For reasons I’ve never been able to fathom, some insist that you can’t say anything meaningful about existence vs. non-existence, and I’d like to ask the following questions
Can we not logically say that you couldn’t experience friendship, love, joy, or happiness (or give any) if you didn’t exist?
And if these things are “good,” can we not say non-existence is the total absence of all such “goods”?
Can we not also say that non-existence is the absence of all pain and suffering?
And that in so far as these things are are “evil” (serve no purpose), can we not say that non-existence is the absence of all such “evils”?
Can we not then say that existence in a state of bliss is better than non-existence, and existence in endless, hopeless, pointless misery would be worse than non-existence?
If we can make any of these statements about non-existence, would it not then seem reasonable to say that a loving God wouldn’t create men and angels He knew would suffer endless conscious torment?
**
But if we can’t really say anything about non-existence, doesn’t it follow that we can’t really say that a loving God wouldn’t create anyone He knew would suffer eternal torment, because we can’t say that roasting in hell forever would be any worse than not existing at all?
If we can say that existence in a state of bliss is better than non-existence (and existence in endless, hopeless, pointless misery would be worse than non-existence), can we not then say that the life of the redeemed in heaven will be better than non-existence?
And doesn’t it then follow that creation was an act of love (worthy of gratitude) on the part of the Creator?
But if we insist that** (while one state of existence can be better or worse than another) existence itself is no better or worse than non-existence, would it not follow that the Creator really gave nothing of value to creatures when He brought them into existence (and that it could not have been a totally unselfish act on His part, but must have been done to make His own state of existence better than it would be without them)?
So can we say that some conceivable states of existence are better than non-existence, that creation was an unselfish act of love, that life is a gift, and that God wouldn’t create beings He knew would suffer eternal conscious torment, or do all these statements involve some kind of category error?
Since we’re talking about our private conversations publicly, I have repeatedly said before there’s a category error involved.
What I explicitly argued was:
1.) Existence has value, and non-existence has no value; but only if God exists. Otherwise existence has no more value than non-existence, because value is a personal quality. (For various technical reasons I also argued this is even more true, so to speak, if the Trinity is true, but I’m trying to summarize here.)
Relatedly, the value of God’s existence, and of the existence of anything else dependent on God for existence, is not dependent on comparison with non-existence for its valuation.
Existence would have inherent value if the ground of all existence is a self-existent person, even if no one ever speculated about comparisons with non-existence. But non-existence would not be in any position to even compare non-value to value.
2.) Unlike God, derivative persons start existing as such, and because God exists our existence has value, not self-inherently but dependent on God’s existence. Even if we don’t value ourselves or other existences, God values us.
3.) Experiential valuation of conditions of existence depends first on existence having value at all, which is previously established to be true if God exists.
4.) By the same token, experiential valuation requires existence for a comparison of situations or conditions to mean anything.
5.) Consequently, there is no point in trying to compare conditions in existence to conditions which wouldn’t exist in non-existence.
I have constantly and consistently argued that that is the sense in which a person is no better off now from having not existed before, and cannot be better off ceasing to exist.
This does not involve denying that existence has value. What I’m denying is that non-existent non-conditions have value: not positive value, not negative value, not even zero value in the sense of comparing value with real integers (with zero being neutral). It might be better described as ‘square root of negative one’ value.
Improvement or degradation of a condition, and a personal evaluation of this, has to do with the evaluation of conditions of existence; and existence must exist (so to speak) for conditions of existence to be compared with one another for better or for worse in any way.
A non-existent person does not improve the conditions of their existence by coming into existence. Nor do they degrade the conditions of their existence by coming into existence. The person does not benefit by coming into existence because “benefit” necessarily implies a state of prior existence for comparison.
Similarly, an existent person does not improve the conditions of their existence by ceasing to exist. Nor do they degrade the conditions of their existence. The conditions of their existence would cease with their existence.
