I have no cousins, no aunts, no uncles.. No siblings.. When my mom and dad died, i only had my grandparents.. And when they eventually passed, i had no one..

Im starting my own family now.. I always wanted a large family.. Good or bad.. I don't really understand.... But i totally feel for you

If they can think it's ok to have sex with children or protect those that do, what would it take for them to care about the feelings of anyone other than themselves?

Maybe that Pastor needs to remember that in the bible Pride is also a deadly sin....

As if fear of hell has ever prevented suicide. Do they ever think how bad they must feel to even consider suicide?

About 25 years ago, a woman who was with her three kids died in a wreck. They had two preachers at the funeral. Both were Appalachian backwoods preachers. The first talked about how she was a wonderful mother and daughter, how she led a good life...etc.

The second one got up there next to the casket and after a few seconds of acknowledging her death, launched into a "you never know when death will arrive" and how you should be prepared to meet Jesus. And if you are not prepared, the fires of hell will open up, Satan will greet you with open arms, for all eternity you will look up at heaven as the hell fires burn your flesh. On and on. Nothing about the life of the woman or what she did on earth.

Oh, the second preacher also thumped the bible on the casket once as if to emphasize the godly words of Jesus, as the preacher said, would squirt out onto the embalmed body of the lady now laying there in repose. All in all, a spectacle of death that did not celebrate life, but rather some twisted vision of the preacher's religion.

It's a sin to warp young, malleable minds like that! F that pastor. Very sorry for your family's loss. I hope your cousin found the peace in death that neuroscience couldn't find him in life.

The church's teaching on suicide is one of it's most detestable. Suicide should be considered an act of courage and celebrated. Yes it is an end to life but it's almost always an escape from unendurable pain.

hugs Sorry you had to go through such a shitty reminder of how they can talk such bollocks without regard for other humans, all while thinking they are somehow in the moral right.

And that is just one of the reasons why I always have it in for every God Mobster that I encounter.

What a horrible thing for an innocent child to endure!

Atrocious

Why does everything with religious people involve such an ordeal. They’re so sensitive about what atheist have to say about them, but the judgmental bastards had no problem telling me Robin Williams was in hell.
When they stop doing low life drama crap like that I’ll say as much against them as I say about Jains.
(This is the only time I’ve ever mentioned Jains.)

This has moved me greatly from the very first time I saw it.

Despicable behaviour, what can you do but turn your back on awful people like that who claim to be experts in your life
Glad you saw the light

Sad story to read. All pastor was only trying to control the followers with the fear of hell and the guilt of sin.

So let me get this straight: GOD is in charge of everything - natural disasters, election results, and non-stop intervention in our personal life. Everything is part of HIS plan, right? Shouldn't that pastor be condemning GOD to hell because GOD made him sin by committing suicide? Sorry religious folks, you can't have it both ways - God is in charge of everything OR He is sitting back and watching what we do with free will. You can't claim God's involvement when you like the result and Sin when you don't. God's message is about Love, not brutalizing people with your misguided, power & dominance thinking. Dear Pastor, IMO, your cruelty is sending YOU to the hell you fear.

Sorry for your family's loss 10 years past, but yes cold and cruel.

Primitive and blunt tool that is religious teachings. Sorry you went through that trauma.
I couldn’t help this image coming to mind.

I've been affected by suicide three times in my life.

At a very young age I recall a distant family friend of my cousins who committed suicide. He was gay and many of the parents as the time were "religious" and openly hostile toward him. Making his life a living hell. He had several bad turn of events where he lost his job, boyfriend, and home.. and ended his life. I remember my mother and father going to his funeral but none of the "religious" people nor any priest spoke at his wake.

Which was sick to me, even at a young age for someone I didn't know really at all. I'd maybe spoken with him one or two times at family events (I was 7 or 8 at the time).. Later on what made this even more sick is it turns out the very "religious" and judgmental parents who shunned him and gave him no support. Had known and were complicit in hiding the fact that the very priests who turned their back on this man where sexually molesting all of my cousins for over nine years. It didn't finally come to light until my uncle died and my cousins (after their mum become mentally unfit) started to opening speak out and report it to the police.

Morality superiority my ass.. all I saw was hate, greed, selfishness, and evil. And yet, everyone still followed their scriptures. Still paid their tithing each month (membership payment) and openly judging their nighbours and mixed race relationships (racism)..

The second was also family friend who had serious depression and alcoholism issues. He had a hard time keeping a job and was an odd duck for most of the time I interacted with him. He did have a wife and two daughters. His wife had left him for a polygamous relationship as they were estranged (separated) for at least a year or two. This seemed to put him over the edge as he could not attract another mate.. and he drove his car off a cliff.

