What makes your life worth living?

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Jamiet99uk
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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#141 Post by Jamiet99uk » Mon Oct 24, 2022 5:26 pm

Wusti wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 4:30 am
Jamiet99uk wrote:
Sat Oct 22, 2022 6:02 pm
@Fluminator: If you still want more from me on why suffering is bad, I have been reflecting on how to explain it to you.

I think that suffering is bad because I have experienced it, and I have some evidence to suggest to me that others experience suffering as a bad thing also.

I know that when something happens that causes me to suffer, I do not like it, it upsets me, it makes me sad.

I have seen other people experience various forms of suffering and in pretty much every case it was abundantly clear that they also did not like it, and were sad.

Human beings are social creatures. I am a very social person. I do not want to suffer, and I do not want other human beings to experience suffering.

Therefore, I conclude that suffering is bad.

Does that answer you?
I have to say that you need to follow this to the end in various ways, and not just conclude that suffering is bad because it makes you and other feel bad - but the HOW of stopping suffering is something you should consider.

For example when I was in my early 20s and my relationship with my first love broke down I suffered and was sad. How do you make this go away? Well, she could've decided to stay in the relationship - but then she might suffer being stuck with a partner she didn't want to be with anymore - cancelling one suffering creates another.

Paint me a picture of how you can reconcile suffering out of existence and what it would look like.
I didn't say I wanted to "reconcile suffering out of existence". This whole talk about suffering started when Fluminator asked me to explain why it is bad when a small child dies of malaria.

Paint me a picture of why is good that thousands of small children die every day from painful, preventable diseases?
There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. - Lenin.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#142 Post by Crazy Anglican » Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:27 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 5:26 pm
I didn't say I wanted to "reconcile suffering out of existence".
I'd like to reconcile suffering out of existence. I think that's the whole point of trying to get to Heaven and bring as many along as I can.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#143 Post by Jamiet99uk » Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:35 pm

Crazy Anglican wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 1:31 pm
or

B) if He is unwilling to create a world in which there is no suffering, then He is not all-loving.

The answer to B) is that it is a false statement if:

A1) Making such a pain free world creates an undesired (and worse) outcome. To be clear the exact nature of the worse world doesn't need to be defined. The simple possibility that it might be brought into existence defeats the original statement, since none of us actually has any hands on experience with creation of realities there can't be much evidence as to what can go wrong with the process. Thus, any of us simply imagining a world with no pain does nothing since we aren't privy to all the parameters that making such a reality for billions of people would entail.

or

B1) Making a pain free world interferes with or prevents God's plan for a greater outcome for us. In this case God allows pain because for some reason it is a necessary (and by definition short term) element in His (infinite) plan for salvation.

So, the original statement is invalid because there are at least two instances in which God can allow pain in the world and still be omnipotent, omniscient, and loving because allowing the existence of something unpleasant to prevent an outcome that is more unpleasant is an act of love.
Both A1 and B1 boil down to "God has some masterful plan we don't understand, stop questioning him, mortal".

Excuse me if I don't find that at all satisfactory.

All authority should be questioned.
Crazy Anglican wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 1:31 pm
A further weakness in the original statement is that it allows for the existence of God for the sake of argument but doesn't allow for other necessary elements of the religion that would help to inform the discussion. For instance, the existence of Heaven, for most Christians, makes our suffering right now short term because we believe that an infinite and joyous existence is ahead of us.
So it's ok that thousands of infants die of preventable diseases every day, because they can receive Christ after they die, and go to heaven.

