That reminds me of an interesting paradox, MOM.
In order to be filled with the life and power of God, we need to be empty of self-focus. In giving we receive. That’s a great paradox of the spiritual life that materialism cannot comprehend.
The strange thing is that in a worldview where there is nothingness as the final end and there is no ultimate meaning, self becomes the only spiritual fulfillment possible.
By emptying the universe of meaning one is filled and dominated by self.
By emptying self of dominance, one discovers the meaning and purpose of the universe.
Regarding AntiTheist’s comments, I wish he offered something more substantive.
Here’s Dr. Singer:
The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer held that even the best life possible for humans is one in which we strive for ends that, once achieved, bring only fleeting satisfaction. New desires then lead us on to further futile struggle and the cycle repeats itself.
So, this aligns perfectly with what we have said. The temporal “purposes” that people may create for themselves (“ends”) only bring “fleeting satisfaction”. This is from the atheist view. They only bring “fleeting” anything because they are transient, unnecessary and ultimately meaningless “ends”. They lack an ultimate purpose. Satisfaction is necessarily fleeting in that view. So, Singer asks if that kind of satisfaction is even worth it at all. It’s a logical and reasonable question. Why bother? Some evil is inevitable and the pleasure one gets is minimal and fleeting. So, the elimination of life avoids evil and only risks losing some minimal pleasure.
Singer continues:
philosopher David Benatar, author of a fine book with an arresting title: “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence.” … To bring into existence someone who will suffer is, Benatar argues, to harm that person, but to bring into existence someone who will have** a good life is not to benefit him or her**. Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world. Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none
Again, in the atheistic view, even a “good life” is not a benefit. Obviously, this is true ultimately since the “good life” is accidental, and ultimately meaningless and unnecessary. There is no way to measure whether life is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ either. It’s just an outcome of natural processes.
If we could see our lives objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone.
An alternate view is that nobody should inflict their life on us. If the person causes us pain or displeasure, then … ???
If there were to be no future generations, there would be much less for us to feel to guilty about.
So why don’t we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized **then no sacrifices would be required **— we could party our way into extinction!
This is fascinating. First, he is worried primarily about “guilt”. To avoid this feeling, the elimination of the human race is proposed. He might ask himself why he feels guilt in the first place.
Secondly, he wants this elimination to be done “with no sacrifice”.
What about sacrificial love - is there is no room for that in atheism?
Of course, it would be impossible to get agreement on universal sterilization, but just imagine that we could. Then is there anything wrong with this scenario? Even if we take a less pessimistic view of human existence than Benatar, we could still defend it, because it makes us better off — **for one thing, we can get rid of all that guilt **about what we are doing to future generations — and it doesn’t make anyone worse off, because there won’t be anyone else to be worse off.
Again, his main concern is guilt. He is trying to get rid of it. It’s fascinating that he responds to the call of conscience by desiring the suicide of the human race.
).You destroyed it with the ease that God gave you.