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It's quite incredible that the Huffington Post posted the entire suicide note, particularly without a warning before it. In any case, I'm disturbed and outrage

It's quite incredible that the Huffington Post posted the entire suicide note, particularly without a warning before it. In any case, I'm disturbed and outraged by the religious comments (ranging from wishing him well in the next phase of his life to saying how much God loves everyone even despite this to how he should forgive himself for the suicide). I thought respect was fundamental to religion.

anon_for_this_1 16y ago
That was really sad. I'm a Christian, but fully recognize there is some sickening hypocrisy in the 'Christian' world (and probably all religious and non-religious groups), but it's especially sick when these attitudes are propagated by supposed love. Truly, 'they worship me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me'. This makes me question anything that supports rape fantasies. Anything that would even remotely encourage someone to act out this horrible, life ruining crime on another human being is very bad for society. It's one form of censorship I would support.
- tumult 16y ago
  Not brave enough to stand up for censorship with your own account? I voted you down. I don't think your comment has any meaningful place in this thread. It should go without saying that you shouldn't use someone's death to soapbox about censorship or any other unrelated topic.
  - anon_for_this_1 16y ago
    Like my other account is any less anonymous? (didn't realize I was signed in with this account). Journalistic convention is more related to the topic?? We've just found out about someone that suffered through a hell-filled life because of some sicko's fantasy. I'd hope we would try and figure out a way to spare others the same aweful fate.
    - anon_for_this_1 16y ago
      Damn. Getting all teary-eyed reading the posts in the other thread. Life on this little rock can be so hard sometimes... RIP Bill.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      > because of some sicko's fantasy. No, he suffered through a hell-filled life because of some sicko's _actions_.
      - anon_for_this_1 16y ago
        OK, agreed. And did that guy just get up one day and decide to do this out of the blue? No way -- he fantasized about it first. Thoughts lead to actions -- it's always worked that way. Granted, not ALL thoughts lead to ALL actions, but no action ever happened before the thought. Encouraging or feeding a _destructive_ fantasy doesn't have any positive outcomes (neutral at best).
        steveklabnik 16y ago
        > no action ever happened before the thought. What about 'crimes of passion'?
        uriel 16y ago
        Oh, this is such a great argument for thought crimes! Because most crimes occur after somebody thinks of them, we should ban any thought (and by implication this includes any depiction) of any crime! I'm sure that will work out great. But it is hardly surprising that a religious person came up with this, given that most sins are already thought crimes.
      - uriel 16y ago
        Well, in fairness, religious people seem to have difficulty telling apart fantasies from reality... After all, that is what faith is, a strong belief that your fantasies are real.
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callmeed 16y ago
Unfortunately, it's not. I couldn't find the comments you mentioned, but the unfortunate fact is that many religious people are (at best) a shadow of what their beliefs are based on. I say this as a devout (but not fundamentalist) Christian. This entire article grieves me–including his descriptions of how his father treated him. No matter what choices my kids make, I could never treat them that way.
- javert 16y ago
  I mean no personal disrespect towards you, but you're implying that religions are themselves tolerant and respectful, and that people are flawed for not being able to "live up" to them. In reality, religions tend not to be tolerant and respectful, and criticizing people in general for not being "good enough" to live up to a religious standard is unfair.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    implying that religions are themselves I take issue with even that much of the concept. Religions are not entities, only the people that make them up are. And it seems the unfortunately vast majority of the time, those people are hateful, ignorant, or just plain dulled.
    - baguasquirrel 16y ago
      "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." -Gandhi
    - javert 16y ago
      Religions are not entities, only the people that make them up are. I could have phrased what I said better, but I stand by the essential meaning of what I said, and I disagree with you. A "religion" as a particular body of ideas, is distinct from the adherents to that religion. Which is why it's perfectly reasonable to say something like, "Most Christians don't actually live up to the teachings of Christianity." For example, nobody can reasonably deny that Christianity involves (1) belief in Christ; (2) a large helping of faith instead of reason; (3) a significant element of self-sacrifice. Or for Islam: (1) belief in the teachings of Muhammad, and in Allah; (2) a large helping of faith instead of reason; (3) a significant element of self-sacrifice (this time posited as "submission"). Buddhism, arguably, might only be (2), depending on your interpretation; I think Buddhism is probably "less well-defined," so to speak, but maybe I just no less about it. Still, there are clearly certain concepts that define and/or are implied by any particular religion.
js2 16y ago
I find proselytism highly disrespectful, yet it's common to Islam, Christianity, and historically Judaism. So I wouldn't say respect is fundamental to religion. I'm willing to give the commentators the benefit of the doubt though and assume they meant no disrespect. They'd probably be puzzled that anyone would find offense. Likely just a lack of exposure to other world views.
- DanI-S 16y ago
  If you truly believe that an all-powerful, provenly vengeful supreme being wants you to personally spread his word to other people, it'd be a pretty bad idea to disobey.
cookiecaper 16y ago
I don't really get what you find disrespectful. Religious people generally believe that death is just a transition into a different plane. Why shouldn't a religious person be able to represent this in a comment? For the record, I read the note, and there's nothing in it that would make it inappropriate to leave a comment like "hope he is happy now" or whatever. Even if he asked people not to say this about his death, which he didn't do, or even remotely hint at, they still would. It's just the common way of addressing death. Most people are religious.
- nopassrecover 16y ago
  Comments that set me off were ones such as "May God have mercy on his soul." and "I am sorry. Please forgive me. Maybe then you can forgive yourself." Even the general "Lord, let your loving kindness be upon him; you came to us first, knowing we could not reach you on our own." seems more religious than consolatory, which bugged me as I got the impression from the note that religion was the facade his family and his abuser used to present themselves as good people and rationalise their inner demons.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    It's likely that many commenters on sites like Gizmodo or Huff Post read the summary and skimmed the note, and left a "generic suicide consolation". That's my guess anyway. That has little to do with the religiosity of those people, I think, it mainly just has to do with a group of people that has very little prudence about speech in general. You shouldn't set your standards too high for the unwashed; Hacker News is anathema to people that don't read, as just about everything here is wall-of-text; no funny cat pictures or YouTube memes to attract the less attentive crowd, and generally no stupid political nit-picking, or anything non-business or non-compsci. Huffington Post is a content farm, essentially, and is filled with lots of distractions. It is also a home base for ideologues, with its founders and editors frequently appearing on talk shows and injecting themselves into political commentary. Much of its readership happens to be religious or Christian, just as most people you meet in the West will happen to be religious and/or Christian. Perhaps we should consider that though many of these people are leaving religiously-oriented comments, the propriety of their writing is not necessarily correlated with their religiosity so much as its correlated with other factors.

