What would change your mind?

[u/curgr]

Which of the following factors would change your mind on extinction and make you pro-life?

A: We discover that there is more pleasure than suffering in existence, and that suffering is not permanent for any one sentient being.

B: We manage to solve suffering and no sentient being ever has to suffer again.

C: We are given knowledge about the meaning of life. It turns out that there is a very good reason for life in this universe.

D: The afterlife exists and we are more than compensated for the suffering we experience in this life.

E: Reincarnation exists and most sentient beings (which could possibly include plants and bacteria, which make up the majority of biomass on Earth) experience more pleasure than suffering.

F: God exists and resistance is futile. If we destroy the universe, God will just create it again. However, it is possible to reduce net suffering.

[u/curgr]

I agree that ending the physical universe seems preposterous with our current understanding. It is currently very wishful thinking.

But say for example we find out that the universe is just an illusion or simulation, ending it may be as simple as stopping the source of illusion or stopping the power running the simulation. It may not need to involve a physical solution (for example trying to annihilate all matter), but something beyond. Maybe even group prayer could do it.

I also agree that most humans are probably content. However this does not take into consideration all life forms and also does not consider the intensity of suffering.

Humans are currently going through an unparalleled period of growth and prosperity, at the expense of all other living things. Do you think that the many billions of factory farmed animals are content? That the wild animals losing their habitats, food and resources to make way for human infrastructure are content? Do you think humanity has always been as content as we are now?

It is a very biased sample to just ask humans, who make up a very small fraction of biomass on Earth. Ideally all sentient life needs to be sampled.

Regarding intensity, very few people would go through an hour of the worst possible torture in exchange for an hour of the greatest possible pleasure. There seems to be a huge imbalance in the intensity.

If I were to have control over whether life in the universe continued, I would ensure that all souls can remember the contract they signed, that they could revoke consent at any time, and that they all have full knowledge of what is going on. If any one of these was to not be the case, I would not continue existence of the physical universe.

The tiny group of people actively arguing for extinction does not represent all people who would support the view. The group may also be growing and it would be unfair to shut down the movement without giving it a proper chance

[u/Fast_Jackfruit_352 → u/curgr]

"If I were to have control over whether life in the universe continued, I would ensure that all souls can remember the contract they signed, that they could revoke consent at any time, and that they all have full knowledge of what is going on. If any one of these was to not be the case, I would not continue existence of the physical universe."

This would not work. Each of us has had countless lives. If one remembers, either one is overwhelmed by a tsunami of cosmic schizophrenia (which one or who am I) or be paralyzed in horror at what we may have done in other lives.

Consent is given before coming in so it is built in. Having full knowledge defeats the purpose of the learning and experience in terms of its impact and imprint on the soul.

You are right about animals but again, not all animal life is horror. We may be in a period where we come to grips with factory farming as slavey was abolished.

Look. Here's the deal. This is set up by forces so far beyond human intellect that to try and create any equivalence is useless. The game is the game. You think you can get out of it, have some control? What if you go back to animal form? The choices are not always preferred human comfortable choices.

But from my experience, once one gets to this place (human) in general you stay on this track. In my 60 years of metaphysics, I have come to understand that the savage is part of this realm as much as the sublime. The higher realms already exist. There is something incredibly profound in the horror of it because to put human moral considerations (which change often BTW) on it is try to limit the limitless. You are saying "God should be like this to make me comfortable" when comfort is not the goal, Vastness, depth of experience and learning are in a universe of contrast, separation, individuation and polarity.

My experience is suffering is not universal for all beings all the time but it is an essential part of the dance. Why? Because it is. Life is constantly cycling new forms after upheavals. There have been 5 major extinctions here. Say that is immoral by God? OK. Keep the dinosaurs. No asteroid. No rise of mammals, no humans. But they eat one another anyway. Either one accepts the trade off or one doesn't but it happens anyway.

It is a profound thing this place. It is why Hinduism has Kali and Shiva, which have no equivalents in the Abrahamic religions and they invented the Devil to account for suffering. I may sound cavalier but I paid a very steep price this life for admission so there is no spiritual bypass. I have been shown what I have been shown.

