Life is not Precious...

Life is not precious.

It just isn’t. We want it to be, and since we are so self-aware it is hard to imagine that we don’t matter at all, but let’s look at some things….

First of all, we currently have about 7 Billion people in the world. 10 years ago we only had 6 Billion people in the world, and in another 10 years we are supposed to have 8 Billion people in the world! If some new Demon came along and massacred 1 million people everyday, without rhyme or reason, just straight up murdered and massacred, and he did this every single day, weekends, holidays, even leap-year! And he kept this massacre up every single day for the next 6 years without fail, we would still have approximately the same population we had in 1999. In other words, the world wouldn’t notice. The world has not changed outrageously since 1999, and if the population went back to 1999 levels, it wouldn’t be significant in any way, unless you were one of the ones directly impacted by the murder. If all the murders took place in some rural area of Africa or Asia, the Industrialized nations, and the West would barely notice.

So, if 1 million people per day could be murdered for 6 straight years, and the impact would be negligible, then obviously life is not precious, but let’s look at more….

Pharoahs were considered to own everything in their domain, including the people that served under them, and the original pharaohs would have their servants knocked in the head, or made to drink poison and buried with them.

The lives obviously had no intrinsic value of their own, they were only useful as servants in life and in death.

Samurai, Kamikaze pilots, Islamic Suicide bombers, and Monks have all proven thousands of times over to be willing to sacrifice their lives for political statements. They even believe it is their honor and duty and that an award in heaven awaits them for ending this life.

Obviously the life is not valuable except as a sacrifice or statement to serve a greater cause.

What about soldiers? Governments, parents, and populations willingly send their youth off to war with full knowledge that they will kill and be killed. There is some acceptable amount of sacrifice. Many soldiers voluntarily go into battles knowing there is almost zero chance of surviving it. Think of Iwojima, and Hamburger Hill, and Gettysburg, and the Hundred Days Offensive, and Others. And those are just the modern day battles that come to the top of my mind. Throughout history young men have gladly sacrificed millions or billions of their lives, often in losing efforts to conquer another population for nothing more than bragging rights and honor. Their governments, parents, and citizens celebrated their bravery and celebrated their deaths.

There lives meant nothing more than bragging rights, they were not precious.

What about thrill-seekers? Adrenaline junkies, drug users, extreme athletes, and explorers have often risked their lives or given up their lives for just brief moments of glory or discovery, and that brief moment, if attained, justifies the end of their life. The fleeting moment of victory or glory outweighs their very existence.

Their physical life was not precious. They can never be immortal, but their accomplishments can be immortalized.

What about crimes, murders, torture, kidnapping, abuse, slavery, assassinations, and suicides? In far too many cases it seems almost trivial to take possession over another human being, test them, prod them, experiment on them, abuse them, manipulate them, use them up, and discard them for some greater good, or for pure curiosity or entertainment. It happens all the time and there is no outrage. There is an expectation and normalcy to it.

Obviously life is not precious.

The more time one spends on ATS, or watching cable news, or playing video games, or watching movies, or working or visiting a hospital, or being involved in government or law enforcement or military, or even reading religious text or history, or studying sociology or psychology, or becoming educated in any means, including science or philosophy, no matter what one spends their time doing….. it becomes more and more clear that life is not precious. In fact, life is common, mundane, and insignificant.

Far too many people spend life just wasting time, waiting for the next development, looking ahead to the future or back to better times, and all the while life is passing right by. Far too many people give up on life willingly, or allow others to sacrifice their own lives without much forethought. Human history is barely a blip on the timeline of the Earth, and we’ll be gone before we even know it. Some people will read this and their lives will be over within seconds, minutes, hours or days. Others have lost someone they know all too recently. We just go on with our lives. We don’t make extraordinary efforts to enjoy every moment, or connect with our loved ones, or reflect on our purpose for existence, we just get through each day and rush to the next one until we run out of days.

Life is not precious………… BUT IT SHOULD BE!

Obviously life is not precious.

"Precious" is simply a value judgement.
I could say that Fred Rogers ('Mister Rogers') was not a nice man, because he doesn't fit my personal description of "nice."

Philosophically speaking, attachment, discrimination, values and opinions are all roads to ignorance.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Life is not precious. It's just a game. Play it for fun and not to win. Play it with kindness, and play it fair. Points are scored in the way you treat others, not by the useless crap you collect. Now go play outside!

reply to post by getreadyalready


You ok, GRA?

That's some dark spooky crapola there. But the point is understood.

To counter your post, I think that my life and those who I care about is precious.

To those that threaten me and mine, their life is forfeit. That's just the way it is.

I'm sure that many think the same way, but few acknowledge it.

reply to post by getreadyalready

we’ll be gone before we even know it. Some people will read this and their lives will be over within seconds, minutes, hours or days. Others have lost someone they know all too recently. We just go on with our lives. We don’t make extraordinary efforts to enjoy every moment, or connect with our loved ones, or reflect on our purpose for existence, we just get through each day and rush to the next one until we run out of days.

