Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That isn't what I'm saying. Although it is for probably the vast majority of humans that have ever lived. It isn't fully the case nowadays, but if you were born in Pakistan or Somalia to a poor family, your existence is probably going to be unmitigated misery. If you are born into a middle class family in the US, you have a good chance of having a life which satisfies you. However, there are still significant risks that cannot be controlled for by your parents.
Well, keep in mind that a lot of these middle-class American kids are ending up dead in their 20's now anyways due to opiate and heroin addiction. Huge problem in North Dakota and Long Island.
I can't say that I think it's unethical for all people to breed, because I don't. I do however wish that fewer people had been born, I wish that there had been more abortions, and I wish that those who themselves grew up in miserable circumstances were logical enough not to breed given the high probability of them then perpetuating that misery onto someone else (the cycle of abuse has been WELL DOCUMENTED). I basically think that half or possibly more of humanity simply doesn't need to be here, and I would count myself among these.
However, for those whose children can be born into the best possible circumstances due to their wealth, their physical beauty, their own happy childhoods, their ability to screen their fetus in utero for abnormalities, and not being racialized people, I can see why they would be optimistic about their offspring's outcomes. Naomi Watts' kids are among a lucky few.
That's the irony of antinatlism: those who are more likely to be exposed to the philosophy and really meditate on it are far less likely to procreate. As a whole, those who are less educated and are in the worst circumstances are having the most children (whether deliberately, or because of less access to contraception), and the cycle of poverty repeats.
To be honest, if I had known more about the philosophy years ago... I'm not sure if I would have had children. It's tough to think about objectively now because my children are already born, so I can't imagine wishing they weren't. But at the same time, I do think about the inevitable pain they will face in their lives, and I picture them saying exactly what my husbands says "I should have never been born"; will it make any difference to them to know that they are very much wanted? I don't know. I guess at this point it really depends on their perspectives as individuals. My husband wonders why his parents had children, but I (coming from even less ideal circumstances) have the perspective of "Whatevs, it doesn't matter what I want; I'm here and I'm going to get through life with as little fuss and bull**** as possible." The irony isn't lost on either one of that he (the Christian) laments being born, but I (the heathen) shrug my shoulders and accept it.
It isn't fully the case nowadays, but if you were born in Pakistan or Somalia to a poor family, your existence is probably going to be unmitigated misery. If you are born into a middle class family in the US, you have a good chance of having a life which satisfies you. However, there are still significant risks that cannot be controlled for by your parents.
I have these sorts of conversations with theists / apologists all the time, where I point out that human suffering is far worse if you look into the past. Today it is concentrated in places like Somalia but hundreds of years ago pretty much everyone just subsisted except for a very tiny elite. I also have that conversation with Bibliolaters, and point out that most people for most of human history were illiterate so their vaunted "written Word" was pretty useless for most of human history and people were spoon fed snippets of it that were publicly read -- or, more frequently, simply taught in a very slanted way.
But all this works in the opposite direction, too. The fact that things are MUCH better for MANY MORE people today than a few generations ago strongly suggests that they will continue to improve. Even the ability to reflect that your existence is unasked for shows that you are quite a way up the hierarchy of needs.
My hope for humanity is for this trend to continue and therefore I do my best to build on it for the sake of those who will come after me. This is what prevents me from declaring the human experiment failed: to do so at this moment in history would likely be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
To be honest, if I had known more about the philosophy years ago... I'm not sure if I would have had children. It's tough to think about objectively now because my children are already born, so I can't imagine wishing they weren't. But at the same time, I do think about the inevitable pain they will face in their lives, and I picture them saying exactly what my husbands says "I should have never been born"; will it make any difference to them to know that they are very much wanted? I don't know. I guess at this point it really depends on their perspectives as individuals. My husband wonders why his parents had children, but I (coming from even less ideal circumstances) have the perspective of "Whatevs, it doesn't matter what I want; I'm here and I'm going to get through life with as little fuss and bull**** as possible." The irony isn't lost on either one of that he (the Christian) laments being born, but I (the heathen) shrug my shoulders and accept it.