In short, a person benefits, or not, by being in existence not by coming into existence. Similarly a person benefits, or not, by being in existence, not by going out of existence.
Neither you nor I can benefit by ceasing to exist. If we kill ourselves, our pain may stop, and certainly our pain will stop if we cease to exist by killing ourselves; but we aren’t going to continue existence if we cease to exist and so neither you nor I will benefit from the cessation of pain. That the pain has stopped will be a fact, but a fact of no value to us once we cease to exist.
Our personal valuation of stopping our pain only occurs if we continue to exist.
So, ceasing to exist will not help us. It might possibly help other people, but not us; we will not benefit from ceasing to exist. We benefit by being in existence; and if God exists our existence has objective value beyond our own feelings about our existence, pro or con.
In short, there is no good reason to commit suicide by that route, because I both affirm the value of my existence (even when I’m subjectively in pain at the moment) and also deny that I can improve the condition of my existence by ceasing to exist.
(This is also related to some soteriological arguments about annihilation: annihilating sinners is not being merciful to them compared to them existing even in eternal conscious torment, because they wouldn’t exist to comparatively benefit from the difference.)
Whether you or I will improve the conditions of our existence by continuing to exist after dying is an entirely other question. I am entirely sure I will be punished (under my current circumstances) for abandoning my duties to help make existence better for other people. For various reasons I am not going to say you won’t be punished for abandoning your similar duties. But I can’t stop you from killing yourself. I have done my duty to you, but we’ve reached a point where I can’t help you any farther and may only be hurting you, because trying to suss out the implications of metaphysics is difficult enough when a mind isn’t constantly in pain. I don’t sit around working out metaphysics when my pain surges; and your pain demonstrably surges more constantly. So I have recommended you seek professional medical help for your pain – and yes I mean professional Christian medical help, of course, not someone who thinks they’re going to help you by convincing you the idea of God is an illusion and that you just have to make do with whatever self-valuation you can bring yourself to feel about yourself. (Lewis wasn’t totally sceptical of psychological counselors; he recommended Christians go into psychological counseling professionally, just like he recommended Christians go into every service and supply profession professionally.)
I don’t live where you are, and I don’t even know where you live, so I am not in any position to call around various pastors and priests for you, asking who they would recommend. You’ll have to do that yourself or someone else will have to do that for you. I recommend you do it yourself as you’ll feel better about taking active steps to stop your pain, but I can’t make you do it yourself.
I know metaphysics. I am an utter and complete amateur at psychological counseling, which I told you from the beginning, and it would be irresponsible of me not to send you to professionals once I’ve done whatever little I can do, which (for some relevant purposes) is not much.
I would say that creation was an act of grace. Grace is unmerited favor. You cannot deserve as non being to be created. So, life itself is a gift. Grace is a part of love but I don’t think it was love itself that created. I would be more specific and say grace. I think eternal life with God is better than non-existence.
To defend a faulty argument you used against annihilationists, even when you thought I was suicidal, and even when I was trying to ask your opinion on other things.
To be fair, C.S Lewis said something similar in “The Problem of Pain,” but (in context) he seems to have been trying to avoid the question of why God would create creatures who He knew would be damned (a question asked by both annihilationists, and universalists), and he used a very different line of reasoning against dualism (in “Mere Christianity.”)
"…to be bad, he (the hypothetical bad power) must exist and have intelligence and will. But existence, intelligence and will are in themselves good.
(Pg 45.)
As for discussing our private conversation publicly, I didn’t mention any names, and you were so offended at my questioning of your logic that you childishly refused to have any conversation for over a year.
At least now we’re talking.
Another way of saying that non-existence has no value would be to say that it has zero value, but you deny this and engage in meaningless double talk.
It takes a seeing person to appreciate what someone born blind is missing, but (as long as sight is possible) that doesn’t mean that without a seeing person to appreciate what those born blind are missing, no one who was born blind would really be missing anything
If we were all born blind (without any seeing person to engage in what you call “experiential valuation”) the objective reality is that we would all be missing something (even if we were all totally unaware of it.)