anon_for_this_1 16y ago

That was really sad. I'm a Christian, but fully recognize there is some sickening hypocrisy in the 'Christian' world (and probably all religious and non-religious groups), but it's especially sick when these attitudes are propagated by supposed love. Truly, 'they worship me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me'. This makes me question anything that supports rape fantasies. Anything that would even remotely encourage someone to act out this horrible, life ruining crime on another human being is very bad for society. It's one form of censorship I would support.

tumult 16y ago
Not brave enough to stand up for censorship with your own account? I voted you down. I don't think your comment has any meaningful place in this thread. It should go without saying that you shouldn't use someone's death to soapbox about censorship or any other unrelated topic.
- anon_for_this_1 16y ago
  Like my other account is any less anonymous? (didn't realize I was signed in with this account). Journalistic convention is more related to the topic?? We've just found out about someone that suffered through a hell-filled life because of some sicko's fantasy. I'd hope we would try and figure out a way to spare others the same aweful fate.
  - anon_for_this_1 16y ago
    Damn. Getting all teary-eyed reading the posts in the other thread. Life on this little rock can be so hard sometimes... RIP Bill.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    > because of some sicko's fantasy. No, he suffered through a hell-filled life because of some sicko's _actions_.
    - anon_for_this_1 16y ago
      OK, agreed. And did that guy just get up one day and decide to do this out of the blue? No way -- he fantasized about it first. Thoughts lead to actions -- it's always worked that way. Granted, not ALL thoughts lead to ALL actions, but no action ever happened before the thought. Encouraging or feeding a _destructive_ fantasy doesn't have any positive outcomes (neutral at best).
      - steveklabnik 16y ago
        > no action ever happened before the thought. What about 'crimes of passion'?
      - uriel 16y ago
        Oh, this is such a great argument for thought crimes! Because most crimes occur after somebody thinks of them, we should ban any thought (and by implication this includes any depiction) of any crime! I'm sure that will work out great. But it is hardly surprising that a religious person came up with this, given that most sins are already thought crimes.
    - uriel 16y ago
      Well, in fairness, religious people seem to have difficulty telling apart fantasies from reality... After all, that is what faith is, a strong belief that your fantasies are real.
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callmeed 16y ago