Thanks for opening up about this. Like you, I have spent my life parenting my children, and I love them. But their pain haunts me. My daughter has already been divorced and her current husband is showing strong signs of chronic depression. My oldest grandson is very brooding and cranky and has some signs of high functioning autism, and my middle grandson has epilepsy. My own son has a personality disorder similar to high functioning autism and I struggle to walk the line between being supportive and enabling. He's 30 now, will likely never marry, and unless the stars align just right he will probably never be financially secure and will always have a tendency in certain contexts to make really bad decisions for himself. This is not the sort of thing a parent envisions when having children. I was taught, of course, that if you mean well and try your best to do well, all will work out over time, and look how THAT has worked out.
I think that the irony of a Christian lamenting their existence more than a heathen makes sense though when you consider that it is Christians whose expectations are raised higher, often through the stratosphere, by their own ideology. An empiricist looks at life and says, well, that's what life is. A Christian looks at life and says that is not acceptable ... it does not fit the narrative that I am in god's back pocket and he is protecting and rewarding me for my righteousness and right-ness. An empiricist sees human suffering and looks for ways to ease it ... a theist sees human suffering and tries to figure out where the hidden sin / rebellion / sloth is, because everything is all about blame and fault, everything is somehow deserved.
The Buddhists have it right when they say that suffering comes from expecting particular outcomes. I would add, often expecting outcomes that aren't even grounded in reality.
Thanks for opening up about this. Like you, I have spent my life parenting my children, and I love them. But their pain haunts me. My daughter has already been divorced and her current husband is showing strong signs of chronic depression. My oldest grandson is very brooding and cranky and has some signs of high functioning autism, and my middle grandson has epilepsy. My own son has a personality disorder similar to high functioning autism and I struggle to walk the line between being supportive and enabling. He's 30 now, will likely never marry, and unless the stars align just right he will probably never be financially secure and will always have a tendency in certain contexts to make really bad decisions for himself. This is not the sort of thing a parent envisions when having children. I was taught, of course, that if you mean well and try your best to do well, all will work out over time, and look how THAT has worked out.
I think that the irony of a Christian lamenting their existence more than a heathen makes sense though when you consider that it is Christians whose expectations are raised higher, often through the stratosphere, by their own ideology. An empiricist looks at life and says, well, that's what life is. A Christian looks at life and says that is not acceptable ... it does not fit the narrative that I am in god's back pocket and he is protecting and rewarding me for my righteousness and right-ness. An empiricist sees human suffering and looks for ways to ease it ... a theist sees human suffering and tries to figure out where the hidden sin / rebellion / sloth is, because everything is all about blame and fault, everything is somehow deserved.
The Buddhists have it right when they say that suffering comes from expecting particular outcomes. I would add, often expecting outcomes that aren't even grounded in reality.
This all strikes me as intrinsically true. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for opening up about this. Like you, I have spent my life parenting my children, and I love them. But their pain haunts me. My daughter has already been divorced and her current husband is showing strong signs of chronic depression. My oldest grandson is very brooding and cranky and has some signs of high functioning autism, and my middle grandson has epilepsy. My own son has a personality disorder similar to high functioning autism and I struggle to walk the line between being supportive and enabling. He's 30 now, will likely never marry, and unless the stars align just right he will probably never be financially secure and will always have a tendency in certain contexts to make really bad decisions for himself. This is not the sort of thing a parent envisions when having children. I was taught, of course, that if you mean well and try your best to do well, all will work out over time, and look how THAT has worked out.