So without any “experiential valuation,” blindness would still be a state of deprivation.
You’ve constantly talked in circles.
A person in an endless hell would be no better off if they ceased to exist?
That is what you said in STTH in an attempt to refute annihilationism (and I see you said it again here), but it’s utter nonsense, and it also cuts against UR.
If non-existence is no better than existence in a state of eternal conscious torment, there’s no reason why God couldn’t create creatures He knew would suffer eternal conscious torment (and they’d have nothing to complain about in hell, because their state of existence would be no worse than non-existence.)
That’s utter nonsense Jason, and as depressed as I was when YOU kept bringing this subject up, I told you so at the time.
“Personal evaluation” has nothing to do with what we’re discussing here.
Existence either has some objective value in comparison with non-existence or it doesn’t, and (once again) blindness would be a state of deprivation, even if there was no seeing person to engage in what you call “experiential valuation.”
The question is one of objective reality, not personal evaluation.
Again, that’s utter nonsense.
It would mean that there’s no act of kindness in putting a suffering animal out of it’s misery.
But the pain does stop (if you really do cease to exist), whether or not you’re aware of it (and once again, “personal valuation” has very little to do with what we’re talking about here.
As I said above “If we were all born blind (without any seeing person to engage in what you call experiential valuation) the objective reality is that we would all be missing something (even if we were all totally unaware of it.)”
The car in front of me once hit a dog and kept going.
It was a beagle or basset hound, and it crawled over to the driver’s side door of my van howling and whimpering.
I wrapped in a towel I had and drove it to the vet (who said the internal injuries were too severe to repair, and he’d have to be put to sleep)
You’re saying I could have said “no thank you,” taken him back and left in the woods to suffer a few more days, and he would have been no worse off than he was once the vet put that needle in him (and that he was no better off out of his pain.)
That’s absurd.
If the dog was out of his pain when he died, he was no longer suffering, and he was better off (even if he wasn’t consciously able to engage in some kind of “personal valuation.”)
To say otherwise is utter nonsense.
You can’t deter someone from committing suicide by using faulty reasoning, and your reasoning is faulty.
If there’s no God (and nothing after death) there could be many good reasons to commit suicide (having incurable cancer and no living relatives to leave behind, for example), and if there is a God (and there’s an afterlife) there are many reasons not to commit suicide (and I offered some of them on another thread.)
[size=150]More utter nonsense[/size].
What you once said to me (and what I think you’re saying here) is that states of existence can have value when compared to one another, but existence itself has no value when compared to non-existence.
So when you say that existence has value only because God exists, what you’re really suggesting is that creation improved God’s state of existence, but bestowed nothing of value to the creatures He brought into existence.
Now that they exist their condition can be worsened or improved, but creation itself was no gift
If God gives us any happiness we can be grateful that He isn’t tormenting us, but we can never be grateful for our existence.
How sad that you would defend your faulty logic at God’s expense.
If you want to compare existence with non-existence, It isn’t necessary to bring names or personal pronouns in and play word games with them.
Here’s some simple basic logic.
Existence equals something (good or bad.)
Non-existence equals nothing (zero, no good, no bad.)
There are conceivable states of existence ( heaven, eternal bliss) that are objectively better than nothing.
And there are conceivable states of existence (hell, eternal conscious torment) that are worse than nothing.
if that’s not true, the oft repeated argument that a loving God couldn’t create beings He knew would suffer eternal conscious torment would fall to ruins.
The blessed occupants of heaven could never truly be grateful to their creator for giving them life, and no one in hell (however long it might last) could rightly view their existence as a curse.
I don’t think you know it as well as you think you do.
I maintain that your logic is flawed, for reasons I’ve outlined above.
I never asked you for psychological counseling.
Instead of using (and repeating, over and over again, even when you weren’t asked) some faulty logic to try and deter me from committing suicide (which, by definition, is practicing psychology) you should have stuck to what you say you know.
