by Gaedhal
I get the ‘Hell Planet’ idea from Dr. Robert Morgan who is an explicit atheist and an explicit determinist and an explicit ‘eliminative materialist’. I on the other hand am a bit more of a Sheldrakean, on these points. Morgan has read Sheldrake and rejects him, which is his right so to do. He has also read the antinatalist pessimist atheists Benatar and Schoppenhauer more in-depthly than I have.
Pine Creek Doug once was asked that if an asteroid were inbound that would destroy the Earth, and if he could press a button to restart abiogenesis and evolution on another planet he would do so. He initially said: ‘yes’ but then said ‘no’. I would say ‘yes’… However, in so doing, I will be fully cognizant of my calling into being all manner of evils: plagues, famines, paedophilia etc.
However, I would hope, that at the end of it all, intelligent sentient beings might find a way to solve the problem of evil. Instead of antinatalism, solving the problem of evil is a better use of our time because, for all we know, the Cosmos might call forth the phenomenon of life somewhere else. Antinatalism doesn’t actually solve the problem of evil. It just turns this small corner of the Cosmos into a sterile place devoid of life. Benatar wants eventually for mankind to nuke itself out of existence. I hope that I am not misrepresenting his position. Type in ‘Alex O Connor / antinatalism’ into YouTube for a discussion between Benatar and O Connor. I would link to it but I don’t want to. Antinatalism terrifies me. I want to give it a wide berth.
I am not a classically theistic God, which is why it is okay for me to press the abiogenesis button on an Earth 2 somewhere in the Cosmos.
However, as Dr. Robert Morgan correctly points out: a classically theistic God who would use evolution to bring about life would be a sadist. Robert Morgan links people to videos of animals being eaten alive. This truly is a Hell Planet, and if a classically theistic God created it then He is evil by our reckoning; he is a sadist and a voyeur by our reckoning. With the misotheists, we should hate such a God.
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Editor’s note:
Sharp theological thoughts by Gaedhal! Regarding what he says, ‘Instead of antinatalism, solving the problem of evil is a better use of our time…’, I can’t help but remember how my religion of the four words, that dovetails perfectly with Hitler’s panentheism, is the solution to the problem of evil.
These days, as I said, I have been very lightly revising my Daybreak Press books to publish them as PDFs. But I will make an exception for most of what I have written in my mother tongue. For that, it will be necessary to obtain the printed volumes (fortunately they have not been censored, and I plan to translate them into English). It is the only way to understand how, in the end, we plan to solve the problem of evil, at least on Earth.
‘However, in so doing, I will be fully cognizant of my calling into being all manner of evils… I would hope, that at the end of it all, intelligent sentient beings might find a way to solve the problem of evil’, said Gaedhal above. I would add that, if there is one word that defines my religion, it is exterminationism but obviously we do not mean all creatures on Earth. Hence I prefer the term ‘panentheism’ to the term ‘pantheism’ that Weikart used in his books on Hitler.
Gaedhal now changes the subject to more mundane matters:
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Jordan Peterson is a peculiar fellow. He is too intelligent to believe in the supernatural claims of Christianity himself; however it is extremely lucrative for him to give the impression that one day he might very well get down on his knees and start pleasing Jesus.
The Bible, which is, as Hector Avalos puts it, an outmoded obsolete worthless document, Peterson constantly pours praise on. I am sure that Peterson is intelligent enough to privately concur with Avalos in his heart as to the utter worthlessness of the Bible. However, heaping laud upon this outmoded and obsolete compendium of tawdry superstition is extremely lucrative. Peterson cynically praises the Bible for shekels. Sam Harris called Peterson out on this in one of his debates with him. What Peterson does for money Trump, Nixon and Reagan—crypto-atheists in my view—do for political power.
This is what makes Christianity so dangerous. Christians are self-avowed ‘fools for Christ’s sake’—and fools and their money are easily parted as Peterson has found out, to his profit. Christians are a self-avowed flock of sheep that cynical demagogues can easily stampede in whatever political direction they want their herd of voters to be stampeded into.
If you believe in democracy—and I don’t—then democracy cannot function properly when you have such a stupefying religion as Christianity poisoning and warping the minds of the electorate.
32 replies on “On solving the problem of evil”
My emails are my unedited off-the-cuff thoughts.
