i wrote the following in response to an essay which the scottish philosopher david hume wrote advocating suicide as morally plausible:

from the perspective of the universe (which probably has no sentience in and of itself), we are less than microbes, winking in and out of existence in brief instants in a paper thin sheen of gas and grime and liquid wrapped tenuously about a speck of dirt and rock spinning around a nondescript star which is one of more than 100 billion in a mundane galaxy that is one of another 100 billion like and unlike itself. the universe has bigger things to worry about–”will i implode soon? or will i stretch out into an infinitely thin, cold, and dark uniformity?”

from our perspective, however, humans are of tremendous importance. we are all we’ve got. each individual’s life is important to the rest of humanity. some suggest that a man’s worth is what he is capable of giving to society. who has the right to determine the worth of one human being as less than that of another? the nazis applied their vision with brutal effectiveness and eliminated jews, the mentally handicapped, gypsies, mormons, homosexuals and others. in their opinion, these had no value to society.

how often can people rationally make the decision to commit suicide? many who try and succeed were suffering clinical depression. could they have been treated? they may value themselves little, but are they in their right minds? how many youth take their lives when their perspective of life is limited? perhaps if they could see what life had to offer in the years to come, many would stay their hands. perhaps not.

my point is that in a world absent of a supreme being, we become gods. we are the greatest beings that we are aware of, and we are capable of such beauty and wonder. my personal morality is based on the value of human life, and i feel that when society justifies the taking of any one life, it cheapens the value of human life for the rest of society. i’m not sure that i advocate a complete moral ban against suicide–it may not for me to stop someone who is doomed to a life of incredible suffering from ending his or her pain, but at the very least the destruction of any human life merits careful consideration from the perspective that all human life is precious::