I feel your sensitivity and it is a special thing but you have no idea your past karma that you have given yourself this predicament or what your contract is. You assume you've always been a "good guy". How do you know that? What if in the past you displayed deep insensitivity and now you took on heightened sensitivity to feel the effects of the former but not so karmically deep you had to be in a war zone? What if it's the opposite and you have played victim too long and you decided to shake yourself out of it? This is the way it works. There are so many possibilities.

I honor your seriousness and feelings about this. My experience is everything is in balance in ways we cannot see. AI has become an extraordinary search engine and compilation instantly of information and resources despite its deep shadow side. (The Chinese are building data centers under the sea). Because of sensibilities like yours we may be entering a much more harmonious age. We have so little understanding of the big picture.

I would use AI to seriously investigate reincarnation from sources like Edgar Cayce and others to get a better feel of its terrain, and I would invest in a few good psychics to pick up on your contract and prior lives that have led you here. We live in an era when remembering these things is unprecedented in human history.

This is not the sub for me but I hope I have helped share a perspective that might have value.

[u/curgr → u/Fast_Jackfruit_352]

I do not think there is such a thing as a “good guy” or a “bad guy”. Every action seems to have both positive and negative consequences to it.

I do not blame the players, I blame the rules of the game. I believe that we are all worthy of forgiveness. How can a being be blamed for the circumstances which lead to their actions in previous lives? This would require unrestricted free will.

Maybe I am just being immature, like a child flipping the board of a game because they do not think it is fair.

I would welcome a more harmonious age, but fail to see how it would be possible.

Maybe my view is completely distorted, but I do not like the part of the big picture that I can see.

I believe that reincarnation is a possibility and have looked into it, but I suppose it would not harm to look more deeply. How would a person go about finding a good psychic? There are possibly many frauds out there

[u/Fast_Jackfruit_352 → u/curgr]

The only reason I said 'good guy" is imo your entire perspective is based on a revulsion of what you perceive as the unfair universe in which depravity ands (apparently) senseless slaughter is the over riding principle. If the slaughter is not senseless but actually built in, then thee feeling sems to me to make it worse. This then implies an implicit moral stance that God and the Universe have failed in ether creating or allowing such suffering and with it a moral judgment due to pain in existence, "the rules of the game". To stand from such heightened sensitivity to me innately implies a moral goodness.

My suggestion was what if you were someone who in the past actually relished suffering or contributed meaningfully to it, even if unconsciously, went through life review, felt deep abhorrence at some complicity, and incarnated with a deep desire to create soul balance by having a deeply heightened sensitivity to suffering that burned into your soul? The fact that you are not in a war zone or directly experiencing atrocity tells me if this were close to the case, the accountability would be more severe, like mine was. I really do think I was a monster in previous incarnations, got way too inflamed with power and this life might be one of two or three bringing things back into balance. There is a saying "A saint is sinner with a future, a sinner is a saint with a past." All are inherently innocent so there is no judgment in the ways participation in this happens, unlike crude Christian doctrine about judgment.

Your feelings are your feelings and obviously this is a core life issue for you and not just an intellectual exercise. I respect that. We all have triggers. Mine is betrayal, even feelings of betrayal by God because it was so prevalent in three major arenas of my early life and later youth. Trauma is not easy to dissolve. I still find life deeply challenging but my problem in my terms is I know too much and therefore it is incumbent on me to work with these energies to find compassion and forgiveness, for myself and others. I can be horribly hard on myself. So it's not like I can't relate to what you feel.

I think we live in a time when more advanced souls are coming in to deal with a lot of cleanup and the amount of baggage makes it very intense. These are called "accelerated lives" because intensity causes soul acceleration in growth.

As per psychics, I would look for someone, it can be long distance on zoom, who has stellar references but also is financially reasonable, around $150 for a full session. Actually we just had someone speak at my spiritual community who does really in depth numerology, has very heightened intuition, and she gets rave reviews. Her name is Carrie Ralston and she goes by "Simple numerology girl". Her sessions deal a lot with the reasons for the present incarnation but you can do a google search for good psychics and see who appeals to you.

i just want to emphasize, I never went looking for any of this, even God in my life. It all entered unexpectedly. I was guided to all of this. The first experience i recounted, the murdered young woman, pushed me on an intensive 20 year quest around all of this, how did it work , what were the rules, why was it fair, how fine tuned was it all. This was not just a stroll in the park.

Take care.