• empathy
    4
    People are born everyday and they will one day die and cause grief to those they left behind. Life is full of suffering that they did not consent to. Leaders are full of greed and aggression and need more people for tax dollars and soldiers. There are diseases, parasites, germs, blood-sucking insects, and animals that bite and kill and eat each other. Even humans are usually selfish and indifferent to the suffering of others except in extreme cases such as an emergency or a natural disaster. Every second is a second closer to death and eventually everyone is killed by life (no immortals yet, as far as we know).


    Is it even ethical to have children and bring them to the suffering of life in the world without them being able to consent to it? Why do human beings ignore that the world is full of pain and suffering and try to walk around happy, indifferent to the suffering and even creating more suffering sometimes?

  • halo
    47
    We choose our own reality based on what we choose to focus on.
  • empathy
    4
    Not really, Halo. People can die or get sick by surprise when they didn't expect to. They didn't choose it by focusing on it.
  • Brett
    3k
    Why do human beings ignore that the world is full of pain and suffering and try to walk around happy, indifferent to the suffering and even creating more suffering sometimes?empathy

    I don’t know if what you say is necessarily true. I don’t think they’re indifferent and I think a lot of people will take on the suffering of others to help them through it. Walking around being happy, or trying, as you say, may mean they are relatively happy for that moment in a world that is hard going and that they’re experiencing a moment of relief from it all. What’s amazing about it all is that people find moments of happiness in the simplest of situations and pass it on to others. A smile really is an infectious thing.
  • BrettAccepted Answer
    3k
    People are born everyday and they will one day die and cause grief to those they left behind.empathy

    This too is not altogether true. There are people who pass through the lives of others and leave a lot more in the long term than just grief.
  • empathy
    4


    Yeah, they leave a lot and it hurts even more when they leave and are reminded of how their love is not present with them physically.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    Is it even ethical to have children and bring them to the suffering of life in the world without them being able to consent to it?empathy

    This is a difficult conundrum. If the babies later when they can communicate complex thoughts properly, decide they ought not to have been born, it's not possible to retroactively fulfill their wishes and demands to not be born. At the time of birth, or during the first trimester, the baby has no concept of life, and is not able to communicate anything, yet that's when the abortion of the life ought to occur.

    Indeed you asked a valid and invalid question.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    People are born everyday and they will one day die and cause grief to those they left behind.
    — empathy

    This too is not altogether true. There are people who pass through the lives of others and leave a lot more in the long term than just grief.
    Brett

    True, this is. My aunt left me a trust fund which was beyond and over and above the grief I ought to have experienced with her passing, but did not.

    And my uncle, my aunt's husband, who died 20 years prior, left me five pairs of nylon socks (male) size 8. That was all he could muster for me, in order to leave something, since grief was not one of them.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    Yeah, they leave a lot and it hurts even more when they leave and are reminded of how their love is not present with them physically.empathy

    Well, actually,it's not true. Their love (the love THEY feel, not what we feel for them) stays with them. They can't take it with them, and they can't leave them behind. Love stays in a limbo, somewhere around the coffin in which the dearly beloved lie six feet under, and also at or about midnight on Friday, the thirteenth, at fool moon, when Love and other parts of the remains of the dearly beloved do their rounds of visitation.
  • T Clark
    13k
    People are born everyday and they will one day die and cause grief to those they left behind. Life is full of suffering that they did not consent to. Leaders are full of greed and aggression and need more people for tax dollars and soldiers. There are diseases, parasites, germs, blood-sucking insects, and animals that bite and kill and eat each other. Even humans are usually selfish and indifferent to the suffering of others except in extreme cases such as an emergency or a natural disaster. Every second is a second closer to death and eventually everyone is killed by life (no immortals yet, as far as we know).

    Is it even ethical to have children and bring them to the suffering of life in the world without them being able to consent to it? Why do human beings ignore that the world is full of pain and suffering and try to walk around happy, indifferent to the suffering and even creating more suffering sometimes?
    empathy

    The argument you are making is the justification for anti-natalism - the belief that people should not have children. It has been discussed on this forum many times. One of the main proponents of this way of thinking is @schopenhauer1. I suggest you take a look at some of his posts. Actually, you may find his current thread interesting.



    Many of us do not agree with his, or, apparently, your, view of life.
  • Franklin Crook
    23
    Yeah well its the best we got. Life is.
  • T Clark
    13k
    Yeah well its the best we got. Life is.Franklin Crook

    For a counter-argument to that, you should take a look at Schopenhuer1's thread I linked.
  • Franklin Crook
    23
    Where is this link? I clicked on the @schopenhaur1 and found a huge plethora of discussions.Please excuse i am a new member and may not be the best at navigating here. Otherwise i am intrigued to even think there is a realistic counter argument to my satement.
  • BC
    13.1k
    One possible reason is that they just don't think of it as "a hell which is full of suffering"

    It's one thing to acknowledge that there is suffering in the world (that is hard to deny) but it is a sweeping generalization to conclude that life is a hell which is full of suffering. Billions of people are born, live, and die without enduring a lifetime of hellish agony. They might break an arm, or have a heart attack but neither of those things amount to a living nightmare. Even a death from cancer lasts a limited period of time.

    they will one day die
    cause grief to those they left behind
    Life is full of suffering
    Leaders are full of greed and aggression an
    There are diseases, parasites, germs, blood-sucking insects
    animals that bite and kill and eat each other.
    Even humans are usually selfish and indifferent to the suffering of others
    Every second is a second closer to death

    Are you having a bad day, or what?

    Some of your statements are true (we will all die) and some of them are just glittering generalities like "Leaders are full of greed and aggression". There are many people who are leaders at various levels of society and even you can probably think of some minor leader who wasn't full of greed and aggression.

    Choosing to be "against life" is certainly an option, but it seems like one should come up with something a bit more profound and compelling than tape worms and blood-sucking insects. At the very least one could howl at the meaningless universe, for example.

    You are here. Get used to it.
  • BC
    13.1k
    By the way, there is only one Chair allotted to anti-natal philosophy, and it is already occupied. What would your "next best option" be?
  • T Clark
    13k
    Where is this link? I clicked on the schopenhaur1 and found a huge plethora of discussions.Please excuse i am a new member and may not be the best at navigating here. Otherwise i am intrigued to even think there is a realistic counter argument to my satement.Franklin Crook

    Looks like I made the link wrong, but it seems you are already involved in the discussion.
  • Tzeentch
    3.3k
    The vast, vast majority of people who feel "their life is hell", are wallowing in self-pity and are in love with their conception of themselves as Jesus dying on the cross. Truly one of the ugliest of human behaviors.

    It's a choice to not enjoy the beauty with which one is surrounded every day.
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