“Pine Creek Doug once asked”
should be:
“Pine Creek Doug was once asked”
Exterminationism is a huge part of my plan to solve the problem of evil, as well. Life unfit for life, as the Nazis put it, is a huge part of the suffering on this planet. Life unfit for life tortures itself and others, and, particularly the poor defenceless animals.
It is Christian axiology that makes us see in Life unfit for life the image of God. If the botched of this planet are images of God then why would you worship such a God?
I think that the recent John Loftus Anthology ‘God and Horrendous Suffering’ has at least one chapter on the problem of animal suffering.
Very wise words, thank you (and I just fixed the above error by the way).
The word ‘evil’ derives from the Gothic ‘ubils’ which meant a ‘going beyond’ (the due measure) – and did not have a ‘moral’ sense. Only later (under the influence of christian theology) did it acquire a strict moral sense, and became an abstract absolute.
It doesn’t matter. “The problem of evil” is a term sometimes used for those who doubt, or deny, the existence of a personal god in the Christian sense of the term. It’s useful to know what we are talking about (both Gaedhal and I have had huge problems with traditional Catholicism and our Catholic fathers).
Note to César: I spent a long time putting this together, so please let it through. I imagine Gaedhal would like to read it, since he says he hasn’t looked into Benatar properly. I’m disappointed you never replied to the email I sent you. Unfortunately it contained some errors which I only noticed after I sent it. My apologies.
Regarding the distinction César makes between “necessary” and “unnecessary” suffering, it is a subject that is near and dear to me, so I have a lot to say. The reassurance that evil will be defeated in the fullness of time implies that evil’s existence was permissible on the condition that it would ultimately be destroyed. But because evil leaves a permanent stain on everything it touches, and because the mere knowledge of its existence is itself a harm to us, the fact that evil ever existed at all (even if only for a finite amount of time) is what is objectionable. As such, the only way to make amends would be the complete and total reversal of all evil, but this simply isn’t possible. It remains true, though, as I have repeatedly said, that a problem having never existed at all is preferable to a problem solved, since a solved problem leaves a trail of damage, pain and frustration in its wake. César wants to exterminate all non-whites, which would seem like a solution to the problem. I think, at this point, he already knows what my position is. They never should have existed in the first place.
A masochistic mentality which I have come to call “the struggle is the glory” is pervasive among natalists. It is a contemptible attitude, precisely because of the suffering it perpetuates. To determine the valence of any given thing, one need only ask “would I freely choose this, if I were under no duress?” Nobody in their right mind would *choose* to be born without limbs. Nobody would *choose* to have the stretch marks of pregnancy. Nobody would *choose* to brush their teeth or go to the toilet. Nobody would *choose* to do anything they didn’t want to do if they didn’t have to. This inevitably leads to a formidable proposition: how much of life as it is would we choose if given complete freedom of choice, the only limitation being our imagination? Almost none of it. At least 99% of life is extraneous minutiae, bearing no relation to our deepest desires. We live for an infinitesimal amount of time, and only a microscopic portion of that time is spent doing the things we enjoy. In a universe where time is an inexhaustible commodity, the sheer scale of such wasted potential is painful to contemplate. But even if I had an infinite supply of time, I still wouldn’t choose to waste one precious moment doing anything that didn’t bring me joy.
We adapt to unfavourable circumstances not because we want to, but because we have no choice. Anyone who brings a person into the world so they can suffer a loss and then “grow stronger” by adapting is a bastard of gargantuan proportions. You don’t deliberately create a problem just so you can tack on a half-baked solution, nor do you create a being out of nothing so that it can struggle to fulfil cravings that did not exist prior to its creation. The desire for meaning is perhaps the most insatiable craving that we have, but only existing people suffer this torment. We are forever lamenting that life isn’t fair, yet we seldom consider this a reason not to perpetuate the human condition. We would never accept that the pleasure of a few justifies the misery of the many, but nor should we accept that the suffering of a few is an acceptable trade for the comfort of the many. Life is a zero sum game. In order to have our slice of cake, someone else had to draw the short straw. Someone had to plummet to their death on 9/11. Someone had to get cancer. Someone had to be raped to death. Billions of potential people living in ecstasy would not justify a single person suffering such a fate.
