Hacking Suicide

Here’s a religious hack:

You want to commit suicide, but it’s a mortal sin: your soul goes straight to hell, forever. So what you do is murder someone. That will get you executed, but if you confess your sins to a priest beforehand you avoid hell. Problem solved.

This was actually a problem in the 17th and 18th centuries in Northern Europe, particularly Denmark. And it remained a problem until capital punishment was abolished for murder.

It’s a clever hack. I didn’t learn about it in time to put it in my book, A Hacker’s Mind, but I have several other good hacks of religious rules…