Does the concept of reincarnation deter suicide ?

[Terra Nullius]

Virgins are in a deranged state of mind?

[Elok]

Originally posted by aneeshm


An inescapable law of Karma is one of the commonalities of Hinduism and Buddhism .

I can ask my devoutly Buddhist prof, but IIRC their views on reincarnation can vary a great deal, especially from sect to sect.

[Whoha]

In all the games I play with respawning, it just encourages suiciding. There should be a minute delay or so to prevent such abuse.

[joncha]

[Elok]

Some games encourage suicide themselves. I remember this ****ing crate puzzle on the very first level of God of War which I saw a neighbor playing. You've got to push this big ol' crate veeeery slowly towards the wall so you can climb on top of it. Meanwhile, three archers atop said wall are constantly shooting arrows at you, peppering you with minimal damage that's not too threatening. Wherever you go, the arrows follow, and if enough arrows hit the crate, it explodes and gets rebuilt back at the beginning. You have to "solve" the puzzle by playing chicken with the archers, pushing the crate along the edges of the field in two-inch increments and quickly running away before the archer fire catches up with you and hurts the crate. Usually the guy would screw up just as the crate was almost there. I was amazed that any game developer would hate his audience so much. I guess it was just part of his stated goal to have players filled with bloodlust? But I think they were supposed to hate the harpies and ghouls and such, not the game's programmers...

[Barnabas]

For catholics, suicide is a mortal sin, that means you go straight to hell (unless you were crazy, had some kind of mental problem when you killed yourself)

That is quite suicide detering

Jews tend to think Suicide is very bad a murder too, but some make a few exceptions, for example, if you are being tortured you can commit suicide to avoid further pain and suffering

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
I'd say yes. If you believe in reincarnation then you are assuming you will get reborn. If you believe in karma then you take forward your experiences from past lives and suicide is a pretty negative one so not helpful. If you believe that you get a complete fresh start then suicide is still effectively saying you couldn't cope with your current life which isn't encouraging for starting a new one no matter how much you hope it will be in better circumstances.

Depends.

AFAIK being Buddhists the Japanese believed in Reincarnation during most of the time. But they also had a strong tradition of ritualized suicide especially among the Bushi, as they believed Seppuku to be a most honorable death.

Therefore I think the belief in Reincarnation can do both, it can discourage you from commiting suicide, if you live in a society that beliefs that suicide leads to very bad karma for your next live, but it could also make commiting suicide easier, if you live in a society that believes in suicide giving good karma under certain circumstances.

[BlackCat]

Try read Peter F. Hamilton's trilogy "The night's dawn" - then you surely won't want to experiment with this

[Flip McWho]

That's an awesome trilogy.

It depends on the punishment for suicide. If what you do in this life doesn't affect the reincarnated life than it doesn't deter suicide.