What's stopping religious people from dying to reach heaven?

Post Reply New Topic

(This is referring to religions that have a heaven; correct me if I'm wrong but I think Nirvana and similar concepts are in a different category of afterlife)
I had to really fudge with the title to get it to fit in the character limit. Basically what I'm asking is (I'm Christian by the way so I'm not trying to be judgmental), it's hammered in that heaven is nothing but pure joy for eternity. What that means varies depending on who you ask and what religion you believe in, but everybody agrees that heaven is pretty great. What's stopping people from just killing themselves to reach it? Of course, many do, but most prefer to live even though life on Earth sucks. It's not that suicidal people go to hell, at least in Christianity. Dead children automatically go to heaven in most religions. People who didn't do great things but didn't harm anyone, at the very least don't go to hell. So what is it that keeps us here instead of just skipping all this life stuff and going straight to the afterlife?

I'm not depressed or suicidal, this is a question I've been thinking of for a while.

Fo one thing suicideitself is a sin, in most Arahmic religions. If you purposely speeded up the process it would guarantee that you would go to "other place" than you're intended destination.

The brand of Christianity I grew up with (Southern Baptist) says that suicide is a one way ticket to Hell.

That, and actually reading the Bible is what convinced me that I could not be a Christian as traditionally defined.

Muslims strap on a bomb to do exactly that. And there have been religious death cults.

The obvious argument though is they need to be there to keep passing on the religion to the next generation. Life is a test, etc. If you killed the children to send them to heaven you'd doom yourself to hell and if you sent all the children to heaven, then the adults would die eventually and produce no more children.

I think one thing most of the major world religions, and even the non-major and pagan ones, often tie life with responsibility. That idea is actually stronger in Buddhism and Hinduism than it is in many sects of Christianity because, particularly for the Buddhist, your liberation from the cycle of pain and decay is your responsibility and yours alone. Even for mainline protestants who might believe a sentence is the difference between heaven and hell they probably reason that if Jesus didn't instantly rapture everyone into heaven or that they were born, as Christians, to live 80 years here and be tested, that they wouldn't be here if it wasn't God's will and to take their own life to get out sooner would both be an evasion of God's reasoning and an evasion of responsibility to save the souls of others either by actively witnessing or converting others by their own integrity.

In Catholic school we learned that suicide is a symptom of an illness. It's not a 100% conscious choice made in somebody's right mind, so it can't be a sin. This is also the belief of a lot of churches of many denominations that I've been to. Although I suppose suicide caused by mental illness is different than suicide caused just because you're bored of life.

Interesting answers, everyone! I have a theory that it could be partly due to the fact that we inhabit animal bodies (humans are apes). Animals do not want to die. They have very strong instincts that prevent them from doing things that would cause them to die. If I tried to stab myself right now, I couldn't because I instinctively know it would kill me. But that doesn't explain everything of course, since we're not completely ruled by our instincts like most animals. Although, obviously, listen to your not-dying instincts. Those are important.

I'm gonna stop now before I'm banned for accidentally encouraging destructive behavior.

Maybe it's our own sense of morality that keeps us here, because we can't leave when there is so much work that needs to be done, as techstepgern8tion says. But humans are also inherently lazy, which God is constantly angry about in the Bible.

I don't like the vague "it's God's will" argument but at the same time I do think this is one of those things that can never be fully explained.

The majority of people who actually believe in heaven, believe killing themselves to get there would land them in hell.

What your Catholic school taught you doesn't change that fact. I mean you can come up with plenty of theological arguments about suicide I'm sure. But that doesn't change the fact that most people are afraid they'll get sent to hell by taking their lives for the sole purpose of trying to get a shortcut to heaven.

It comes down to moral conviction. Part of which is the emotional devastation it causes to family and friends.

Each of the Abrahamic faiths forbids suicide. But each allows it in the rare exception in which the suicide will defend the faith itself. Each of the faiths honors martyrs. Half of the Christian saints were martyrs who committed "suicide by cop". And though I am not aware that the Koran has anything to say about it the political Islamists of the late 20th/early 21st century have gone beyond "suicide by cop" into using actual suicide by one's own hand to advance the cause.

However the first "suicide bomber" in history was probably Samson in the Old Testament, who purposely brought down the Philistine temple on himself killing scores of folks including himself. He lived more than a thousand years before the invention of gunpowder so he had to use his own muscle strength to do it. But if he coulda used a bomb vest he doubtless woulda.

According to the major religions, suicide is a sin, therefor trying to get a "fast-pass" into heaven will prevent you from entering it.