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula Guin is an invaluable tool. Procreators will refuse to accept that the abstract value of one potential extremely bad life being avoided outweighs the infinite number of potential good lives that are foregone. Guin’s book provides a sufficient analogy, one that doesn’t have to be a perfect fit. It need only communicate a message, that the maximum suffering of one person is not a worthy trade for an infinite number of people living in bliss. When people ask me why, I simply reply “imagine *you* are that one person.” This appeal may fail, though, as they are liable to be one of those who would choose to remain in Omelas to enjoy its bounties, in full knowledge of the cost. They may say this analogy is inappropriate because the existence of good lives is not predicated on the existence of bad lives. I’m afraid it is, though. As long as there are winners, there will be losers. It is a price that the vast majority of people readily accept, that for every X number of babies born, one of them will be born with a rare disease, for instance. They are weighing things numerically, quantitatively. I am weighing them qualitatively, because I recognise that this is not a numbers game. Procreators could make the claim that all the suffering in a given life is nullified by death in much the same way I argue that the good things are nullified by death, and therefore suffering doesn’t matter. To this I would reply that the suffering has negative value while it exists and is bad for the person experiencing it while they exist. Procreators would in turn say the same for the good, but I would again point out that utmost suffering weighs more than utmost joy, even if it is only the utmost suffering of a single life weighed against the utmost joy of infinite lives. So the question is, do you wish to remain in Omelas, or do you have a conscience? The choice is yours. I have not sought to deny anyone this choice, only to hold them accountable for the atrocious consequences.
Here are two quotes from Richard Dawkins, which serve to illustrate the cognitive dissonance among procreators:
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place, but who will never see the light of day, outnumber the sand grains of the Sahara. Among those unborn ghosts will be greater poets than Keats and scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the amount of potential people who could be created from the human genome so massively exceeds the number of existing people. In the teeth of such stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, who are here. How dare we, the privileged few who won the lottery of birth against all odds, complain about our inevitable return to the void from which an infinite majority have never stirred?”
“The total amount of suffering each day in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering in fear. Others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, and thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst and disease. It must be so. If there is ever a time of plenty, it will inevitably lead to an increase in the population until resources are depleted and the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and DNA replication, many are going to be harmed, some are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is no design, no purpose, no good and evil, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
From a human perspective, which is really the only one that matters, since there is no other, I would certainly describe this as an evil system. Natalists may feel comfortable tossing an innocent person into this meat grinder, but I certainly don’t. Dawkins, giddy as a schoolboy over “the wonder of it all” while simultaneously acknowledging the horror of it all, demonstrates an obliviousness common to all, from the lowliest peasant to the most enlightened aristocrat. The lion’s gustatory satisfaction does not justify or outweigh the terror of its prey being hunted and eaten alive. If procreators want to blame Benatar for increasing the amount of misery in the world with his views, they may as well lay just as much blame on nature documentaries. Horrors are occurring all around us. If they are hidden, they are hidden in plain sight. People all too often choose not to notice, but it still happens, no matter how much we ignore it. Anti-natalists are not guilty of imposing this on any new people. We only draw attention to the suffering that existing beings are enduring and creating. If the worst aspects of reality horrify some people to the point they consider taking their own lives, then they should definitely think more seriously before they “spread the joy” by reproducing.
I think this incorrigible optimism stems from religion, or rather the inclination to religious thinking that lies within so many well-meaning simpletons. While I do see the infinite potential for good that could have been realised by a deity, if they existed, they have evidently chosen not to exploit this potential to its maximum degree, hence my dissatisfaction and disinclination to believe in any such deity. Dawkins has figured this out, but he cannot, or perhaps *will* not, follow it through to the logical anti-natalist conclusion. In this respect, he is just as much a “true believer” as any creationist. Likewise, the Führer’s attempt to deify nature is ludicrous. Evolution is synonymous with life itself, and the essence of evolution is eternal struggle, but is this a mode of existence we would have *chosen*? Life is something to be endured, not enjoyed. This clashes with what we *want* life to be about. We long for a recreational existence, one predicated on happiness for its own sake. In the world as it is, though, enjoyment is merely an unintentional by-product of a ruthless and indifferent process of elimination. Imperfection is thus a feature of the system, not a bug. It is encoded into the algorithm of the universe. For those of us who are already here, there is no hope. The best thing we can do is choose not to continue the chain of suffering. Don’t create new sentient beings that will suffer the torment and agony of consciousness only to die. There is no need to create need out of nothing. Just stop feeding the meat grinder. All it will cost you is a slice of your ego.
