do not have the same attitude to suicide that Paul Russell has. Opinionated people may feel that their opinion is right and natural and the way all reasonable people should feel. Mr. Russell is making his individual opinion universal.

Another example of the same sort.

"When we think of suicide we commonly understand that people who contemplate ending their lives will be viewing their problems through a very dark lens that does not, at that time, offer them any hope or possibility that what troubles them could be dealt with in a less dramatic fashion."

Here Mr. Russell uses the 'we' which should be reserved for monarchs, editors and people with tapeworms. Commonly? Your opinion is your opinion, Mr. Russell. You are not speaking for society or even the majority. A person in agony from a debilitating terminal disease which is not susceptible to palliative care does not have any realistic hope. A person who feels their continued existence would probably mean more suffering even though they are not terminally ill has a right to end their life. Death is the end for all of us, and we should have the right to hasten it.

I visited my Aunt Rae in the hospital where she was connected to various machines that were keeping her alive. She could not speak but rolled her eyes to the plug that she wanted pulled. I was not willing to accept the penalty of assisting her departure so did not pull the plug. In risking the penalty for assisting a suffering person to end it Philip Nitschke is a better man than I am. He is willing to take the risk that I was unwilling to take. I think he is also a better man than Mr. Russell.

Dear David F.,

<<There is no evidence for anything existing other than this physical universe.>>

That's just restating a definition: if something has an evidence, then by definition it is of this physical universe.

<<If we don't find happiness in this physical universe we don't find happiness.>>

As happiness in this physical universe is necessarily temporary, Pascal would urge you to try elsewhere.

Dear SPQR,

These are currently the best views of physical science: either crunch or dispersal. If anything, quantum physics suggests a world being reborn every moment, indicating that there is nothing solid about it, in other words that it is an illusion.

In any case, it is agreed, I believe, that physical conditions in some trillions of years will not resemble today's and a human body as we know it, even if somehow preserved, would be useless in that environment. If you wait long enough, then you will no longer find any human friends and most probably you would not even recognise the life forms around you as living, nor be able to communicate with them. In fact, it would be unlikely for your human senses to grasp your new environment at all. Why bother then, especially given that preserving your body will likely be a burden on coming generations?