When I had more respect for your opinions on metaphysics and philosophy, I came to you to discuss those topics (not a subject I studied in college, and probably know more about than you do.)
The more I disagreed with you, the more you chose to believe my reasoning was impaired, and in an effort to have the last word, you cut off all communication.
I was so concerned at your increasing emotional instability I insisted you get professional medical help. Metaphysics is not a prime solution for solving suicidal emotional pain – any mental stress adds to that problem.
Shall I bring up childishness this past winter, when you were trying to blackmail me into talking to you?
I denied non-existence has zero value on a scale of comparison where zero would be neutral value. I also denied non-existence has negative value on a scale of comparison between conditions of existence. Those denials are specifically on the topic of comparing experiential states of existence. When simply comparing existence per se with non-existence I affirmed existence has value and non-existence has no value; I don’t recommend calling it “zero value” as that might suggest trying to rate the value of existence numerically or trying to introduce negative below-zero values less than non-existence. An on/off comparison would be analogically better.
If you think this is meaningless double talk, then I reiterate that obviously I am not helping and you should drop me and get help elsewhere. Why should I waste hours of my time writing something you reject as meaningless double-talk?–why would you waste time reading it?
Which involves a comparison of states of existence, specifically the existence of the person under various conditions. Blind/not-blind are comparative states of existence; there is no parallel with non-existence/existence, without smuggling in a tacit condition-of-existence so that non-existence is one kind of condition of existence and existence is another kind of condition of existence.
Whereas if we “were” all non-existent, the objective reality is that we would not be missing anything at all because “we” wouldn’t exist to be missing anything at all.
Which is exactly I constantly keep saying:
No, you’re talking about comparing states of existence where there wouldn’t be states of existence. For example:
The person would have to exist to be better off not being in an endless hell.
A person who exists in a condition other than an endless hell would be better off than a person who exists in an endless hell. The person who doesn’t exist at all doesn’t exist to be better off for not being in an endless hell (nor worse of either).
Again, if you think I’m talking utter nonsense by denying that non-existent persons exist in a condition where they can be better or worse off by being in their existent condition of non-existence compared to other existences of conditions they might instead be in, then go away and find someone who will tell you that non-existent persons exist to be better off not-existing compared to other ways they might exist.
But the nonsense is that a non-existent person would exist to be better or worse off compared to other states of existence.
Existence is what has value! Good value, bad value, neutral middling value, combinations of value thereof. Non-existence has no value! Consequently the value of a person’s existence does not improve or degrade if the person ceases to exist. My existence would be better off if I had 20/20 vision instead of near-sightedness. My existence would not be better off if I ceased to exist. True, I wouldn’t be near-sighted anymore, but I wouldn’t exist anymore to appreciate the difference. Similarly my chronic pain wouldn’t exist anymore if I ceased to exist, but I wouldn’t exist anymore to appreciate the difference. There would be no improvement in my existence by ceasing to exist.
But again if you think I am talking utter nonsense to deny I can improve my existence by ceasing to exist, go find someone who will tell you you can improve your existence by ceasing to exist.
There’s plenty of reason why God wouldn’t (and even couldn’t) create creatures He knew would suffer eternal conscious torment, but would create creatures whose existent conditions can and will be improved (by God’s grace); but those reasons have nothing to do with comparing a creature’s hypothetical condition of existence in ECT with a creature’s hypothetical condition of existence in non-existence. They have to do with God’s existence and characteristics.
And a person in hell would have plenty to complain about because their state of existence could be better off. If they went out of existence, on the other hand, they would not exist any longer to be better or worse off by the difference.
A person can only benefit so long as the person continues to exist to enter into an improved state of existence.
Then find someone else to tell you that a person can benefit and so enter into an improved state of existence by ceasing to exist.
Personal evaluation has everything to do with discussing whether a person would improve his state of existence in any way or to any degree by ceasing to exist.
