For those of you who believe in an afterlife, what happens to suicides?

I don’t believe in it, but I always figure the biggest f-you to a suicider would be sending him back to try again.

To be frank, I do not believe in a definitive “afterlife.” I know I can be wrong in my theory, but these are my thoughts:

Every sentient being is reborn until it learns Life’s Lesson.

I believe Life’s Lesson is to learn unconditional love- how to give and receive it freely and openly.

When you learn unconditional love, your energy is suspended in a state of bliss until the end of time.

So, people who commit suicide would clearly have not learned how to give an receive unconditional love. As @bolwerk said, back they go!

And then there’s that horrid thought that [just as you are falling through space, struggling for air, et cetera, your final thoughts might be agonizing misery and regret and fear and wanting to undo what you have done and knowing you can’t. I sometimes think suicides might be frozen for all eternity in this nightmare.

It’s enough to scare you off the idea.

I do believe in the afterlife, and I have no idea. I guess that God is the judge of what will happen to them. Only He knows their real circumstances and what they were going through. It is dangerous for any human to play God and think they can decide on a blanket ruling, when every case is different.

All anyone can do is guess. Nobody really knows. However, I assume that people may be judged as to why they commited the suicide. I doubt suicides are ever really done by a rational person. They are done by people in a deep depression. So, I don’t think God will hold a grudge for someone not thinking clearly. He knows better than anyone, what they were thinking.
Who knows. Maybe he does send them back to learn from their mistakes.

I believe that they are “sent back” immediately to relearn how they went wrong.

As I am a Christian, I believe that people generally don’t live again nor do they get second chances. I think that for suicides, you and God have a real long talk… and then what He decides is what goes.

It’s a bit of a bummer to think that suicide won’t work.

I’m with @Taciturnu. The soul was supposed to endure, rise above whatever. The other half of me, sitting on the fence, thinks it’s okay to end your life in cases of lots of terminal illnesses. The two sentence totally contradict each other, I know, and I have to live in this brain!

I am a Christian as well, and the Bible does not totally preculde reincarnation, and as a matter of fact, actually hints at it in places.

Suicide is a murder; a murder of your soul by you. So the same standards of murders apply. (I’m speaking from Catholicism, if it matters)

Man, it would suck if Catholicism were true. :-\

I happen to think it could be a few things:
a) you come right back here & start over again
b) you spend time in purgatory
c) there’s a special place just for people that are stuck in a bad mental pattern/have mental imbalances
I’m Catholic, too. Yes, suicide is a mortal sin. I just don’t happen to think God judges based on deed alone.

I don’t know for sure. I’m a Christisn and I believe that Jesus death and resurrection was to save the whole world. I think we might all be surprised by who we will and won’t see on the other side. I don’t think that having a mental illness that leads to your death will damn you to eternal flames. My read of the Bible tells me that the only ones who will be there are the self righteous who dont care for the poor and needy, but hold themselves up as an example of Godliness.

Easy, they cease to exist.

@Judi

Excellent answer! : )

i think they would be rated through their life, not their death. They just could not bear anymore.

@Judi
Suicide is almost like an insult to Jesus. He was forced to die willingly to save you and you just go and kill yourself after he did this all for you.

@dxs You cannot be forced to die willingly.

@dxs He was forced to die willingly

that statement alone tells me all I need to know about Christianity

With my God, for those who are suffering, he forgives them.

@dxs Jesus took the cross willingly. Nothing was “forced”.

That’s what I meant….take away forced, stress willingly. my excuse is that it was late at night

@dxs I have been there. I understand. Half the time I hit enter after leaving ½ a thought ;)

@dxs, Jesus died even for those who insult him. His mercy is that big.

@Jude
I know, but I’m talking in a human perspective, that a person has the audacity to do such a thing. I understand mental illnesses like you said, and if that is the case, then maybe God understands…

According to her one surviving child, the woman who drove into the Hudson with her kids could only say “I made a mistake, I made a mistake” at the end. If these last moments become what she takes into an afterlife, that would be hell indeed.

i’ve heard that they stay in limbo. they don’t go to heaven right away until they make penance for it or ask for forgiveness.

Limbo no longer exists

Limbo never did exist

@emeraldisles
The way you put it made it seem like purgatory (using the word until).

No I don’t believe suicides would be punished from a merciful loving God. Tell that to the Family members of someone you know who commited suicide when they were young . It is neither the familys fault or the person who takes their own life for whatever reason. A merciful God would want them to Rest in Peace.

@Pandora: Suicide seems like a perfectly rational, ethical decision in many cases. If it’s done to avoid a drawn out, painful death, it’s rational.