Exactly. When they're very young, we think we can control their environment and protect them. To some extent we can, but there is so much we are incapable of preventing, and ultimately they are going to be who they're going to be no matter what we do. And in the meantime, even the minor disappointments children face feel like gaping knife-wounds to a parent's heart.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
I think that the irony of a Christian lamenting their existence more than a heathen makes sense though when you consider that it is Christians whose expectations are raised higher, often through the stratosphere, by their own ideology. An empiricist looks at life and says, well, that's what life is. A Christian looks at life and says that is not acceptable ... it does not fit the narrative that I am in god's back pocket and he is protecting and rewarding me for my righteousness and right-ness. An empiricist sees human suffering and looks for ways to ease it ... a theist sees human suffering and tries to figure out where the hidden sin / rebellion / sloth is, because everything is all about blame and fault, everything is somehow deserved.
It's a funny sort of paradox. How does one praise god for knitting him in his mother's womb, fearfully and wonderfully making him, and providing him with a predestined purpose...but at the same time resent it? I think it's more comforting on some level, however cynical it may be, to chalk it up to two people making the choice to mingle reproductive cells, rather than drop a dollar (adjusted for inflation) for a condom. And my purpose it to make the best of it before my time is up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
The Buddhists have it right when they say that suffering comes from expecting particular outcomes. I would add, often expecting outcomes that aren't even grounded in reality.
I read something like many years ago, and it has always stuck with me; something to the effect of unhappiness being the difference between what you have and what you expect to have. I've come to the conclusion that it's very hard to feel disappointed and unhappy if you set the bar of expectations nice and low.
Last edited by Ginge McFantaPants; 03-05-2016 at 08:55 AM..
What do you think is the reason for it? Is it that without a fervent need to indoctrinate anyone with an ideology, there's less of a drive to reproduce? Is it that intelligent people tend to have children later in life, and delayed-fertility tends to be reduced fertility? Indeed, atheists have higher IQ's than the devout, on average: Liberalism, atheism, male sexual exclusivity linked to IQ - CNN.com.
Is it macro-level concerns like the state of the environment? Is it simple nihilism?
My fellow CD atheists, how many of you are childless, and how many of you are childfree? How many have only 1 child?
I'm a childfree person. I think atheists have less kids because they realize they have a choice while in most religions it is a command or very least viewed as an inevitability with pressure from others in that religion.
I read something like many years ago, and it has always stuck with me; something to the effect of unhappiness being the difference between what you have and what you expect to have. I've come to the conclusion that it's very hard to feel disappointed and unhappy if you set the bar of expectations nice and low.
I have said that very thing many times. You can only reduce discontent by lowering your expectations or improving your situation. When you've improved your situation as much as you can then it's time to let go of expectations.
I have said that very thing many times. You can only reduce discontent by lowering your expectations or improving your situation. When you've improved your situation as much as you can then it's time to let go of expectations.
So says the man who was programmed into preposterous expectations and eventually succumbed to disappointment as a result. To blame the source of your preposterous expectations on God because the religion that programmed you was full of s**t and reject God as a result is not rational - understandable, but not rational.
So says the man who was programmed into preposterous expectations and eventually succumbed to disappointment as a result. To blame the source of your preposterous expectations on God because the religion that programmed you was full of s**t and reject God as a result is not rational - understandable, but not rational.
Understandable that it was a precipitating factor in my apostasy, but you are mistaken that it plays any significant role this far out. That is precisely why I am such a proponent of letting go of expectations -- and I don't even limit that to unreasonable expectations anymore.
Your contention that I blame god for my expectations is simply a variation on the ridiculous typical theist claim that atheists are "mad at god", which is inherently impossible. Only a theist can be "mad at god". And only a theist needs to see atheism as anger at a god we are just pretending not to believe in. To accept it for what it is, would be to deny the theist narrative that god exists and that the knowledge of that god is inherent in all humans, denied or not. It would also violate the taboo against being angry at religion and religious ideation and the failed epistemology of faith and the harms that flow from them. If theists push the idea that atheists are "mad at god", they can deflect attention from deconvert's legitimate anger at people who claim to speak for god and thus hold others in the intellectual bondage that they have managed to extricate themselves from.
These days I fully own my formerly inflated expectations and my role in having them. There are plenty of people here who never bought into such ridiculous expectations despite being in similar religious environments that attempted to foster and support them.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