The objective value of existence, and the objective non-value of non-existence, is (fortunately) not in the least dependent on non-existent objects having existent qualities to compare with the qualities of objects in existence.
The objective value of existence depends on God, an eternally self-existent person being the ground of all reality.
And once again a person must exist to be in a state of blindness, even if no person ever existed in a state of sight.
Then you should stop talking about comparing a person’s existence in hell with a person’s non-existence, for example. The objective reality of a person’s existence in hell has objective value (which can be improved, although by definition not degraded any farther). A non-existent person has no objective reality as a person at all, thus also no objective value as a person. Relatedly, the non-existent person has not improved his existent condition by ceasing to exist, even if his last existent condition is in hell. He isn’t in a better condition, not in a worse condition, not in any condition at all.
If you choose to believe instead that the cessation of our pain will be of value to us once we cease to exist, thereby improving our existence by ceasing to exist, we are indeed at a nonsensical empasse. I will stick with the logical coherency of not being able to improve the conditions of my existence by ceasing to exist, and attempt to improve the conditions of my existence while continuing to exist. Good-bye.
The act of kindness would be curing the animal, or otherwise putting it into an improved mode of existence. Putting it out of existence does notimprove its mode of existence. If an animal doesn’t exist personally then neither does it consciously suffer, in which case at best we’re putting ourselves out of what we imagine to be its conscious misery but we’re only shifting its conditions of existence to some other mode (since no person exists to cease personally existing. We change the physical animal to fertilizer or heat or whatever.) If an animal exists personally, then we should value its personal existence and improve its personal existence or do our best to slow or halt the degradation as long as we can, rather than let it go out of existence personally. If it personally exists after physical death, that might involve an improvement in its continuing personal existence, so then it’s a mercy to kill the animal, especially if God has no duties or ethical judgments about the animal personally so far as we know.
I hope I’m sending an animal on to God spiritually by killing it as a last resort (although often it’s a more expedient resort to me compared to more difficult methods of improving its existence); but if I’m not improving the mode of the animal’s existence by killing it, then I’m not being merciful to the animal by killing it, although I might be accidentally confused into thinking that I am improving its mode of existence by putting it out of existence.
The objective value of our personal existence also stops if we cease existing personally, which we will definitely not be aware of one way or another. That’s an affirmation of the value of personal existence, which I have constantly affirmed. The only thing I have denied is that we continue existing to benefit (experientially or in any other way) by any changes in fact from ceasing to exist, if we cease to exist.
Btw, before you reply that I have trouble forgiving you over what you tried to do back in the winter: I wouldn’t have any trouble forgiving you if you repented of it, and I’m entirely prepared to do so. But I haven’t once seen any repentance from you on it. You’re welcome to try convincing me you weren’t doing anything wrong by trying to get my attention that way, but you needn’t complain about me not forgiving you if you aren’t penitent of it. I factored your behavior at that time into my choices, and here we are.
(I see no good reason to continue our discussions at the moment either.)
I believe what I said was that much of STTH was a plagiarization of C.S. Lewis.
The chapters in which you demonstrate there has to be some kind of supernature seem directly lifted out of his book on Miracles (without giving him any credit), and even the idea that creation is God’s withdrawal of Himself is borrowed from Lewis.
I also said that I found your logic on existence faulty and dangerous, and I’d probably be doing a public service if I made your book available online (so people wouldn’t waste money on it.)
I apologize if that seems overly harsh, but can you deny that you borrowed almost the whole thing from Lewis?
**But if there were no seeing persons, that state of existence wouldn’t exist, and there’d be no person who was able to make what you call an “experiential valuation.”
So, by your faulty reasoning, those born blind wouldn’t really be missing anything if everyone were blind, and there were no one with the knowledge or experience to say that seeing is better than being blind.
But A being better than B doesn’t depend on C being able to make some kind of “experiential valuation” that one is better than the other.
