XPost: uk.philosophy.humanism, alt.suicide.methods, alt.suicide.holiday   
   From: peter@new.co.za   
      
   Wilting Wisteria wrote:   
   > In article ,   wrote:   
   >   
   >   
   > Suicide bombers see themselves as martyrs for a cause they fervently support;   
   > many of the suicidal would be hard pressed to find any cause that excited   
   > them other than death.  And causing the deaths of innocent others is quite   
   > often anathema to us.   
    >   
   Isn't it important, though, to distinguish between people who consider   
   themselves 'suicidal' and people who actually kill themselves. We can't   
   chat to the latter about their motives or what they think about causing   
   the deaths of innocent other people.   
      
   A genuinely nihilistic suicide could offer himself out as a suicide   
   bomber to the highest bidder (payment to his family or favourite   
   charity) with no concern about which particular cause let him off.   
      
   I had the misfortune to attend the funeral of a suicide. She'd specially   
   taken out a life-insurance that didn't exclude suicides so that her   
   parents could get the money. So money can be a motive of sorts even for   
   a suicide.   
      
   People who are 'suicidal' that we know about are, by definition, talking   
   to other people and haven't killed themselves, so are in a different   
   category from suicides.   
      
   I'm not sure what the figures are, but I'd imagine that, whilst 99% of   
   suicides were suicidal (the 1% or 5% would be mistakes - Darwin prize   
   contestants), probably a good deal more than half of the people who feel   
   suicidal don't commit suicide. So they aren't really a good population   
   to query to find out what suicides think - even if they are the best   
   population that we have.   
      
      
      
   --   
     Time comes from the future, which does not yet exist, into the   
   present, which has no duration, and goes into the past, which has ceased   
   to exist. - St. Augustine   
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