Unfortunately, it's not. I couldn't find the comments you mentioned, but the unfortunate fact is that many religious people are (at best) a shadow of what their beliefs are based on. I say this as a devout (but not fundamentalist) Christian. This entire article grieves me–including his descriptions of how his father treated him. No matter what choices my kids make, I could never treat them that way.

javert 16y ago
I mean no personal disrespect towards you, but you're implying that religions are themselves tolerant and respectful, and that people are flawed for not being able to "live up" to them. In reality, religions tend not to be tolerant and respectful, and criticizing people in general for not being "good enough" to live up to a religious standard is unfair.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  implying that religions are themselves I take issue with even that much of the concept. Religions are not entities, only the people that make them up are. And it seems the unfortunately vast majority of the time, those people are hateful, ignorant, or just plain dulled.
  - baguasquirrel 16y ago
    "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." -Gandhi
  - javert 16y ago
    Religions are not entities, only the people that make them up are. I could have phrased what I said better, but I stand by the essential meaning of what I said, and I disagree with you. A "religion" as a particular body of ideas, is distinct from the adherents to that religion. Which is why it's perfectly reasonable to say something like, "Most Christians don't actually live up to the teachings of Christianity." For example, nobody can reasonably deny that Christianity involves (1) belief in Christ; (2) a large helping of faith instead of reason; (3) a significant element of self-sacrifice. Or for Islam: (1) belief in the teachings of Muhammad, and in Allah; (2) a large helping of faith instead of reason; (3) a significant element of self-sacrifice (this time posited as "submission"). Buddhism, arguably, might only be (2), depending on your interpretation; I think Buddhism is probably "less well-defined," so to speak, but maybe I just no less about it. Still, there are clearly certain concepts that define and/or are implied by any particular religion.

js2 16y ago

I find proselytism highly disrespectful, yet it's common to Islam, Christianity, and historically Judaism. So I wouldn't say respect is fundamental to religion. I'm willing to give the commentators the benefit of the doubt though and assume they meant no disrespect. They'd probably be puzzled that anyone would find offense. Likely just a lack of exposure to other world views.

DanI-S 16y ago
If you truly believe that an all-powerful, provenly vengeful supreme being wants you to personally spread his word to other people, it'd be a pretty bad idea to disobey.

cookiecaper 16y ago

I don't really get what you find disrespectful. Religious people generally believe that death is just a transition into a different plane. Why shouldn't a religious person be able to represent this in a comment? For the record, I read the note, and there's nothing in it that would make it inappropriate to leave a comment like "hope he is happy now" or whatever. Even if he asked people not to say this about his death, which he didn't do, or even remotely hint at, they still would. It's just the common way of addressing death. Most people are religious.

nopassrecover 16y ago
Comments that set me off were ones such as "May God have mercy on his soul." and "I am sorry. Please forgive me. Maybe then you can forgive yourself." Even the general "Lord, let your loving kindness be upon him; you came to us first, knowing we could not reach you on our own." seems more religious than consolatory, which bugged me as I got the impression from the note that religion was the facade his family and his abuser used to present themselves as good people and rationalise their inner demons.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  It's likely that many commenters on sites like Gizmodo or Huff Post read the summary and skimmed the note, and left a "generic suicide consolation". That's my guess anyway. That has little to do with the religiosity of those people, I think, it mainly just has to do with a group of people that has very little prudence about speech in general. You shouldn't set your standards too high for the unwashed; Hacker News is anathema to people that don't read, as just about everything here is wall-of-text; no funny cat pictures or YouTube memes to attract the less attentive crowd, and generally no stupid political nit-picking, or anything non-business or non-compsci. Huffington Post is a content farm, essentially, and is filled with lots of distractions. It is also a home base for ideologues, with its founders and editors frequently appearing on talk shows and injecting themselves into political commentary. Much of its readership happens to be religious or Christian, just as most people you meet in the West will happen to be religious and/or Christian. Perhaps we should consider that though many of these people are leaving religiously-oriented comments, the propriety of their writing is not necessarily correlated with their religiosity so much as its correlated with other factors.