Theists like to argue that logic and reason are forms of faith. This is a very desperate tu quoque to pull out of the hat, but it is to be expected. For those of us who aren’t insane, rational inference is our default faculty, and as any sane man would, I always set the highest standards. This world is evidently not the best world conceivable, as it is only too easy to imagine a better world, in innumerable ways and to innumerable degrees, though still bound within the conceptual limitations of the mind. The theist highlights these limitations and argues that god and his motivations lie beyond them. To illustrate how absurd this is, consider Schieber’s fridge analogy. If we go to the fridge and it is empty, and someone repeatedly tells us that we aren’t looking hard enough, and we take the entire fridge apart, down to the last screw, and still find no food, then we can safely conclude that there is no food to be found. If that person still insists we are not looking hard enough, that we don’t have the requisite senses or level of knowledge to find the food, then we can surely dismiss them as a lunatic. This analogy is not alluding to the location of god, but to the exhaustion of all possible explanations as to why a supreme being would create a world that contained even a single minute imperfection, let alone the staggering degree of imperfection and injustice we perceive. It would not be tolerated in any other arena of debate to appeal to the unfalsifiable “beyond mortal comprehension” excuse that the theist inevitably falls back on.
I shall describe three possible scenarios for existence. In scenario one, the world exists in a state of inviolable perfection; no component can be degraded in any way, nor can it be improved, as all of the attributes of this creation are intrinsically positive and are calibrated to their maximum possible degree. In scenario two, the world is built on the opposing forces of negativity and positivity, which are locked in an eternal struggle. The balance of power is constantly in flux; sometimes things may be very bad and then improve, while other times they may be very good but inevitably fall victim to entropy. This power struggle continues indefinitely. In scenario three, existence begins at the worst possible level in every respect. Arbitrary suffering is the norm, but gradually, over an infinite amount of time, the state of affairs becomes less bad until eventually the duality of scenario two is reached, but it keeps going until eventually reaching a state wherein the positive outweighs the negative. Now, which of these scenarios would is the best, by which I mean the least wasteful and the least painful? Clearly the first proposed scenario, in which there are no intermediary negative states, which were never necessary in the first place. A problem solved is a problem caused, as solutions invariably create new dilemmas. What is better than a problem overcome? The problem never having existed in the first place, of course. Therefore, if a god were to create a world, I would argue that he would be logically and ethically obliged to generate scenario number one. I think it’s obvious that the world in which we are currently living is a hybrid of scenarios two and three. Ergo, god does not exist and the world is both imperfect and incapable of being perfected.
In light of such elementary deductions, why does belief in god persist? Because people find the alternative such a terrifying prospect, and because it seems implausible to them that such a universe, seemingly fine tuned for life, could have originated from nothing. It seems improbable to me too, but a perfect being creating an imperfect world seems even less plausible. Evolution is an absolutely horrific system, a merciless process of elimination that thrives on cruelty and parasitism, and the notion of a benevolent god acting through a process as wicked and inefficient as evolution is absurd. If the universe is fine tuned for life, the quality of those lifeforms and the lives they lead allows us to judge this experiment. I find it woefully devoid of merit, and for the work of an omnipotent being, it is absolutely abysmal. Unless god creates a world that is equal to himself in all its aspects, he is degrading the state of affairs, which would imply that he cannot be a maximally great being. The theist says that we analyse, critique and attempt to improve the world from a limited mortal perspective and this is why we fail, but I imagine I would achieve perfection if I had god’s powers. If any of us were in god’s position at the beginning, when the slate was completely clean, what possible motivation could we have for creating the world as it currently exists rather than the idyllic world I have described? This is the point where the theist once again invokes the limitations of mortal comprehension and appeals to epistemic humility, and I in turn direct them back to Schieber’s fridge analogy. Because of the theist’s obstinate refusal to concede defeat and part with his illusion, this circularity will continue indefinitely.
It never ceases to amaze and disgust me how many people use the “life is a test” excuse to justify adversity. God is omniscient, so he doesn’t need to test us. Why would he create souls that he knows will fail the test? The afterlife is paradise, so what good would the “knowledge” gained from suffering and torment do us there? What does a child dying of cancer “learn” that would be valuable in heaven? It’s desperate, contrived nonsense. What use does an immortal soul have for a mortal body, in which it is susceptible to all manner of indignity and degradation? None at all. As I have said, all imperfect intermediary states are gratuitous and cruel. The suffering that living organisms endure, on a scale that defies comprehension, is not justifiable under any circumstances. As mortals we are forced to make allowances for evil, out of necessity, but this is not true of a supreme being, for whom the existence of evil could never be necessitated. God fails my test, the test of making any sense.
