[quote=Mammon]Sometimes when an animal is severely injured, senile, or otherwise abnormal, people kill them to put them out of their misery. It's a perfectly acceptable act and minimizes the suffering of the animal. Why would you try to deny or belittle that same right for a human being, who--as far as we know--has a much higher capacity for emotional and mental pain?[/quote]

Because, an animal, unlike a person, cannot seek help. If they're injured take them to a vet unless they're obviously going to die then put them out of their misery. If they're senile it's called "Euthenasia" and shouldn't be denied, and "otherwise abnormal" should we start executing the blind, the deaf, people with down syndrome? After all, by your comparator we'd just be putting them out of their misery, it's a perfectly acceptable act after all.

A human being, unlike an animal with that critical little "language barrier" issue, can seek help. 

[quote=Mammon] It's the ultimate expression of will over one's own body and own life.[/quote]

No, it's the ultimate expression of a fear of living more than a fear of death. People go on about how it's an "ultimate expression of will" it really isn't. The human sense of self-preservation is not that strong, curiosity, boredom and all other manner of things overcome it almost every time. "What is that strange thing." "What's it like to jump out of an aircraft." "I'm going to join the military." 

The only difference is that a suicide is setting out to kill themselves.

[quote=Mammon] If you loved someone who committed suicide because they had no hope of recovery from their mental illness, then you should find comfort in the fact that they are no longer in such pain, instead of pretending that it was an act of pure selfishness or greed. [/quote]

If someone I loved committed suicide i'd hold their memory in contempt for the short time it'd take me to discard their memory. Most people who commit suicide don't even make genuine attempts to get help. And unlike some i'm not speaking from a void here. I've had near crippling depression and anxiety issues for some years but I refuse to let that get me. In the end life is a battle and i'm not going down without a fight.

People who commit suicide ARE acting out of pure selfishness and greed. They can't see a way to make their lives better. They don't WANT a way to make their lives better, instead they want a way out and will take it and leave everyone around them to pick up the pieces.

[quote=Mammon] What I find more piteous is the life they must have endured to commit suicide. I can only imagine what someone must have gone through because of either mental illness or trauma to choose death and peace over life and suffering. [/quote]

In most cases, absolutely nothing to justify or explain it. Sure there are some cases, such as rape or child molestation victims who I percieve as having a damned good reason to do so. Or a parent that has lost their children in some horrific accident. But the vast majority of suicides have no logical, rational or in any possible way justifiable reason other than "life's too hard, ima checkin out early."

[quote=Mammon] I somehow doubt an all-loving and understanding god would punish someone for taking their own life because of trauma or mental illness. [/quote]

The problem with people who believe in an "all loving" and "all forgiving" god is that their own source material doesn't support it. He's the type that floods the world for over a month in a tiff because people he gave free will didn't behave properly. He's the type that incinerates a guy's wife because she looked back curious to see what smiting Sodom and Gommorah looked like, of which yeah, he's the type douchy enough to obliterate a couple cities he didn't like.

Or the time he allegedly unleashed seven plagues on egypt because he didn't like they way they ran the show.

Or the time he let his "son" get nailed to some crude Carpentry so he had an excuse not to go all apocalypse on humanity's arses again. 

Let's be honest, most people who believe in an all loving and forgiving god haven't read all the source material :p

[quote=Mammon] It is not the weakness or selfishness of the victim which leads them to kill themselves. [/quote]

Yes. It is.