An Unpopular Conviction

Star Forge wrote: Just as a disclaimer that I really should have given, I am not advocating suicide (which I believe is a personal choice that no one has the right to influence), and I'm certainly not advocating killing anyone, at least not in regards to this issue. I'm not a nihilist, and I would agree that I suffer from depression, but I do not believe it has influenced my view. Depression or lack thereof does not stop one from being a realist, which is what I believe I am doing.

To answer Br. John's question, I find every aspect of reproduction disgusting, from pregnancy, to childbirth, to infants. I also think it's been used as a means of oppressing women, though that is a seperate issue and irrelevant to my views on reproduction. I'm not too into "normal" sex (which, oddly enough, has nothing to do with my anti-reproduction convictions, it was just the way I was programmed), but rest assured there are other things I enjoy (and I will go into no greater detail).

I mean, is the idea of a Christian, fairly conservative, heterosexual, American man being against reproduction so horribly alien?

Thank you. I'm not attacking you. I'm trying to understand and I'm curious. (Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought him back.)

I can think of a very famous person who agreed with you. He wrote the earliest books of The New Testament. (The books in The New Testament are not in the order that they were written. The Gospels were written decades after the Paul books.)

In some of the large early Christian sects sex was considered to be a bad thing. Celibacy was the ideal state. They also believed Christ would be returning in their lifetime. Your idea is not new and was once widely held. We need only read Paul in The Bible to see he agreed with you. [One of the Paul's anyway. I'm convinced there were two Paul's and so are a great many biblical scholars but that's for a different discussion. At any rate it's right there in The New Testament and the author is credited as Paul.]

It goes to show how labels are good servants and bad masters. They work wonders for the cans in the pantry. For people and beliefs ....

Look at what these conservative American Christians believe. http://duggarfamily.com/

Now I'm heading right back in the labels again. I thought that a person who had no interest in sex was an asexual.

Even if a person had a long bad life is that not a small (very small) price to pay for an eternity in Heaven? If you're never born how can you die and get to Heaven. I'm not assuming you hold those beliefs. I'm guessing based on what many Christians believe.

Read my first reply, for my response to your initial thesis. My followup is more to clarify the "not relevant" comments and not specifically related to this argument. The finishing paragraph was more a statement of why I see things differently. Not an attack.

In response to the rest, I believe it was a quote in the Daily Gem a few days ago. "Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears."

Star Forge wrote: Interesting you should say that. For the sake of the question, let's say that complete, unchanged, pure, unrefined Buddhism is true. The goal of a Buddhist is to ultimately achieve Nirvana, freedom from the cycle of rebirth. Everyone will at some point, even if it's an unimaginably long time from now, achieve Nirvana. That would mean that people would stop being born, as rebirth would not be necessary. I mean, one of the central tenets of Buddhism is that we are living in a false reality and that we need to be rejoined with the real. Also, take note of the fact that it's not like the whole world would accept my view overnight, if ever.

Anyway, seen in such a light, our two beliefs are compatible, in a way.

I didn't think the physicality of incarnations represented the cause of the suffering, for instance apparantly beings who have attained Nirvana can do so whilst alive, and then still be reborn physically as living Buddha's - so its not necassarily the physicality that is the cause of suffering, its just that the physical could be a way for the soul to evolve if you adhered to Buddhist beliefs. It might be a particular method of understanding and dealing with suffering which constitutes the Buddhist concepts of rebirth and suffering. I read a translation of Tibetan Book of the Dead over a decade ago and it talks about how they believe the soul confronts the challenges of finding a 'good' rebirth.... so I guess they at least think that rebirth can even be in someway even perhaps a conscious decision!!!!

Br. John wrote:

Star Forge wrote: Just as a disclaimer that I really should have given, I am not advocating suicide (which I believe is a personal choice that no one has the right to influence), and I'm certainly not advocating killing anyone, at least not in regards to this issue. I'm not a nihilist, and I would agree that I suffer from depression, but I do not believe it has influenced my view. Depression or lack thereof does not stop one from being a realist, which is what I believe I am doing.

To answer Br. John's question, I find every aspect of reproduction disgusting, from pregnancy, to childbirth, to infants. I also think it's been used as a means of oppressing women, though that is a seperate issue and irrelevant to my views on reproduction. I'm not too into "normal" sex (which, oddly enough, has nothing to do with my anti-reproduction convictions, it was just the way I was programmed), but rest assured there are other things I enjoy (and I will go into no greater detail).

I mean, is the idea of a Christian, fairly conservative, heterosexual, American man being against reproduction so horribly alien?

Thank you. I'm not attacking you. I'm trying to understand and I'm curious. (Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought him back.)

I can think of a very famous person who agreed with you. He wrote the earliest books of The New Testament. (The books in The New Testament are not in the order that they were written. The Gospels were written decades after the Paul books.)

In some of the large early Christian sects sex was considered to be a bad thing. Celibacy was the ideal state. They also believed Christ would be returning in their lifetime. Your idea is not new and was once widely held. We need only read Paul in The Bible to see he agreed with you. [One of the Paul's anyway. I'm convinced there were two Paul's and so are a great many biblical scholars but that's for a different discussion. At any rate it's right there in The New Testament and the author is credited as Paul.]