That is faulty and dangerous logic.
What you’re really doing is playing word games and denying the existence of any real objective reality.**
**Wrong.
If we were all non-existent, the objective reality would be that we wouldn’t exist to be aware that we were missing anything.
Unless you want to play word games with the word “we,” (which I noticed you put in quotation marks), in which case we can remove it.
What I just said can be re-stated as follows:
If existence were possible, then some states of conscious existence (happiness, love, joy, etc., if such states were possible) would be better than non-existence.
Now there’s no “we” to play around with.**
By the way, here’s a philosopher’s word game I came across recently, that I think you might like.
It goes something like this.
Nothing is greater than God.
Evil is nothing.
The devil is evil.
Therefore the devil is greater than God.
That’s your kind of logic you use Jason, except maybe here.
**You always refused to compare “existence per se” with non-existence, and insisted they were uncomparable.
If you’re admitting they’re comparable now, and that existence has value compared to non-existence, that’s an improvement over what you’ve said in the past **(and maybe something constructive has come out of this.)
The closest you were willing to come to saying anything like this in the past (and I still have your messages Jason) was to saying that maybe God, or someone else, or all of us together might be better off because “Jason” exists, but “Jason” himself couldn’t be any better off because he exists, because if “he” didn’t exist, there’d be no “Jason” to be" better off.
That’s a long way from affirming that existence has any “per se” value, but those are the kind of word games I got from you–and that reasoning leads nowhere, because if existence itself has no value per se, neither God’s existence, anyone else’s, or the sum total of all existence could have any value when compared to non-existence.
Jason’s existence couldn’t ultimately be any better than his non-existence simply because God exists, because unless some states of existence have a value of their own (when compared to non-existence) God himself ultimately has no reason to exist.
If He had a choice, He’d have no rational reason to choose His own existence, and His Son’s, and yours, and mine, and everyone else’s over total none-existence (if no states of existence were intrinsically better or worse than non-existence.)
The best that could be said (given the reasoning you’ve used before, and the reasoning that Allen has used, and that I think you still cling to), is that Jason’s could possibly improve God’s state of existence, or God’s existence improves Jason’s state of existence.
Saying that existence (or any state of existence) has any per se value (“per se” meaning in itself, intrinsically) is precisely what you’ve always denied.
And what do you think you were arguing here?
If you were not consciously playing a word game you knew to be meaningless, you were clearly arguing that existence has no value compared to non-existence (which is the only thing you consistently argued in all our private conversations.)
And if you ever seemed even for a moment to remotely suggest that existence had some value, you quickly qualified your statement and ended up contradicting yourself (or knowingly playing meaningless word games with someone you say you believed to be suicidal.)
The person who ceased to exist would no longer be in any pain, and (if the pain they were suffering would otherwise have no end, and serve no remedial purpose, or any greater good) that would be better than suffering in an endless hell (even if the person annihilated no longer consciously existed to make the mental note that he was no longer in pain.)
**So you’re still not saying that any states of existence (God’s, yours, mine) have any real value(per se, of their own, when compared to non-existence)?
What you’re saying is that our individual existences have value because a god who needs us exists, and the existence creatures he values improves His state of existence.
If He had a choice, even He would have no rational reason to chose existence over non-existence, because no state of existence is (per se, of itself, intrinsically) any better than non-existence–isn’t that what you’re saying Jason?**
Isn’t that what you kept saying to someone you thought so close to suicide, and what you’re really still saying?
If no state of existence is any better than non-existence (per se, of itself, intrinsically), then any feeling that it is is just an illusion" that God, or nature, or natural selection built into your genes (to keep you going on for His or it’s own purpose, when nether you or he [or it] really have any rational reason to.)
Would you agree with that Jason?
If so, how can you love your god, or feel any gratitude to him?
It seems to me that, at best, you could only pity him.
He didn’t do anything for you by bringing you into existence, he did it for himself.