Wonderfully said, thanks for that. I am feeling my mortality lately, most keenly. I always wished and fantasized that I could live long enough to time travel back to my own past, and do most things differently. (ie correctly) But I know that I am doing things correctly now. It's all I got. Fer now.

You are on this plane to elevate your soul by learning according to my research,but if that is not cool with you I guess you can feel free to kill yourself.
Personally I LIKE protecting innocent life as I understand it.

reply to post by getreadyalready

Originally posted by TDawgRex
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

You ok, GRA?

That's some dark spooky crapola there. But the point is understood.

To counter your post, I think that my life and those who I care about is precious.

To those that threaten me and mine, their life is forfeit. That's just the way it is.

I'm sure that many think the same way, but few acknowledge it.

I'm good, but I did have to go back and edit that once or twice before I posted it, because it sounded a little suicidal to begin with, and that wasn't the intention!

I've been kicking this thread around in my head for awhile, and I finally posted it based on a couple of the other threads today. People really just seem to either completely miss the value of their life, or they vastly over-estimate the value of their life and don't realize how insignificant each of us really are.

I totally agree with you though. For me and my family, I'll go to the ends of the Earth and beyond to protect them, and I'll fight and claw for every last breath, but if I fail....... will anyone really notice?

reply to post by getreadyalready


For most of us? Only those that cared for us.

But once we pass on...do we really care anymore?

I respectfully disagree. I see where you are coming from and you make a good point, but I disagree.

I think life is precious, in that it is the one of the most rarest, if not the most rarest thing in the universe. Even with 6, 8, 10, or 20 billion people, compared to the size of the entire planet, or any planet, we make up just a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of just the surface. .00000001 %

If there were billions and billions of planets with forms of life, still, the percentage of life in the universe is absolutely insignificant. There is also the fact that it took billions and billions if not trillions of years before the first eye or neuron appeared, so the amount of time any form of life has existed is also completely insignificant to the amount of time since the big bang.

Looking into the future, all the stars will explode, black-holes at the center of galaxies with dissipate, and planets with be vaporized. If our current ideas of the universes end are correct, all life will be nonexistant at some point and remain so for trillions of years, and maybe an eternity.

The lifespan of a rock is vastly longer than that of any known organism.

My point is, in a universe where death and non-being reign supremes as a state of matter, life is incredibly rare, and "precious" could be used as a synonym for that rarity. If there was no point to life, why did life emerge anywhere? Why would the universe have a blueprint for something so sentient, emotional, and opinionated if it didn't matter. Why must we be born to die?

Like I said before, the amount of time before life, the known duration of existence of all life, the amount of space life takes up, and the amount of time after life, make life seem so completely insignificant. But knowing all this, I can't help but ask myself, "Wouldn't it be more efficient for the universe to have never concocted any form of life?"

But since it has concocted life, there has got to be some reason. Therefore, with our ability to see, smell, touch, think and otherwise experience the Universe, we have something that the rest of the dead, cold, and seemingly infinite universe does not have. We are gods. Not amongst the living, but the dead, as the living is all there really is, was, and will be. After life, it is lights out, and the universe is effectively nonexistent if there is nothing there to experience it.

I think this was a really good thread and post. I gave it a S&F.

I can only echo the sentiments already expressed by previous posters. My family is precious to me. I would die to keep them safe. I don't know if I could kill anyone though. I don't ever want to find out! It's hard to know how one would react if oneself or a part of their family is faced with death.

I was taught by my father that you stand up and fight when your life or the lives you find precious are at risk. I would like to think I'd have the courage to protect my own.

As to the rest of the 7 billion inhabitants in the world. I wouldn't wish harm on anyone - but that's not the world we live in is it? We are harming one another so often now, we don't even seem to blink and eye. We just move on with our life. People are just so preoccupied with their material existence. Perhaps the next life will provide rest for the weary, eh?

reply to post by getreadyalready


I think life is precious. Just because when people die a lot of people dont notice doesnt mean that it isnt precious. I mean look at our solar system, as far as we know, we are the only life in our solar system. And my life is precious to me and everyone i know and im sure its the same way with you.

Originally posted by Buddha1098
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

Life is not precious. It's just a game. Play it for fun and not to win. Play it with kindness, and play it fair. Points are scored in the way you treat others, not by the useless crap you collect. Now go play outside!

It's funny that that is exactly how I see life myself: as a game. Games are meant to be experiences ripe with challenge, and challenge is what makes it fun - if everything just plopped into our laps, it would be pretty boring, wouldn't it.


It's all a lot less serious when you see it for what it is: a game, a novel, a story ... This is your story, one of many, and not the last one. Isn't that special?

