An Unpopular Conviction

I just don't get how you think depression or any chemical imbalance has nothing to do with this. Boiling down the nature of women giving birth to oppression? It's biology! I've had friends with clinical depression. You sound just like them. Anytime you try to lift them up or out, it's like hitting a brick wall and they just keep feeding off your positive energy till you have none and you can then wallow in self pity together. Misery loves company! I personally think not participating in the cycle of life is non-participation in the Force. Like I mentioned, once you start down the path of the Force, you'll have a choice to make sooner of later, stay who you are, or become a better version of yourself.. There's no in-between.

Sounds like Kreia from the KOTOR2 games to me. I love Kreia -- except for that let's kill the Force stuff. It is as though our friend doesn't like the ways of the Force. Doesn't accept that sentient life can only choose to be sentient once it is sentient, yet when told he can choose to live (and suffer) or die (and not suffer), he seems too blasé to bother with that as well. Basically I'd have to go with PoC's diagnostic. With perhaps an added Nietzsche overdose.

Also I think that women being in control of the reproduction cycle is not oppression of women but oppression of men.

Sapadu wrote: '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.'

A person should never say all....

Or never...

Or always....

To me, life is not suffering... Life simply is.....

"The Second Noble Truth" (of Buddha, right?) is want, or craving is the source of suffering....

And,

"The Third Noble Truth", and I agree, to end suffering completely, one must remove desire, ill will and ignorance....

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Star Forge, as I said, your opinion works for you, we are nit presenting our opinions to change you... Merely to present our POV's.... Defending our opinion....

Just as my opinion, about any subject is valid, for me, and works, for me....

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Red Lila wrote: We gather opinions from hundreds of sources and yet if we are able to name 3 we're doing better than most. Our opinions are shaped by a combination of personality, nature, past experience, and outside input from other people's opinions. When I was Atheist for a time I was firmly Atheist and I held those opinions with the utmost conviction, and yet, as I began to feel the ache of the absence of the spiritual side of my life my opinion backflipped and I couldn't conceive how someone could maintain an atheist view indefinitely; at least the first time. Does that make my opinion or experience at those times any less assured or invalid? No. Does it mean that as my experiences and point of view shifted that my opinions did as well? Definitely and on what could be seen as an almost fundamental point.

Yes, thank you... That is what I was saying....

Our opinions are made based on the world around us... Information we receive, the opinions of others, sites, sounds.....

All thrown together in a shaker (our minds), thoroughly shaken (sometimes)....

And, not exactly dumped out, but leaked out would be a better way to say it....

For after an opinion is made, we do not just drop all consideration (or we should not, for that would stunt our growth), but, we retain bits and pieces for further mixing with yet more and more ideas....

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Maybe... That's what my shaker has leaked out this morning... :woohoo:....

Edit: In the light of talking about a "soul choosing to be born", which seems the whole basis of being "forced" into life in this world:

Let's say there is a soul. It's still, floating in non-dimension. It's observing all around. It's seeing things happening everywhere. But what is happening with it? It is just a seed. It comes to feel bored, without purpose, without function. What can this soul do to become more than just this? How will it be able to develop to have a function, to feel what its energy really means? What exactly gives the definition of any kind of energy?

Positive x Negative
Love x Anger
Happiness x Suffering

This soul, wanting to be more than just a floating seed of nothing, will learn that in order to be more, in order to learn what happiness, love, and light is, it will have to learn what their opposites are. In order to learn their opposites, they will have to be experienced.

Even if this soul does not choose this path, let say it is born into this world. It experiences what this dimension has to offer. Its body grows old and the body dies. Where does this soul stand on things now? In what condition is it in? What has it learned? What has it developed to be? Is this soul full of wisdom, love, peace, harmony? Or is this soul now dark, bitter, angry, or depressed?

If the soul is the latter, why is this? Is it due to being forced into such a life and experiencing suffering? Has this soul experienced so much suffering that there is no possible way to recognize, acknowledge, or live among the otherwise? What has the soul done or not done for itself which resulted in the failure of recognizing, acknowledging and living within the warmth of love that it is offered?

The soul that has successfully obtained the positive energies of the physical realm, on the other hand, reflects back on its experience and would know it did a very good thing. Not only did this soul learn, experienced, and gained a great deal of positive energy through its time, but it has likely also taught other souls as to how to experience these things as well, in the cause to make sure those souls leave that dimension in a similar state.

All the while, there is another soul, still floating as a seed, watching all this happen... and yet, something is blocking it from being able to have the same opportunity. It stays in that one, mono state of being.