In conclusion, everything that is wrong with the world can ultimately be blamed on god, because he has ontological primacy over all things. If intimidation and threats are his preferred tools for encouraging us to believe in him, that tells us a lot about his character. Quite frankly, an eternity of paradise would not atone for my mortal years of misery. A paradise awaiting us after we die would only prove that our mortal life had been utterly gratuitous. While I acknowledge the possibility that god exists, he would be a malevolent god and would therefore be no use to me. For all intents and purposes, a malevolent creator is interchangeable with a non-existent creator. What use is an evil god? About as much use as a fictional one. Neither are worthy of my attention, let alone worship. God may have my tortured soul, but he will never have my love, my respect, or my forgiveness. If he does exist, I look forward to confronting him on his own turf. I am resolute in my conviction that my will is stronger than his. Bring it on.
Autisticus,
It really takes an autistic person not to realise that trying to post a three or four thousand word comment shouldn’t be done in polite society (at most, show a link to your blog with the essay above). That’s why your previous post of thousands of words, which you tried to put in another thread not long ago, didn’t pass.
Very true. And that’s why I entertained the idea of entitling the eleventh of De Jesús a Hitler, my book series, “Corrigiendo los errores de Dios” (“Righting God’s Wrongs”). The problem, of course, is that we don’t have that power to carry out the 4 words throughout the universe, and therein lies the great dilemma: to be or not to be. I chose to be (you, throw yourself from the highest point of Hamlet’s castle) for the simple fact that only the priests of the sacred words could go about eliminating evil through their exterminationist programme. But if prince Hamlet throws himself from the castle, the evil king remains unpunished.
You haven’t read De Jesús a Hitler and therefore don’t quite understand what the four words really are. Most whites also deserve to be exterminated. Now that I republish the English translation of the first book of De Jesús a Hitler (Letter to mom Medusa) you would do well to read it.
I didn’t read the rest of your post above but this one time I’ll let it go. If you try to post something long again instead of linking to your essay on your blog, I won’t let it pass. (The last time I tried to argue with the Christians at The Occidental Observer, I didn’t commit the rudeness of posting entire essays in their discussion thread. I simply linked to what I was writing in The West’s Darkest Hour.)
I don’t have my own blog. All of my writing is stored in Word documents, which I can only access and edit using my old PC, since Microsoft now makes you pay for it. I only have access to it on my PC because of how old it is. I think I got it in 2013, but I’m not sure. I’m actually glad if you ignored my email, though, because the errors I noticed after sending it really bugged me. No matter how much proof-reading I do, it never seems to be enough. I may send a revised version at a later date. Incidentally, I do sometimes wonder how you manage to devour so many books when you often can’t be bothered to read my comments in their entirety. I know they can be a bit long, but I would appreciate it if you did.
I’m having a debate with some Christians over on Maverick Philosopher’s blog at the moment. It’s going quite well, I think. Mav is definitely anti-woke, but I don’t think he’s a white nationalist. He’s certainly not a National Socialist. I read a blog post of his a long time ago in which he was critical of Nietzsche, due to his works having inspired Hitler. I’m not used to debating Christians on their own turf, so to speak. Hopefully they won’t get the better of me.
Tldr; However, I skimmed through some of it.
However, I will try to wade through it all, at some point.
When I take a shower and ablutions and all the other extraneous minutiae, I am thinking about Latin, Greek, Hebrew and countless other Highbrow things. I am a closet immortalist because there is more knowledge to amass than a lifetime of quantity Aleph Null years. There are degrees of infinity. The stuff do do and learn and experience is a much higher degree of infinity than the Aleph Null infinity of infinite time experienced by one person.
Yes, existence is a bad situation. It can cause us to go mad if we overthink it.
I have no problem with Antinatalists not having children and going extinct. This is the upward thrust of evolution. However, it is their plan to nuke the planet which alarms me.
One of the reasons why I am not an Eliminative Materialist is because I used to think this way in my teenage years and it caused me all sorts of mental health problems.
Alan Watts said that not existing forever is not an experience that you can have. There is no you to benefit from not existing.
I can admit everything that Schopenhauer and Benatar argue for. However, in my view, even if it not be advantageous for us to continue on existing, it is nevertheless the virtuous thing to do.
