true. good one, counterpoint. btw, your name has taken on new meaning to me. but, i like it. just as science says that it can prove nothing unless it has caused a debate - and God - who is unseen - but felt by Christians to be as real as matter has to be proved by faith. the source of their healing, the source of their inspiration, the source of their joy, and the source of their physical and spiritual journeys. i truly feel - looking back on my life that it was somehow - preplanned to be 'for good.' i think every person's life on this earth is preplanned 'for good.' it is satan who takes away the seed planted (the Word) and replants something false. false ideas. false hopes. they lead to desperation. and finally, death.
i would prove this by the lack of numbers of depression and suicide by professing christians as compared to non-christians.
www.adherents.com/misc/religion_suicide.html they are on the whole - much happier on the LONG term. now, the short term they might get flighty or mad temporarily - but long term - their lives are blessed. how do you explain this phenomenon of blessing. it is truth! the truth sets you free. free from anger. free from stress (when you pray). free from worry (if someone does you wrong). free from trying to compete. free from thinking that you are not 'good enough.' God covers our sins and even throws them as far as east is from west. who is so kind as that to forget our sins (from our own family/brother/mankind)?
the fact our lives carry worth should cause any who should wish to carry out physician assisted suicide (unless this is what a patient keeps requesting due to severe pain or whatever?) to think twice. it is murder. killing. for us to reflect to others that their lives have no worth because they are mentally incapable or old - is starting down the path of 'let's play God.' ps sorry about this last paragraph because i know that not everyone belongs in a category and i certainly don't think that only athiests or agnostics believe this.
as i see it- there is hope in the ressurrection - but we don't try to assist our own deaths to gain it faster. although i have seen articles where believers, trying to avoid severe persecution, committed mass - suicide. to me, these are 'forced' issues. choosing between someone heartlessly torturing and then murdering - or a quick death. but, normally - in a normal life - you have the up's and downs of health at the end and then a natural death - just like with birth. it's as if God helps you when you get to the end, imo. for instance, one of my husband's aunt's lived to be 101. she was kind of 'out of it' the last year - but her family kept rallying around her and encouraging her. even though possibly she couldn't hear, speak, see, or feel much - she would give small indications of awareness at times and yet - through the darkness was coming closer to death without much pain or awareness of the totality of it. i think allowing a person to be older at death - causes this 'phenomenon.'