In this instance there was no "religion" represented at his service. Just local people who knew him and the major (our small town only has 3200 people in it) who spoke about him and his many long troubles. This reinforced that people and our connections are more important than dogma.

The third and most recent suicide was actually one of my high school mates son. He was not even 18 years of age. I honestly never met him but did follow him growing up through social media and his mum who was my school mate so many years ago. I never got a chance to speak with her as we both live in different social economic circles. Her son was very intelligent (which I can relate to in some respects as the universe is not kind to those who are existential observers) while only 17 he was already taking college classes. I suspect being that bright didn't make him very popular and even more so in today's social media, tiktok disconnected environment he must have felt very disconnected.

I never had the heart to say this to my class mate, but over the last five years of his life. The pictures they took, the body language he exhibited made it very telling to me that he was suffering. While not something I would ever wish upon someone or their loved ones. When I found out he was missing and then two weeks later they found the body. I wasn't suprised.

A Scout leader and all round lovely man in our small community killed himself. When we pieced together his last two weeks we realised he had gone round to everyone and said goodbye, hard to pick when it was spaced out over time and seemed just like a friendly visit. He was catholic. The local priest said he would not do last rites nor hold a service for him (his body was being flown to his parents their local priest was happy to perform the ceremonies they believed in) So my mum and a few mums went to see him. I was not privvy to the full conversation but they tore into him. (everyone was suffering from survivor's guilt, that they did not see he was suffering and had not helped him) Pointed out that if he had actually been a decent and worthwhile priest then why had our friend not gone to him for help, if he was a competent leader of his flock (our friend went to church on Sundays) why had he not noticed a member of his flock was ailing, etc basically they told him he was a failure and the only way he could in any way put it right was to do what the family and community wanted. He did, no talk of going to hell or committing a sin (The delegation of Mums sat in the front row and eyeballed him the entire service) Yet another stepping stone on my road to atheism.

I am sorry that you had to endure this awful and traumatic event. Hold on to the memory of the good times you had and cast away this one of a bitter and nasty old man who decided that traumatising teens was a good goal in life. I keep my memories of our Scouting leader and funny man (I was also a junior Scouting leader in training) who was kind, cared for others. I also keep the memory of my mother's anger at the priest (she was not catholic) and her fight for our friend, the priest I can not recall at all nor the words he said at the service he was irrelevant and worthless as far as I was concerned.

Seems they want to pretend they can pick and choose then an idea can be mass applied against peoples feelings but if someone tries to do it back they claim their feelings are hurt and therefore the other person is wrong --Autistic perspective.

I totally understand. While I was hospitalized (a year), my nephew died by taking his own life. My sister was heartbroken. I went to see her after getting out of the hospital and learned our brother-in-law, an evangelical minister, had told her he was in hell. I was, and am, still pissed about that arrogant bullshit. My sister was more or less an xtion, belonging to a Mennonite branch. I spent time bible researching so as to give her places that dispute the whole suicide mythos (which came about around the 600's as catholic priests were killing themselves to get to heaven and out of living in the literal shit of the Middle ages). Real historical facts don't affect the bibly dipsticks.

One bad result of the Bible is the dichotomous thinking it instills in people: Good and evil, male and female, night and day, plant and animal -- but in nature everything is a shade of gray. There are hermaphroditic species; euglena is a protozoan capable photosynthesis; parts of the Earth are always daytime.
images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrEzNwj3n1fnQkAgHE2nIlQ;_ylu=c2VjA3NlYXJjaARzbGsDYnV0dG9u;_ylc=X1MDMTM1MTE5NTcwMgRfcgMyBGFjdG4DY2xrBGNzcmNwdmlkA1JSSURYakV3TGpKcHFTdThWc1VlYndnZ01qWXdNd0FBQUFCVzBfcW0EZnIDeWhzLXN6LTAwMQRmcjIDc2EtZ3AEZ3ByaWQDBG5fc3VnZwMwBG9yaWdpbgNpbWFnZXMuc2VhcmNoLnlhaG9vLmNvbQRwb3MDMARwcXN0cgMEcHFzdHJsAwRxc3RybAMxNQRxdWVyeQNldWdsZW5hJTIwaW1hZ2UEdF9zdG1wAzE2MDIwODQzOTg-?p=euglena+image&fr=yhs-sz-001&fr2=sb-top-images.search&ei=UTF-8&n=60&x=wrt&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=sz

The point is that there is no absolute good and bad. Example: President W. Bush is quoted as saying: :"You are either on our side or with the terrorists."

Fear is how they control their flocks, since sheep dogs don't work that way, for people.

Pastors do have a way out of this bullshit. According to the Buybull it is a great sin to take your own life. The alternative argument is that if a person does this he is not in his right mind, and therefore his god forgives him.