Mangasar Magurditch Mangasarian described what you describe as an Asiatic attitude. The Christians, the Buddhists and the Hindus are all Asian Religions. They are all tired of life; weary of living; and thus long for death. Long for the bliss, or “Nirvana” of non living.
Anti-natalism is memetic, not genetic. Every single person alive today is part of an unbroken chain of ancestors who successfully reproduced. As such, there is no genetic precedent for anti-natalism, since everyone who exists has been born of parents who blindly followed their instincts. They were life-affirming, even if they never gave philosophical pessimism a second thought. I don’t see reproduction as an accomplishment. It’s just a Darwinian tic.
It is best to err on the side of caution and assume that the potential person will *not* adapt to life’s hardships, because if we create them and they fail to adapt, there is a person who now has to endure a lifetime of misery and regret, and the eternal oblivion that awaits us after death can provide no solace. Conversely, if we fail to create a masochist who would have absurdly embraced life’s hardships and found some perverse “meaning” in them, we have done no harm, as there is no tangible negative consequence for our inaction. The natalist would reply that there is also no tangible benefit, but this is a red herring, since we never claimed that there was, nor does there need to be. Non-existence is the default state for all potential persons, so I am not required to prove that non-existence is good for anyone. We only argue that one should leave that scenario (or non-scenario) undisturbed. It is always better to be safe than sorry, especially when the risk would impact someone other than ourselves.
In the pre-existence scenario, the bar is that much higher and only the creation of a perfect life would be permissible. Even then, it would not be a morally good act, merely a neutral one. However, once we are here, we are compelled to tolerate many evils, both great and small, that we would never tolerate if we had complete freedom of choice. It is this complete lack of choice and lack of control in life to which we object. Those of us who exist put up with these things out of necessity. We are forced to adapt to them because we’re already here. We have no control and there’s nothing we can do about it, and so adapting to scenarios we would never have chosen is the ultimate cope. Stoicism is nothing more than a coping mechanism. People only ever embrace suffering when there’s nothing they can do about it. Their ego will not allow them to admit that they’ve suffered a catastrophic loss for no gain. No matter what excuses one makes, it would still be preferable if adversity were not necessary for character development and personal growth, or whatever contrived nonsense the people espousing the “look on the bright side” mantra are driving at. It is very similar to the appalling “life is a test” argument served up by religious apologists, which I mentioned earlier. Imagine how furious I would be if my parents confessed that they created me out of nothing under the cheerful assumption that I would adapt “just like everyone else” to any unfavourable scenarios.
To have a desire is to be in a state of deprivation, and a great source of pain for many is unfulfilled desires. But once a deprivation is alleviated, we return to the point from which we started. It is a continuous loop of grief and relief. One has to lack something in order to desire it. Why create that deprivation and subsequent fulfilment out of nothing? How is it an improvement over the uninterrupted neutrality of nothingness, especially when it entails great risk? Anti-natalism merely cuts out the cacophonous intermission from what would otherwise be an eternity of silence. People who already exist have an interest in continuing that existence, if only to satisfy their addiction to meagre pleasantries. The unborn have not yet acquired that interest, therefore life’s positive experiences do not have the same value for them as they do for existing people, and cannot be used as a justification for violating the neutrality of non-existence. The intermediary suffering of past and present generations is not an acceptable price to pay for improvements to be enjoyed by future generations who do not currently exist and have no interest in being created. The burden of justification lies upon the violators of that neutrality, not those of us who leave it be.
Some profess agnosticism as to whether we should or should not procreate, but if we apply the agnostic stance in other scenarios, we can see how ridiculous it is. “I take a neutral stance on rape, because the woman could be a masochist and might enjoy it.” In reply to the claim that a potential person could go on to cure cancer and therefore we should create them, I would say, as Benatar does, that we do not have the right to rope more people into the quicksand with us. Anyone who thinks otherwise is viewing new lives as a means to an end. We existing people suffer from innumerable evils, but it cannot be permissible to create new suffering in order to potentially alleviate our current suffering. The only way to stop the chain of suffering once and for all is to desist from procreation. Only by breaking the cycle can we defeat this evil. Of course most people would hesitate to call this a victory because there is no tangible reward, but also because it entails the negation of all possible future scenarios. People have children in order to vicariously satisfy their curiosity regarding the future, which they want to have a stake in. It is an entirely egocentric endeavour, and in any case, vicarious immortality is fake immortality. You and your child are not the same consciousness.