Life (and I don't mean just this particular one) isn't merely precious because "precious" falls short of describing all the facets of what it means to exist and be conscious. The word itself implies possession and value, like an object. That screams ego-thinking to me because it's based on the perceptions of this body solely ("look at all the war, disease, and other bull#.: life sure does suck!"), and not the oneness that permeates within and without of it - we're far greater than the sum of our [mainstream] parts.

Life in all it's forms, dimensions, and stages, is all ineffable by our words. Religions are trying, philosophers are trying, scientists are trying, we're all still trying to label and sort all of existence (everything that is life, death, and rebirth - yes all things are born, die, and then are reborn in some way, look at stars for example). How do you label "everything" in a category other than "Everything" (which includes nothing). You can just accept it and move on with life, or sit there trying to answer what it's value is, when the answer to that question is purely in the eye of the beholder (aka ego). You can spend an eternity trying to figure it out, but will never arrive to a conclusion, because there is none. It's always changing, from person to person, from life to life. But hey, we've all spent many long hours pondering over all of this, and asking "what is" and "why is" life, life, is a part of life itself.

It's a fun subject though, no? Hence this post! I love to play, and so does everyone and everything out there whether they realize it or not.

Originally posted by eyesontheskies
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

I think life is precious. Just because when people die a lot of people dont notice doesnt mean that it isnt precious. I mean look at our solar system, as far as we know, we are the only life in our solar system. And my life is precious to me and everyone i know and im sure its the same way with you.

Is your life really precious to you? How do you celebrate it? How do you maximize every moment? If you live to be 77 years old, that is only 28,105 days, and you will spend more than a third of that asleep! So now you are down to 19,000 days or so, and you've already flown through your childhood, so you are probably down to your last 10,000 days or so, maybe less! So, if your life is precious, are you treating it as such?

I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact the point of my whole thread was that we are insignficant to the universe, but we feel extremely significant in our own lives and in the opinions of our loved ones. If we are truly insignificant, but we feel overly significant, what are we doing about it? Why are so many people throwing their lives away? If they are not throwing them away literally, they are at least throwing them away by not savoring and squeezing every last drop out of every moment.

Just bumping my own thread. I think there are a lot more opinions out there on this subject and the responses so far have been outstanding, so shamelessly bumping and hoping for more responses.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Is your life really precious to you?

Life is very precious. Infact, precious is a self-evident statement of just how precious life is, particularly the higher forms of it.

Ever ask a corpse or a rock what they think about life?

Originally posted by imherejusttoread

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Is your life really precious to you?

Life is very precious. Infact, precious is a self-evident statement of just how precious life is, particularly the higher forms of it.

Ever ask a corpse or a rock what they think about life?

Well, I may have asked a rock or a corpse, and I have definitely asked a tree or two, but still no response.

I agree, we should be appreciating the preciousness of life, and I am very fond of mine, but I think it is grossly taken for granted and wasted to the point of making it fairly meaningless except to each individual, and even those individuals are wasting an awful lot of precious moments of their extremely short existences.

Yes, life itself is precious, but we don't treat it as such.

A lower level life form like a roach, or a rat will appreciate the preciousness of their life more than we will! They will fight for life to the very last possible gasp, but humans give it up ever so easy, and even take pharmaceuticals to numb the sting of existing while they are still alive. A rat has a better understanding of the preciousness of life than a human does.

reply to post by SubPop79


What a brilliant post! This sums up my views so perfectly that I don't even feel the need to expand on it.
If life is so insignificant, why does it exist? The life of the individual may be quick and fleeting, but life as a collective is one of the most important things that could, and will, exist.

reply to post by getreadyalready


You still sound suicidal, but not personally, you seem to be humanity suicidal, is that your intention?
Do you really think we don't deserve all the time we are given to spend how we please? Exercising what we were given and utilising our free will.
Weather it conforms with your ideal of wastage does not matter, except to that person and the people around them.
All energy is precious ALL
The most important people notice when someone dies and we would certainly notice if one million at a time started another journey before they wanted to.

Peace and love to you, you sound like you need it x

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Yes, life itself is precious, but we don't treat it as such.

A lower level life form like a roach, or a rat will appreciate the preciousness of their life more than we will! They will fight for life to the very last possible gasp, but humans give it up ever so easy, and even take pharmaceuticals to numb the sting of existing while they are still alive. A rat has a better understanding of the preciousness of life than a human does.

You're measuring life as a value of quantity rather than quality. Sure, lots and lots and lots of life centrally planned toward a particular goal would appear more meaningful, but then, when analyzed, it's just extrapolating the quantitative value of life from a roach to the human being-- whom are both qualitatively different. A roach doesn't possess the quality of life to appreciate it. There are differences in physiology, but to say that a roach [or something similar] appreciates their life more than an individual sentient person is to reduce the meaning of human life to.. well, a roach.

Perhaps that's why you think people are wasting their lives, because you're not valuing the quality of life to begin with, you're valuing the quantity of it.