It goes to show how labels are good servants and bad masters. They work wonders for the cans in the pantry. For people and beliefs ....

Look at what these conservative American Christians believe. http://duggarfamily.com/

Now I'm heading right back in the labels again. I thought that a person who had no interest in sex was an asexual.

Even if a person had a long bad life is that not a small (very small) price to pay for an eternity in Heaven? If you're never born how can you die and get to Heaven. I'm not assuming you hold those beliefs. I'm guessing based on what many Christians believe.

On the same note, a lot of Christians who believe in hell (which I don't) have kids somehow without fearing that one or more of them will end up there. No, I don't consider "heaven" to be a serious spiritual state or theological doctrine, more a way of describing Theosis, or unity with God/The Force/The Real/etc. And, as I asserted in the original post, it would be horribly materialistic to assert that a soul begins with biological life.

On a side note, those Duggars follow a sicko named Bill Gothard, who, despite remaining single and childless into old age, LOVES to tell people how they owe it to God to bust out as many kids as possible.

Anyway, I've considered castration (like one of my heroes, Origen of Alexandria), but it takes more of a man to fight for what you believe and struggle, so...

That's a very good point about escaping the cycle of birth and death in Buddhism. Yet I know of nowhere that Buddha advocated not having children as the answer.

.

While I do accept many Buddhist beliefs (especially the philosophy), I am not trying to reconcile my views with Buddhism. I was merely giving an answer to his question which was posed from a Buddhist perspective.

Dare I say that physicality could be the product of suffering and not the other way around - from a Buddhist perspective! Sorry if I sidetracked the thread.

'Hmmm...' James pondered, reading the newer posts, '...D'ya wonder if this guy is familiar with Hemingway?'

'A little...' Akitaro agreed, '...I'm assuming you're referring to Hemingway's philosophy that life is only suffering when you're a coward, and all cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, right?'

'And that when you love someone truly great, you feel immortal and do not fear death.' James agreed.

'So, shall we assume, then, that all the fears associated with the suffering in life are coupled with not fearing death, then?' Tensora-san asked, ever the stickler.

'I'd say that's where they were headed.' Taro muttered, laughing nervously, 'Which would then mean that love is the ultimate conqueror of suffering.'

How rosy.

'However...' And here came the CMC, ever the party-pooper, 'He is very correct that all philosophies teach that life IS suffering and there is nothing we can do about it. One would presume this includes love -- even if you do love, it does not erase, nor even ease the suffering. If anything, suffering is the greatest power of them all.'

This was not what the Okama-Geisha characters had wanted to hear. Leave it to a Tragedy to ruin a Comedy.

"It's both." Jack piped up, having finished a long and censored argument with Daline. Everyone looked at her, "Suffering is both completely overpowering, and helpless in the face of optimism. Life both is suffering and is NOT suffering." At this, virtually everyone wore a look of 'Jesus Christ, now I've got a headache' on their faces, "Like a Zen riddle. What is the sound of one hand clapping? What was your original face before your mother and father were born?"

'Or a student asks a teacher 'What is the state of mind I should train myself in to find truth?' and the teacher replies, 'There is no mind, so you cannot put it in any state. There is no truth, so you cannot find it.' Taro continued.

'If I see you have a staff, I will give it to you. If I see you have no staff, I will take it away from you.' Tensora-san chimed in.

'A master cannot teach Zen unless he is offered an empty cup.' Even the Count agreed, gesturing with his own empty, for once, teacup.

'What is so hot, it's cool and so cool, it's hot?' James asked. Akitaro stared at him a moment, before meekly mumbling,

'...Pop Ta-'

'IT'S NOT POP-TARTS!'

Jack sighed and shook her head. Why did all the incarnations of her own insanity have to be such freaks?

Does the soul choose to be reborn?

I'm in a bit of shock too to be honest. It's one thing to not want to have kids, but to propose that it's wrong for everyone is surprising to me. I believe a soul has a choice of being born and having a physical form. I personally am very thankful to be alive. I was born blind as were several of my friends. One of them had the doctor ask her mom if she wanted an abortion because her blindness was genetic. This person is a powerful woman who loves life. If it's not okay for me to "force" a child to be born into this world of suffering, is it then okay to force a soul to not be born if it wants? Perhaps we have all experienced dark things. I've had experiences from rape to friends committing suicide to a father and an ex-fiance who were deep into drug addictions. Not to mention blindness which most people would consider an affliction or suffering until they met me and got to know more. Have I suffered? Sure. At first. Yet I also learned vast amounts from it and these things don't plague me. They're just part of what I've experienced. Blindness is my gift to the world because I show people how to get to know others based on things like vibes or knowing the soul directly instead of the clothes they wear or how they arrange their hair.

When a couple has sex, they don't always get pregnant. What causes the once in a while chance of pregnancy? One could say it's the sperm meeting with the egg etc. However, one could also say it's the choice of the one who is yet unborn. (My apologies to the young people here. I'm not sure of the age range but thought since we're discussing reproduction the comment was appropriate.) What I will say though is that I wouldn't want to have children if I weren't happily married. However, I wouldn't call for that for everyone because I've seen amazing single parent families. As far as childbirth and such being oppressive to women, I know many women, including myself, who would love to have children. In my opinion, it's only oppression if the woman doesn't want to and is forced by her partner.