SUICIDE AND SECULARISM

 

  

 More than any other indicator, suicide says, “Life isn’t worth living.” What is causing the explosion of suicides among those who have everything to live for – our 10-24-year olds:

·       Suicide rates among youth ages 10 to 24 increased by 57% between 2007 and 2018, data released Thursday from the National Center for Health Statistics shows, rising from almost 7 per 100,000 population to nearly 11. Comparing three-year averages from 2007 to 2009 to the time period between 2016 and 2018 brought the increase down to 47%...The U.S. suicide rate among all age groups was 14 per 100,000 in 2018. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/suicides-among-us-kids-young-adults-jumped-57percent-in-past-decade/ar-BB18ViMs?ocid=se

 

How can we explain this phenomenon? Many explanations are offered:

 

·       “There are many reasons to suspect that suicide rates will increase this year too, not just because of Covid-19 but because stress and anxiety seem to be permeating every aspect of our lives,” said Shannon Monnat, co-director of the Policy, Place, and Population Health Lab at Syracuse University. (Ibid.)

 

It does not seem that environmental factors are significant. This phenomenon is no respecter of the US States. Similar increases are found throughout the States. Instead, it seems to be associated with the growth of secularism, today’s reigning Western religion:

 

·       Diana Graines, in Rolling Stone, noted that prior to the 1960s, teenage suicide was virtually nonexistent among American youth. By 1980 almost four hundred thousand adolescents were attempting suicide every year. By 1987 suicide had become the second largest killer of teens, after automotive accidents. By the 1990s, suicide had slipped down to number three because young people were killing each other as often as they killed themselves. (Vishal Mangalwadi, The Book that Made your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization, 4)

 

Why point the accusing finger at secularism? Secularism destroys meaning and values. It claims that these do not have any independent existence. Instead, they are merely socially constructed for pragmatic reasons. However, our welfare depends upon believing that they are real and represent worthwhile pursuits.

 

However, secularism provides no objective basis for meaning or purpose. How could it possibly do so when it acknowledges that our thinking and feeling are merely biochemical reactions!

 

However, mental health professionals recognize that living in accordance with our deeply believed moral convictions is an important factor for mental well-being. For example, Karen Wright wrote,

 

·       Eudemonia refers to a state of well-being and full functioning that derives from a sense of living in accordance with one’s deeply held values. (Psychology Today, May 2008, 76)

 

This is obvious. However, secularists ascribe their moral programming to evolution. For example, Richard Dawkins writes:

 

·       Natural selection, in ancestral times when we lived in small stable bands like baboons, programmed into our brains altruistic urges, alongside sexual urges, hunger urges, xenophobic urges and so on. (The God Delusion, 221)

 

However, it is not enough for us to merely act altruistically because we have been biochemically programmed by a blind process to do so. If this is the case, altruism is stripped of any consideration for the truth. Why then follow our altruistic urges? Why not other urges? Should we be “xenophobic” (fearful of strangers) merely because we had been “programmed” with this reaction? Should we indulge our sexual urges, even when it hurts others? Of course not! Why then be altruistic? We can only answer this question if there are objective considerations that transcend biochemistry.

 

For the atheist, the only possible answer is pragmatic. Altruistic behavior works; it benefits the doer - It makes you and even those around you feel good. It is solely a matter of a cost/benefit analysis.

 

Atheist, humanist, and author of the Humanist Manifesto II, Paul Kurtz, affirms in its Preamble that the results, the payoff, is the “only” possible justification for morality:

 

·       How are the principles of equality, freedom, and justice to be justified? They are not derived from a divine or natural law nor do they have a special metaphysical [beyond the material world] status. They are rules offered to govern how we shall behave. They can be justified only by reference to their results. (Understanding the Times, 237)

 

However, this stance is not adequate. Sometimes it is not pragmatic to be moral. Hiding Jews from the Nazis would not pass the cost/benefit test. The price of a bullet in the head of the rescuer’s entire family is just too high! Consequently, the consistent pragmatist will inevitably succumb to the pressures and temptations. Either they hide Jews and violate their pragmatic rationale, or they do not hide Jews and violate their conscience. Heart and mind (pragmatism) are divided and in conflict. In either case, their mental well-being will suffer, because they are unable to live “in accordance with their deeply held values.”

 

For the secularist, to deny God and the moral absolutes of the conscience is also to reject the pragmatic benefits of “eudemonia.” There is little satisfaction in living in accordance with the dictates of the conscience if we understand it to be no more than a tyrannical electro-chemical reaction that demands us to make sacrifices that go against our desires and then punishes us with guilt feelings. Therefore, from the secular perspective, numbing our conscience with a drug begins to make sense.

 

I too had experienced the barrenness of secularism. I had been referred to five highly recommended psychologists in my youth. Each had left me worse off than I had been before. I came to understand that everything that I felt, longed for, and dreamed about was merely a product of my childhood deprivations translated into biochemistry. None of it had any meaning or purpose. I was the victim, damaged merchandise, a result of how I had been treated.

Secular therapy had stripped me of any sense of dignity; it laughed at my quest for dignity and honor. It reduced my life to a matter of self-fulfillment but made it impossible to find fulfillment.

 

Secularism is suicide, the death of nobility and society. Instead, I found that my feelings are more than biochemistry, as a fire alarm is more than just a disturbing sound. Instead, it alerts us to the presence of a real fire, which needs to be addressed.

 

We are intricately and beautifully designed. Each part serves a necessary purpose. We cannot deny any of them, least of all, our appointed mission. Before the Roman Festus, Paul explained God’s purpose for our lives as revealed to him through a life-changing encounter with Jesus:

·       “But rise and stand upon your feet, for I [Jesus] have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’” (Acts 26:16-18)

 

We gladly undertake God’s purpose for our lives because we know who we are – children of God, cleansed of sin and surrounded by His love. It is through His purpose and our new identity that any thoughts of self-harm or suicide are driven far away as we recall our glorious and eternal mission.