If that's the case, what is the point of them, or anyone, being born into the physical world, if their lives will be short and painful and that part doesn't matter? Why are they born only to die before barely experiencing the world? Why does God's masterful plan involve such apparent futility?
There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. - Lenin.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#144 Post by Jamiet99uk » Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:36 pm

Crazy Anglican wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:27 pm
Jamiet99uk wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 5:26 pm
I didn't say I wanted to "reconcile suffering out of existence".
I'd like to reconcile suffering out of existence. I think that's the whole point of trying to get to Heaven and bring as many along as I can.
Then you should paint Wusti a picture.
There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. - Lenin.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#145 Post by Crazy Anglican » Mon Oct 24, 2022 8:07 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:35 pm
Both A1 and B1 boil down to "God has some masterful plan we don't understand, stop questioning him, mortal".

Excuse me if I don't find that at all satisfactory.

I would agree with you if that was remotely close to what I said. I merely gave two possible scenarios that would render the first argument invalid. Both of them do, unless you can find a logical flaw there. God can be omniscient, omnipotent, and loving in a world with suffering. I think that point stands.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#146 Post by Crazy Anglican » Mon Oct 24, 2022 8:17 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:35 pm
So it's ok that thousands of infants die of preventable diseases every day, because they can receive Christ after they die, and go to heaven.

If that's the case, what is the point of them, or anyone, being born into the physical world, if their lives will be short and painful and that part doesn't matter? Why are they born only to die before barely experiencing the world? Why does God's masterful plan involve such apparent futility?
I simply stated that it was a weakness in your argument to assume God's existence for the sake of argument and then deny (or at least ignore) parts of the religion that shed light on the issue.

I don't have to be pro-suffering to be a Christian. Suffering exists, Like others here, I believe that I should do all I can to alleviate it. I don't have to turn my back on my religion to do that, in fact it encourages me to do exactly that.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#147 Post by Crazy Anglican » Mon Oct 24, 2022 8:38 pm

Aaaannnnndddd....

That wasn't your argument at all was it.


I have gone back and read the entire thread to find that one post in which you said something quite similar to what I alluded, and it's not there.

So, I am guilty of creating a strawman that you are in no way obligated to respond to it. That's what I get for wandering off topic in this thread.

Ah well,

Cheers
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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#148 Post by Jamiet99uk » Mon Oct 24, 2022 8:48 pm

Crazy Anglican wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 8:38 pm
Aaaannnnndddd....

That wasn't your argument at all was it.

I have gone back and read the entire thread to find that one post in which you said something quite similar to what I alluded, and it's not there.

So, I am guilty of creating a strawman that you are in no way obligated to respond to it. That's what I get for wandering off topic in this thread.

Ah well,

Cheers
That's ok. It happens in these threads.
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There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. - Lenin.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#149 Post by learnedSloth » Mon Oct 24, 2022 9:18 pm

Fluminator wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 2:27 pm
learnedSloth wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 4:06 am
I don't see how you arrived at that.
The site says that if the world is made through natural processes, it's different from God making it.
That's quite different from saying that God can't work through nature or natural processes, but I still can't figure whence you read so, nor can I imagine that CSC would make such statements.
The Bible even implies it by saying "let the land produce living creature"
Still is miraculous to me
It also took just one day.
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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#150 Post by flash2015 » Tue Oct 25, 2022 2:10 am

JECE wrote:
Sun Oct 23, 2022 10:14 pm
There are three sources here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(religion)#Theravada
I have practiced Buddhist meditation as well (many long courses). You aren't meditating because suffering is an illusion or consciousness is an illusion. You are meditating on the concept of anicca, that everything is constantly changing, that everything arises and passes away. Your cravings and aversions, your good times and your suffering are impermanent. If you think that suffering as an illusion is a core part of Buddhism, I am sorry but you are just wrong.
Last edited by flash2015 on Tue Oct 25, 2022 2:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#151 Post by flash2015 » Tue Oct 25, 2022 2:12 am

JECE wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 1:02 pm
flash2015 wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 1:39 am
JECE wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 12:42 am


If cognition is an illusion, how could suffering not be an illusion? The rest of the Buddhism section is perhaps more explicit.
"Cognition is like a magical illusion (māyā) in the sense that it is insubstantial and cannot be grasped."

