Was Ecclesiastes right? Is not existing better than existing?

The bible is just a collection of books and each book should be viewed individually. When Solomon was writing Ecclesiastes he did not know that his book would be included with a bunch of other religious texts. If you try reinterpret the book to superimpose a biblical message onto it you are robbing it of its beauty.

I love Ecclesiastes for this exact reason. It breaks up the general positive "God and his creation is good'" message of the Bible and instead inverts it into a materialistic and nihilistic worldview. It's what gives the most reasoning for believing in a God out of all the books, IMO.

Finish the book zoomer, all you people quote from is the first half

how do you personally define an evil life in this context
and why did you think you even needed to come in and clarify anything, it seems like a fairly simple thing that everybody understood so you just look odd bumbling in calling everybody retards and not doing anything but restating the op.

>i dont see how you cna classify suffering as not bad if most organisms and pretty much any human seeks to avoid it.
Simply false. How can you tell yourself such bullshit?

Most people ACTIVELY seek suffering in order to overcome it. Literally every single person in a first world country who isn't a NEET is choosing suffering over not suffering.
Every person who visits the gym, or does any kind of sport, who seeks an education, desires relationships, participate in his community, any mother who seeks to give birth to a child they ALL choose to suffer and yet here you stand, exclaiming the most obvious falsehood.

You don't even believe it YOURSELF, or do you spend your time lying in a government financed flat, staring at the wall only leaving when your existence is under threat?

I don't have to elaborate why 2+2 isn't 5.

>2+2=5
What do you mean? Everything I said was absolutely correct.

So what are antinatalists doing to eliminate life? Times running up on our time here, if you don’t work quickly the simplest organisms will rise up again.

Oh sorry, quoted the wrong post.

oh come on obviously not all "suffering" is equal, peole living in despair, starving or having their families killed is not euqal to me going to the gym to get a reward. why would you classify slight discomfort as suffering anyway.
but that still doesnt respond to the original argument, a human not exisiting and not being able to experience joy is a moral neutral but a human not existing and not experiencing genuine suffering is a moral good, that imbalance leads to antinatalism

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>So what are antinatalists doing to eliminate life?
Nothing, they don't have the courage to act out their own "beliefs" and start with themselves.

>oh come on obviously not all "suffering" is equal, peole living in despair, starving or having their families killed
So suffering doesn't exist in the first world?
Good to know, so antinatalism doesn't apply to people in the first world.

But of course you don't believe that and are making up shit to justify your obviously false belief system.

>but that still doesnt respond to the original argument, a human not exisiting and not being able to experience joy is a moral neutral but a human not existing and not experiencing genuine suffering is a moral good, that imbalance leads to antinatalism
It does. Again suffering is NOT bad, pretty much any person, even the antinatalists WANTS to overcome suffering.

i think antinatalism is a interesting concept but i dont personally adhere to it, why those people dont off themself is a good question if they genuiently believed it they should, but i still feel its a legitimate challange that you are just somewhat avoiding.
>So suffering doesn't exist in the first world?
since you have accepted my comparison and only reject my definition of suffering a single individual experiencing genuine suffering would be enough to justify the theory no?
suffering in the first world is still real, dont get me wrong i dont agree with the people bitching and moaning even though compared to the rest of the world they are living an amazing life but that doesnt mean that those people enjoy life. it goes hand in hand with nihilism as i understand it thats why any potential positive is completely disreguarded.
>Again suffering is NOT bad, pretty much any person, even the antinatalists WANTS to overcome suffering
thats just gay, ofc its bad if people want to overcome it, nobody wants to get cancer for the joy of beating it. and the people that cant overcome genuine suffering justify the premis.

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>Is not existing better than existing?
no, because then you wouldn't be able to witness THESE DUBS

Suffering --- friction --- is inherent to life. There is no need to seek it out.

evil life : one that facilitates suffering (including ignorance) and/or death for others

an anti-natalist would incinerate all of belongings and then kill himself if he were true to the name

the ultimate good is to overcome suffering, facilitate its overcoming in others, and eventually outgrow it, even in the face of death (eventually you outgrow death itself)

>a single individual experiencing genuine suffering would be enough to justify the theory no?
No, it would mean that there are situation in which antinatalism is acceptable, but those situations are extremely rare in the first world.

And I mean, yes, if someone is suffering something you call "genuine suffering", then I believe there is a legitimate point to be made for antinatalism. If someone is severely crippled or suffering from a horrible disease then I completely accept that for these people there is no point in continuing their lives and they should draw their consequences from that.

But that isn't really the point of the antinatalists, if you are still seeking out "non genuine suffering", which is something pretty much any person does, then it can't be bad enough to desire not having lived at all.
I can kinda see why for the antinatalists suicide might be a hurdle, but taking unnecessary actions which lead to suffering is still something they do, which is why I believe they are just hypocrites.

>nobody wants to get cancer for the joy of beating it
Thats because there is no gain in beating cancer, people seek out "non genuine suffering" because it ultimately benefits them. Justifying the action as a whole.

i was thinking of antinatalism more as the "dont have kids" movement, you could argue that killing yourself and the fear of death will impose massive suffering and maybe thats why they dont kill themself, but the main argument would be against having kids, thats where the unequal balance comes in, a kid that is not born is not bad but a kid that is born and has a negative life is moraly reprehensible. thats why they conclude that not having kids is the moral thing to do.

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>i was thinking of antinatalism more as the "dont have kids" movement
Sure, but their arguments have other consequences. If you are arguing that you shouldn't have kids because life is net awfulness, then you also have to live your life under that premise.

