“Suicide Prevention” curriculum in the schools sounds like a good idea, but it faces a huge hurdle. The biology departments in most schools teach evolution. One conclusion of evolution is that this universe, this life, and students’ lives in particular are all a complete, meaningless accident, the result of pure chance. As author and former islander Frank Peretti summarized it years ago, Evolution teaches, “From goo to you by way of the zoo.” He pointed out that conditioning children to believe that they are nothing but meaningless blips on the universe’s radar makes it pointless then to send them to a class on self-esteem.

— Peter Thalhofer