Life Choices-Hypothetically

John Doe

Yo, my peeps-to-be. I posted something along these lines on the God-The Definitive Answer thread but I think it's worth exploring. Also, as the start of a thread I'll try to make it clearer what exactly I'm proposing.

Option 1: Something along the lines of the life we have now. Choosing this option will result in your birth by a random pregnant woman somewhere in the world. This means the chances you'll be born into poverty are quite high, by the way. If you choose this, you will live a human life. You'll be subject to all the usual trials and tribulations. Unless you're very unlucky, you will also experience great happiness at times. You will have the chance to spend your life striving for happiness.

Option 2: Something along the lines of the bliss that an omnipotent God could grant everyone if He/She so wished. Your entire life will be spectacularly contented, and will never end. You won't change one bit throughout your life, and won't develop yourself or learn anything cos there won't be any point in so doing.

Explanation: This is where I explain why this is in the Christianity thread! If you haven't worked it out already, choosing Option 2 means you think an omnipotent and all-loving God should do this for you. Maybe He/She knows better. Consider all the people in the world whose lives are much, much worse and harder than ours and consider whether a God should let them continue in their misery.

BrianCalgary

A very interesting question. I would start by defining misery. I had the privelege of dealing with underpriveleged? kids in Guatemala this summer. Underpriveleged because their economic status was so low. They seemed happy enough when I was around, I put that down to the presence of God and the ability to show unconditional love.

No matter what the circumstances I think that the relationships that we build in life that are built on unconditional love are what makes life enjoyable and worthwhile. So are the trials that we go through.

We can however only look at life from our earthly perspective and try to determine what is important and what does bring happiness. All the money brings financial security, but what about emotional and spiritual security?

God brings the emotional and spiritual security whaich I would say is a priority to financial, as God says that He will take care of that too. Unfortunately I'm not so good at the financial end, and therefore don't look for much.

Asiaprod

BrianCalgary wrote:

No matter what the circumstances I think that the relationships that we build in life that are built on unconditional love are what makes life enjoyable and worthwhile. So are the trials that we go through.

We can however only look at life from our earthly perspective and try to determine what is important and what does bring happiness. All the money brings financial security, but what about emotional and spiritual security?

Cool, one of the best set of statements I have seen you post. I am with you 100%.
I am tempted to give you a 5 smiley post for this one.


To hell with it......

John Doe

I agree completely with Asiaprod, those are admirable sentiments Brian. In fact, hold on a minute... I agree with them! The relationships bit anyway. I've always thought that we're only true humans in our interactions with others.

Excelsior

I'd just like to point out that if they ever made a tv series of the whole Bible, then this would be great text for the poster campaign! You have actually laid out the initial plot of the Bible.

Dades

This reminds of one of my fav quotes, from Melville in Moby Dick:

"There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast."

Basically happiness can only be measured against a contrasting emotion. Of course if people were happy all the time, we wouldn't be happy - we'd just be.

It impossible to imagine a world where everyone is happy, as the people who existed in that world would have to be inherently different from what we call the human race.