>you could argue that killing yourself and the fear of death will impose massive suffering and maybe thats why they dont kill themself
Yes, sure. That is a perfectly fine reason to not kill yourself, but it is NOT an argument for the other types of suffering people seek out. Instead of killing yourself you can spend your time lying in bed, only doing the things necessary to prevent suffering in the future.
But that only makes sense under the premise that life is actually on average not worth living, which has obvious consequences for their own lives.
"Stop having kids" is their conclusion, but I am attacking their premises.

>"Stop having kids" is their conclusion, but I am attacking their premises.
i dont think that is legitimate criticism, overcoming small suffering eg going to the gym getting a job improves your life overall, even if you have a pessemistic view of life you can still seek to improve it no?

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>suffering isn't bad
An entire ideology debunked in one clause. In all seriousness though, the object of antinatalists' attention is misplaced. They assert the primacy of suffering, not realising that it is meaning (or a lack thereof) that suffering derives its value from. People pick meaningful suffering (e.g. going to the gym, pursuing a medical degree, caring for a terminally ill family member) over meaningless pleasure all the time.

>60% of people are overweight
>People pick meaningful suffering over meaningless pleasure all the time.
doubt

People are overweight because they're too busy wageslaving for the sake of their families to go to the gym.

obviously by not having children or reproducing...anti-natalism does not mean "kill yourself and everybody else"

Anti-natalism presupposes the falsity of metempsychosis. By not reproducing, you prevent a soul from transmigrating into a new body and reincarnating i.e. you are causing that soul to SUFFER in limbo for eternity

This quote is out of context. He is articulating emotional circumlocution. It's only a weltschmerz mood: he ultimately advocates a simple joy in God's gifts, such as they are. If you're fixating on the depressive chunks of Ecclesiastes you still haven't made it, you still don't "get" it.
Summer Yea Forums is grotesque.
Christian revisionism of Ecclesiastes exists. It's mostly to the effect of Ecclesiastes being a somber account of the insufficiency of living without the Christian God. Or the humilitous joy angle is made out to be a joy in Christ thing. It's sad that some people read the New Testament before the Old Testament.
(etc.)
Summer Yea Forums is grotesque.

But life is the sum of all of these things. What can an antinatalist point to and say "that suffering makes my life not worth living and the risk to inflict it on a child is too great".

If life is suffering, then the weighted majority of all it's parts must be suffering too.

not really, the point is that potential happieness doesnt matter, like i stated in the first post: having millions of people starve in africa is bad but 1 billion people not existing and not inhabiting antartica doesnt matter, you dont feel bad that there are not 1 billion more people. and by that logic any amount of suffering will offset the happieness gained because that is irrelevant.
A child that is not born cannot experience suffering but also no happieness. but thats a moral neutral.

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This is true, antinatalism has no transcendent value, unlike the religions that it agrees with

what exactly is the point if you don't stop life totally

Plenty of lives are full of meaningless suffering, which is what antinatalists don't want to risk with their children

You are arguing in circles. The chance of a child starving in the first world is miniscule.
What is *actually* bad about existing for the majority of first worlders? So bad that no amount of happiness can offset it?

>It boils down to "you were born. bummer"
This is basically what Jew theology is. There isn't the happy clappy feel-good message of the new testament.

i'm not arguing in circles you are just misunderstanding me, the point is that nonexistance is neither good or bad. ok. so a kid that doesnt exist ist not good or bad. said kid doesnt experience happieness wich is irrelevant because it doesnt exist. said kid can also not experience suffering wich is good. like aborting a fetus that will be born disabeled(without the abortion debate because the kid isnt born).
The point is not that its impossible for the kid to have a good life but rahter that its impossible for the kid to have a bad life if its never born. if you dont have kids you have a 100% chance of them never experiencing suffering.
is the example with the people in antartica shit? i feel like that encapsulates it perfectly, you are obviously not upset there are people that dont exist(doesnt make sense you get the point), but you are upset that people suffer, even in tiny ways like the online depression sadboys that could still be avoided if they werent born.

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But if the weighted majority live good lives, where is the argument?
If there is a 99% for your child to live a good life, then where is the point of the antinatalists.

And I think we already concluded that minor amounts off suffering can be a net positive.

>but you are upset that people suffer, even in tiny ways like the online depression sadboys that could still be avoided if they werent born.
No, in fact their existence is good.

it's because it's completely devoid of context

finally someone with a brain in this shitty thread

The majority of people in the world do not, by any metric, live good lives. It is those people who need antinatalism the most, not first worlders.

Ecclesiastes sounds like a fucking fag lmao

>Was Ecclesiastes right? Is not existing better than existing?
Read it all the way to the end, retard.

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a lot of those third worlders kill themselves less frequently than first worlders. Im not saying the correlation is between wealth and suicide, because many countries don't show this trend, only that whatever the actual correlation is is more complicated, or some factor we're not identifying properly.

>If there is a 99% for your child to live a good life
its still bad, its like saying if you throw a coin from a high building you have a 99% chance to not hit anyone, it would still be the moral thing to not throw the coin.

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Antinatalists are retarded.
A potentially sad child can always kill itself.
A potentially happy child can't will itself into existence.
Therefore it's better to have kids on the off chance that they're happy.

horrible post

solomon isnt complaining about suffering he is complaining about beholding evil

>Summer Yea Forums is grotesque.
thanks, someone has to say it

holy shit

Friendly reminder that anime is anti-Christian.
Recite the Suicide Prayer 1000 times to absolve.

the fuck is wrong with you depressing suicidal fucks holy shit

It was influenced by the stoics

No, that's complete nonsense. Those who don't exist can't be better off than those who do because those that don't exist can't be anything at all, let alone better off than anyone else, because they don't exist, thus there isn't anyone to be better off than anyone else.

its almost like this text has nothing to do with the religion of Christ and was compiled retroactively and actually belonged to another tradition originally

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