It would seem that the commandment "thou shalt not kill" is open to interpretation.

Did god mean "thou shalt not murder your fellow humans"?(this would be the most likely meaning)

Did he mean " thou shalt not kill anything, animal,yourself or any other human"?

Did he mean "thou shalt not murder your fellow humans, but compasssionate euthanasia will be fine once you gain the knowledge of certain drugs that I will allow you to find in centuries to come when you are ready for this level of learning".

Since God hasnt appeared to answer questions thrown up by modern advances in medicine we cannot know for sure what it is that he would want us to do. I myself think that he would say "why dont you use your own commonsense and compassion. Dont prolong needless suffering and pain where there need be none." I see God as the ultimate intelligence and commonsense of the universe and I dont see why man is always attributing ideas that make no sense to God.

Haralambos; I agree with you that suicide and Euthanasia are different, but I would like to put the idea that suicide does cross over into the Euthanasia category more when physical suffering is involved. Light at the end of the tunnel can be harder to see when the physical suffering is permanent,( though not terminal.)

I would also put old age into a different suicide category. Old age doesnt go away either the deterioration and disability can keep declining with the years.

Then there is the Emotionally caused suicide, divorce, lost lover, lost job etc. while causing strong grief reactions and depression there is gaunranteed light at the end of the tunnel because this kind of grief will pass as time goes on and new avenues of life open up. It is an unnecessary tradgedy when someone takes their life over these kind of things and this is where society and all of us can be of great assistance in letting these people express their feelings to us and going with them to the doctor to see if some temporary medication would help them as they deal with their strong sadness.

It is good that you have bought attention to the awful number of suicides in this country. I believe I read somewhere recently that there have been more deaths caused by suicide than road deaths in Australia.
I knew there were a lot but that really surprised me. Does anyone know if thats true?

I have been out of the country for two years now but I know that it was certainly true then that more people under the age of 25 suicide than die in car accidents. This statistic remained static for many years and I wrote about it often - but you are the only person on this forum ever to express concern over it.I find it a terrible indictment upon us that no-one else ever seemed to consider this was even worthy of response, let alone shocking or even sad.

As I have asked more than once: if banner headlines can proclaim our holiday or annual road-death toll "slaughter" why not term our extremely high suicide rate "genocide"?

Romany wrote:

"As I have asked more than once: if banner headlines can proclaim our holiday or annual road-death toll "slaughter" why not term our extremely high suicide rate "genocide"?"

The suicide rate shouldn't be called "genocide" because it is not genocide. It would distort the word out of all meaning.

Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.

Sorry - I guess I got carried away and didn't make my meaning clear (to anyone other than myself). Of course its not genocide. But neither is the road toll "slaughter".

What I meant was that we accept - and in fact some of us then often repeat in further articles and speech - the hyperbolic term "slaughter" for something such as a road-death toll. In this instance media hyperbole is considered part of a shock campaign which works to fashion consciousness of an unacceptable state of affairs. In fact our road death toll, in comparison with many other countries, is not actually that high.

But our suicide rate is. It is also not simply underplayed but not brought to public attention as being unacceptable. If a deliberate shock campaign is considered and accepted as a useful strategy for public awareness with such florid terms in reference to traffic deaths then why not a public awareness strategy of the same magnitude for suicide? IN such a campaign "slaughter" could indeed be upgraded to genocide as the magnitude of the problem is greater.

It also remains true that certain traffic deaths and accidents are in fact part of suicide schemes. If such deaths were statistically re-classified they would work to increase our suicide statistic even more.

Romany wrote:

"But our suicide rate is. It is also not simply underplayed but not brought to public attention as being unacceptable. If a deliberate shock campaign is considered and accepted as a useful strategy for public awareness with such florid terms in reference to traffic deaths then why not a public awareness strategy of the same magnitude for suicide? IN such a campaign "slaughter" could indeed be upgraded to genocide as the magnitude of the problem is greater."

Large magnitude slaughter does not become genocide. Why must you redefine the word?

Suicide is a voluntary act. One reason not to do it is that the suicide may make others feel bad as his or her passing. However, if one harms no one else, causes sorrow to no one else and does not make a mess I don't see it as a problem.

In war people are killed who don't want to die. War is a problem. Suicide isn't.