Mental illness and God

Recent celebrities suicide opened the discussion about this troubling phenomenon.

Watching a US news channel, I learned that more than 45,000 people take their own life every year in USA alone.

In Christian faith it is a sin to commit suicide, and the result is clear, percentage wise there are less religious people that commit suicide than the rest of the population. If you ask a pessimist, he will say that a religious person will carry his cross even if life is unbearable, out of fear rather than conviction.

I am not here to praise the suicide, I think it is a very sad decision. Also, I will not enter in a debate about treatments a person needs to avoid such a tragic end, there are specialized channels to tackle such discussions.

I try to understand if faith can save people from taking their own life.

And here is the difficult part. The teaching of the faith and the examples are two different stories. The orientation of faith tells us that suicide is a sin, but if you read the stories in the Bible, there is no punishment for that. King Saul (a prominent biblical figure) took life after losing a battle because he did not want to confront the enemy, but there is no word that God is punishing him. It seems to me that we have the same old story, believe what I tell you and do not investigate.

There is a hidden tragic danger with this blind-fully following the religious leader. What if the leader asks the followers to commit suicide to achieve a certain fulfilment?

We all know famous cases in modern times, but these are not isolated cases, it happened along centuries, even millennia, see some examples in the link below.

https://www.brainz.org/10-most-notorious-suicide-cults-history/
 
My conclusion is that strong religious beliefs might save some souls, but does not solve the problem, in some cases might alienate and aggravate it.
​
Here are some quotes from Emil Cioran; his work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, and frequently engages with issues of suffering, decay, and nihilism…

• Suicide is a sudden accomplishment, a lightning-like deliverance: it is nirvana by violence.
• The obsession with suicide is characteristic of the man who can neither live nor die, and whose attention never departs from this double impossibility.
• When people come to me saying they want to kill themselves, I tell them, “What’s your rush? You can kill yourself any time you like. So calm down. Suicide is a positive act.” And they do calm down.