Perhaps, eventually, due to being denied such experience, it begins withering away. It dies off into non-existence at all.

Well I personally don't believe in any of these 'souls' or 'planes' but I have a few points I'd like you to consider.

Star Forge wrote: My thesis statement is VERY SIMPLE and I will repeat it yet again. Life is suffering. No matter what quality of life, no matter how fulfilling or horrible, no matter if you are a Brahmin or an Untouchable, life still contains suffering to some degree. To what extent the hypothetical unborn person can deal with and/or overcome the suffering is irrelevant and beside the point. It is still morally wrong to knowingly and intentionally bring a person into a life of suffering. Because Elie Wiesel was able to overcome his experience, should the Holocaust not be considered an injustice, or even just Elie's personal experience? If someone tries to kill you, but you survive and go on to do well, does that mean that their attempted murder was not wrong?

You are ignoring a whole side of existence and emotion. Is happiness suffering because you aren't even happier than you are now?

Why focus on the bad parts? That seems absurd.

You are looking at a 1 sided coin.

I've been flip-flopping between optimism and pessimism my entire life, and the way I've come to see it... the glass is neither half-empty nor half-full. It's just half a glass of water.

(And half a glass of air.)

Taoism teaches that the good things are only seen as good because of the bad things - and consequently, the bad things only bad because of the good things. Buddhism teaches that suffering only comes from attachment. By realizing these things, you start to think that maybe the bad things aren't so bad after all. The real issue is to just focus on the good, and realize that the bad things will, in time, pass.

The Doctor wrote: The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.

My point is... Doctor Who is a really good show.

(This will be in reference to all the posts since my last one)

My depression may or may not have something to do with it, but that is not the point. What it is, is an ad hominem attack. You're not addressing my view, but attributing it to something that may or may not be there, as if it would lessen the validity of my argument. Remember that while Hitler was a horrible person, it didn't mean that he wasn't a gifted leader, and perhaps a genius.

Many of the comments I've read are simply appeals to the pathos (emotion). The lady earlier who mentioned being born blind gave an encouraging story, but it doesn't help to refute my assertations.

Honestly, it seems like many of you think I am just trolling, or that I have a severe mental illness. Did I question something so fundamental, so basic, that it's too far out to explore for most of you? I am reminded of the way the Chinese of the late Ming and Qing dynasties regarded outsiders, especially Europeans they made contact with. To them, there was not Chinese civilization, or British civilization. There was simply civilization, as in, their society which strictly adhered to a completely Confucian worldview, and then the non-Confucian world, which was not considered to have culture or civilization, as both of those things are producs of Confucianism. Perhaps I have ventured outside of your hypothetical Confucian world, and you refuse to go there?

The world is full of beauty, if you choose to see it. The way you see life says much on the way you see yourself. Life is full of suffering, yes, but does that negate the good stuff?

Star Forge wrote: Honestly, it seems like many of you think I am just trolling, or that I have a severe mental illness.

... Although I might agree with how you would read those assumptions in our words... Never assume you know what we are thinking... Just as I don't assume you have illness, or are trolling...

I also see you thinking some of us may not of considered this before... by the next statement of yours...

Star Forge wrote: Did I question something so fundamental, so basic, that it's too far out to explore for most of you?

Have you read my posts? Not in this thread, but in threads of a similar nature to this one? Where I have met others who did not want to have children, a good friend of mine and co-worker, and I questioned his decision to get a vasectomy in his mid 20's.. Before he married his wife?

Don't assume we have not thought this out... Some of us have considered this...

Star Forge wrote: Perhaps I have ventured outside of your hypothetical Confucian world, and you refuse to go there?

Perhaps...

Perhaps, you, like you accuse me, because I too have commented in this thread, think that your opinion is right and infallible? And that because I am confident, and quick and ready to defend my opinion, that I have not thought it through?

And, do you think that in the 5+ hours since my last post, I have not considered it yet further, and again? Using the opinions you have provided?

Don't assume because our view is different, you know what lurks behind the keyboard on this end....

Luthien wrote: The world is full of beauty, if you choose to see it. The way you see life says much on the way you see yourself. Life is full of suffering, yes, but does that negate the good stuff?

Once again, I'm not saying that there are not good points to life. All of you, listen just this once: I BELIEVE THAT IT IS WRONG TO FORCE LIFE UPON THE UNBORN, TO CONSCRIPT THEM INTO MISERY, REGARDLESS OF WHAT ELSE IS EXPERIENCED IN LIFE. How much suffering or how much pleasure life contains is irrelenant. The point is, is that it is suffering.