He needed you
Your existence has value only because he values you (i.e because it has value to him, because it improved his state of existence.)
That is really what you’re saying, isn’t it?
Knowing all things, this god of yours must know that no conceivable state of existence can really be any better than non-existence (if you’re right about that), but he has no choice but to exist, so he created Jason and offers him some states of existence that are better than other states of existence (but no better than non-existence) to improve his state of existence.
(I didn’t capitalize the personal pronouns here because I don’t believe this god of yours exists–I believe in a God who knows there are states of existence that are better than non-existence, and who brought creation into existence out of love, for the sake of the creatures who are the objects of His love, and not for Himself.)
Here’s something an atheist who shares you point of view wrote, and it’s where your reasoning leads (just substitute the word “God” for “humanity.”)
No, but objectively, there would still be a difference.
You would not be in pain if you didn’t exist.
And you wouldn’t know any love, or joy, or happiness either.
If you can still experience those things (to any degree) even with your chronic pain, your existence might still be better than non-existence.
If any conceivable state of existence is better than non-existence, and there’s a good God who created us to know such states of existence, and whose working all things according to the purpose of His will, then even if you have nothing but chronic pain now, it will be worth it in the end.
But if the logic you’ve used in the past (and here, when you said nothing of value would be missed if we didn’t exist) is correct, and no conceivable state of existence is any better than non-existence, it will never be worth it.
I shared some guilt, and pain, and remorse, and I asked you to help me think some things out.
You kept arguing semantics, and never once said anything like this.
Here, you seem to acknowledge that personal pronouns like “we” are technicalities of human grammar that simply get in the way of discussing the issue of existence and non-existence, but you were perfectly willing to argue semantics with someone you now say was threatening suicide.
And isn’t that where you were going here?
We can play word games and let “grammar” defeat us here, but the objective reality is that there’d be no joy or misery if we didn’t exist, and if those things have any positive or negative value, there are states of existence that are objectively better or worse than non-existence (regardless of whether or not “we” would be around to consciously evaluate and compare them.)
There are times when you almost seem to try to acknowledge this, but you always end by trying to justify the faulty logic (or phraseology) you’ve used in the past.
If you agree please say so plainly.
That’s a lie Jason.
I always back quoted you,and I never “rewrote” anything in my head.
You never said that existence has any value compared to non-existence.
That I complained about the pain I was going thru, and the difficulties I was having going on, I admit.
But have you forgotten about some of the complaints you shared with me (and some of the very strange things you said)?
Do you really want to talk about impaired reasoning or mental instability?
You never argued that to me, **and I once specifically asked you if you agreed with Augustine on that point.
You said “no,”** remember?
While I personally disagree with Augustine, I consider his point of view superior to what you’ve argued in the past.
And interesting diagnosis, and one you’re totally unqualified to make.
I wasn’t looking for a reason to commit suicide, I was looking for a reason to go on (something your faulty logic would have robbed me of had I been foolish enough to accept it.)
And I never denied that your existence has value, or suggested that that value could be improved by trying to end your existence (a sin that could, at least temporarily, lead to a state of existence hereafter that might be worse than anything you’re suffering now.)
I denied the contradictory opinion that “no state of existence is any better or worse than non-existence” (which is an opinion you’ve often repeated.)
.
If you’re really talking about eternal conscious torment “per se,” without smuggling in the idea of some greater good, I don’t see how you can logically say that that state of existence (with it’s meaningless, purposeless, unending pain) is better than non-existence (with no pain.)
Now since there are some here who think they understand what you’re saying when you say things like"existence is only good because God exists," let’s see if they’re right.
Let me share something one of them wrote to me, and let’s see if you’re able to agree with her.
That makes perfect sense to me Jason.
I agree with that, and I’ve never denied it.
But is that what you mean?
Would you say that bliss (a state of existence) is better than non-existence?
**
Would you even agree that existing in a state of bliss is comparable to non-existence?**
Please reply (if not for me, for her and those reading along.)