I don't think it is saying what you think it is saying.
I don't think that it makes sense for me to argue with your wife via proxy. After all, I'm not a Buddhist and she is. But I don't think that I'm misreading this. The text continues:
". . . Cognition is even more transient and fleeting than a magical illusion. For it gives the impression that a person comes and goes, stands and sits, with the same mind, but the mind is different in each of these activities. Cognition deceives the multitude like a magical illusion (māyā)."

I read that as saying that our mind deceives us into experiencing through the five senses a world that exists only in our mind.
This is all coming back to anicca about things arising and passing away, not that cognition doesn't exist.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#152 Post by JECE » Tue Oct 25, 2022 3:32 am

flash2015 wrote:
Tue Oct 25, 2022 2:10 am
JECE wrote:
Sun Oct 23, 2022 10:14 pm
There are three sources here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(religion)#Theravada
I have practiced Buddhist meditation as well (many long courses). You aren't meditating because suffering is an illusion or consciousness is an illusion. You are meditating on the concept of anicca, that everything is constantly changing, that everything arises and passes away. Your cravings and aversions, your good times and your suffering are impermanent. If you think that suffering as an illusion is a core part of Buddhism, I am sorry but you are just wrong.
But Wikipedia also led me to this quote:
Brian Morris (2006). Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press. p. 51. wrote:"Dukkha, as already noted, implies that all existence involves suffering. Anicca means change and impermanence and holds that all earthly experiences are transient and that there is an unrelenting law of change and decay observable in all things. And, finally, anatta is the doctrine of 'non-self', and is an extreme empiricist doctrine that holds that the notion of an unchanging permanent self is a 'fiction' and has no reality. According to Buddhist doctrine, the individual person consists of five skandhas or heaps – the body, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. The belief in a 'self' or 'soul', over these five skandhas, is illusory and the cause of suffering. Thus the essence of salvation is 'de-individualization', the eradication of all notions of the ego, for when the individual ceases to exist, the result is nirvana, the goal of Buddhism. This doctrine of 'no soul' is intimately associated with the notion of anicca or impermanence, for in Buddhist terms the universe itself is in a state of perpetual flux. But . . . Buddhism makes an even more radical claim, for it does not suggest that there is any permanent or eternal reality."
https://books.google.com/books?id=PguGB_uEQh4C&pg=PA51

I may be wrong, of course. I am no expert. But I find it impossible to reconcile that description of Buddhism with your claims. So much so, in fact, that it would appear that clinging onto the reality of the life around you actively hinders your quest for nirvana.
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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#153 Post by JECE » Tue Oct 25, 2022 3:50 am

JECE wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 12:51 pm
flash2015 wrote:
Mon Oct 24, 2022 1:50 am
It feels like these whole set of sutras are more Mahayana additions rather than Theravada:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prajnaparamita
The Pheṇapiṇḍūpama Sutta is described in the Maya article as an early Buddhist text. Elsewhere on Wikipedia the Sāratthappakāsinī is described as a fifth century text attributed to Buddhaghosa, who was of the Theravada tradition.
Now that you led me to perhaps the better term (anattā, rather than māyā), you may want to also review Anattā in Theravada Buddhism (in addition to the sutras mentioned in Maya (religion) § Theravada).
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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#154 Post by PRINCE WILLIAM » Tue Oct 25, 2022 3:27 pm

Το someone who said the Bible refers to days for the creation:
1. The idea of millions of years was inconceivable for the people of the time, so it was necessary to be given in terms they could understand.
2. As God is eternal, why no to count millions of years as one day for Him? There is a verse in the Psalms that goes near to this by saying that a thousand years are as the day before today for God.

Now to the point, saying that suffering means there is no God. this is so accurate as to say that since there are people with long beards, there are no barbers!

