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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: The Emperor's New Clothes
Message-ID: <1339@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Jul-85 22:38:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1339
Posted: Sat Jul 27 22:38:11 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Jul-85 07:13:30 EDT
References: <1311@uwmacc.UUCP> <397@utastro.UUCP> <1323@uwmacc.UUCP> <1322@pyuxd.UUCP> <970@ihlpg.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
Lines: 40

>>People "liking" survival is not subjective.  I'm not saying "I like
>>survival, therefore it is valued".  I'm saying that people gain pleasure
>>from surviving.  That is a physical fact about organisms.   A drive for
>>hunger leads to a pleasurable experience of eating, a drive for procreation
>>leads to a pleasurable experience of sex.  Etc.  Death is a painful,
>>non-pleasurable experience, and thus we seek to avoid it.  

> Whoaaa.  Have you tried it?  How do you know?  Perhaps we're downplaying
> a really great experience here.  No one's come back to tell you what it was 
> like.  You *can* try it for yourself, but that won't be real informative to 
> the rest of us....
> Ok.  So that was sarcasm.  My point is:  isn't that a *subjective* opinion?

Have you ever seen people dying?  Talked to people approaching death?  Don't
give me this crap about how the pain of death is a "subjective opinion".

>>Funny, I didn't think these were "my" preferences.  As I said above, people
>>like life because they don't want to die, because dying is a painful thing.
>>This is in our biochemistry.  If we didn't like life, if we were organisms
>>like Marvin the Paranoid Android from HHGttG ("Life, don't talk to me about
>>life"), then we'd have died out long ago, not even surviving long enough to
>>reproduce.  Even Marvin, who hated life lasted millions of years.  Perhaps
>>because the alternative was worse.
 
> You're representing as binary (like life/or die) a choice that is really
> multiple.  Life may be (and is!) fascinating.  Which is not to say that
> we may not find death (or what may come after it) even more pleasurable.
> Again I state the obvious:  did you try death?  talk to anyone who did?
> Nope?  Must be subjective.

Yup, must be objective.  Sorry.  I don't see you volunteering to test your
own hypothesis here, so I'll assume you're blowing hot air for its own sake.
"After" death?  If you really believed in your "afterlife", you'd be jumping
at the chance to get there!  (Hey, some people do just that, falling for it
hook, line, and sinker!)
-- 
"to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day
 to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human
 being can fight and never stop fighting."  - e. e. cummings
	Rich Rosen	ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr