to_hobbes

3RD argument
Well, religions also try to ensure their survival at any cost, but that isn't necessarily a good thing.
Of course, that might be a false analogy as humans surviving is generally considered a good thing, whereas a way of thinking (like religion) dying off isn't considered good or bad by anyone unless they really loved that way of thinking.

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(By the way, it's all in your head.)

Bjarki Dalsgarð

Humans surviving a good thing? well that is up for debate methinks, indivdual humans surving this and that is a good thing.
But as the survival of the raze, I can't see the point in it as we are selfdestructive and we will ruin everything we touch sooner or later.

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Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.

The bitternes of life may consume you, otherwise it teaches you how to live for real.

Vinterland

I agree. I think our current exploitation of virtually every resource on the planet is an indication of the future and I see no reason why humans continuance is a "good" thing.

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And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.”

shadowind

good, bad, relative to what?
relative to humanity, the improvement of the human condition is good no?

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remember "for mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescirbe to oursleves is liberty"-rousseau: the concept of the general will "if we can not reconcile all opions, then let us endeavour to unite all hearts."-?"to be is to be perceived"-? "‘We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know’-Robert G. Ingersoll

to_hobbes

Well, a tree consumes resources in the soil and in the atmosphere, and competes with other trees for resources, and the humans species acts the same way. So humans just exist, like a tree -- how could one claim that our existence is either good or bad?

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(By the way, it's all in your head.)

B-continum

Existence is amoral, therefore to say it is good or bad is a subjective value given by humans. Therefore, just as religion is a way of thinking, is not believing that existence is good (whatever that means) just another way of thinking?

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"If you want to make God laugh, tell him your future plans" - Woody Allen

"I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world." - Georges Duhamel

"What does an agnostic, dyslexic insomniac do? Stays up all night and wonders if there is a dog." -Unknown

to_hobbes

That is exactly what I mean, the way we attach "goodness" or "badness" to things depends entirely on our human point of view, though as we are all humans, we can come to consensus on many moral issues.
But I think it is a bit odd to say that human existence is bad, for example, just because we destroy the natural environment around us.

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(By the way, it's all in your head.)

Bjarki Dalsgarð

It sure depends on the point of view, and is why there is never going to be an aggreement on the subject.
It is not just bad because we destroy the nature, we destroy ourselves too, we are an unatural part of the nature (strange huh?)

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Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.

The bitternes of life may consume you, otherwise it teaches you how to live for real.

to_hobbes

If you insist, but I think consuming resources in the environment to the point of self destruction is not unnatural because a lot of things that aren't human do exactly that (e.g. any parasite).
But you probably know me by now, I have a tendency to re-define words, like "natural" or "free will", if you have been paying to the stuff I write in other threads.

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(By the way, it's all in your head.)

Jodou1

As far as we know parasites do not have the knowledge that the consumption of those resources will lead to their own destruction, humans do.

Human intelligence puts us in a seperate category I believe, as far as what is natural, good, or bad.

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“Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving: it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.”-Thomas Paine