I realise that nobody is under an obligation to do anything, technically. Clearly the laws that we have in place are not enough to stop people from doing reprehensible things. We can punish them *after* the fact, but we do not have any jurisdiction over their mind and their free will to commit terrible acts. Only a sense of uncommon decency would oblige a prospective parent to consider Benatar’s argument, much as only a conscience would prevent someone from committing a crime. This is one of the reasons why the world is such a terrible place. The problem of unpredictability, of randomness, arises due to the fundamental lack of anthropocentricity in the universe, by far its most lamentable deficit. So-called “good lives” never being brought into existence is a significantly less troublesome prospect than persons being created who are then trapped in that scenario and will experience a lifetime of misery and regret before being annihilated. I can either risk creating that person or I can choose not to. Since there isn’t a third choice, one of these options must necessarily be the preferable, or perhaps we should say the least bad, of the two.
People are quick to forget that the ending of all life is assured. We will all face a personal annihilation, religious consolations notwithstanding, and the species itself will not last forever. Anti-natalism advocates not starting lives, and while the end of humanity would be an inevitable consequence of this, it would occur in due course anyway, likely under the most atrocious circumstances. Better a comparatively peaceful exit under somewhat controlled conditions than the vast array of catastrophes that random chance could bestow upon us. But anti-natalism can be a purely personal philosophy too. In this sense, it doesn’t have to be a solution to be enforced upon the entire world, merely a personal choice. I refrain from raping and murdering people, for example, but this obviously doesn’t stop rape and murder from occurring in the world. Would you therefore make the argument that, because of this, I might as well go out and do it? I rather think you wouldn’t.
I’d also like to thank César for allowing me to comment here once again, even if it’s not a privilege he will extend to me on a permanent basis. I like being able to share my knowledge with others. There seemed to be an issue with the paragraph spacing, by the way. In the previews, for some reason the spacing is removed. I’m glad to see this is rectified once comments are approved. I don’t know whether César corrects this manually or if the system corrects itself.
I will not read a comment of 1,400 words: almost twice as long as my above article ‘On the solution of the problem of evil’!
Please limit your comments to a maximum of 400 words or just open a blog site and link your answers/long comments on your future visits here.
Thank you.
I read Those Who Walk Away from Omelas. I admitt, as Benatar put it, that ‘unpleasantness’ is a huge problem in our world. However, in my view, Antinatalism simply resets the evolutionary clock: it cannot stop it. The phenomenon of life might be called forth somewhere else. The closer we get to the Omega Point, as Teilhard puts it, the fewer and fewer children of Omelas there are. Antinatalism could, in the long run, create more wretched children of Omelas, not fewer. A chilling and thought-provoking story though.
Another story that explores the potential for human suffering is I Have No Mouth and Must Scream. Somebody made a videogame out of it featuring the voice talent of the original author.
I read Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and Must Scream” half a century ago. You don’t need science-fiction to see the horrors of Hell Planet. But of course: not everything on Earth is hellish. Whites who want that their race becomes extinct are like the devils on this planet, because only noble Aryans (e.g., the true followers of Uncle Adolf) can prevent that non-whites continue to torture animals the way they do today.
I’m still not sure if giving up on Christianity is a viable option though,in the sense that I don’t think it’s the true cause behind this evil.
We live on a plane, not a planet and there is “something” behind this plane they worship. You can see it in the jesuit “sun”, or the black hole thing they put on TV. I personally like to call it Hell but yeah it had many names through history (notice Himler and his black sun thingie, he’s one of them)
There is something really Interesting in witchcraft in that they want to make you replace truth (which is always good and has healing property, like divine revelation) with lies. A gipsy witch for example will say that she is a worker of God while staying in a room that scream satan! This way she tries to make you exchange your health/truth with her lie. It works like abstract art really. In abstract art you have to put a part of yourself to make something ugly beautiful while in reality the truth feeds you with energy(going outside in nature for example).
The truth can come only from God.
Maria,
Since you are a new commenter, send me an email (cf. the sticky post).
Not every visitor has a right to comment here, only those who believe in the 4 or the 14 words.
The main problem with many of the world’s (((published))) philosophical thinkers is that they always approach their ideas through the lens of the individual, how they think, how they feel, how they live, etc and this is the ultimate distraction jews have used to divide us. This individualism in which we’ve come to fancy ourselves is, not only misdirection but a divide and conquer strategy. At some point a realistic analysis of the planet in which we live is paramount to any of our individual perceptions, and that realistic assessment determines we live on an endless war planet, with the corralling of humans into warboxes we call nation states, therefore, the first concern for us individually, is the military protection of the particular nation we call home and this is all about weapons. Weapons are the true god, and it’s not what you believe, but what you can defend! This final epiphany leads to the realization that militaries, and the rapidly increasing development of advanced weapons systems, is ultimately our sole purpose, for without weapons system better than those we are threatened by, we, and the warbox we call home, would be wiped out. Look at this militarized world and see it. Heraclitus stated it best 2600 years ago: “War is the father and king of us all” This is the true reality outside of us, and it is beyond our control. The planet is too big, too diverse, and too unstable and has always been at perpetual war with itself. Not one nihilist has ever looked at the endless war problem. Not one. Remember George Washington’s statement that “if you want peace, prepare for war” has taken on new meaning in the modern industrial age of biological, space and antimatter weapons in constant development everywhere. According to Paul Virilio’s Pure War, the incessant need to out develop the weapons of our enemies, has placed humanity is a state of constant emergency. In actuality, humanity has eveolved so long in permanent conflict, that human genes have also been affected, hence the MAO-A gene. This evolution-by-war, at the species level, is the filter we have been strained through since the dawn of time. Author Frank Herbert stated it best: “War has its roots in the single cell of the primortal seas. Eat what you touch, or it eats you.” The jews know this calculus and have suppressed it from us in every way imaginable, to weaken us, disarm us, exploit us and destroy us. Once you have this larger than yourself awareness, than everything the jews have done to control us seems stupid, shallow, and inferior.
Your comment is slightly over 400 words. I would ask you the same thing I just asked Autisticus on this thread.
Regarding what you say, here we blame Christianity for suicidal individualism more than the Jews. It was precisely the doctrine of eternal damnation that made whites, throughout Christendom, transvalue their social values: the polis of the ancient Greeks, the Roman state of the republican period or the great solidarity among the Germanic peoples. After Xtian infection they became obsessed with their individual souls under penalty of eternal torture. And after the Enlightenment this metamorphosed into the individualisms of liberal societies. The Jews only add malicious malware—as chemical catalysts, mixing metaphors—to our operating system prone to such infections, but that operating system is Christian ethics.
If you are a new visitor, read the featured post carefully, and follow the links.
It seems there is something unique in white hardware which makes it susceptible to Christian software in a way that no other race is. Or rather, christianity doesn’t have much effect on other races, but for whites it is deadly malware. Wouldn’t that point toward the problem with the hardware?
It’s a mute point. If Christendom hadn’t conquered all whites by force, we would know by now if pagan whites are immune to subversion (I presume they would be immune, and the Jews would have no power in the West).
The pagan Roman whites were not immune.
Because they miscegenated with the Semites. Read the masthead of this site.
I’m confused as to why they would do that, though. Pre-Christian Europe was racially conscious and well aware of the dangers of miscegenation, was it not?
But they miscegenated anyway, the whys explained by Soberana in The Fair Race.
Is it not possible that jews designed Christian software to attack an inherent weakness in white hardware?
If evangelist Mark was jew, yes.
I guess what I’m hoping to discover is if there be an inherent weakness in whites that makes us susceptible to Christianity, what is it and how can we combat it or prevent it?
There’s no genetic weakness. It all has to do with the drive by whites (e.g., Constantine, Charlemagne) to control other whites. St Paul and evangelist Mark without the full power of the Roman Empire are nothing. That’s why we are still translating Deschner’s history of Xtianity.
I find that Whites have a particular weakness when confronted with anything Universalist. They tend to take it and run to the furthest possible extreme with it. Now, is that because of the Universalism of Christianity has already infected them or is it because we are susceptible in general to Universalism? I wish I had a concrete answer to that, but I would suggest that Whites, in general, stay away from anything like that.
Indeed. Since in the above article I’ve mentioned ‘panentheism’, do you know my short post on the subject (a friendly reply to Krist Krusher, that I wish he comments in the new incarnation of WDH)?
Why do whites not return to our original values when they become atheists, but instead become neo-christians?
Watch the whole of Civilisation (it’s on YouTube) for a clue and read the book version. Otherwise read the seminal ‘The Red Giant’ on this site, or Ferdinand Bardamu’s long essay.
Do you have a link to the bardamu essay?
Here (it’s also included in the PDF of The Fair Race).