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#155 Post by JECE » Tue Oct 25, 2022 4:20 pm

I respect my barber as much as the next man, but I think him neither omniscient nor omnipotent.
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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#156 Post by Jamiet99uk » Tue Oct 25, 2022 4:36 pm

PRINCE WILLIAM wrote:
Tue Oct 25, 2022 3:27 pm
Now to the point, saying that suffering means there is no God. this is so accurate as to say that since there are people with long beards, there are no barbers!
This is an awful and mis-placed analogy for several reasons. Briefly:

1. I was not suggesting the existence of suffering implies the non-existence of God. Rather, I suggested that the existence of vast, needless suffering implies the non-existence of a perfect, loving God.

2. Suffering is not comparable to beard growth because many men, including myself, have grown beards on purpose, like having them, and do not seek to have them shaved off. Whereas very very few suffering people enjoy suffering and want to go on suffering... surely?
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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#157 Post by Wusti » Wed Oct 26, 2022 1:10 am

"Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God."

Kurt was onto something here.
Octavious is an hypocritical, supercilious tit.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#158 Post by learnedSloth » Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:08 pm

PRINCE WILLIAM wrote:
Tue Oct 25, 2022 3:27 pm
Το someone who said the Bible refers to days for the creation:
1. The idea of millions of years was inconceivable for the people of the time, so it was necessary to be given in terms they could understand.
Millions of years were needed to accommodate atheistic origin myths. They have become popular because they help silence the sense of accountability.
2. As God is eternal, why no to count millions of years as one day for Him? There is a verse in the Psalms that goes near to this by saying that a thousand years are as the day before today for God.
Here's a refutation of the day-age theory:
https://www.icr.org/article/theistic-ev ... ge-theory/
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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#159 Post by KalelChase » Wed Oct 26, 2022 7:38 pm

Okay, I've read much but not all of the thread.
Can I ask learnedSloth or Octavious or Fluminator to educate me on a few things?
In your belief system are these true?

1. Original sin is inherent in us when we are born stemming from our original ancestors not following God's will.
2. We cannot get rid of original sin. The only way to gain this for our immortal soul is to do this is through faith and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our savior?
3. If we do this and God deems us worthy then our immortal soul will be accepted into a heavenly place regardless of what we did on Earth save rejection of said Christ.

Thanks for confirming. I don't want to misunderstand your position.

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Re: What makes your life worth living?

#160 Post by Fluminator » Wed Oct 26, 2022 8:54 pm

KalelChase wrote:
Wed Oct 26, 2022 7:38 pm
Okay, I've read much but not all of the thread.
Can I ask learnedSloth or Octavious or Fluminator to educate me on a few things?
In your belief system are these true?

1. Original sin is inherent in us when we are born stemming from our original ancestors not following God's will.
2. We cannot get rid of original sin. The only way to gain this for our immortal soul is to do this is through faith and acceptance of Jesus Christ as our savior?
3. If we do this and God deems us worthy then our immortal soul will be accepted into a heavenly place regardless of what we did on Earth save rejection of said Christ.

Thanks for confirming. I don't want to misunderstand your position.
1. I do not subscribe to original sin, but it would be accurate to say Catholic and most Protestant belief systems believe that yes. (The Eastern Orthodox church which is massive notably does not)

2. Most Catholic and Protestants believe this yes. LearnedSloth can correct me if I'm wrong but they use the verse Romans 5:18
"Consequently, just as one trespass [Adam] resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act [Jesus] resulted in justification and life for all people."
With that they believe when someone believes in Jesus they are adopted into God's heavenly line and escape Adam's sinful line.
The Orthodox Christians interpret that verse differently and believe that every person is under the "consequence" of original sin, but that they don't fall under the "guilt" of original sin.

3. They way it's worded no. There's no "if you do this AND you're worthy" . They believe if you do this you ARE worthy in God's eyes and nothing else matters. And that it's the only thing that can be done to become perfect and exist with God.
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